ABSTRACT

Commencing with some lowly-endowed creature, respecting which it can be scarcely at all said, that the strength of the tendency which the antecedent of any psychical change has to be followed by its consequent, is proportionate to the persistency of the union between the external things they symbolize; the people may note three several modes in which the progression shows itself. The multitudinous facts commonly cited to illustrate the doctrine of association of ideas, support it. In the progress of life and in the progress of the individual, the adjustment of the inner tendencies to the outer persistencies, must begin with the simple and advance to the more and more complex; seeing that both within and without, the complex relations are made up of the simple ones, and cannot be established before the simple ones have been established. And in human civilization the people see the truth illustrated in the progress to wider and wider generalizations.