Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/800

734 if it be not the similarity itself that is here the ground of association, it may again be Contiguity, the sharpest expe rience of each member of the contrast having been when there was experience also of the other ; or both grounds may conspire towards the result, the association being then what Professor Bain has marked as Compound. On the whole, it must be concluded that only in a secondary sense can Contrast be admitted as a principle of mental association. The highest philosophical interest, as distinguished from that which is more strictly psychological, attaches to the mode of mental association called Inseparable. The coales cence of mental states noted by Hartley, as it had been assumed by Berkeley, was farther formulated by James Mill in these terms:—

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J. S. Mill s statement is more guarded and particular:—

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Even this statement, however, is somewhat lacking in precision, since there never is any impossibility of thinking the things apart, in the sense of considering them as logi cally distinct ; the very fact of association implies at least such distinctness, while there may be evident, besides, a positive difference of psychological origin, as when, in the case of visual extension, the colour of the field is referred to the passive sensibility of the eye, and the expanse to its mobility. The impossibility is of representation apart, not of logical consideration or thought. It is chiefly by J. S. Mill that the philosophical application of the principle has been made. The first and most obvious application is to so- called necessary truths such, namely, as are not merely ana lytic judgments but involve a synthesis of distinct notions. Again, the same thinker has sought, in the work just cited, to prove Inseparable Association the ground of belief in an external objective world. The former application, especially, is facilitated, when the experience through which the associa tion is supposed to be constituted is understood as cumula tive in the race, and transmissible as original endowment to individuals endowment that may be expressed either, subjectively, as latent intelligence, or, objectively, as fixed nervous connections. Mr Spencer, as before suggested, is the author of this extended view of mental association. For a detailed exposition of the psychological theory of the Associationist School, the reader is referred to the works of its latest representatives named above. The question is still under discussion, how far the theory avails to account for the facts of intelligence, not to say the complex phases of mental life in general in all their variety nor, were the theory carried out farther than it has yet been by any one, and formulated in terms com manding more general assent than any expression of it has yet obtained even from professed adherents, is it likely to be raised above dispute. Yet it must be allowed to stand forward with a special claim to the scientific charac ter ; ^ as already in his time Laplace (who, though an outsider, could well judge) bore witness, when, speaking of the principle of association (Contiguity) as applied to the explanation of knowledge, he declared it la, partie rcelle de la metaphysique (Essai phil. sur les Probabilites, CEuvres, vol. vii. p. cxxxvii.) If in the physical sciences the object of the inquirer is confined to establishing laws expressive of the relations subsisting amongst phenomena, then, however different be the internal world of mind however short such treatment may seem to come of express ing the depth and fulness even of its phenomenal nature a corresponding object is as much as the scientific psycho logist can well set to himself. The laws of association express undoubted relations holding among particular mental states, that are the real or actual facts with which the psychologist has to deal, and it becomes a strictly scientific task to inquire how far the whole complexity of the internal life may receive an explanation therefrom. Understood in this sense, Hume s likening of the laws of mental association to the principle of gravitation in external nature is perfectly justifiable. It is to the credit of the associationists to have grasped early, and steadily main tained, such a conception of psychological inquiry, and, whatever their defects of execution may have been or remain, their work retains a permanent value as a serious attempt to get beyond barren description of abstract mental faculties to real and effective explanation. The psycho logists that, in the related point of view, have earned the title of the Analytical School, from holding before their eyes the exemplar of the method of the positive sciences, are precisely those that have fastened upon the principles of association as the ground of mental synthesis ; and, till it is shown that the whole method of procedure is inappli cable to such a subject as mind, their conception is entitled to rank as a truly scientific one.  ASSUAY. formerly the most southern department of, in. It is now broken up into the two provinces of and. ,, , and , were its principal towns. Its chief productions were and.  ASSUMPTION, a festival of the Christian church, observed on the 15th August, in honour of the miraculous ascent of the Virgin Mary into heaven. It rests upon a purely traditional account of the ascent, first recorded by Gregory of Tours. Its present place in the calendar was fixed early in the 8th century. The Roman and Greek Churches both celebrate this festival.  ASSYRIA. The two great empires which grew up on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates can be separated as little historically as geographically. It is proposed, therefore, to treat both under the heading. From the beginning their history is closely intertwined ; and the power of the one is a measure of the weakness of the other. This interdependence of Assyrian and Babylonian history was recognised by ancient writers, and has been confirmed by modern discovery. But whereas Assyria takes the first place in the classical accounts to the exclusion of Babylonia, the decipherment of the inscriptions has proved that the converse was really the case, and that, with the exception of some six or seven centuries, Assyria might be described as a province or dependency of Babylon. Not only was Babylonia the mother country, as the tenth chapter of Genesis explicitly states, but the religion and culture, the literature and the characters in which it was contained, the arts and the sciences of the Assyrians were derived from their southern neighbours. Both had the same population and spoke the same language. In accordance, therefore, with the evi dence of the native monuments, Assyria will be treated in connection with Babylonia. With all the similarity, however, there were, of course, certain differences in the character and development of the two countries. These differences will be carefully noted, and subjects which peculiarly belong to either the one or the other empire will be fully and separately dealt with. (See .)