LECTURE XX

§ I. Successive Associ.ations. § II. Assoclation by Similarity and
Contiguity ; Cognition and Recognition as Simple Forms of
Association. § III. Theory of Successive Associations. § IV.
Indirect Association.

§1

IN close connection with assimilation stands, as we saw above,
the successive association of ideas. This is the process to
wliich the general name of ' association' was originally confined ;
and it is still customary, even at the present day, to speak of
laws of association, and to distinguish in that way connection by
similarity from that by co-existence in space or succession in
time, or sometimes from that by contrast. It is scarcely neces¬
sary to say that these are really simply forms, and not laws, of
association ; they are not universally valid conditions of its
origin. They merely serve to furnish classificatory concepts
under which the ready-made products of association can be sub¬
sumed. But, curiously enough, the authority of Aristotle and
the constant inclination of the human mind towards logical
schematisation have worked no less harm in this department of
psychology than they worked in the sciences of nature. Aris¬
totle had distinguished four kinds of memory, in terms of the
logical opposites ' similarity' and ' contrast,' ' simultaneity ' and
' succession ': just as he had arranged the fundamental quali¬
ties of all natural bodies under the rubrics of the contraries
' hot' and ' cold,' ' moist' and ' dry.' And these four forms
have held the field, despite the evidence of observation, down to
our own day. It is now pretty generally agreed that ' contrast'
may be omitted, or, where anything corresponding to it occurs,
referred to ' similarity' ; while spatial co-existence and tem¬
poral succession are brought under the general head of external