| Title: | Association of ideas |
| Original Title: | Association d'idées |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 1 (1751), pp. 771–1:772 |
| Author: | Claude Yvon (biography) |
| Translator: | Scott St. Louis [Grand Valley State University] |
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.985 |
| Citation (MLA): | Yvon, Claude. "Association of ideas." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Scott St. Louis. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.985>. Trans. of "Association d'idées," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1. Paris, 1751. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Yvon, Claude. "Association of ideas." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Scott St. Louis. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.985 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Association d'idées," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1:771–1:772 (Paris, 1751). |
Association of ideas, when two or several ideas follow and accompany one another constantly and immediately in the mind, in such a way that one infallibly gives birth to another, whether or not there is a natural relation between them. See Idea, Deformity.
When there are between ideas a connection and natural relation, this is the mark of an excellent mind that knows how to collect, compare and arrange them in the order suitable for enlightening oneself in one’s investigations: but when there is neither a link between them, nor a reason to join them, and when one only unites them by accident or habit; this unnatural association is a grand fault and is, generally speaking, a source of errors and poor reasoning. See Error.
Thus the idea of ghosts and of spirits really has no more of a relation to the idea of darkness than that of light ; however, it is so common to join the ideas of ghosts and darkness in the minds of children that it is sometimes impossible for them to separate these ideas for the rest of their lives, and thus night and obscurity almost inspire frightening ideas in them. Likewise, we accustom children to connect to the idea of God an idea of form and face , and by this we give birth to all the absurdities that they blend with the concept of divinity.
These false combinations are the cause, according to Mr. Locke, of the irreconcilable opposition that exists between different sects of philosophy and religion; for one cannot reasonably suppose that so many people who maintain different and sometimes self-contradictory opinions impose these upon themselves willfully and cheerfully, and refuse the truth: rather, education, custom, and the urge to conform have joined together in their minds contrasting ideas, so that these ideas appear closely linked; and lacking the capabilities to separate them, they make of them, so to speak, only one idea; this prejudice is the reason that they attach sense to nonsense, that they take absurdities for demonstrations; finally, it is the source of the largest and almost all of the errors with which the world is infected.