Bibliography

Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Habit

According to those rules I am bound to use scientific terms in the senses in which they first became terms of science. Accordingly, the English associationalists having first made association a term of science, and they having been careful never to extend it to the operation or event whereby one idea calls up another into the mind, but to restrict it primarily to a habit or disposition of mind in consequence of which an idea of one description is likely to bring into comparative vividness of consciousness an idea of another description, or, when they applied the term association to any operation or event, to designate by it only that process of habituation by which such a habit or disposition of mind acquires strength, they having been punctilious in this matter, my code of rules obliges me logically and morally, to follow them.

…the association, instead of being a natural disposition of mind, may be an acquired habit of mind. That supposes that similar ideas have been conjoined in experience until they have become associated. That is termed association by contiguity.

Another kind of association which is very important is that which makes an idea interesting. I propose to term it association by interest. An idea occurs to us in such a way that it would, other things being equal, be very dim. For example, it may result from a fortuitous putting together of two other ideas both of which are sunk deep in the subconscious mind. But if the new idea happens to be interesting, it will promptly become vivid. Why is this? Clearly it is because the objective self-consciousness, or the idea which a man has of himself, consists in large measure of what may be roughly described as a composite of ideas of his aims and purposes, including all problems which exercise him. Now the separate components of this composite may for the most part be dim; but the total idea is perhaps the most vivid in consciousness at all times. Now an interesting idea is one which has an analogy, or resemblance in form, to this composite of the man’s aims. It is, therefore, drawn into vividness by the vividness of that composite.

…besides that reiterated coöccurrence which helps to consolidate an association by contiguity, another factor which plays a great part in accomplishing the association, is the experience that the combination of the ideas has important consequences. When we learn that white cats with blue eyes are deaf and have peculiar habits, such as that of following their masters like dogs, we no sooner see a white cat than we want to know what colored eyes she has. This may be called association by relational contiguity. That is to say not only have the two ideas frequently been experienced together, but their union has often been accompanied in experience with a third idea of an interesting kind.

Association by contrast ought to be regarded as a case of association by resemblance, not in the narrow sense in which the reduction is often made, but by generalizing the conception of resemblance in accordance with the logic of relatives until it embraces [a] high degree of logical relation between ideas. Contrast is a particular form, an especially prominent and familiar form, of what may be called relational resemblance by which I do not mean a resemblance of relations, but a connection of the kind which in the logic of relatives is shown to belong to the same class of relations to which the relation of resemblance belongs.

Association is of two kinds. For, on the one hand, it may be a natural disposition, which was from birth destined to develop itself whatever the child’s outward experiences might be, so long as he was not maimed nor virtually maimed, say by being imprisoned. This sort of association by virtue of which certain kinds of ideas become naturally allied, as crimson and scarlet, is called association by resemblance. The name is not a good one, since it implies that the resemblance causes the association, while in point of fact it is the association which constitutes the resemblance. In themselves considered any two sense-qualities are what they are to themselves alone and have no relation to one another. But could they be compared by a mind that brought no tinge of its own nature into the comparison, any two ideas would appear somewhat alike and somewhat different. But the human mind attaches a peculiar value and emphasis to some resemblances, and that consists in this, that when one quality is brought vividly to consciousness, others will at once have their vividness increased, some more, some less. Thus, an idea which may be roughly compared to a composite photograph surges up into vividness, and this composite idea may be called a general idea. It is not properly a conception; because a conception is not an idea at all, but a habit. But the repeated occurrence of a general idea and the experience of its utility, results in the formation or strengthening of that habit which is the conception; or if the conception is already a habit thoroughly compacted, the general idea is the mark of the habit.

Those non-conservative actions which seem to violate the law of energy, and which physics explains away as due to chance-action among trillions of molecules, are one and all marked by two characters. The first is that they act in one determinate direction and tend asymptotically toward bringing about an ultimate state of things. If teleological is too strong a word to apply to them, we might invent the word finious, to express their tendency toward a final state. The other character of non-conservative actions is that they are irreversible.

…any fundamental universal tendency ought to manifest itself in nature. Where shall we look for it? We could not expect to find it in such phenomena as gravitation where the evolution has so nearly approached its ultimate limit, that nothing even simulating irregularity can be found in it. But we must search for this generalizing tendency rather in such departments of nature where we find plasticity and evolution still at work. The most plastic of all things is the human mind, and next after that comes the organic world, the world of protoplasm. Now the generalizing tendency is the great law of mind, the law of association, the law of habit taking. We also find in all active protoplasm a tendency to take habits. Hence I was led to the hypothesis that the laws of the universe have been formed under a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking.

…the generalizing tendency is the great law of mind, the law of association, the law of habit taking. We also find in all active protoplasm a tendency to take habits. Hence I was led to the hypothesis that the laws of the universe have been formed under a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking.

The most plastic of all things is the human mind, and next after that comes the organic world, the world of protoplasm. Now the generalizing tendency is the great law of mind, the law of association, the law of habit taking. We also find in all active protoplasm a tendency to take habits. Hence I was led to the hypothesis that the laws of the universe have been formed under a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking.

According to those rules I am bound to use scientific terms in the senses in which they first became terms of science. Accordingly, the English associationalists having first made association a term of science, and they having been careful never to extend it to the operation or event whereby one idea calls up another into the mind, but to restrict it primarily to a habit or disposition of mind in consequence of which an idea of one description is likely to bring into comparative vividness of consciousness an idea of another description, or, when they applied the term association to any operation or event, to designate by it only that process of habituation by which such a habit or disposition of mind acquires strength, they having been punctilious in this matter, my code of rules obliges me logically and morally, to follow them. As for that mental event which corresponds, as we suppose, to the nervous discharge of one part of the cortex upon another, – or the action of one idea to render another idea which is associated with it vivid, – for that they employed the term suggestion. This word is now applied mostly to motor phenomena or to such manifestations of mind as can be observed from without; and therefore, although the two meanings doubtless are in real facts connected together, the meanings themselves are different. But here a compromise is possible; for I shall violate no rule of terminology by speaking of the “suggestion” of the associationalists as associational suggestion and that of the hypnotists as nervous suggestion. The adjectives may be dropped, – especially the former, – in cases where there is no possibility of the meaning being mistaken.