Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/192

 ON ' ASSOCIATION '-CONTROVERSIES. 179 rence of effects out of proportion to the reputed causes, as in exploding gunpowder, but we know that these are only apparent causes, and that when we get hold of the real causes, proportionality is rigorously maintained. Passing those two questions, I propose to remark upon the bearing of Wundt's speculation upon the laws of Asso- ciation properly so called. Notwithstanding the stress put upon the action of the will, he still allows that will is not everything : he does not shunt the associating links, and lay the whole stress of the exposition on the apperceptive voli- tion. What he says as to the essential concurrence of emotion and will with the workings of association we fully admit. No associating link can be forged, in the first instance, except in the fire of consciousness ; and the rapidity of the operation depends on the intensity of the glow. In like manner, the links thus forged are dormant and inactive, until some stimulus of consciousness is present, whether feeling or will. A man of scholarly attainments, with his hundred thousand linkings of contiguous bonds, will sit in his chair for hours, and bring up nothing : he need not be asleep the while ; mere languor is enough to account for his intellectual quiescence. It is with the original forming of the associating links, that education is most concerned ; and the theory of educa- tion must enumerate all the circumstances that aid the process. These are partly physical, partly intellectual, partly emotional and volitional. To confine the statement to the factor of will alone, as attention, would be insufficient. The subsequent rise or resuscitation of ideas consequent on association, is a fresh field of study. All the above-named influences are still at work, although in a somewhat different way. The practical applications are here wider. Besides the bearing on education, we have the wider consideration of the conduct and economy of the thinking powers. Over and above the original adhesion, there are circumstances that assist in the reproduction, and make it a success or a failure. Chief among these is the power of the will, but not to the exclusion of other influences. Even the addition of emotional excitement, which of itself accounts for a great deal, that is, apart from moving the will, is not all. The purely intellectual conditions, under which I include the number and nature of the associating connexions at work in a given case, bear a large part in the process of resuscita- tion. More particularly, as to the influence of the will in apper-