"14

fectum, ab hoc ad instrumentum, a parte ad totum ;' thence to the place, from place to person, and from this to whatever preceded or followed, all as being parts of a total impression, each of which may recall the other. The apparent springs "saltus vel transitus etiam longissimos," 15 he explains by the same thought having been a component part of two or more total impressions. Thus "ex Scipione venio in cogitationem potentiæ Turcicæ, propter victorias ejus de Asia, in qua regnabat Antiochus.” 16

But from Vives I pass at once to the source of his doctrines, and (as far as we can judge from the remains yet extant of Greek philosophy) as to the first, so to the fullest and most perfect enunciation of the associative principle, namely, to the writings of Aristotle; and of these in particular to the treatises De Anima, and "De Memoria," which last belongs to the series of essays entitled in the old translations Parva Naturalia.1 In as much as later writers have either deviated from, or added to his doctrines, they appear to me to have introduced either error or groundless supposition.

In the first place it is to be observed, that Aristotle's

14 [De Anima II. sect. d. mem. et record.―Cited by Maasz in a note, ibid. S. C.]

15 [Ibid. ibid. See Maasz, pp. 345-6. That the springs are only "apparent" is explained by Maasz, commenting on the words of Vives, Sunt (in phantasia) transitus quidam longissimi, immo saltus. S.C.]

16 [Cited by Maasz from the same place, p. 346. S. C.] 17 [This collection, τὰ μικρὰ καλούμενα Φυσικά, which is connected with the treatise in three books, on the Soul, (as Trendelenburg distinctly shows in the Preface to his elaborate commentary on that work of Aristotle,) contains the books On Sense and Things Sensible, On Memory and Recollection, On Sleep, On Dreams, On Divination in Sleep, (кα0' vπνον,) On

positions on this subject are unmixed with fiction.18 The wise Stagyrite speaks of no successive particles propagating motion like billiard balls, as Hobbes;19 nor of nervous or animal spirits, where inanimate and irrational solids are thawed down, and distilled, or filtrated by ascension, into living and intelligent fluids, that etch and re-etch engravings on the brain, as the followers of Des Cartes, and the humoral pathologists in general; nor of an oscillating ether which was to effect the same service for the nerves of the brain considered as solid fibres, as the animal spirits perform for them under the notion of hollow tubes, as Hartley teaches-nor finally, (with yet more recent dreamers) of chemical compositions by elective affinity, or of an electric light at once the immediate object and the últimate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain

Length and Shortness of Life, On Youth and Old Age, On Respiration, and On Life and Death. S. C.]

18 [Maasz has also said, (p. 345) speaking of Vives, that, though he set forth correctly the theory of association, he yet did not exhibit it with such entire purity as Aristotle. Mr. Coleridge, however is comparing the wise Stagyrite with Hobbes, Des Cartes, Hartley and others-Maasz is comparing him with Vives-observing that this author not only came after Aristotle in perceiving and expressing the general law of imagination, but, what is the principal thing, did not state the theory of association so consistently and purely as the former, because he made exceptions to the same, which are such in appearance only though he thinks it may be assumed in his favour, that his language is incorrect rather than his conception of the subject. Mr. Coleridge, on the other hand, is objecting to the physical dreams, which modern metaphysicians introduced into the survey of psychological facts delivered by the sager ancient. He imputes to them an error in principle, while Maasz remarks upon a statement at variance with a law correctly laid down. S. C.] 19 [See Human Nature, chaps. ii. and iii. Hobbes does not use the expressions in which Mr. C. describes his doctrine, but speaks much of motions produced in the brain by objects. S. C.]

like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in various shapes, as the balance of plus and minus, or negative and positive, is destroyed or re-established,— images out both past and present. Aristotle delivers a just theory without pretending to an hypothesis; or in other words a comprehensive survey of the different facts, and of their relations to each other without supposition, that is, a fact placed under a number of facts, as their common support and explanation; though in the majority of instances these hypotheses or suppositions better deserve the name of ὑποποιησεῖς, or suffictions. He uses indeed the word kivŋotis, to express what we call representations or ideas, but he carefully distinguishes them from material motion, designating the latter always by annexing the words εv τοπῳ, or κατὰ τόπον.21 On the contrary in his trea

20

20 [The discussion of Maasz on the part performed by Aristotle in explaining the general law of the Imagination extends from p. 319 to p. 335, from sect. 90 to 94 inclusively. S. C.]

21 [See Maasz, p. 321. He refers generally to the treatise De Anima, Lib. II. Cap. iii. and in particular to the words in 5. 5. ̓Ενίοις δὲ πρὸς τούτοις ὑπάρχει καὶ τὸ κατὰ τόπον κινητικόν. But some, beside these things, have also the faculty of motion according to place."

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In the third and fourth chapters of the first book the subject of motion, karà тóñоv, is discussed, and the opinions of other philosophers that it is properly attributable to the soul refuted. Sections 3 and 4 of Lib. I. cap. iii. speak distinctly on this point: and so do sections 8-11 of cap, iv. In the latter the philo. sopher says; "That the soul cannot possibly be harmony, neither can be turned about in a circle is manifest, from the aforesaid. But that it may be removed per accidens-contingently,-may so move itself, even as we have declared, is possible: inasmuch as that, in which it is, is capable of being moved, and that (in which it is) may be moved by the soul: but in no other way is it possible for the soul to be moved according to place."

Maasz discusses Aristotle's use of the term kivnog in sections 91-2, pp. 321-333. He observes that it was not unusual with

tise De Anima, he excludes place and motion from all the operations of thought, whether representations or volitions, as attributes utterly and absurdly heterogeneous.22

The general law of association, or, more accurately, the common condition under which all exciting causes act, and in which they may be generalized, according to Aristotle is this.23 Ideas by having been together

the Greek philosophers to use the word for changes of the soul, and that Plato, for example, says expressly kivyoig kará тe 4vXǹv kai karà owμa, in the Theætetus, § 27. (Opera Bekker. Lond. Sumpt. R. Priestley, 1826. Vol. iii. p. 412.) S. C.]

22 [I. c. 3 in initio. ἴοως γὰρ οὐ μόνον ψεῦδός ἐστι τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτῆς τοιαύτην εἶναι, οἵαν φασὶν οἱ λέγοντες ψυχὴν εἶναι τὸ κινοῦν ἑαυτὸ, ἣ δυνάμενον κινεῖν, ἀλλ ̓ ἕν τι τῶν ἀδυ· νάτων τὸ ὑπάρχειν αὐτῆ κίνησιν. Cited by Maasz, p. 322. Ed.]

[For perhaps not only it is false that the being of the soul is such as they suppose, who affirm that it is a thing which moves or is able to move itself; but it may be that it is a thing to which motion cannot possibly belong. Translation. S. C.]

23 [See Maasz, pp. 324-5-6. In proof that Aristotle had a right conception of the common law of Association, though he did not call it by that name, and had not discovered all its fruitfulness, he cites from the treatise De Memoria, cap. ii, the following sentences:-συμβαίνουσι δ ̓ αἱ ἀναμνήσεις, ἐπειδὴ πέφυκεν ἡ κίνησις ἥδε μενέσθαι μετὰ τήνδε--thus translated or paraphrased by Maasz-“ The Representations come after one another to the consciousness, when the changes" (or movements) "of the soul thereto belonging are of such a nature that one arises after the other." (I believe the stricter rendering to be -Recollections take place because it is the nature of the mind that its motions follow one another.)-ἔνια ἰδόντες ἅπαξ μᾶλλον μνημονεύομεν, ἢ ἕτερα πολλάκις.

"But such a connection among the changes of the soul, whereby one succeeds another, arises, though it be not necessary, through a kind of custom. For the production of this, however, it is sufficient, if we have only once perceived the objects of the representation together." (This is a collection from

acquire a power of recalling each other; or every partial representation awakes the total representation of which it had been a part.24 In the practical determi nation of this common principle to particular recollections, he admits five agents or occasioning causes: 1st, connection in time, whether simultaneous, preceding, or successive; 2nd, vicinity or connection in space; 3rd, interdependence or necessary connection, as cause

the words of Aristotle rather than their direct sense, which seems to be as follows: "The sequence of the mental motions is sometimes a necessary one, and this, as is evident, must always take place; sometimes it is one that arises from custom, and this takes place only for the most part. Some men, by once thinking of a thing, acquire a habit, more than others by thinking ever so often. Therefore we remember some things, that we have seen but once, better than other things, that we have seen many a time.")

Still plainer perhaps," says he, "speaks the place which follows the above; as thus: ὅταν οὖν ἀναμιμνησκώμεθα, κινούμεθα τῶν προτέρων τινά κινήσεων, ἕως ἂν κινηθῶμεν, μɛd' ηv ékeivŋ čiw0ε.—“ A representation is called up, (we remember it,) as soon as changes of the soul arise, with which that" (change or movement)" belonging to the said representation has been associated." S. C.]

24 [See Maasz, p. 326. "Thus, representations which have been together, call forth each other, or: Every partial representation awakens its total representation."

This rule holds good for the succession of representations generally, as well when we reflect upon a thing and strive to remember it, as when that is not the case; it avails, as I have just now expressed, for the voluntary and involuntary series of imaginations. This Aristotle expressly asserts, and hereby we see, in what universality he had conceived the law of association." He quotes in support of this the following sentence from the treatise De Memoria, cap. ii. Znrovσi μèv ovv ovτæ, καὶ μὴ ζητοῦντες δ' οὕτως ἀναμιμνήσκονται, ὅταν μεθ' ἑτέρων κίνησιν ἐκείνη γίνηται. In this way men try to recollect, and, 'when not trying, it is thus they remember; some particular movement (of mind) arising after some other. S. C.]

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