V.

about absent objects of sense, (which, I believe, it is habitually CHA P.
in the great majority of mankind,) its train of thought is merely
a series of conceptions; or, in common language, of imagina-
tions *. In the cafe, too, of poetical imagination, it is the asso-
ciation of ideas that supplies the materials out of which its com-
binations are formed; and when fuch an imaginary combination
is become familiar to the mind, it is the affociation of ideas that
connects its different parts together, and unites them into one
whole. The affociation of ideas, therefore, although perfectly
diftinct from the power of imagination, is immediately and
effentially fubfervient to all its exertions.

THE last observation seems to me to point out, also, the circumftance which has led the greater part of English writers, to use the words Imagination and Fancy as fynonymous. It is obvious that a creative imagination, when a person poffeffes it fo habitually that it may be regarded as forming one of the characteristics of his genius, implies a power of summoning up, at pleasure, a particular class of ideas; and of ideas related to each other in a particular manner; which power can be the refult only, of certain habits of affociation, which the individual has acquired. It is to this power of the mind, which is evidently a particular turn of thought, and not one of the common principles of our nature, that our beft writers (fo far as I am able to judge) refer, in general, when they make use of the word fancy: I fay, in general; for in difquifitions of this

Accordingly, Hobbes calls the train of thought in the mind, "Confe"quentia five feries imaginationum." "Per feriem imaginationum intelligo "fucceffionem unius cogitationis ad aliam."-LEVIATHAN, cap. iii.

Oo 2

fort,

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V.

CHA P. fort, in which the best writers are seldom precife and steady in the employment of words, it is only to their prevailing practice that we can appeal as an authority. What the particular relations are, by which thofe ideas are connected that are fubfervient to poetical imagination, I shall not inquire at prefent. I think they are chiefly those of refemblance and analogy. But whatever they may be, the power of summoning them up at pleasure, as it is the ground-work of poetical genius, is of fufficient importance in the human conftitution to deferve an appropriated name; and, for this purpose, the word fancy would appear to be the most convenient that our language affords.

DR. REID has fomewhere obferved, that "the part of our "conftitution on which the affociation of ideas depends, was "called, by the older English writers, the fantafy or fancy;" an ufe of the word, we may remark, which coincides, in many inftances, with that which I propofe to make of it. It differs from it only in this, that these writers applied it to the affociation of ideas in general, whereas 1 reftrict its application to that habit of affociation, which is fubfervient to poetical imagination.

ACCORDING to the explanation which has now been given of the word Fancy, the office of this power is to collect materials for the Imagination; and therefore the latter power presupposes the former, while the former does not neceffarily fuppofe the latter. A man whofe habits of affociation prefent to him, for illuftrating or embellishing a

subject,

V.

fubject, a number of refembling or of analogous ideas, we call CHA D. a man of fancy; but for an effort of imagination, various other powers are neceffary, particularly the powers of taste and of judgment; without which, we can hope to produce nothing that will be a fource of pleasure to others. It is the power of fancy which supplies the poct with metaphorical language, and with all the analogies which are the foundation of his allufions; but it is the power of imagination that creates the complex fcenes he defcribes, and the fictitious characters he delineates. To fancy, we apply the epithets of rich or luxuriant; to ima gination, those of beautiful or fublime.

SECTION II.

Of the Principles of Affociation among our Ideas.

HE facts which I ftated in the former Section, to illuftrate

ΤΗ

the tendency of a perception, or of an idea, to suggest ideas related to it, are so obvious as to be matter of common remark. But the relations which connect all our thoughts together, and the laws which regulate their fucceffion, werebut little attended to before the publication of Mr. Hume's writings.

It is well known to those who are in the leaft converfant with the present ftate of metaphyfical science, that this eminent writer has attempted to reduce all the principles of affociation

among.

V.

CHA P. among our ideas to three: Refemblance, Contiguity in time and place, and Cause and Effect. The attempt was great, and worthy of his genius; but it has been fhewn by several writers fince his time, that his. enumeration is not only incomplete, but that it is even indiftinct, fo far as it goes.

It is not neceffary for my prefent purpose, that I should enter into a critical examination of this part of Mr. Hume's fyftem; or that I should attempt to specify those principles of affociation which he has omitted. Indeed, it does not feem to me, that the problem admits of a fatisfactory folution; for there is no poffible relation among the objects of our knowledge, which may not serve to connect them together in the mind; and, therefore, although one enumeration may be more comprehenfive than another, a perfectly complete enumeration is fcarcely to be expected.

*See, in particular, Lord Kaimes's Elements of Criticifm, and Dr. Gerard's Effay on Genius. See alfo Dr. Campbell's Philofophy of Rhetoric, vol. i. p. 197.

It is obferved by Dr. Beattie, that fomething like an attempt to enumerate the laws of affociation is to be found in Aristotle; who, in speaking of Recollection, infinuates, with his ufual brevity, that "the relations, by which we ❝are led from one thought to another, in tracing out, or hunting after," (as he calls it,)" any particular thought which does not immediately occur, are chiefly three; Refemblance, Contrariety, and Contiguity."

See Differtations, Moral and Critical, p. 9.

The paffage to which Dr. Beattie refers, is as follows:

Alfo p. 145

Ὅταν ὅν αναμιμνησκώμεθα, κινέμεθα των προτέρων τινα κινήσεων, έως αν κινηθώμεν, μεθ ̓ ἦν εκείνη ειωθε. Διο και το εφεξης θηρευομεν νοησαντες απο τα νυν, η αλλά τινος, και αφ όμοια, η εναντία, η τε συνεγγυς. Δια τέτο γίνεται η ανάμνησις.

ARISTOT. de Memor. et Reminife. vol. i. p. 681. Edit. DU VAL.

NOR

NOR is it merely in confequence of the relations among things, that our notions of them are affociated: they are frequently coupled together by means of relations among the words which denote them; fuch as a fimilarity of found, or other circumstances still more trifling. The alliteration which is fo common in poetry, and in proverbial fayings, feems to arise, partly at least, from associations of ideas founded on the accidental circumftance, of the two words which express them beginning with the fame letter.

"But thousands die, without or this or that,
"Die; and endow a College, or a Cat."

POPE'S Ep. to Lord BATHURST.

"Ward tried, on Puppies, and the Poor, his drop."
Id. Imitat. of HORACE.

This indeed pleases only on flight occafions, when it may be
supposed that the mind is in fome degree playful, and under the
influence of those principles of affociation which commonly take
place when we are careless and difengaged. Every person must
be offended with the fecond line of the following couplet, which
forms part of a very fublime defcription of the Divine power:

"Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
"As full, as perfect, in a Hair as Heart."

ESSAY ON MAN, Ep. i.

I HAVE already faid, that the view of the fubject which I propose to take, does not require a complete enumeration of our principles of affociation. There is, however, an important distinction among them, to which I fhall have occasion frequently to refer; and which, fo far as I know, has not hitherto attracted the notice

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