One of the grand defects of the whole theory consists in accounting by association of ideas for what is assuredly a different process, for judgment, for judgment proceeding on a knowledge of things.At no other point do we see so clearly the tendency of the whole school to degrade the dignity and undermine the trustworthiness of the human intellect.
By this indissoluble association he can account easily for our belief in causation." I hear words in the street,--<event>; some one of course is making them, -- <antecedent>.
My house is broken and my goods are gone, -- event; a thief has taken them, -- <antecedent>.This is that remarkable case of association in which the association is inseparable." " We cannot think of the one without thinking of the other." Once more the essential element is left out; we not only have an idea, we judge, decide, and believe; and when we judge, decide, and believe, that everywhere, at all times, and for ever, an event has and must have a cause, the process seems to me to be justifiable, but to involve an intuitive principle.Mr.
John Stuart Mill is only following out the principles advocated by his father, when he holds that there may be worlds {385} in which two and two make five, and in which there may be an effect without a cause.In another subject James Mill has led his son to a point where the father has stopped, while the son has gone on." In my belief, then, of the existence of an object, there is included the belief that, in such and such circumstances, I should have such and such sensations.Is there any thing more?" "I not only believe that I shall see St.Paul's church-yard, but Ibelieve that I should see it if I were in St.Paul's church-yard this instant." This is on the very verge of the son's definition of body and of mind.We see how needful it is to examine the fundamental assumptions of a philosophy which has culminated in such results, and is undermining our belief in the reality of things.
In Chap.XII.we have a short and feeble account of ratiocination, in which he proceeds on the syllogistic analysis without comprehending the principles involved in it.He takes as his example, " All men are animals.Kings are men.Therefore kings are animals; " and he shows that in all this there is only association, and the belief which is part of it.In the proposition "kings are men," the belief is merely the recognition that the individuals named kings are part of the many of whom men is the common name."Kings"is associated with "all men," " all men " with " animals; "" kings," therefore, with animals.The account of evidence, in the short chapter which succeeds, is merely a summation of what had gone before, and is exceedingly meagre.
He now turns (Chap.XIV.) to "names requiring particular explanations," and explains, according to his theory of sensations and ideas, such profound subjects as relations, numbers, time, motion, identity.Mr.Bain represents him as here "endeavoring to express the most fundamental fact of consciousness, the necessity of change or transition from one state to another, in order to our being conscious.He approaches very near to, without exactly touching, the inference, that all consciousness, all sensation, all knowledge, must be of <doubles>," as if we could not have a sensation of pain till there is a change into pleasure, or of pleasure till we have also pain.This is to reverse the natural process in which we have first the individuals, and thus and then discover relations between them, -- it may be, many and varied, according to the knowledge we previously have of {386} the individuals.
According to Mill, that a feeling of red and a feeling of blue is "different and known to be so, are not two things but one and the same thing;" thus doing away with all relation, in fact with all comparison and judgment, and reasoning as founded on comparison."Space is a mere abstract term formed by dropping the connotation.Linear extension is the idea of a line, the connotation dropped;that is, the idea of resisting dropped." We ask what is the line? Infinite is the concrete term, here denoting line:
drop the connotation, and you have infinity, the abstract."It is a convenient but certainly a most fallacious way of reducing realities to nonentities.Time is "pastness, presentness, and futureness" joined by association; but he can render no account of pastness, presentness, and futureness.The idea of motion and the idea of extension are the same.Identity is merely the name of a certain case of belief." Reflection (Chap.XV.) is nothing; but consciousness is the having the sensations and ideas:" most people would say it is a knowledge of self, as having an idea, a sensation, or some other mental exercise.