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. Ideas by having been together acquire a power of recalling each other; or every partial representation awakes the total representation of which it had been a part." In the practical deter 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:—ovμßaívovoi d' al dvaμvýoeis, 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 ἃ παξ μᾶλλον μνημο νεύομεν, ἢ ἕτερα πολλάκις. "But such a connexion 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 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, μεθ ̓ ἣν ἐκείνη ἔιωθε. A representation is called up (we remember it) as soon as changes of the soul arise, with which that" (change or movement) "belonging to 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 mination of this common principle to particular recollections, he admits five agents or occasioning causes: 1st, connexion in time, whether simultaneous, preceding, or successive; 2d, vicinity or connexion in space; 3d, interdependence or necessary connexion, as cause and effect; 4th, likeness; and 5th, contrast.25 As an additional solution of the occasional seeming chasms in the continuity of reproduction he proves, that movements or ideas 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. Ζητοῦσι μὲν οὖν οὕτῳ, 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.] 25 [Maasz (at p. 327) shows that Aristotle gives "four distinct rules for Association"-that is to say, connexion in time, in space, resemblance, and opposition or contrast--in proof of which he cites the following passage— διὰ καὶ τὸ ἐφεξῆς θηρεύομεν νοήσαντες ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν, ἢ ἄλλου τινὸς, καὶ ἀφ ̓ ὁμοίου, ἢ ἐναντίου, ἢ τοῦ σύνεγγυς. Διὰ τοῦτο γίνεται ἡ ἀνάμνησις. Therefore in trying to remember we search (our minds) in regular order, proceeding from the present or some other time (to the time in which what we want to recollect occurred); or from something like, or directly opposite, or near in place. De Mem., cap. ii. At pp. 27-8, Maasz writes thus: "That B. should be really immediately associated with A. it is not necessary that the whole representation B. should have been together with the whole representation A.; if only some mark of A., say M., has been associated with some mark of B., that is sufficient. If then A. being given, m. is consequently represented, n. is likewise associated therewith, because both have been already together; and then with n. are associated the remaining marks belonging to B. because these have been already together with m. in the representation B. Thus the whole representation B. is called up through A.” "This seems to me aproof," says Mr. Coleridge in a marginal note on the passage, "that Likeness, as co-ordinate with, but not always subordinate to, Time, exerts an influence per se on the association. Thus too as to Cause and Effect;they cannot of course be separated from Contemporaneity, but yet they act distinctly from it. Thus too, Contrast, and even Order. In short, whatever makes certain parts of a total impression more vivid or distinct will determine the mind to recall these rather than others. Contemporaneity seems to me the common condition under which all the determining powers act rather than itself the effective law. Maasz sometimes forgets. -as Hartley seems never to have remembered,—that all our images are abstractions; and that in many cases of likeness the association is merely an act of recognition." MS. note. S. C.] possessing one or the other of these five characters had passed through the mind as intermediate links, sufficiently clear to recall other parts of the same total impressions with which they had co-existed, though not vivid enough to excite that degree of attention which is requisite for distinct recollection, or as we may aptly express it, after consciousness." In association, then, consists the whole mechanism of the reproduction of impressions, in the Aristotelian Psychology. It is the universal law of the passive fancy and mechanical memory; that which supplies to all other faculties their objects, to all thought the elements of its materials. In consulting the excellent commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Parva Naturalia of Aristotle, I was struck at once with its close resemblance to Hume's Essay on Association. The main thoughts were the same in both, the order of the thoughts was the same, and even the illustrations differed only by Hume's occasional substitution of more modern examples. I mentioned the circumstance to several of my literary acquaintances, who admitted the closeness of the resemblance, and that it seemed too great to be explained by mere coincidence; but they thought it improbable that Hume should have held the pages of the Angelic Doctor worth turning over. But some time after Mr. Payne showed Sir James Mackintosh some odd volumes of St. Thomas Aquinas, partly perhaps from having heard that he had in his Lectures passed a high encomium on this canonized philosopher; but chiefly from the fact, that the volumes had belonged to Mr. Hume, and had here and there marginal marks and notes of reference in his own hand-writing. Among these volumes was that which contains the Parva Nataralia, in the old Latin version, swathed and swaddled in the commentary afore mentioned !"" 26 [This is set forth at some length by Maasz, whose expositions of the present subject Mr. Coleridge seems to have mixed up in his mind with those of Aristotle. See Versuch über die Einbildungskraft, p. 27. S. C.] 7 [This Commentary of Aquinas is contained in the third volume of the edition of his works, printed at Venice, in 1593-4, and in the Antwerp edition of 1612, end of tom. iii. It surrounds two translations of the text, one of which is the Antiqua Translatio. When Mr. C. spoke of "Hume's Essay on Association," as closely re It remains then for me, first to state wherein Hartley differs from Aristotle; then, to exhibit the grounds of my conviction, that he differed only to err; and next as the result, to show, by sembling it, he must have had in his mind, not merely the short section on the Association of Ideas, but generally whatever relates to the subject in the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, from sections ii. to vii inclusively. The similar thoughts and ancient illustrations are to be found in that part of the commentary which belongs to the treatise De Memoria et Reminiscentia (the second of the Parva Naturalia), particularly in sections v. and vi., pp. 25-6 of the Antwerp edit. There the principles of connexion amongst ideas, and "the method and regularity" with which they present themselves to the mind, are set forth at some length, for the purpose of explaining the nature of memory and describing our mental processes in voluntary recollection and unintentional remembrance. I think, however, that the likeness to Hume's treatise, wherein Association of Ideas is subordinate and introductory to another speculation, which it was the author's principal aim to bring forward, may have been somewhat magnified in Mr. C.'s mind from the circumstance, that the commentary, in addition to what it sets forth on connexions of ideas, dwells much on certain other topics which are dwelt upon also in the Inquiry-as, the influence of custom in producing mental habits and becoming a sort of second nature; the liveliness and force of phantasmata, or images impressed on the mind by sensible things, and the distinctness and orderliness of mathematical theorems. These topics Hume handles somewhat differently from Aquinas, as his drift was different; but it is possible that the older disquisition may have suggested his thoughts on these points, though it cannot have exactly formed them. It is rather remarkable, if Hume had indeed read this commentary bofore composing his own work, that he should have expressed himself thus at p. 22 —“Though it be too obvious to escape observation, that different ideas are connected together, I do not find that any philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of Association, a subject, however, that seems worthy of curiosity." Aquinas, in the commentary, does certainly attempt to enumerate them, though he does not classify them exactly as Hume and other modern philosophers have done. He does not make Cause and Effect a principle of Association over and above Contiguity in Time and Place; and he mentions, as a separate influence, direct Dissimilarity or Contrast, which Hume refers to Causation and Resemblance, as a mixture of the two.: in both which particulars he does but follow the leading of his text. I will just add that in commenting on two sentences of Aristotle, quoted in a former note,-explaining why some men remember, and some things are remembered, better than others, under similar circumstances of asseciation,—Aquinas observes, that this may happen through closer attention what influences of the choice and judgment the associative power becomes either memory or fancy; and, in conclusion, to appropriate the remaining offices of the mind to the reason, and the and profounder knowledge, because whatever we most earnestly attend to remains most firmly impressed on the memory; and again, in accounting for false and imperfect remembrance, he states the converse fact, that by distraction of the imagination the mental impression is weakened. Lects. v. a. and vi. h. These remarks tend the same way with those in the Biographia, towards the end of chap. vii., concerning the superior vividness of certain parts of a total impression, and the power of the will to give vividness to any object whatsoever by intensifying the attention. Mr. Coleridge's aim was to show that these agents or occasioning causes of particular thoughts which have been specified, are themselves subject to a deeper law, to the determination of the will, reason, judgment, understanding. S. C.] [It was not till the new edition of this work was in the press that I became aware of a note, relating to chapter v. of the B. L. at the end of the Dissertation on the progress of Ethical Philosophy, by Sir J. Mackintosh, in which the author speaks as follows: "I have already acknowledged the striking resemblance of Mr. Hume's principles of association to those of Aristotle." After showing that the story of Mr. Hume was a mistake, and how the mistake arose, he proceeds to say-"It is certain that . . Aristotle explains recollection as depending on a general law,—that the idea of an object will remind us of the objects which immediately preceded or followed when originally perceived. But what Mr. Coleridge has not told us is, that the Stagyrite confines the application of this law exclusively to the phenomena of recollection alone, without any glimpse of a more general operation extending to all connexions of thought and feeling, a wonderful proof indeed, even so limited, of the sagacity of the great philosopher, but which for many ages continued barren of further consequences." Perhaps Mr. C. thought, as Maasz appears to have done, that to discover the associative principle in respect of memory was obviously to discover the general law of mental association, since all connexions of thought and feeling are dependent on memory. It is difficult to conceive a man writing a treatise on Memory and Recollection without hitting on this law of association, by observing the manner in which he hunts in his mind for anything forgotten; but perhaps this remark savors of simplicity, for simple folks, when a truth is once clearly presented to them, can never again so abstract their minds from it as to conceive the possibility of its being unrecognised. "The illustrations of Aquinas," Sir James adds, "throw light on the original doctrine, and show that it was unenlarged in his time, &c." (Yet Aquinas almost touches the doctrine of Hobbes when he says, reminiscentia habet similitudinem cujusdam syllogismi, quare sicut in syllogismo pervenitur ad conclusionem ex aliquibus principiis, |