cession, strengthening each other's effects, and all conspiring in the same general impression.

I have already observed, that the connections, which exist among our thoughts, have been long familiarly known to the vulgar, as well as to philosophers. It is, indeed, only of late, that we have been possessed of an appropriated phrase to express them; but that the general fact is not a recent discovery, may be inferred from many of the common maxims of prudence and of propriety, which have plainly been suggested by an attention to this part of our constitution. When we lay it down, for example, as a general rule, to avoid in conversation all expressions, and all topics of discourse, which have any relation, however remote, to ideas of an unpleasant nature, we plainly proceed on the supposition that there are certain connections among our thoughts, which have an influence over the order of their succession. It is unnecessary to remark, how much of the comfort and good humour of social life depends on an attention to this consideration. Such attentions are more particularly essential in our intercourse with men of the world; for the commerce of society has a wonderful effect in increasing the quickness and the facility, with which we associate all ideas which have any reference to life and manners ;* and, of consequence, it must render the sensibility aiive to many circumstances which, from the remoteness of their relation to the situation and history of the parties, would otherwise have passed unnoticed.

The superiority which the man of the world possesses over the recluse student, in his knowledge of mankind, is partly the result of this quickness and facility of association. Those trifling circumstances in conversation and behaviour, which, to the latter, convey only their most obvious and avowed meaning, lay open to the former many of the trains of thought which are connected with them, and frequently give him a distinct view of a character, on that very side where it is supposed to be most concealed from his observation.

When an idea, however, is thus suggested by association, it produces a slighter impression, or, at least, it produces its impression more gradually, than if it were presented more directly and immediately to the mind. And hence, when we are under the necessity of communicating any disagreeable information to another, delicacy leads us, instead of mentioning the thing itself, to mention something else from which our meaning may be understood. In this manner we prepare our hearers for the unwelcome intelligence.

The distinction between gross and delicate flattery, is founded upon the same principle. As nothing is more offensive than flattery which is direct and pointed, praise is considered as happy and elegant, in proportion to the slight ness of the associations by which it is conveyed.

To this tendency which one thought has to introduce. another, philosophers have given the name of the Association of ideas; and, as I would not wish, excepting in a case of necessity, to depart from common language, or to expose myself to the charge of delivering old doctrines in a new form, I shall continue to make use of the same expression. I am sensible, indeed, that the expression is by no means unexceptionable; and that, if it be used (as it frequently has been) to comprehend those laws by which the succession of all our thoughts and of all our mental operations is regulated, the word idea must be understood in a sense much more extensive than it is commonly employed in. It is very justly remarked by Dr. Reid, that "memory, judg"ment, reasoning, passions, affections, and purposes; in a "word, every operation of the mind, excepting those of "sense, is excited occasionally in the train of our thoughts: "so that, if we make the train of our thoughts to be only a "train of ideas, the word idea must be understood to denote all these operations." In continuing, therefore, to

employ, upon this subject, that language, which has been consecrated by the practice of our best philosophical writers in England, I would not be understood to dispute the advantages which might be derived from the introduction of a new phrase, more precise and more applicable to the fact.

The ingenious author whom I last quoted, seems to think that the association 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 multiply them without "necessity. That trains of thinking, which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar, should spontaneously "offer themselves to our fancy, seems to require no other original quality but the power of habit."

With this observation I cannot agree; because I think it more philosophical to resolve the power of habit into the association of ideas, than to resolve the association of ideas into habit.

The word habit, in the sense in which it is commonly employed, expresses that facility which the mind acquires, in all its exertions, both animal and intellectual, in consequence of practice. We apply it to the dexterity of the workman; to the extemporary fluency of the orator; to the rapidity of the arithmetical accountant. That this facility is the effect of practice, we know from experience to be a fact: but it does not seem to be an ultimate fact, nor incapable of analysis.

In the Essay on Attention, I shewed that the effects of practice are produced partly on the body, and partly on the mind. The muscles which we employ in mechanical operations, become stronger, and become more obedient to the

will. This is a fact, of which it is probable that philosophy will never be able to give any explanation.

But even in mechanical operations, the effects of practice are produced partly on the mind; and, as far as this is the case, they are resolvable into what philosophers call the association of ideas; or into that general fact, which Dr. Reid himself has stated, "that trains of thinking, which, by "frequent repetition, have become familiar, spontaneously "offer themselves to the mind." In the case of habits which are purely intellectual, the effects of practice resolve themselves completely into this principle: and it appears to me more precise and more satisfactory, to state the principle itself as a law of our constitution, than to slur it over under the concise appellation of habit, which we apply in common to mind and to body.

The tendency in the human mind to associate or connect its thoughts together, is sometimes called (but very impro perly) the imagination. Between these two parts of our constitution, there is indeed a very intimate relation; and it is probably owing to this relation, that they have been so generally confounded under the same name. When the mind is occupied about absent objects of sense, (which, I believe, it is habitually in the great majority of mankind,) its train of thought is merely a series of conceptions; or, in common language, of imaginations.* In the case, too, of poetical imagination, it is the association of ideas that supplies the materials out of which its combinations are formed; and when such an imaginary combination is become familiar to the mind, it is the association of ideas that connects its different parts together, and unites them into one

* Accordingly, Hobbes calls the train of thought in the mind, "Consequentia sive series imaginationum." "Per seriem imaginationum intelligo successionem unius cogitationis ad aliam,”-LEVIATHAN, cap. îïì.

whole. The association of ideas, therefore, although perfectly distinct from the power of imagination, is immediately and essentially subservient to all its exertions.

The last observation seems to me to point out, also, the circumstance which has led the greater part of English writers, to use the words Imagination and Fancy as synonymous. It is obvious that a creative imagination, when a person possesses it so habitually that it may be regarded as forming one of the characteristics of his genius, implies a power of summoning up, at pleasure, a particular class of ideas, and of ideas related to each other in a particular manner; which power can be the result only of certain habits of association, which the individual has acquired. It is to this power of the mind, which is evidently a particular turn of thought, and not one of the common principles of our nature, that our best writers (so far as I am able to judge) refer, in general, when they make use of the word fancy: I say, in general; for in disquisitions of this sort, in which the best writers are seldom precise and steady in the employment of words, it is only to their prevailing practice that we can appeal as an authority. What the particular relations are, by which those ideas are connected that are subservient to poetical imagination, I shall not inquire at present. I think they are chiefly those of resemblance and analogy. But whatever they may be, the power of summoning up at pleasure the ideas so related, as it is the groundwork of poetical genius, is of sufficient importance in the human constitution to deserve an appropriated name; and, for this purpose, the word fancy would appear to be the most convenient that our language affords.

Dr. Reid has somewhere observed, that "the part of our constitution on which the association of ideas depends, "was called, by the older English writers, the fantasy or fanan use of the word, we may remark, which coincides,

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