Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 155
to mention something else from which our meaning may be
understood. In this manner, we prepare our hearers for the
unwelcome intelligence.
The distinction between gross and delicate flattery is founded
upon the same principle. As nothing is more offensive than
flattery which is direct and pointed, praise is considered as
happy and elegant in proportion to the slightness of the associations by which it is conveyed.
Objections to the phrase, association of ideas.- To this tendency which one thought has to introduce another, philosophers have given the name of the Association of Ideas; and
as I would not wish, excepting in case of necessity, to depart
from common language, or to expose myself to the charge of
delivering old doctrines in a new form, I shall continue to make
use of the same expression. I am sensible, indeed, that the
expression is by -no means unexceptionable; and that, if it be
used, as it frequently has been, to comprehend those laws by
which the succession of all our thoughts and of all our mental
operations is regulated, the word idea must be understood in a
sense much more extensive than it is commonly employed in.
It is very justly remarked by Dr. Reid, that "memory, judgment, reasoning, passions, affections, and purposes; in a word,
every operation of the mind, excepting those of sense, is excited occasionally in the train of our thoughts; so that, if we
make the train of our thoughts to be only a train of ideas, the
word idea must be understood to denote all these operations."
In continuing, therefore, to employ, upon this subject, that language which has been consecrated by the practice of our best
philosophical writers in England, I would not be understood
to dispute the advantages which might be derived from the
introduction of a new phrase, more precise and more applicable
to the fact.*
[Instead of the common phrase, association of ideas, Dr. Thomas
Brown prefers, for reasons which he has stated with great acuteness, the
simple term, suggestion. After remarking, as Reid and Stewart had done
before him, that not only ideas, but emotions, purposes, judgments, and all