The operation of these causes in early life is beautifully delineated by President Porter. He says: "The objects and

events of childhood were contemplated by the mind at first with an almost exclusive and absorbing attention. The few persons that stand out in so bold relief from the background of life when life is reviewed, filled its entire foreground when life was all in the future; for they were the only persons with whom the child was brought in contact. The memorable occurrences of childhood were the absorbing subjects of thought for days before they occurred. They were often reviewed with fond reflection after they were past. The learning to count ten or one hundred, the wearing of a certain dress, the beginning of school life, the long-anticipated, the often reviewed and recited visit to some relative, the first considerable journey, the first party, the first composition, were most important occurrences in their time, and spread themselves over a large portion of the horizon of the infant life." Such is a true picture of the activity of the intellect in the freshness of its youth. The causes productive of this activity are wanting in later life, and particularly in old age. Even in business men often give just so much consideration to transactions as may be necessary, and then immediately dismiss them, that other affairs may likewise receive attention. It is not to be wondered at that earlier impressions maintain a pre-eminence amid others which, though recent, are inherently so weak.

Besides, here, as in most cases of ascendency, the more potent energies renew and prolong their reign. While past events themselves may be long separated from us, those thoughts by which we recall them may have been entertained frequently throughout life; so that the strength of a present recollection may be in part derived from an experience not very distant. This cause of prolonged memory operates not only in regard to the events of childhood and youth, but also in regard to any events which may deeply interest us and which we may afterwards recall. The aged soldier who has participated in hardfought battles easily recounts the incidents which he has described so often. He

"Shoulders his crutch, and shows how fields were won."

The retired lawyer gives the details of some great contest in which, years ago, he conquered a proud place in his profession. The statesman sets forth accurately that political situation in which he first rose to eminence, or in which, in some signal way, he was enabled to serve his country.

We have now mentioned three general laws modifying the exercise of the associative power. They operate, respectively,

from previous energy of thought, from permanent intellectual habits, and from the gradual abstraction of energy through the operation of tendencies allied to those thus weakened.

Other modifying laws beside these might be named. For example, it is evident that suggestion, in common with our other mental powers, exhibits various degrees of vigor or of debility, as a result of health or sickness, rest or fatigue, and other physical conditions, which affect the life of the human spirit. There may, in fact, be as many subordinate laws as there are general causes to modify the operation of the fundamental law. But the principal laws are those which we have discussed.

The law of

relation to

thought.

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2. When we remember that the associative prinhabit in its ciple results from a prior exercise of energy, and is a the sugges- tendency to the repetition of a prior act, it is evident tion of that the law of redintegration is intimately related The opinions to the law of habit. Some difference has existed in of Reid and regard to the precise nature of this relation. Reid reStewart. marks: "I believe that the original principles of the mind, of which we can give no account but that such is our constitution, are more in number than is commonly thought. But we ought not to multiply them without necessity. That trains of thinking which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar should spontaneously offer themselves to our fancy seems to require no other original quality but the power of habit."

On the other hand, Stewart, having quoted these words, says: "With this observation I cannot agree, because I think it more philosophical to resolve the power of habit into the association of ideas than to resolve the association of ideas into habit." This opinion of Stewart is untenable. Even allowing, what appears likely, that every habit contains an intellectual element, and that this originates from the repetition of conceptions. through the action of the suggestive power, it is clear that all habits, save those which regulate thought only, include additional elements which cannot be accounted for by the association of ideas. Take habits of anger or of calmness, or those of decision or of irresolution, of perseverance or of endurance. While these involve certain recurring modes of thought, do they not consist yet more in certain activities of spirit which, through exercise, have grown into strong motivities?

As to Reid's statement, we allow that the spontaneous return of "trains of thought which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar," may be regarded as the manifestation of a habit formed by the intellect. Yet we would rather say that habit and the suggestion of ideas originate in the same general prin

ciple of psychical life than that, this suggestion is simply one mode of habit. The common principle at the basis of both is that every spiritual exercise leaves in the soul a tendency to its repetition. This tendency is produced, as we especially perceive in many associations of thought, even when the exercise may have been only once experienced. But we do not call such a tendency a habit, unless it both result from many similar experiences, and is causative of frequent repetitions. Suggestion cannot be resolved into habit, nor habit into suggestion; but they are closely related through a common origin.

The term "habit" defined.

Let us dwell for a moment on the term "habit," which, because of its various meanings, may be the ground of some confusion. This word is the exact Latin equivalent of the Greek gis, which signifies "a holding," or "a holding of one's self," — that is, the condition of anything as to its internal state, or constitution. In this sense we yet speak of nervous, phlegmatic, healthful, and diseased habits of the body. Ordinarily, however, the term signifies a tendency acquired by repetition, and causative of the frequent performance of some action. We speak of habits of study, of industry, of thought, of virtue. This is the meaning in which we have used the word while inquiring whether every suggestive potency is a habit. Finally, we apply the term, not to the tendency, but to the action, or mode of action, resulting from it, considered as thus resultant. We say it was his habit to study earnestly, to take snuff, to speak loudly. To express this meaning the word "custom is often employed; and in this signification a habit or custom differs but little from a practice, the distinction being that the latter does not suggest the existence of a corresponding tendency.

The notion of facility naturally connects itself with that of habit, and is sometimes suggested by it, but is not included in it. We cannot agree with Professor Stewart, who defines habit as an acquired facility, and who says that "the dexterity of the workman, the fluency of the orator, the rapidity of the accountant," are habits; they are rather results accompanying habits.

Differences of view exist as to the extent of the office of the suggestive power. The associationalists make this power the source of all our ideas save those which may be regarded as impressions from without; and they account for belief and memory, judgment and reasoning, by the union of associated conceptions. The formation of such doctrines arises from a superficial analysis of the facts of intellectual life, from an undue desire for simplicity, and from a disposition to interpret the laws of spirit by

a reference to those of matter. No views could be more repugnant either to the common judgment of men or to severe philosophical inquiry.

At the same time we should mark the pervading influence of the suggestive power. While association does not of itself form new conceptions or convictions, nor even analyze and combine those already in possession, it is the agency through which past thinkings are made present, and from which our higher faculties receive the greater part of the materials which they elaborate. Without this power of suggestion, memory and recollection, fantasy and imagination, and the processes of reason could never be experienced.

Association

not limited

to ideas of accidental connection. Kant,

3. Some writers confine the operations of the associative power to thoughts which have only an accidental connection with each other, referring to some other faculty suggestions which make use of the necesBruckner. sary relations of things. Kant limits the "law of association" to "empirical ideas." Bruckner, the earnest disciple of Leibnitz, defines association as "non quævis naturalis et necessaria idearum conjunctio, sed quæ fortuita est, aut per consuetudinem vel affectum producitur, qua ideæ, quæ nullum naturalem habent inter se nexum, ita copulantur, ut, recurrente una, tota earum catena se conspiciendam intellectui præbeat." The question might be regarded as one of terms, though it may also be used in support of the theory that a certain class of our ideas suggest each other aside from any previous association.

To us such a doctrine seems not absurd, yet uncalled for. Conceptions whose connection, as setting forth a true necessity, has a necessitudinal reference, when once conjoined in the mind, may thereafter suggest each other in precisely the same way as those which have merely an accidental connection. There is no good reason to question that they may and do suggest each other under the law of redintegration. This is a sufficient account of those associations whereby we are enabled to reason from cause to effect and conversely, by applying that knowledge of laws which we have obtained from experience. Seeing the outside of a book, the printing on its pages is suggested; whereupon judgment adopts this conception and asserts its truth. Even our notions of those things which are connected by absolute, or ontological, as distinguished from empirical, necessity, suggest each other according to the ordinary law of association, and need no other law to explain their conjunction.

This principle does not account for their first union, nor for the first production of any intuitional conceptions and convictions. These originate in the immediate perceptions of the

mind. Afterwards, however, redintegration may reproduce them together in memory and in imagination. Thus, in noticing any action, we at once perceive it not simply as an action, but as the action of some power residing in some substance; after which, even in dreaming, action, power, and substance are mutually suggestive.

But should any think that one of these ideas would suggest another without such previous perception, that it would do so by reason of the very constitution of the intellect, this may be allowed as probable or, at the least, credible; to this extent only, Kant's doctrine of the intuitions might be accepted.

Defined and

Pertain im

conceptions,

jects.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS.

1. ANALYSIS and synthesis are two modes of mental illustrated. activity which are to be distinguished from thought, mediately to but which constantly take place in connection with not to ob- thought and with belief. They affect equally the working of these primary powers, because belief is experienced only as an attachment of thought. The terms "analysis" and "synthesis" are the Greek equivalents of the Latin resolutio and compositio; they literally signify "a taking apart" and a putting together.' So far as the intrinsic meaning of the words is concerned, analysis and synthesis might express any kind of separation and of union. In chemistry analysis is the actual separation, for scientific purposes, of any compound substance into its material elements; and, for aught we see, any actual uniting of elements so as to form a compound might be called a synthesis.

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Ordinarily, however, in philosophy these expressions refer to a kind of sundering and joining in thought of the elements or constitutive parts of things. In other words, analysis is the separating of the conception of an object into the conceptions of its several parts; while synthesis is the uniting of the conceptions of the several parts into that of the one object. Our conception of an ordinary triangle might be analyzed into those of a plane surface, of three straight sides, of three angles, and of certain special relations in which these things may be and often are conjoined. Our conception of a pin might be resolved into those of a short stiff wire, of a head, of a point, of the mutual relations of these parts, and of the fitness of the little