ASSOCIATION. 561 



as cues, and the different types of association studied, differ 

 much in their degree of familiarity, 



"For example, B is a teacher of mathematics ; C has busied him- 

 self more with literature. C knows quite as well as B that 7 + 5 = 12, 

 yet he needs ^V of a second longer to call it to mind ; B knows quite as 

 well as C that Dante was a poet, but needs -^^ of a second longer to 

 think of it. Such experiments lay bare the mental life in a way that 

 is startling and not always gratifying." * 



THE LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 



Time-determinations ajjart, the facts we have run over 

 can all be summed up in the simple statement that objects 

 once experienced together tend to become associated in the imagi- 

 nation, so that when any one of them is thought of, the others 

 are likely to be thought of also, in the same order of sequence or 

 coexistence as before. This statement we may name the law 

 of mental association by contiguity, f 



I preserve this name in order to depart as little as pos- 

 sible from tradition, although Mr. Ward's designation of 

 the process as that of association by continuity X or Wundt's 

 as that of external association (to distinguish it from the 

 internal association which we shall presently learn to know 

 under the name of association by similarity) § are perhaps 

 better terms. Whatever Ave name the la\v, since it ex- 

 presses merely a phenomenon of mental habit, the most 

 natural ivay of accounting for it is to conceive it as a result 



* Mind, xir. 67-74. 



•)• Compare Bain's law of Association by Contiguity : " Actions, Sensa- 

 tions, and States of Feeling, occurring together or in close succession, 

 tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way that, when any one of 

 them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought 

 up in idea" (Senses and Intellect, p. 337). Compare also Hartley's formula- 

 tion : " Any sensations A, B. C, etc , by being associated with one another 

 a suiHcient Number of Times, get such a power over the corresponding 

 Ideas, a, b, c, etc., that anyone of the sensations A, when impressed alone, 

 shall be able to excite in the Mind b. c. etc., the ideas of the rest." (Ob- 

 servations on Man, part i. chap. i. § 3, Prop, x.) The statement in the 

 text differs from these in holding fast to the objective point of view. It is 

 things, and objective properties in things, which are associated in our 

 thought. 



I Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th Ed., article Psychology, p. 60, col. 3. 



§ Physiol. Psych., 2d ed. ii. 3(X). 



