OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
1. Something unreasonable in most Men.
There is scarce any one that does not observe something that seems odd
to him, and is in itself really extravagant, in the opinions,
reasonings, and actions of other men. The least flaw of this kind, if
at all different from his own, every one is quick-sighted enough to
espy in another, and will by the authority of reason forwardly condemn;
though he be guilty of much greater unreasonableness in his own tenets
and conduct, which he never perceives, and will very hardly, if at all,
be convinced of.
2. Not wholly from Self-love.
This proceeds not wholly from self-love, though that has often a great
hand in it. Men of fair minds, and not given up to the overweening of
self-flattery, are frequently guilty of it; and in many cases one with
amazement hears the arguings, and is astonished at the obstinacy of a
worthy man, who yields not to the evidence of reason, though laid
before him as clear as daylight.
3. Not from Education.
This sort of unreasonableness is usually imputed to education and
prejudice, and for the most part truly enough, though that reaches not
the bottom of the disease, nor shows distinctly enough whence it rises,
or wherein it lies. Education is often rightly assigned for the cause,
and prejudice is a good general name for the thing itself: but yet, I
think, he ought to look a little further, who would trace this sort of
madness to the root it springs from, and so explain it, as to show
whence this flaw has its original in very sober and rational minds, and
wherein it consists.
4. A Degree of Madness found in most Men.
I shall be pardoned for calling it by so harsh a name as madness, when
it is considered that opposition to reason deserves that name, and is
really madness; and there is scarce a man so free from it, but that if
he should always, on all occasions, argue or do as in some cases he
constantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil
conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an
unruly passion, but in the steady calm course of his life. That which
will yet more apologize for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation
on the greatest part of mankind, is, that, inquiring a little by the
bye into the nature of madness, (b. ii. ch. xi., Section 13,) I found
it to spring from the very same root, and to depend on the very same
cause we are here speaking of. This consideration of the thing itself,
at a time when I thought not the least on the subject which I am now
treating of, suggested it to me. And if this be a weakness to which all
men are so liable, if this be a taint which so universally infects
mankind, the greater care should be taken to lay it open under its due
name, thereby to excite the greater care in its prevention and cure.
5. From a wrong Connexion of Ideas.
Some of our ideas have a NATURAL correspondence and connexion one with
another: it is the office and excellency of our reason to trace these,
and hold them together in that union and correspondence which is
founded in their peculiar beings. Besides this, there is another
connexion of ideas wholly owing to CHANCE or CUSTOM. Ideas that in
themselves are not all of kin, come to be so united in some men’s
minds, that it is very hard to separate them; they always keep in
company, and the one no sooner at any time comes into the
understanding, but its associate appears with it; and if they are more
than two which are thus united, the whole gang, always inseparable,
show themselves together.
6. This Connexion made by custom.
This strong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes
in itself either voluntarily or by chance; and hence it comes in
different men to be very different, according to their different
inclinations, education, interests, &c. CUSTOM settles habits of
thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will,
and of motions in the body: all which seems to be but trains of motions
in the animal spirits, which, once set a going, continue in the same
steps they have been used to; which, by often treading, are worn into a
smooth path, and the motion in it becomes easy, and as it were natural.
As far as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in
our minds; or, if they are not, this may serve to explain their
following one another in an habitual train, when once they are put into
their track, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A
musician used to any tune will find that, let it but once begin in his
head, the ideas of the several notes of it will follow one another
orderly in his understanding, without any care or attention, as
regularly as his fingers move orderly over the keys of the organ to
play out the tune he has begun, though his unattentive thoughts be
elsewhere a wandering. Whether the natural cause of these ideas, as
well as of that regular dancing of his fingers be the motion of his
animal spirits, I will not determine, how probable soever, by this
instance, it appears to be so: but this may help us a little to
conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas.
7. Some Antipathies an Effect of it.
That there are such associations of them made by custom, in the minds
of most men, I think nobody will question, who has well considered
himself or others; and to this, perhaps, might be justly attributed
most of the sympathies and antipathies observable in men, which work as
strongly, and produce as regular effects as if they were natural; and
are therefore called so, though they at first had no other original but
the accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the strength of the
first impression, or future indulgence so united, that they always
afterwards kept company together in that man’s mind, as if they were
but one idea. I say most of the antipathies, I do not say all; for some
of them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and
are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural,
would have been known to be from unheeded, though perhaps early,
impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have been
acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily observed. A
grown person surfeiting with honey no sooner hears the name of it, but
his fancy immediately carries sickness and qualms to his stomach, and
he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of dislike, and
sickness, and vomiting, presently accompany it, and he is disturbed;
but he knows from whence to date this weakness, and can tell how he got
this indisposition. Had this happened to him by an over-dose of honey
when a child, all the same effects would have followed; but the cause
would have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural.
8. Influence of association to be watched educating young children.
I mention this, not out of any great necessity there is in this present
argument to distinguish nicely between natural and acquired
antipathies; but I take notice of it for another purpose, viz. that
those who have children, or the charge of their education, would think
it worth their while diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent the
undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people. This is the time
most susceptible of lasting impressions; and though those relating to
the health of the body are by discreet people minded and fenced
against, yet I am apt to doubt, that those which relate more peculiarly
to the mind, and terminate in the understanding or passions, have been
much less heeded than the thing deserves: nay, those relating purely to
the understanding, have, as I suspect, been by most men wholly
overlooked.
9. Wrong connexion of ideas a great Cause of Errors.
This wrong connexion in our minds of ideas in themselves loose and
independent of one another, has such an influence, and is of so great
force to set us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural,
passions, reasonings, and notions themselves, that perhaps there is not
any one thing that deserves more to be looked after.
10. As instance.
The ideas of goblins and sprites have really no more to do with
darkness than light: yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often
on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he
shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives, but
darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and
they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the
other.
11. Another instance.
A man receives a sensible injury from another, thinks on the man and
that action over and over, and by ruminating on them strongly, or much,
in his mind, so cements those two ideas together, that he makes them
almost one; never thinks on the man, but the pain and displeasure he
suffered comes into his mind with it, so that he scarce distinguishes
them, but has as much an aversion for the one as the other. Thus
hatreds are often begotten from slight and innocent occasions, and
quarrels propagated and continued in the world.
12. A third instance.
A man has suffered pain or sickness in any place; he saw his friend die
in such a room: though these have in nature nothing to do one with
another, yet when the idea of the place occurs to his mind, it brings
(the impression being once made) that of the pain and displeasure with
it: he confounds them in his mind, and can as little bear the one as
the other.
13. Why Time cures some Disorders in the Mind, which Reason cannot
cure.
When this combination is settled, and while it lasts, it is not in the
power of reason to help us, and relieve us from the effects of it.
Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will operate according to
their natures and circumstances. And here we see the cause why time
cures certain affections, which reason, though in the right, and
allowed to be so, has not power over, nor is able against them to
prevail with those who are apt to hearken to it in other cases. The
death of a child that was the daily delight of its mother’s eyes, and
joy of her soul, rends from her heart the whole comfort of her life,
and gives her all the torment imaginable: use the consolations of
reason in this case, and you were as good preach ease to one on the
rack, and hope to allay, by rational discourses, the pain of his joints
tearing asunder. Till time has by disuse separated the sense of that
enjoyment and its loss, from the idea of the child returning to her
memory, all representations, though ever so reasonable, are in vain;
and therefore some in whom the union between these ideas is never
dissolved, spend their lives in mourning, and carry an incurable sorrow
to their graves.
14. Another instance of the Effect of the Association of Ideas.
A friend of mine knew one perfectly cured of madness by a very harsh
and offensive operation. The gentleman who was thus recovered, with
great sense of gratitude and acknowledgment owned the cure all his life
after, as the greatest obligation he could have received; but, whatever
gratitude and reason suggested to him, he could never bear the sight of
the operator: that image brought back with it the idea of that agony
which he suffered from his hands, which was too mighty and intolerable
for him to endure.
15. More instances.
Many children, imputing the pain they endured at school to their books
they were corrected for, so join those ideas together, that a book
becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the study and
use of them all their lives after; and thus reading becomes a torment
to them, which otherwise possibly they might have made the great
pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough, that some
men cannot study in, and fashions of vessels, which, though ever so
clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by reason of
some accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make them
offensive; and who is there that hath not observed some man to flag at
the appearance, or in the company of some certain person not otherwise
superior to him, but because, having once on some occasion got the
ascendant, the idea of authority and distance goes along with that of
the person, and he that has been thus subjected, is not able to
separate them.
16. A curious instance.
Instances of this kind are so plentiful everywhere, that if I add one
more, it is only for the pleasant oddness of it. It is of a young
gentleman, who, having learnt to dance, and that to great perfection,
there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where he learnt. The
idea of this remarkable piece of household stuff had so mixed itself
with the turns and steps of all his dances, that though in that chamber
he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilst that trunk was
there; nor could he perform well in any other place, unless that or
some such other trunk had its due position in the room. If this story
shall be suspected to be dressed up with some comical circumstances, a
little beyond precise nature, I answer for myself that I had it some
years since from a very sober and worthy man, upon his own knowledge,
as I report it; and I dare say there are very few inquisitive persons
who read this, who have not met with accounts, if not examples, of this
nature, that may parallel, or at least justify this.
17. Influence of Association on intellectual Habits.
Intellectual habits and defects this way contracted, are not less
frequent and powerful, though less observed. Let the ideas of being and
matter be strongly joined, either by education or much thought; whilst
these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings,
will there be about separate spirits? Let custom from the very
childhood have joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what
absurdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity? Let the idea
of infallibility be inseparably joined to any person, and these two
constantly together possess the mind; and then one body in two places
at once, shall unexamined be swallowed for a certain truth, by an
implicit faith, whenever that imagined infallible person dictates and
demands assent without inquiry.
18. Observable in the opposition between different Sects of philosophy
and of religion.
Some such wrong and unnatural combinations of ideas will be found to
establish the irreconcilable opposition between different sects of
philosophy and religion; for we cannot imagine every one of their
followers to impose wilfully on himself, and knowingly refuse truth
offered by plain reason. Interest, though it does a great deal in the
case, yet cannot be thought to work whole societies of men to so
universal a perverseness, as that every one of them to a man should
knowingly maintain falsehood: some at least must be allowed to do what
all pretend to, i.e. to pursue truth sincerely; and therefore there
must be something that blinds their understandings, and makes them not
see the falsehood of what they embrace for real truth. That which thus
captivates their reasons, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from
common sense, will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking
of: some independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by
education, custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in
their minds, that they always appear there together; and they can no
more separate them in their thoughts than if they were but one idea,
and they operate as if they were so. This gives sense to jargon,
demonstration to absurdities, and consistency to nonsense, and is the
foundation of the greatest, I had almost said of all the errors in the
world; or, if it does not reach so far, it is at least the most
dangerous one, since, so far as it obtains, it hinders men from seeing
and examining. When two things, in themselves disjoined, appear to the
sight constantly united; if the eye sees these things riveted which are
loose, where will you begin to rectify the mistakes that follow in two
ideas that they have been accustomed so to join in their minds as to
substitute one for the other, and, as I am apt to think, often without
perceiving it themselves? This, whilst they are under the deceit of it,
makes them incapable of conviction, and they applaud themselves as
zealous champions for truth, when indeed they are contending for error;
and the confusion of two different ideas, which a customary connexion
of them in their minds hath to them made in effect but one, fills their
heads with false views, and their reasonings with false consequences.
19. Conclusion.
Having thus given an account of the original, sorts, and extent of our
IDEAS, with several other considerations about these (I know not
whether I may say) instruments, or materials of our knowledge, the
method I at first proposed to myself would now require that I should
immediately proceed to show, what use the understanding makes of them,
and what KNOWLEDGE we have by them. This was that which, in the first
general view I had of this subject, was all that I thought I should
have to do: but, upon a nearer approach, I find that there is so close
a connexion between ideas and WORDS, and our abstract ideas and general
words have so constant a relation one to another, that it is impossible
to speak clearly and distinctly of our knowledge, which all consists in
propositions, without considering, first, the nature, use, and
signification of Language; which, therefore, must be the business of
the next Book.
END OF VOLUME I