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 ...

T16 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEASo
The relations of habit to the association of ideas. -The
ingenious author whom I last quoted, seems to think that the
associations of ideas has no claim to be considered as an original
principle, or as an ultimate fact in our nature. " I believe," says
he, "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 multiother operations of mind, succeed each other in trains of thought and feeling
by virtue of this faculty, he observes, that the term association seems to
imply that the two ideas or affections, the one of which serves to call up,
or remind us of, the other, were formerly present to the mind together, and
were then associated, or so connected with each other, that, ever afterwards,
one could not occur without bringing up the other also. In other words,
he thinks the term association implies previous association; and to this hypothesis he opposes the. well-known fact, " that an object seen for the first
time does suggest many relative conceptions." "In this case, at least,
there cannot have been any previous connection of that which suggests
with that which is suggested." " That the perception of a giant, which
hard never before coexisted with the idea of a dwarf, should yet be sufficient, without some prior association, to induce that idea, may seem very
wonderful; but wonderful as it is, it is really not more mysterious than
if the two ideas had coexisted, or succeeded each other, innumerable
times. The great mystery is in the simple fact of the recurrence or spontaneous rise of any idea, without the recurrence of the external cause which
produced it; and when that external cause has ceased, perhaps, to have
any existence." Take Byron's vivid description of the Dying Gladiator,
as an instance to show how present perceptions, however strong and startling
in character, may yet fail to call away the mind's attention from the
thoughts and scenes of other days, now long distant, though the latter are
not suggested by any object of sense, but only by a train of ideas and
passions that were brought together by the principle of opposition or
contrast.
"And now
The arena swims around him, - he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
" ie heard it, but he heeded not, - his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far asway.
He reeked not of the life he lost, nor prize;
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother" -1