The Scottish Philosophy [266]
phenomena. He thinks that the whole facts can be explained by one great law, which he calls the law of redintegration, which he finds incidentally expressed by Augustine. This law may be thus enounced, -- "Those thoughts suggest each other which had previously constituted parts of the same entire or total act of cognition." (Vol. II. p. 238.) He again quotes Schmid Thus {441} the supreme law of association, -- that activities excite each other in proportion as they have previously belonged as parts to one whole activity, -- is explained from the still more universal principle of the unity of all our mental energies in general." (P. 241.) I am inclined to look on this as, on the whole, the most philosophical account which has been given of the law of association. It at once explains the cases of simple repetition in which one link of a chain of ideas which had previously passed through the mind, being caught, all the rest come after; as when we have got the first line of a poem committed to memory, and the others follow in order. It easily explains, too, all cases in which we have had a variety of objects before us in one concrete act, -- thus if we have passed along a particular road, with a certain person, observing the mountain or river in front, and talking on certain objects, -- we find that when any one of these recurs it is apt to suggest the others. It is thus if we have often heard in youth the cry of a particular animal, goose or grouse, turkey or curlew, the cry will ever bring up afresh the scenes of our childhood. It is more doubtful whether the law can explain a third class of cases when it is not the same which suggests the same, but an object suggests another object which has never been individually associated with it, but is like it, or is otherwise correlated with it; as when the conqueror Alexander suggests Julius Caesar or Bonaparte. It needs an explanation to show how the law can cover such a case, which, however, I rather think it can, though I am by no means inclined to admit the explanations of the Hamiltonians
proceeding on their narrow and peculiar view of correlates.
IV. This leads us to refer to the next faculty, -- the Elaborative, equal to Comparison, -- that is the Faculty of Relations. The phrase elaborative is an expressive epithet, but is not a good special denomination, as there is elaboration in other exercises as well as in this. Comparison, or the correlative faculties, or the faculties of relation, is the better epithet. Under this head he has some learned and acute remarks on the abstract and the general notion, and on language, and is terribly severe, as usual, on Dr. Thomas Brown. I am of opinion that Brown's views on this subject are, in one or two points, more enlarged than those of Hamilton himself, who has over {442} looked essential elements. " In so far," he says, "as two objects resemble each other, the notion we have of them is identical, and, therefore, to us, the objects may be considered as the same." (Vol. II. pp. 294.) I cannot give my adherence to this doctrine of the identity of resembling objects. Altogether his account of the relations which the mind can discover is narrow and exclusive. He specifies first the judgment virtually pronounced in an act of perception of the, or an act of self-consciousness of the ; then secondly the something of which we are conscious and of which the predicate existence is twofold, the and the ; thirdly, the recognition of the multiplicity of the co-existent or successive phenomena, and the judgment in regard to their resemblance or dissimilarity; fourthly, the comparison of the phenomena with the native notion of substance; fifthly, the collection of successive phenomena under the native notion of causation. He might have seen a much broader and more comprehensive account of the relations which the mind can perceive in Locke's "Essay" (B. II. C. 28); in Hume's " Treatise on Human Nature" (B. I. P. i. 5); or in Brown's Lectures (Lect. xlv.) I am surprised he has never made a reference to such
proceeding on their narrow and peculiar view of correlates.
IV. This leads us to refer to the next faculty, -- the Elaborative, equal to Comparison, -- that is the Faculty of Relations. The phrase elaborative is an expressive epithet, but is not a good special denomination, as there is elaboration in other exercises as well as in this. Comparison, or the correlative faculties, or the faculties of relation, is the better epithet. Under this head he has some learned and acute remarks on the abstract and the general notion, and on language, and is terribly severe, as usual, on Dr. Thomas Brown. I am of opinion that Brown's views on this subject are, in one or two points, more enlarged than those of Hamilton himself, who has over {442} looked essential elements. " In so far," he says, "as two objects resemble each other, the notion we have of them is identical, and, therefore, to us, the objects may be considered as the same." (Vol. II. pp. 294.) I cannot give my adherence to this doctrine of the identity of resembling objects. Altogether his account of the relations which the mind can discover is narrow and exclusive. He specifies first the judgment virtually pronounced in an act of perception of the