PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 
Ideas, and motory changes. — ^We should 
prefer employing, in what follows, the terms 
sensible changes and ideal changes, rather 
than the terras spnsations and ideas, because 
these imply consciousnessj which we have 
before stated is not necessarily excited by 
the operations of the sensitive and asso- 
ciative powers : we shall, however, content 
ourselves willi requesting the reader to bear 
in mind, that whatever may be said re- 
specting connections among sensations and 
ideas, might be stated more generally re- 
specting connections among sensible and 
ideal changes. Whatever the sensoriura be, 
or whatever be those changes of it which 
excite the consciousness, it is among those 
changes, that is, among the sensorial 
changes, that connectiotis and compositions 
take place. 
CLASSES OF CONNECTIONS. 
First: a sensation may be associated 
with other sensations, ideas, and motory 
changes. 
21. A sensation, after having been asso- 
ciated a sufficient number of times with 
another sensation, will, when impressed 
alone, excite the simple idea (§ 8.), cor- 
responding with that other sensation. — ^I’tnis 
the names, smells, tastes, &c. ol external 
objects, suggest the idea of their visible ap- 
pearance; and the sight of them suggests 
their names, &c. In the same manner, a 
word half pronounced, excites the idea of 
the whole word ; the mention of the letters 
a, b, suggests the idea of c, d, &c.; the 
sight of part of an object suggests the idea 
of tire whole ; and the sight of one object 
recals the visual idea of other objects which 
have been uniformly or very frequently seen 
with it.— Innumerable other instances might 
be given w'ith little trouble, but we shall 
mention only one other, which may assist 
some of our readers in accounting for cer- 
tain cases of apparitions. L. was one day 
hastily passing by a room in which a very 
excellent friend had usually sat in a parti- 
cular chair, and in a particular part of the 
room. His thoughts at the time were em- 
ployed on some object which did not excite 
deep attention, and the sight of the chair 
excited in his mind a vivid visual idea of 
his friend as sitting in that chair. The 
friend had been dead some weeks, and L. 
involuntarily came back for another vision, 
but without effect.— Such visual ideas, and 
similar ideas derived from the other senses, 
particularly from the hearing, are by Du- 
gald Stew'art called conceptions; and where 
they are vivid and easily excited, they fid'' 
quently lead those who are inattentive td 
their sensations to suppose that they actu- 
ally saw and heard, at a particular time, 
what they did not then see or hear. 
22. Sensations become connected with 
ideas, so that the repetition of the sensa- 
tion will excite the connected idea. — Of 
this case of connections the following will 
serve as examples. Words associated with 
ideas, will readily excite them even when 
very complex : the words hero, philosopher, 
justice, benevolence, truth, and the like, 
whether written or pronounced, immedi- 
ately call up with precision the correspond- 
ing idea. The hearing of a particular 
national tune, is said to overpower the 
Swiss soldier in a foreign land with melan- 
choly and despair ; and it is, therefore, for- 
bidden in the armies in which they serve. 
The sound recals various heartfelt recol- 
lections ; the idea of the peace, and the 
freedom of their country, of the home 
from which they are torn, and to which 
they may never return. What trains of 
interesting thought and feeling are usually 
called up in the mind by the sight of the 
scenes of early pleasure, where passed those 
years when novelty gave charms to every 
sensation, every employment of the faculty, 
when hope presented no (n-ospects but 
what were decked in “ fancy’s fairy frost- 
work,” and present joys precluded all re- 
gret for the past, 
23. Sensations may become connected 
with muscular action, that is, with those 
sensorial Changes which are followed by 
muscular action ; so that the sensation will 
excite the muscular action, without the in- 
tei vention of that state of mind which is 
called will. — A person automatically (that 
is without any volition), turns his head to- 
wards another who calls him by his name. 
When the hand of another is rapidly moved 
towards the eye, we shut the eye without 
thinking about it, or even being conscious 
of it. When copying from any book, if a 
person is very familar with the employ- 
ment, the appropriate motion of the finger* 
immediately follows, the impression pro- 
duced by the appearance of the word. In 
the same manner the visible impression de- 
rived from musical notes regulate the mo- 
tions of the performer. “ AVhile I am walk- 
ing through that grove before my window,” 
s!)ys Darwin, “Ido not run against the trees 
or the branches, though my thoughts are. 
completely engaged on some other ob- 
ject the sensible impression produced by 
