ABSTRACT
The Association of Ideas is a fruitful and popular theme in the writings of metaphysicians; and they have supplied us with innumerable examples, which prove at once the extent and the activity of its influence. In the indefinite and unlimited sense, the association of ideas, when applied to the general operations of the mind, expresses little less than the whole arrangement of the reasoning principle, and as referred to the workings of imagination must signify all the embellishments of eloquence, and all the graces of poetry. As the association arises from a circumstance generally irrelative, and sometimes totally opposite to the subject itself, the authors shall be induced perhaps to smile at the ludicrous combinations which are frequently formed on these occasions. For let it ever be remembered, that when the powers of the fancy are once bound by the magic of an association, the mind still hovers about the scene where the charm is deposited.
