Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/234

 responding by motor reactions to sensory stimulation. In point of fact, the normal self never stays in either of these extreme positions; it moves between them, adopts in turn the positions corresponding to the intermediate sections, or, in other words, gives to its representations just enough image and just enough idea for them to be able to lend useful aid to the present action.

From this conception of the lower mental life the laws of the association of ideas can be deduced. But, before we deal with this point, we must first show the insufficiency of the current theories of association.

That every idea which arises in the mind has a relation of similarity or of contiguity with the previous mental state, we do not dispute; but a statement of the kind throws no light on the mechanism of association; nor, indeed, does it really tell us anything at all. For we should seek in vain for two ideas which have not some point of resemblance, or which do not touch each other somewhere. To take similarity first: however profound are the differences which separate two images, we shall always find, if we go back high enough, a common genus to which they belong, and consequently a resemblance which may serve as a connecting link between them. And, in regard to contiguity, a perception A, as we said before, will not evoke 'by contiguity' a former image B, unless