Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/174

 No. 46.] [APRIL, 1887. MIND A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. I. ON 'ASSOCIATION '-CONTROVERSIES. By Professor A. BAIN. THE historjr of the psychological doctrine, named familiarly the Association of Ideas, has now been fully given by various writers, the latest and completest summary being the article by Prof. Groom Robertson in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. ii. Like all the higher generalities of mind, these laws need not only to be verified by facts, but to be guarded by proper language, a matter of no small difficulty considering that we have to rely upon terms of common life wholly unsuited to such lofty applications. By Association has always been understood in a general way, that the recall, resuscitation or reproduction of ideas already formed takes place according to fixed laws, and not at random. The assigning of these laws was the first contribution to a science of the human intelligence ; while the ultimate shape given to them, whatever that may be, will mark the maturity of at least one portion of that science. The name further implies that the mental reproduction is ruled by certain assignable principles of connexion or relationship between our mental elements, such that the 11