578 PSTCnOLOGY. 



ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY. 



In partial or mixed association Ave have all along sup- 

 posed the interesting portion of the disapj^earing thought 

 to be of considerable extent, and to be sufficiently com- 

 plex to constitute by itself a concrete object. Sir Wil- 

 liam Hamilton relates, for instance, that after thinking of 

 Ben Lomond he found himself thinking of the Prussian 

 system of education, and discovered that the links of asso- 

 ciation were a German gentleman whom he had met on Ben 

 Lomond, Germany, etc. The interesting part of Ben 

 Lomond, as he had experienced it, the part operative in 

 determining the train of his ideas was the complex image 

 of a particular man. But now let us suppose that that 

 selective agency of interested attention, which may thus 

 convert impartial redintegration into partial association — • 

 let us suppose that it refines itself still further and accen- 

 tuates a portion of the passing thought, so small as to be 

 no longer the image of a concrete thing, but only of an 

 abstract quality or property. Let us moreover suppose 

 that the part thus accentuated persists in consciousness (or, 

 in cerebral terms, has its brain-process continue) after the 

 other portions of the thought have faded. This small sur- 

 viving portion icill then surroimd itself tuith its own associates 

 after the fashion we have already seen, and the relation 

 between the new thought's object and the object of the 

 faded thought will be a relation of similarity. The pair of 

 thoughts will form an instance of what is called * Associa- 

 tion by Similarity.''* 



The similars which are here associated, or of which the 

 first is followed by the second in the mind, are seen to be 

 compounds. Experience proves that this is always the 



*I retain the title of association by similarity in order not to depart 

 from common usage. The reader will observe, however, that my nomen- 

 clature is not based on the same principle tliroughout. Impartial redinte- 

 gration connotes neural processes ; similarity is an objective relation per- 

 ceived by the mind ; ordinary or mixed association is a merely denotative 

 word. Total recall, partial recall, and focalized recall, of associates, would be 

 better terms. But as the denotation of the latter word* is almost identical 

 with that of association by similarity, I think it better to sacrifice propriety 

 to popularity, and to keep the latter well-worn phrase. 



