The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull
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associated kind in some degree. How many, how very many of them are like the peaches we have mentioned, chiefly agreeable or disagreeable in consequence of some things united with them, that do not belong to them? We can scarcely name any one that offers itself quite pure and unmixed; or which has no constituent parts of the kind we are now speaking of. But affections, that is, desires or aversions, will always be proportioned to the good or evil qualities comprehended in the ideas by which they are excited.
Where this necessarily happens.
It is the necessary effect of the world’s being governed by general uniform laws.
Natural philosophy consists in a great measure, in separating associations which the order of nature necessarily produces in our minds.
Separating associations one great business in moral philosophy.
That few or none of our ideas can escape some mixture by association, if we are not continually upon our guard to prevent it, is obvious. For where the law of association takes place, the concomitant circumstances in which ideas have frequently occurred to the mind, must become constant parts or attendants of these ideas, if we are not assiduously upon the watch against such association. This is the natural result, or rather the direct meaning of the law. But, what is the whole frame and course of nature, or what else indeed can it be but a constant occasion to us of association, i.e. of mixture or coherence of ideas? It cannot but be so, because no idea can be presented to the mind singly, that is, without preceeding, concomitant and succeeding circumstances; and in a world governed by uniform laws, and filled with beings of analogous natures and employments, no idea can fail of being often presented to the mind in the same or like circumstances. There are many associations that are entirely of our own<87> making; but, suppose we made none, it would be sufficient employment for us, either in order to have true knowledge or well proportioned affections, to be incessantly upon our guard to prevent the blendings and cohesions of ideas, that the regular course of things in the world naturally tends, in consequence of the law of association, to form or engender in our minds. Every one who is acquainted with philosophy, knows, that the great difficulty in attaining to the true knowledge of things, take its rise from the difficulty of separating ideas into the parts that naturally belong to one another, and those which are added by association. For without such analysis, no object can be defined, distinguished, nor consequently examined, and so understood. And yet ideas, in consequence of the law of association, must, from the very beginning of our existence, so blend and mix with others totally and essentially distinct from them, that it must become extreamly difficult not to confound together qualities that being different, can never be philosophised about, till we are not only able to distinguish them, but to keep them before the mind without intermingling and quite separate. In reality, the greater part of philosophy consists in separating ideas, that the natural course of things, in consequence of the law of association, hath conjoined, or rather confounded. Many instances might be given to prove this, were it at all necessary. The jangling about beauty among philosophers, whether it is distinct or not from utility, is a sufficient proof of it; and yet into what science does not this dispute necessarily enter? There is no reasoning about poetry, painting, or any of the polite arts, or indeed about morality, without being led into it. But what sufficiently proves it, is the difficulty most persons find in their entrance upon philosophy in distinguishing the qualities perceived by any one sense from those perceived by any other. How few, not very much accustomed to philosophy, are not startled to hear that<88> distance is not an idea of sight, but an idea of touch suggested by ideas of sight! And yet, till this is clearly understood, and the difference is become familiar to the mind, it is impossible to have a clear notion of very many important truths in perspective and optics. But if philosophers find a difficulty arising from the effect of the law of association in analysing ideas; we all find a much greater one from the same source in the conduct of the passions. For here, how difficult, how extreamly difficult is it to separate associations early made and long unquestioned? Or, what indeed is the whole of our labour in regulating the passions; in correcting, reforming, or directing them; but an endeavour to render our passions suitable and proportioned to the natures of things, as they are in themselves distinguished from all wrong associations? What else is discipline or government with respect to the love of wealth, of power, of show, of fame; or any one of our desires private or public, but an effort to have just opinions of objects; and so to have affections suitable to their true values? But, how can we have suitable affections till their true values are known ? And, how can the true values of objects be ascertained, till the ideas of them are scrutinized, and every superadded ingredient by association is separated from the qualities that belong to the thing itself? Then only can the objects themselves be understood, or their moments be measured either with respect to quantity or duration.
This must needs be the effect of general laws upon minds made likewise to associate ideas.
Now, I say, a great number of those associations, which it is of such importance either in philosophy or moral conduct to be able to distinguish to be such, are the necessary effects of the law of association, in consequence of the natural course of things, which we cannot alter. And it is no otherwise therefore in our power to prevent them, than by constant attendance to the manner in which ideas enter, and so are apt to mix or cohere; or by assiduous practice<89> in examining our ideas daily received. For the circumstances in which ideas are presented to us, are in many instances absolutely independent of us. And yet such is the nature of the law of association, that ideas, ever so few times offered to us in certain circumstances, have a tendency as often as they return, whether by being recalled by our own will, or without being so recalled, to return with more or fewer of the circumstances with which they had formerly occurred. But a late excellent author hath so fully treated of association, so far especially as the conduct of the passions is concerned, that I need not be more particular.a
These difficulties arising from the law of association, are no objections against its fitness.
IV. But perhaps it will be said, that what hath hitherto been suggested, is rather an objection against the law under consideration, than a defence of it. For are not all the difficulties it necessarily involves us in, so many evils or inconveniencies arising from it?
But let us observe the concatenation of things with regard to the human make, or how the several laws of the moral world hang and must hang together. Knowledge must, in the nature of things, be progressive; and our excellence consists in its being acquirable gradually by our own industry to improve in it. The laws of nature make it necessary that we should come into the world with infant bodies; and the law of progressiveness makes it necessary that we should enter into the world with infant minds; and in this respect, the laws of matter and motion, and the laws of the moral world, are admirably adjusted one to another. But if the law of association likewise take place with these other laws; then, in consequence of all these laws operating together, it is impossible but several associations of ideas must be formed in our minds, before reason is grown up by culture, and we are able to attend to the entrance of our ideas, and the manner<90> in which they associate; that is, mix, join and cohere. The course of nature’s laws with respect to the material world, is found, upon enquiry, to be very regular, beautiful and good, the best that can be conceived. But any uniform course of things must produce associations of ideas, in minds where that aptitude called the associating one obtains. Now that the law of association is an excellent law, has been already proved: it is The law of improvement to perfection.
But its fitness and goodness will yet more fully appear from the following considerations.
Several good effects of this law.
Without it we could never become acquainted with the course of nature; every thing would for ever be new to us.
I. It is plainly in consequence of this law, that we so quickly learn the connexions established by nature between the ideas of different senses, those of the sight and touch, for instance; so as that we are very soon able, even in our infant state, to judge of such appearances and connexions with great facility, ease and quickness, and with as great accuracy as the exigencies of our life require. Those connexions and appearances, by which we judge immediately of magnitudes, distances, forms, and other qualities, may be called the language of nature, signifying these qualities. And it is by means of the law of association, that appearances,