§ 4. Association is criticised. ''Mental Chemistry.''—In all psychical development some kind of association and reproduction is involved. So much may be conceded to associationism. Its defect lies in making the whole process merely reproductive, to the exclusion of other modes of psychical interaction, giving rise to new and not merely reproduced results. In the general course of nature causation and composition by no means always coincide. Conditions by no means always persist in their product as its component parts. Neither the sculptor's chisel nor its movements form part of the completed statue. The fire does not remain as an integral part of a burnt house, or a knife as an integral part of a wound. The theory which would reduce all mental production to reproduction, is, therefore, by no means a selfevident truth. Its claims to acceptance rest entirely on the verification which it may receive from experience. What kind of verification is necessary and attainable? It would seem at first sight that this question is easy to answer. If the producing conditions exist in the product itself we ought to be able to find them by analytic scrutiny of the product. In material compounds this may not be possible, because the components may bo so intermingled that they cease to be discernible by our senses. But it is the distinctive peculiarity of the combinations which are brought about by mental association and reproduction, that both the components and their union exist in consciousness. It would seem, therefore, that it ought to be as easy to detect the components of such a compound as to spell a word on phonetic principles.

But this conclusion is too hasty. To exist in consciousness is one thing. To be a discriminated and identified object of consciousness is quite another thing. Spoken language is composed of a limited number of elementary sounds. But language was spoken long before these elementary sounds were discovered and represented by an alphabet. So in articulating the sound of each letter combined movements of the throat, lips, tongue, and palate are involved. The corresponding sensations are experienced by everyone who utters the sounds. But they are only discernible by an express effort of analytic attention. Most of us never notice them at all. Again, the timbre of a musical note is due to its complexity. Overtones are united with a fundamental tone. These overtones are not as a rule separately discernible by an unpractised observer. But he may learn to discriminate them by adopting an appropriate method. If a simple tone is produced by itself and then compared with the complex note of which it is an overtone, and if this process is repeated with sufficient frequency, it becomes possible to distinguish the overtone as a separate component of the complex to which it belongs.

It is illegitimate to demand that the constituents of a complex mode of consciousness shall be immediately obvious to simple inspection. But it is both legitimate and necessary to demand that they shall be ascertainable by a systematic process of reflective scrutiny conducted under favourable conditions. To affirm their presence where no scrutiny can detect them is simply to refuse to appear before the bar of experience, and judgment must go by default against those who assume such a position. If a certain mode of consciousness is alleged to consist of certain constituents, a, b, c, the only criterion of primary importance by which we can test their presence is systematic comparison. "We must compare a, b, and c, severally, and, if possible, collectively, with what is alleged to be a product constituted by their combination.

It is necessary to bring the general plan of explanation which governs the procedure of the Association School to this test. Brought to this test it certainly collapses. One of the ablest members of the school, J. S. Mill, has virtually confessed its bankruptcy in his doctrine of "Mental Chemistry." "When many impressions or ideas are operating in the mind together, there sometimes takes place a process of a similar kind to chemical combination. When impressions have been so often experienced in conjunction, that each of them calls up readily and instantaneously the ideas of the whole group, those ideas sometimes melt and coalesce into one another, and appear not several ideas, but one; in the same manner as, when the seven prismatic colours are presented to the eye in rapid succession, the sensation produced is that of white. But as in this last case it is correct to say that the seven colours, when they rapidly follow one another, generate white, but not that they actually are white; so it appears to me that the Complex Idea, formed by the blending together of several simpler ones, should, when it really appears simple (that is, when the separate elements are not consciously distinguishable in it), be said to result from, or be generated by, the simple ideas, not to consist of them. Our idea of an orange really consists of the simple ideas of a certain colour, a certain form, a certain taste and smell, etc., because we can, by interrogating our consciousness, perceive all these elements in the idea. But we cannot perceive, in so apparently simple a feeling as our perception of the shape of an object by the eye, all that multitude of ideas derived from other senses, without which it is well ascertained that no such visual perception could ever have had existence; nor, in our idea of Extension, can we discover those elementary ideas of resistance, derived from our muscular frame, in which it has been conclusively shown that the idea originates. These, therefore, are cases of mental chemistry; in which it is proper to say that the simple ideas generate, rather than that they compose, the complex ones."*

* Logic, 9th edition, vol. ii., pp. 441442.

It is well worth while to examine this statement with some care. We must note that it contains a reluctant confession of the inadequacy of the Association theory, wrung by the stress of facts from one of its most devoted adherents. Mill shows his reluctance by the grudging nature of his admissions. He maintains the Association theory if and so far as he can find any plausible pretext for doing so. Thus he holds that our "idea of an orange really consists of the simple ideas of a certain colour, a certain form, a certain taste and smell, etc., because we can by interrogating our consciousness perceive all these elements in the idea." This is very plausible. For it is certainly true that when we ask ourselves what an orange is, we can only answer by enumerating such characteristics as those assigned. But the real question at issue is quite different. The real question is whether in every moment in which we catch sight of an orange and know it for an orange, all these distinctive characteristics must be actually presented to consciousness. It will be seen at once that the necessity of such a collective resurrection of our previous experiences of oranges, whenever one happens to catch our eye, is by no means obvious. No doubt the visual appearance means all this to us in the moment in which we become aware of the object. But to say that a means bed is one thing; to say that it drags bed along with it is something altogether different. To suppose the contrary is, as we said before, like supposing that a fivepound note must always have five sovereigns literally wrapped up in it. The note will pass current instead of five sovereigns, and in like manner the visual appearance of the orange will in a manner pass current instead of the special experiences with which it has been conjoined. It will in certain ways and to a certain extent determine action, thought, and feeling, as these experiences will determine action, thought, and feeling, if they are actually present or actually reproduced in the form of ideas.