apr 7, 2011 graphene transistor shines on diamond - like substrate diamond - like carbon could be an ideal substrate for graphene transistors. so say researchers in the us who have made advanced devices with a record - high cut - off frequency of 155 ghz and the shortest gate length ever of just 40 nm. the field - effect transistors, which also function all of the way down to temperatures as low as 4. 3 k, operate at radio frequencies and so could be used in wireless communications. graphene is a flat sheet of carbon just one atom thick that conducts electrons at extremely high speeds. indeed, the electrons behave like relativistic particles with no rest mass. this, and other unusual physical properties, means that graphene is often touted to replace silicon as the electronic material of choice and might be used to make faster transistors than any that exist today. transistors made from graphene could be used in radio - frequency microelectronic devices for wireless communications. these devices can be made by transferring high - quality graphene sheets, produced by a technique called chemical vapour deposition ( cvd ), onto a suitable, insulating substrate – such as silicon dioxide. however, the problem is that the substrate can severely degrade the electronic properties of graphene because of scattering of charge carriers ( electrons and holes ) in graphene. this scattering, which drastically limits the speed of the electrons and holes, comes about due to interactions between graphene and the dielectric substrate material. diamond - like, but cheap now, phaedon avouris and colleagues at the ibm thomas j. watson research center, new york, may now have come up with an answer to this challenge. the team used diamond - like carbon as the top layer of the substrate, with the carbon atop a standard silicon wafer. diamond - like carbon is already widely used in the semiconductor industry and is created by chemical vapour deposition ( cvd ). it is a non - polar dielectric material, which means that it does not trap charges nor does it scatter charge as much as silicon dioxide does. it is also cheap to make in large areas ; does not absorb much water ; and has excellent thermal conductivity. “ the cut - off frequency we obtained is the highest so far for transistors made from cvd - graphene, ” avouris said. “ however, it is not, by far, the limit of what can be achieved because the quality of the cvd -


the following html text is provided to enhance online readability. many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to html. please use the page image as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy. science evolution and creationism biological evolution is the centralorganizing principle of modern biology. the study of biological evolution has transformed our understanding of life on this planet. evolution provides a scientific explanation for why there are so many different kinds of organisms on earth and how all organisms on this planet are part of an evolutionary lineage. it demonstrates why some organisms that look quite different are in fact related, while other organisms that may look similar are only distantly related. it accounts for the appearance of humans on earth and reveals our species ’ biological connections with other living things. it details how different groups of humans are related to each other and how we acquired many of our traits. it enables the development of effective new ways to protect ourselves against constantly evolving bacteria and viruses. [ trait : a physicalor behavioralcharacteristic ofan organism. ] biological evolution refers to changes in the traits of organisms over multiple generations. until the development of the science of genetics at the beginning of the 20th century, biologists did not understand the mechanisms responsible for the inheritance of traits from parents to offspring. the study of genetics showed that heritable traits originate from the dna that is passed from one generation to the next. dna contains segments called genes that direct the production of proteins required for the growth and function of cells. genes also orchestrate the development of a single - celled egg into a multicellular organism. dna is therefore responsible for the continuity of biological form and function across generations. [ dna : deoxyribonucleic acid. a biological molecule composedof subunits knownas nucleotides strungtogether in long chains. the sequences of thesenucleotides contain theinformation that cellsneed in order to grow, to divide into daughtercells, and to manufacture new proteins. ] [ protein : a largemolecule consisting ofa chain of smaller molecules called aminoacids. the sequenceof amino acids andthe molecule ’ s three - dimensional structuredetermine a protein ’ sspecific function incells or organisms. ] however, offspring are not always exactly like their parents. most organisms in any species, including humans, are genetically variable to some extent. in sexually reproducing species, where each parent contributes only one - half of its genetic information to its offspring ( the offspring receives the full amount of genetic information


| abstract | | this paper focuses on the relation between logic and ontology. in particular, it demonstrates how classical logical theory can clarify the ontological part of ludwig wittgenstein ’ s tractatus logico - philosophicus. to this end, the work examines the adequacy of a formal system that was devised by the polish logician, mathematician and philosopher roman suszko ( 1919 – 1979 ) as a model for the tractatus. following a brief explanation of the tractarian ontology, the main ideas of suszko ’ s system and its philosophical significance will be considered. the latter will be illustrated in the context of central tractarian concepts. finally, two implications for a better understanding of the tractarian ontology will be pointed out. | | keywords | | no keywords specified ( fix it ) | | through your library | | configure | similar books and articles maria cerezo ( 2005 ). the possibility of language : internal tensions in wittgenstein ' s tractatus. center for the study of language and information. colin johnston ( 2007 ). the unity of a tractarian fact. synthese 156 ( 2 ) : 231 - 251. leo k. c. cheung ( 2008 ). the disenchantment of nonsense : understanding wittgenstein ' s tractatus. philosophical investigations 31 ( 3 ) : 197 – 226. barry smith & david murray ( 1981 ). logic, form and matter. aristotelian society supplementary volume 55 : 47 - 74. maria cerezo ( 1998 ). nombrar kripkeano versus nombrar tractariano : un intento de demarcacion ( tractarian naming versus kripkean naming : similarities and differences ). theoria 13 ( 3 ) : 427 - 444. colin johnston ( 2009 ). tractarian objects and logical categories. synthese 167 ( 1 ) : 145 - 161. colin johnston ( 2007 ). symbols in wittgenstein ' s tractatus. european journal of philosophy 15 ( 3 ) : 367 - 394. e. d. klemke ( 1971 ). essays on wittgenstein. urbana, university of illinois press. hugh miller ( 1995 ). tractarian semantics for predicate logic. history and philosophy of logic 16 ( 2 ) : 197 - 215. added to index2009 - 01 - 28 total downloads28 ( # 44, 043 of 549, 014 ) recent downloads ( 6 months )


, contradiction, cause and effect, means and end, genus and species, part and whole, substance and property, early and late, large and small, landlord and tenant, master and servant, - - heaven knows what, for the list is literally inexhaustible. the only simplification which could possibly be aimed at would be the reduction of the relations to a smaller number of types, like those which such authors as kant and renouvier call the ' categories ' of the understanding. according as we followed one category or another we should sweep, with our thought, through the world in this way or in that. and all the categories would be logical, would be relations of reason. they would fuse the items into a continuum. were this the sort of connection sought between one moment of our thinking and another, our chapter might end here. for the only summary description of these infinite possibilities of transition, is that they are all acts of reason, and that the mind proceeds from one object to another by some rational path of connection. the trueness of this formula is only equalled by its sterility, for psychological purposes. practically it amounts to simply referring the inquirer to the relations between facts or things, and to telling him that his thinking follows them. but as a matter of fact, his thinking only sometimes follows them, and these so - called ' transitions of reason ' are far from being all alike reasonable. if pure thought runs all our trains, why should she run some so fast and some so slow, some through dull flats and some through [ p. 552 ] gorgeous scenery, some to mountain - heights and jewelled mines, others through dismal swamps and darkness? - - and run some off the track altogether, and into the wilderness of lunacy? why do we spend years straining after a certain scientific or practical problem, but all in vain - - thought refusing to evoke the solution we desire? and why, some day, walking in the street with our attention miles away from that quest, does the answer saunter into our minds as carelessly as if it had never been called for - - suggested, possibly, by the flowers on the bonnet of the lady in front of us, or possibly by nothing that we can discover? if reason can give us relief then, why did she not do so earlier? the truth must be admitted that thought works under conditions imposed ab extra. the great law of habit itself - - that twenty experiences make us recall a thing better than one, that


of thought, the obstructive preprocessions, the frustrations of reason. this they found in the law of habit, or what we now call association by contiguity. but it never occurred to these writers that a process which could go the length of actually producing some ideas and sequences in the mind might safely be trusted to produce others too ; and that those habitual associations which further thought may also come from the same mechanical source as those which hinder it. hartley accordingly suggested habit as a sufficient explanation of all connections of our thoughts, and in so doing planted himself squarely upon the properly psychological aspect of the problem of connection, and sought to treat both rational and irrational connections from a single point of view. the problem which he essayed, however lamely, to answer, was that of the connection between our psychic states considered purely as such, regardless of the objective connections of which they might take cognizance. how does a man come, after thinking of a, to think of b the next moment? or how does he come to think a and b always together? these were the phenomena which hartley undertook to explain by cerebral physiology. i believe that he was, in many essential respects, on the right track, and i propose simply to revise his conclusions by the aid of distinctions which he did not make. but the whole historic doctrine of psychological association is tainted with one huge error - - that of the construction of our thoughts out of the compounding of themselves together of immutable and incessantly recurring ' simple ideas. ' it is the cohesion of these which the ' principles of [ p. 554 ] association ' are considered to account for. in chapters vi and ix we saw abundant reasons for treating the doctrine of simple ideas or psychic atoms as mythological ; and, in all that follows, our problem will be to keep whatever truths the associationist doctrine has caught sight of without weighing it down with the untenable incumbrance that the association is between ' ideas. ' association, so far as the word stands for an effect, is between things thought of - - it is things, not ideas, which are associated in the mind. we ought to talk of the association of objects, not of the association of ideas. and so far as association stands for a cause, it is between processes in the brain - - it is these which, by being associated in certain ways, determine what successive objects shall be thought. let us proceed towards our final generalization by surveying first a few familiar


of their appearance complete, so soon as we think of any one of their component parts. some persons, in reciting printed matter by heart, will seem to see each successive word, before they utter it, appear in its order on an imaginary page. a certain chess - player, one of those heroes who train themselves to play several games at once blindfold, is reported to say that in bed at night after a match the games are played all over again before his mental eye, each board being pictured as passing in turn through each of its successive stages. in this case, of course, the intense previous voluntary strain of the power of visual representation is what facilitated the fixed order of revival. association occurs as amply between impressions of different senses as between homogeneous sensations. seen things and heard things cohere with each other, and with odors and tastes, in representation, in the same order in which they cohered as impressions of the outer world. feelings of contact reproduce similarly the sights, sounds, and tastes with which experience has associated them. in fact, the ' objects ' of our perception, as trees, men, houses, microscopes, of which the real world seems composed, are nothing but clusters of qualities which through simultaneous stimulation have so coalesced that the moment one is excited actually it serves as a sign or cue for the idea of the others to arise. let a person enter his room in the [ p. 556 ] dark and grope among the objects there. the touch of the matches will instantaneously recall their appearance. if his hand comes in contact with an orange on the table, the golden yellow of the fruit, its savor and perfume will forthwith shoot through his mind. in passing the hand over the sideboard or in jogging the coal - scuttle with the foot, the large glossy dark shape of the one and the irregular blackness of the other awaken like a flash and constitute what we call the recognition of the objects. the voice of the violin faintly echoes through the mind as the hand is laid upon it in the dark, and the feeling of the garments or draperies which may hang about the room is not understood till the look correlative to the feeling has in each case been resuscitated. smells notoriously have the power of recalling the other experiences in whose company they were wont to be felt, perhaps long years ago ; and the voluminous emotional character assumed by the images which suddenly pour into the mind at such a time forms one of the staple topics of


power of recalling the other experiences in whose company they were wont to be felt, perhaps long years ago ; and the voluminous emotional character assumed by the images which suddenly pour into the mind at such a time forms one of the staple topics of popular psychologic wonder - - " lost and gone and lost and gone! a breath, a whisper - - some divine farewell - - desolate sweetness - - far and far away. " we cannot hear the din of a railroad train or the yell of its whistle, without thinking of its long, jointed appearance and its headlong speed, nor catch a familiar voice in a crowd without recalling, with the name of the speaker, also his face. but the most notorious and important case of the mental combination of auditory with optical impressions originally experienced together is furnished by language. the child is offered a new and delicious fruit and is at the same time told that it is called a ' fig. ' or looking out of the window he exclaims, " what a funny horse! " and is told that it is a ' piebald ' horse. when learning his letters, the sound of each is repeated to him whilst its shape is before his eye. thenceforward, long as he may live, he will never see a fig, a piebald horse, or a letter of the alphabet without the name which he first heard in conjunction with each clinging to it in his mind ; and inversely he will [ p. 557 ] never hear the name without the faint arousal of the image of the object. the rapidity of association. reading exemplifies this kind of cohesion even more beautifully. it is an uninterrupted and protracted recall of sounds by sights which have always been coupled with them in the past. i find that i can name six hundred letters in two minutes on a printed page. five distinct acts of association between sight and sound ( not to speak of all the other processes concerned ) must then have occurred in each second in my mind. in reading entire words the speed is much more rapid. valentin relates in his physiology that the reading of a single page of the proof, containing 2629 letters, took him 1 minute and 32 seconds. in this experiment each letter was understood in 1 / 28 of a second, but owing to the integration of letters into entire words, forming each a single aggregate impression directly associated with a single acoustic image, we need not suppose as many as 28 separate associations in a sound. the figures, however, suffi


system, when any single point or group of points is touched off. but where the original impressions were successive - - the conjugation of [ p. 563 ] a greek verb, for example - - awakening nerve - tracts in a definite order, they will now, when one of them awakens, discharge into each other in that definite order and in no other way. the reader will recollect all that has been said of increased tension in nerve - tracts and of the summation of stimuli ( p. 82 ff. ). we must therefore suppose that in these ideational tracts as well as elsewhere, activity may be awakened, in any particular locality, by the summation therein of a number of tensions, each incapable alone of provoking an actual discharge. suppose for example the locality m to be in functional continuity with four other localities, k, l, n, and o. suppose moreover that on four previous occasions it has been separately combined with each of these localities in a common activity. m may then be indirectly awakened by any cause which tends to awaken either k, l, n, or o. but if the cause which awakens k, for instance, be so slight as only to increase its tension without arousing it to full discharge, k will only succeed in slightly increasing the tension of m. but if at the same time the tensions of l, n, and o are similarly increased, the combined effects of all four upon m may be so great as to awaken an actual discharge in this latter locality. in like manner if the paths between m and the four other localities have been so slightly excavated by previous experience as to require a very intense excitement in either of the localities before m can be awakened, a less strong excitement than this in any one will fail to reach m. but if all four at once are mildly excited, their compound effect on m may be adequate to its full arousal. the psychological law of association of objects thought of through their previous contiguity in thought or experience would thus be an effect, within the mind, of the physical fact that nerve - currents propagate themselves easiest through those tracts of conduction which have been already most in use. descartes and locke hit upon this explanation, which modern science has not yet succeeded in improving. " custom, " says locke, " settles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body ; all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits


yet succeeded in improving. " custom, " says locke, " settles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body ; all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits [ p. 564 ] [ by this locke meant identically what we understand by neural processes ] which, once set agoing, 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. " hartley was more thorough in his grasp of the principle. the sensorial nerve - currents, produced when objects are fully present, were for him ' vibrations, ' and those which produce ideas of objects in their absence were ' miniature vibrations. ' and he sums up the cause of mental association in a single formula by saying : " any vibrations, a, b, c, etc., by being associated together a sufficient number of times, get such a power over a, b, c, etc., the corresponding miniature vibrations, that any of the vibrations a, when impressed alone, shall be able to excite b, c, etc., the miniatures of the rest. " it is evident that if there be any law of neural habit similar to this, the contiguities, coexistences, and successions, met with in outer experience, must inevitably be copied more or less perfectly in our thought. if a b c d e be a sequence of outer impressions ( they may be events [ p. 565 ] or they may be successively experienced properties of an object ) which once gave rise to the successive ' ideas, ' a b c d e, then no sooner will a impress us again and awaken the a, than b c d e will arise as ideas even before b c d e have come in as impressions. in other words, the order of impressions will the next time be anticipated ; and the mental order will so far forth copy the order of the outer world. any object when met again will make us expect its former concomitants, through the overflowing of its brain - tract into the paths which lead to theirs. and all these suggestions will be effects of a material law. where the associations are, as here, of successively appearing things, the distinction i made at the outset of the chapter, between a connection thought of and a connection of thoughts, is unimportant. for the connection thought of is


material law. where the associations are, as here, of successively appearing things, the distinction i made at the outset of the chapter, between a connection thought of and a connection of thoughts, is unimportant. for the connection thought of is concomitance or succession ; and the connection between the thoughts is just the same. the ' objects ' and the ' ideas ' fit into parallel schemes, and may be described in identical language, as contiguous things tending to be thought again together, or contiguous ideas tending to recur together. now were these cases fair samples of all association, the distinction i drew might well be termed a spitzfindigkeit or piece of pedantic hair - splitting, and be dropped. but as a matter of fact we cannot treat the subject so simply. the same outer object may suggest either of many realities formerly associated with it - - for in the vicissitudes of our outer experience we are constantly liable to meet the same thing in the midst of differing companions - - and a philosophy of association that should merely say that it will suggest one of these, or even of that one of them which it has oftenest accompanied, would go but a very short way into the rationale of the subject. this, however, is about as far as most associationists have gone with their ' principle of contiguity. ' granted an object, a, they never tell us beforehand which of its associates it will suggest ; their wisdom is limited to showing, after it has suggested a second object, that that object was once an associate. they have had to supplement their principle of contiguity by other princi - [ p. 566 ] ples, such as those of similarity and contrast, before they could begin to do justice to the richness of the facts. the elementary law of association. i shall try to show, in the pages which immediately follow, that there is no other elementary causal law of association than the law of neural habit. all the materials of our thought are due to the way in which one elementary process of the cerebral hemispheres tends to excite whatever other elementary process it may have excited at some former time. the number of elementary processes at work, however, and the nature of those which at any time are fully effective in rousing the others, determine the character of the total brain - action, and, as a consequence of this, they determine the object thought of at the time. according as this resultant object is one thing or another, we


time are fully effective in rousing the others, determine the character of the total brain - action, and, as a consequence of this, they determine the object thought of at the time. according as this resultant object is one thing or another, we call it a product of association by contiguity or of association by similarity, or contrast, or whatever other sorts we may have recognized as ultimate. its production, however, is, in each one of these cases, to be explained by a merely quantitative variation in the elementary brain - processes momentarily at work under the law of habit, so that psychic contiguity, similarity, etc., are derivatives of a single profounder kind of fact. my thesis, stated thus briefly, will soon become more clear ; and at the same time certain disturbing factors, which co - operate with the law of neural habit, will come to view. let us then assume as the basis of all our subsequent reasoning this law : when two elementary brain - processes have been active together or in immediate succession, one of them, on reoccurring, tends to propagate its excitement into the other. but, as a matter of fact, every elementary process has found itself at different times excited in conjunction with many other processes, and this by unavoidable outward causes. which of these others it shall awaken now becomes a problem. shall b or c be aroused next by the present a? we must make a further postulate, based, however, on the fact of tension in nerve - tissue, and on the fact [ p. 567 ] of summation of excitements, each incomplete or latent in itself, into an open resultant. the process b, rather than c, will awake, if in addition to the vibrating tract a some other tract d is in a state of sub - excitement, and formerly was excited with b alone and not with a. in short, we may say : the amount of activity at any given point in the brain - cortex is the sum of the tendencies of all other points to discharge into it, such tendencies being proportionate ( 1 ) to the number of times the excitement of each other point may have accompanied that of the point in question ; ( 2 ) to the intensity of such excitements ; and ( 3 ) to the absence of any rival point functionally disconnected with the first point, into which the discharges might be diverted. expressing the fundamental law in this most complicated way leads to the greatest ultimate simplification. let us, for


and ( 3 ) to the absence of any rival point functionally disconnected with the first point, into which the discharges might be diverted. expressing the fundamental law in this most complicated way leads to the greatest ultimate simplification. let us, for the present, only treat of spontaneous trains of thought and ideation, such as occur in revery or musing. the case of voluntary thinking toward a certain end shall come up later. take, to fix our ideas, the two verses from ' locksley hall ' : " i, the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time, " " for i doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs. " why is it that when we recite from memory one of these lines, and get as far as the ages, that portion of the other lines which follows, and, so to speak, sprouts out of the ages, does not also sprout out of our memory, and confuse the sense of our words? simply because the word that follows the ages has its brain - process awakened not simply by the brain - process of the ages alone, but by it plus the brain - processes of all the words preceding the ages. the word ages at its moment of strongest activity would, per se, indifferently discharge into either ' in ' or ' one. ' so would the previous words ( whose tension is momentarily much less stronger than that of ages ) each of them indifferently dis - [ p. 568 ] charge into either of a large number of other words with which they have been at different times combined. but when the processes of ' i, the heir of all the ages, ' simultaneously vibrate in the brain, the last one of them in a maximal, the others in a fading phase of excitement ; then the strongest line of discharge will be that which they all alike tend to take. ' in ' and not ' one ' or any other word will be the next to awaken, for its brain - process has previously vibrated in unison not only with that of ages, but with that of all those other words whose activity is dying away. it is a good case of the effectiveness over thought of what we called on p. 258 a ' fringe. ' but if some one of these preceding words - - ' heir, ' for example - - had an intensely strong association with some brain - tracts entirely disjoined in experience from the poem of ' locksley hall ' - - if the reciter, for instance, were tremulous


past experience, it must still be confessed that an immense number of terms in the linked chain of our representations fall outside of all assignable rule. to take the instance of the clock given on page 586. why did the jeweller ' s shop suggest the shirt - studs rather than a chain which i had brought there more recently, which had cost more, and whose sentimental associations were much more interesting? both chain and studs had excited brain - tracts simultaneously with the shop. the only reason why the nerve - stream from the shop - tract switched off into the stud - tract rather than into the chain - tract must be that the stud - tract happened at that moment to lie more open, either because of some accidental alteration in its nutrition or because the incipient sub - conscious tensions of the brain as a whole had so distributed their equilibrium that it was more unstable here than in the chain - tract. any reader ' s introspection will easily furnish similar instances. it thus remains true that to a certain extent, even in those forms of ordinary mixed association which lie nearest to impartial redintegration, which associate of the interesting item shall emerge must be called largely a matter of accident - - accident, that is, for our intelligence. no doubt it is determined by cerebral causes, but they are too subtile and shifting for our analysis. [ p. 578 ] association by similarity. in partial or mixed associations we have all along supposed the interesting portion of the disappearing thought to be of considerable extent, and to be sufficiently complex to constitute by itself a concrete object. sir william hamilton relates, for instance, that after thinking of ben lomond he found himself thinking of the prussian system of education, and discovered that the links of association were a german gentleman whom he had met on ben lomond, germany, etc. the interesting part of ben lomond, as he had experienced it, the part operative in determining the train of his ideas was the complex image of a particular man. but now let us suppose that that selective agency of interested attention, which may thus convert impartial redintegration into partial association - - let us suppose that it refines itself still further and accentuates a portion of the passing thought, so small as to be no longer the image of a concrete thing, but only of an abstract quality or property. let us moreover suppose that the part thus accentuated persists in consciousness ( or, in cerebral terms, has its brain - process continue ) after the other portions of the thought


image of a concrete thing, but only of an abstract quality or property. let us moreover suppose that the part thus accentuated persists in consciousness ( or, in cerebral terms, has its brain - process continue ) after the other portions of the thought have faded. this small surviving portion will then surround itself with its own associates after the fashion we have already seen, and the relation between the new thought ' s object and the object of the faded thought will be a relation of similarity. the pair of thoughts will form an instance of what is called ' association by similarity. ' the similars which are here associated, or of which the first is followed by the second in the mind, are seen to be compounds. experience proves that this is always the [ p. 579 ] case. there is no tendency on the part of simple ' ideas, ' attributes, or qualities to remind us of their like. the thought of one shade of blue does not remind us of that of another shade of blue, etc., unless indeed we have in mind some general purpose like naming the tint, when we should naturally think of other blues of the scale, through ' mixed association ' of purpose, names, and tints, together. but there is no elementary tendency of pure qualities to awaken their similars in the mind. we saw in the chapter on discrimination that two compound things are similar when some one quality or group of qualities is shared alike by both, although as regards their other qualities they may have nothing in common. the moon is similar to a gas - jet, it is also similar to a football ; but a gas - jet and a foot - ball are not similar to each other. when we affirm the similarity of two compound things, we should always say in what respect it obtains. moon and gas - jet are similar in respect of luminosity, and nothing else ; moon and foot - ball in respect of rotundity, and nothing else. foot - ball and gas - jet are in no respect similar - - that is, they possess no common point, no identical attribute. similarity, in compounds, is partial identity. when the same attribute appears in two phenomena, though it be their only common property, the two phenomena are similar is so far forth. to return now to our associated representations. if the thought of the moon is succeeded by the thought of a foot - ball, and that by the thought of one of mr. x ' s railroads, it is because the attribute rotundity in the moon broke


now to our associated representations. if the thought of the moon is succeeded by the thought of a foot - ball, and that by the thought of one of mr. x ' s railroads, it is because the attribute rotundity in the moon broke away from all the rest and surrounded itself with an entirely new set of companions - - elasticity, leathery integument, swift mobility in obedience to human caprice, etc. ; and because the last - named attribute in the foot - ball in turn broke away from its companions, and, itself persisting, surrounded itself with such new attributes as make up the notions of a ' railroad king, ' of a rising and falling stock - market, and the like. the gradual passage from impartial redintegration to similar association through what we have called ordinary mixed association may be symbolized by diagrams. fig. 41 is impartial redintegration, fig. 42 is mixed, and fig. 43 [ p. 580 ] similar association. a in each is the passing, b the coming thought. in ' impartial, ' all parts of a are equally operative in calling up b. in ' mixed, ' most parts of a are inert. the part m alone breaks out and awakens b. in ' similar, ' the focalized part m is much smaller than in the previous case, and after awakening its new set of associates, instead of fading out itself, it continues persistently active along with them, forming an identical part in the two ideas, and making these, pro tanto, resemble each other. why a single portion of the passing thought should break out from its concert with the rest and act, as we say, on its own hook, why the other parts should become inert, are mysteries which we can ascertain but not explain. possibly a minuter insight into the laws of neural action will [ p. 581 ] some day clear the matter up ; possibly neural laws will not suffice, and we shall need to invoke a dynamic reaction of the form of consciousness upon its content. but into this we cannot enter now. to sum up, then, we see that the difference between the three kinds of association reduces itself to a simple difference in the amount of that portion of the nerve - tract supporting the going thought which is operative in calling up the thought which comes. but the modus operandi of this active part is the same, be it large or be it small. the items constituting the


of that portion of the nerve - tract supporting the going thought which is operative in calling up the thought which comes. but the modus operandi of this active part is the same, be it large or be it small. the items constituting the coming object waken in every instance because their nerve - tracts once were excited continuously with those of the going object or its operative part. this ultimate physiological law of habit among the neural elements is what runs the train. the direction of its course and the form of its transitions, whether redintegrative, associative, or similar, are due to unknown regulative or determinative conditions which accomplish their effect by opening this switch and closing that, setting the engine sometimes at half - speed, and coupling or uncoupling cars. this last figure of speech, into which i have glided unwittingly, affords itself an excellent instance of association by similarity. i was thinking of the deflections of the course of ideas. now, from hobbes ' s time downward, english writers have been fond of speaking of the train of our representations. this word happened to stand out in the midst of my complex thought with peculiarly sharp accentuation, and to surround itself with numerous details of railroad imagery. only such details became clear, however, as had their nerve - tracts besieged by a double set of influences - - those from train on the one hand, and those from the movement of thought on the other. it may possibly be that the prepotency of the suggestions of the word train at this moment were due to the recent excitation of the railroad brain - tract by the instance chosen a few pages back of a railroad king playing foot - ball with the stock - market. it is apparent from such an example how inextricably complex are all the contributory factors whose resultant is the line of our reverie. it would be folly in most cases to [ p. 582 ] attempt to trace them out. from an instance like the above, where the pivot of the similar association was formed by a definite concrete word, train, to those where it is so subtile as utterly to elude our analysis, the passage is unbroken. we can form a series of examples. when mr. bagehot says that the mind of the savage, so far from being in a state of nature, is tattooed all over with monstrous superstitions, the case is very like the one we have just been considering. when sir james stephen compares our belief


or c. if, for instance, i think of paris whilst i am hungry, i shall not improbably find that its restaurants have become the pivot of my thought, etc., etc. but in the theoretic as well as in the practical life there are interests of a more acute sort, taking the form of definite images of some achievement, be it action or acquisition, which we desire to effect. the train of ideas arising under the influence of such an interest constitutes usually the thought of the means by which the end shall be attained. if the end by its simple presence does not instantaneously suggest the means, the search for the latter becomes an intellectual problem. the solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort of voluntary thinking. where the end thought of is some outward deed or gain, the solution is largely composed of the actual motor processes, walking, speaking, writing, etc., which lead up to it. where the end is in the first instance only ideal, as in laying out a place of operations, the steps are purely imaginary. in both of these cases the discovery of the means may form a new sort of end, of an entirely peculiar nature, an end, namely, which we intensely desire before we have attained it, but of the nature of which, even whilst most strongly craving it, we have no distinct imagination whatever. such an end is a problem. the same state of things occurs whenever we seek to recall something forgotten, or to state the reason for a judgment which we have made intuitively. the desire strains and presses in a direction which it feels to be right but towards a point which it is unable to see. in short, the absence of an item is a determinant of our representations quite as positive as its presence can ever be. the gap becomes no mere void, but what is called an aching void. if we try to explain in terms of brain - action how a thought which only potentially exists can yet be effective, we seem driven to believe that the brain - tract thereof must actually be excited, but only in a minimal and sub - conscious way. try for instance, to symbolize what goes on in a man who is racking his brains to remember a thought which occurred to him last week. the associates of the [ p. 585 ] thought are there, many of them at least, but they refuse to awaken the thought itself. we cannot suppose that they do not irradiate at all into its brain - tract, because his mind quiver


successively that when we had the thought in question we were at the dinner - table ; then that of our friend j. d. was [ p. 586 ] there ; then that the subject talked about was so and so ; finally, that the thought came a propos of a certain anecdote, and then that it had something to do with a french quotation. now all these added associations arise independently of the will, by the spontaneous process we know so well. all that the will does is to emphasize and linger over those which seem pertinent, and ignore the rest. through this hovering of the attention in the neighborhood of the desired object, the accumulation of associates becomes so great that the combined tensions of their neural processes break through the bar, and the nervous wave pours into the tract which has so long been awaiting its advent. and as the expectant, sub - conscious itching there, bursts into the fulness of vivid feeling, the mind finds an inexpressible relief. the whole process can be rudely symbolized in a diagram. call the forgotten thing z, the first facts with which we felt it was related, a, b, and c, and the details finally operative in calling it up, l, m, and n. each circle will then stand for the brain - process underlying the thought of the object denoted by the letter contained within it. the activity in z will at first be a mere tension ; but as the activities in a, b, and c little by little irradiate into l, m, and n, and as all these processes are somehow connected with z, their combined irradiations upon z, represented by the centripetal arrows, succeed in helping the tension there to overcome the resistance, and in rousing z also to full activity. [ p. 587 ] the tension present from the first in z, even though it keep below the threshold of discharge, is probably to some degree co - operative with a, b, c in determining that l, m, n shall awake. without z ' s tension there might be a slower accumulation of objects connected with it. but, as aforesaid, the objects come before us through the brain ' s own laws, and the ego of the thinker can only remain on hand, as it were, to recognize their relative values and brood over some of them, whilst others are let drop. as when we have lost a material object we cannot recover it by a direct effort, but only through moving


it must contain an attribute common to two items, or it must be a uniform concomitant, or what not. we know, in short, a lot about it, whilst as yet we have no knowledge of acquaintance with it ( see p. 221 ), or in mr. hodgson ' s language, " we know what we want to find beforehand, in a certain sense, in its second intention, and do not know it, in another sense, in its first intention. " our intuition that one of the ideas which turn up is, at last, our qusitum, is due to our recognition that its relations are identical with those we had in mind, and this may be a rather slow act of judgment. in fact, every one knows that an object may be for some time present to his mind before its relations to other matters are perceived. to quote hodgson again : " the mode of operation is common to voluntary memory and reason.... but reasoning adds to memory the function of comparing or judging the images which arise.... memory aims at filling the gap with an image which has at some particular time filled it before, reasoning with one which bears certain time - and space - relations to the images before and after " - - or, to use perhaps clearer language, one which stands in determinate logical relations to those data round about the gap which filled our mind at the start. this feeling of the blank form of relationship before we get the material quality [ p. 589 ] of the thing related will surprise no one who has read chapter ix. from the guessing of newspaper enigmas to the plotting of the policy of an empire there is no other process than this. we trust to the laws of cerebral nature to present us spontaneously with the appropriate idea : " our only command over it is by the effort we make to keep the painful unfilled gap in consciousness.... two circumstances are important to notice : the first is, that volition has no power of calling up images, but only of rejecting and selecting from those offered by spontaneous redintegration. but the rapidity with which this selection is made, owing to the familiarity of the ways in which spontaneous redintegration runs, gives the process of reasoning the appearance of evoking images that are foreseen to be conformable to the purpose. there is no seeing them before they are offered ; there is no summoning them before they are seen. the other circumstance is, that every kind of reasoning is nothing, in its


images that are foreseen to be conformable to the purpose. there is no seeing them before they are offered ; there is no summoning them before they are seen. the other circumstance is, that every kind of reasoning is nothing, in its simplest form, but attention. " it is foreign to our purpose here to enter into any detailed analysis of the different classes of mental pursuit. in a scientific research we get perhaps as rich an example as can be found. the inquirer starts with a fact of which he seeks the reason, or with an hypothesis of which he seeks the proof. in either case he keeps turning the matter incessantly in his mind until, by the arousal of associate upon associate, some habitual, some similar, one arises which he recognizes to suit his need. this, however, may take years. no rules can be given by which the investigator may proceed straight to his result ; but both here and in the case of reminiscence the accumulation of helps in the way of associations may advance more rapidly by the use of certain routine methods. in striving to recall a thought, for example, we may of set purpose run through the successive classes of circumstances with which it may [ p. 590 ] possibly have been connected, trusting that when the right member of the class has turned up it will help the thought ' s revival. thus we may run through all the places in which we may have had it. we may run through the persons whom we remember to have conversed with, or we may call up successively all the books we have lately been reading. if we are trying to remember a person we may run through a list of streets or of professions. some item out of the lists thus methodically gone over will very likely be associated with the fact we are in need of, and may suggest it or help to do so. and yet the item might never have arisen without such systematic procedure. in scientific research this accumulation of associates has been methodized by mill under the title of ' the four methods of experimental inquiry. ' by the ' method of agreement, ' by that of ' difference, ' by those of ' residues ' and ' concomitant variations ' ( which cannot here be more nearly defined ), we make certain lists of cases ; and by ruminating these lists in our minds the cause we seek will be more likely to emerge. but the final stroke of discovery is only prepared, not effected, by them. the brain - tracts must, of their own accord,


cases ; and by ruminating these lists in our minds the cause we seek will be more likely to emerge. but the final stroke of discovery is only prepared, not effected, by them. the brain - tracts must, of their own accord, shoot the right way at last, or we shall still grope in darkness. that in some brains the tracts do shoot the right way much oftener than in others, and that we cannot tell why, - - these are ultimate facts to which we must never close our eyes. even in forming our lists of instances according to mill ' s methods, we are at the mercy of the spontaneous workings of similarity in our brain. how are a number of facts, resembling the one whose cause we seek, to be brought together in a list unless the one will rapidly suggest the other through association by similarity? similarity no elementary law. such is the analysis i propose, first of the three main types of spontaneous association, and then of voluntary association. it will be observed that the object called up may bear any logical relation whatever to the one which suggested it. the law requires only that one condition should be fulfilled. the fading object must be due to a brain - process some of whose elements awaken through habit [ p. 591 ] some of the elements of the brain - process of the object which comes to view. this awakening is the operative machinery, the causal agency, throughout, quite as much so in the kind of association i have called by the name of similarity, as in any other sort. the similarity between the objects, or between the thoughts ( if similarity there be between these latter ), has no causal agency in carrying us from one to the other. it is but a result - - the effect of the usual causal agent when this happens to work in a certain particular and assignable way. but ordinary writers talk as if the similarity of the objects were itself an agent, co - ordinate with habit, and independent of it, and like it able to push objects before the mind. this is quite unintelligible. the similarity of two things does not exist till both things are there - - it is meaningless to talk of it as an agent of production of anything, whether in the physical or the psychical realms. it is a relation which the mind perceives after the fact, just as it may perceive the relations of superiority, of distance, of causality, of container and content, of substance and accident, or of contrast, between an object and some second object which the


relation which the mind perceives after the fact, just as it may perceive the relations of superiority, of distance, of causality, of container and content, of substance and accident, or of contrast, between an object and some second object which the associative machinery calls up. there are, nevertheless, able writers who not only insist on preserving association by similarity as a distinct elementary law, but who make it the most elementary law, and seek to derive contiguous association from it. their reasoning is as follows : when the present impression a [ p. 592 ] awakens the idea b of its past contiguous associate b, how can this occur except through first reviving an image a of its own past occurrence. this is the term directly connected with b ; so that the process instead of being simply a - - b is a - - a - - b. now a and a are similars ; therefore no association by contiguity can occur except through a previous association by similarity. the most important supposition here made is that every impression on entering the mind must needs awaken an image of its past self, in the light of which it is ' apperceived ' or understood, and through the intermediation of which it enters into relation with the mind ' s other objects. this assumption is almost universally made ; and yet it is hard to find any good reason for it. it first came before us when we were reviewing the facts of aphasia and mental blindness ( see p. 50 ff. ). but we then saw no need of optical and auditory images to interpret optical and auditory sensations by. on the contrary, we agreed that auditory sensations were understood by us only so far as they awakened non - auditory images, and optical sensations only so far as they awakened non - optical images. in the chapters on memory, on reasoning, and on perception the same assumption will meet us again, and again will have to be rejected as groundless. the sensational process a and the ideational process a probably occupy essentially the same tracts. when the outer stimulus comes and those tracts vibrate with the sensation a, they discharge as directly into the paths which lead to b as when there is no outer stimulus and they only vibrate with the idea a. to say that the process a can only reach these paths by the help of the weaker process a is like saying that we need a candle to see the sun by. a replaces a, does all that a does and more ; and there is no intel


to say that the process a can only reach these paths by the help of the weaker process a is like saying that we need a candle to see the sun by. a replaces a, does all that a does and more ; and there is no intelligible meaning, to my mind, in saying that the weaker process coexists with the stronger. i therefore consider that these writers are altogether wrong. the only plausible proof they give of the coexistence of a with a is when a gives us a sense of familiarity but fails to awaken any distinct thought of past contiguous associates. in a later chapter i shall consider this case. here i content myself with saying that it does not seem conclusive as to the point at issue ; [ p. 593 ] and that i still believe association of coexistent or sequent impressions to be the one elementary law. contrasthas also been held to be an independent agent in association. but the reproduction of an object contrasting with one already in the mind is easily explained on our principles. recent writers, in fact, all reduce it either to similarity or contiguity. contrast always presupposes generic similarity ; it is only the extremes of a class which are contrasted, black and white, not black and sour, or white and prickly. a machinery which reproduces a similar at all, may reproduce the opposite similar, as well as any intermediate term. moreover, the greater number of contrasts are habitually coupled in speech, young and old, life and death, rich and poor, etc., and are, as dr. bain says, in everybody ' s memory. i trust that the student will now feel that the way to a deeper understanding of the order of our ideas lies in the direction of cerebral physiology. the elementary process of revival can be nothing but the law of habit. truly the day is distant when physiologists shall actually trace from cell - group to cell - group the irradiations which we have hypothetically invoked. probably it will never arrive. the schematism we have used is, moreover, taken immediately from the analysis of objects into their elementary parts, and only extended by analogy to the brain. and yet it is only as incorporated in the brain that such a schematism can represent anything causal. this is, to my mind, the conclusive reason for saying that the order of presentation of the mind ' s materials is due to cerebral physiology alone. the law of accidental prepotency of certain processes over others falls also


that which we aim at ; and from the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean ; and so continually, till we come to some beginning within our own power. and because the end, by the greatness of the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts begin to wander, they are quickly again reduced into the way : which observed by one of the seven wise men, made him give men this precept, which is now worn out, respice finem ; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it. " the train of regulated thoughts is of two kinds ; one, when of an effect imagined we seek the causes, or means that produce it : and this is common to man and beast. the other is, when imagining anything whatsoever, we seek all the possible effects that can by it be produced ; that is to say, we imagine what we can do with it, when we have it. of which i have not at any time seen any sign, but in man only ; for this is a curiosity hardly incident to the nature of any living creature that has no other passion but sensual, such as are hunger, thirst, lust, and anger. in sum, the discourse of the mind, when it is governed by design, is nothing but seeking, or the faculty of invention, [ p. 596 ] which the latins called sagacitas, and sollertia ; a hunting out of the causes, of some effect, present or past ; or of the effects, of some present or past cause. " the most important passage after this of hobbes is hume ' s : " as all simple ideas may be separated by the imagination, and may be united again in what form it pleases, nothing would be more unaccountable than the operations of that faculty, were it not guided by some universal principles, which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all times and places. were ideas entirely loose and unconnected, chance alone would join them ; and ' tis impossible the same simple ideas should fall regularly into complex ones ( as they commonly do ) without some bond of union among them, some associating quality, by which one idea naturally introduces another. this uniting principle among ideas is not to be considered as an inseparable connection ; for that has been already excluded from the imagination. nor yet are we to conclude that without it


some associating quality, by which one idea naturally introduces another. this uniting principle among ideas is not to be considered as an inseparable connection ; for that has been already excluded from the imagination. nor yet are we to conclude that without it the mind cannot join two ideas ; for nothing is more free than that faculty : but we are only to regard it as a gentle force, which commonly prevails, and is the cause why, among other things, languages so nearly correspond to each other ; nature in a manner pointing to every one those simple ideas which are most proper to be united in a complex one. the qualities from which this association arises, and by which the mind is after this manner conveyed from one idea to another, are three, viz., resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause and effect. " i believe it will not be very necessary to prove that these qualities produce an association among ideas, and upon the appearance of one idea naturally introduce another. ' tis plain that in the course of our thinking, and in the constant revolution of our ideas, our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it, and that this quality alone is to the fancy a sufficient bond and association. ' tis likewise evident, that as the senses, in changing their objects, are necessitated to change them regularly, and take them as they lie contiguous to each other, the imagination must by long custom acquire the same method of thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects. as to the connection that is made by the relation of cause and effect, we shall have occasion afterwards to examine it to the bottom, and therefore shall not at present insist upon it. ' tis sufficient to observe that there is no relation which produces a stronger connection in the fancy, and makes one idea more readily recall another, that the relation of cause and effect betwixt their objects.... these are therefore the principles of union or cohesion among our simple ideas, and in the imagination supply the place of that inseparable connection by which they are united in our memory. here is a kind of attraction, which in the mental world will be found [ p. 597 ] to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to show itself in as many and as various forms. its effects are everywhere conspicuous ; but as to its causes, they are mostly unknown, and must be resolved into original qualities of human nature, which i pretend not to explain. " hume did


theory of faculties. the most [ p. 598 ] extended usage consists, as we know, in dividing intellectual phenomena into classes, in separating those which differ, in grouping together those of the same nature and in giving to these a common name and in attributing them to the same cause ; it is thus that we have come to distinguish those diverse aspects of intelligence which are called judgment, reasoning, abstraction, perception, etc. this method is precisely the one followed in physics, where the words caloric, electricity, gravity, designate the unknown causes of certain groups of phenomena. if one thus never forgets that the diverse faculties are only the unknown causes of known phenomena, that they are simply a convenient means of classifying the facts and speaking of them, if one does not fall into the common fault of making out of them substantial entities, creations which now agree, now disagree, so forming in the intelligence a little republic ; then, we can see nothing reprehensible in this distribution into faculties, conformable as it is to the rules of a sound method and of a good natural classification. in what then is mr. bain ' s procedure superior to the method of the faculties? it is that the latter is simply a classification while his is an explanation. between the psychology which traces intellectual facts back to certain faculties, and that which reduces them to the single law of association, there is, according to our way of thinking, the same difference that we find in physics between those who attribute its phenomena to five or six causes, and those who derive gravity caloric, light, etc., from motion. the system of the faculties explains nothing because each one of them is only a flatus vocis which is of value merely through the phenomena which it contains, and signifies nothing more than these phenomena. the new theory, on the contrary, shows that the different processes of intelligence are only diverse cases of a single law ; that imagination, deduction, induction, perception, etc., are but so many determinate ways in which ideas may combine with each other ; and that the differences of faculties are only differences of association. it explains all intellectual facts, certainly not after the manner of metaphysics which demands the ultimate and absolute reason of things ; but after the manner of physics which seeks only their secondary and immediate cause. " the inexperienced reader may be glad of a brief indication of the manner in which all the different mental operations may be conceived to consist of images of sensation associated together. memory is the association of a present image with others


only their secondary and immediate cause. " the inexperienced reader may be glad of a brief indication of the manner in which all the different mental operations may be conceived to consist of images of sensation associated together. memory is the association of a present image with others known to belong to the past. expectation the same, with future substituted for past. fancy, the association of images without temporal order. belief in anything not present to sense is the very lively, [ p. 599 ] strong, and steadfast association of the image of that thing with some present sensation, so that as long as the sensation persists the image cannot be excluded from the mind. judgment is ' transferring the idea of truth by association from one proposition to another that resembles it. ' reasoning is the perception that " whatever has any mark has that which it is a mark of " ; in the concrete case the mark or middle term being always associated with each of the other terms and so serving as a link by which they are themselves indirectly associated together. this same kind of transfer of a sensible experience associated with another to a third also associated with that other, serves to explain emotional facts. when we are pleased or hurt we express it, and the expression associates itself with the feeling. hearing the same expression from another revives the associated feeling, and we sympathize, i. e. grieve or are glad with him. the other social affections, benevolence, conscientiousness, ambition, etc., arise in like manner by the transfer of the bodily pleasure experienced as a reward for social service, and hence associated with it, to the act of service itself, the link of reward being dropped out. just so avarice when the miser transfers the bodily pleasures associated with the spending of money to the money itself, dropping the link of spending. fear is a transfer of the bodily hurt associated by experience with the thing feared, to the thought of the thing, with the precise features of the hurt left out. thus we fear a dog without distinctly imagining his bite. love is the association of the agreeableness of certain sensible experiences with the idea of the object capable of affording them. the experiences themselves may cease to be distinctly imagined after the notion of their pleasure has been transferred to the object, constituting love there - for. volition is the association of ideas of muscular motion with the ideas of those pleasures which the motion produces. the motion at first occurs automatically and results [ p. 600 ] in a pleasure unforeseen


object, constituting love there - for. volition is the association of ideas of muscular motion with the ideas of those pleasures which the motion produces. the motion at first occurs automatically and results [ p. 600 ] in a pleasure unforeseen. the latter becomes so associated with the motion that whenever we think of it the idea of the motion arises ; and the idea of the motion when vivid causes the motion to occur. this is an act of will. nothing is easier than for a philosopher of this school to explain from experience such a notion as that of infinitude. " he sees in it an ordinary manifestation of one of the laws of the association of ideas, - - the law that the idea of a thing irresistibly suggests the idea of any other thing which has been often experienced in close conjunction with it, and not otherwise. as we have never had experience of any point of space without other points beyond it, nor of any point of time without others following it, the law of indissoluble association makes it impossible for us to think of any point of space or time, however distant, without having the idea irresistibly realized, in imagination, of other points still more remote. and thus the supposed original and inherent property of these two ideas is completely explained and accounted for by the law of association ; and we are enabled to see that if space or time were really susceptible of termination, we should be just as unable as we now are to conceive the idea. " these examples of the associationist psychology are with the exception of the last, very crudely expressed, but they suffice for our temporary need. hartley and james mill improved upon hume so far as to employ but a single principle of association, that of contiguity or habit. hartley ignores resemblance, james mill expressly repudiates it in a passage which is assuredly one of the curiosities of literature : " i believe it will be found that we are accustomed to see like things together. when we see a tree, we generally see more trees than one ; a sheep, more sheep than one ; a man, more men than one. from this observation, i think, we may refer resemblance to the law of frequency [ i. e., contiguity ], of which it seems to form only a particular case. " mr. herbert spencer has still more recently tried to construct a psychology which ignores association by similarity, and in a chapter, which also is a curiosity, he tries [


difference between a horse, a steam - engine, and a waterfall, when our minds are engrossed with the one circumstance of moving power. the diversity in these had no doubt for a long time the effect of keeping back their first identification ; and to obtuse intellects, this identification might have been for ever impossible. a strong concentration of mind upon the single peculiarity of mechanical force, and a degree of indifference to the general aspect of the things themselves, [ p. 602 ] must conspire with the intellectual energy of resuscitation by similars, in order to summon together in the view three structures so different. we can see, by an instance like this, how new adaptations of existing machinery might arise in the mind of a mechanical inventor. when it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force, namely, the property of setting other masses in motion, overcoming inertia and resistance, - - when the sight of the stream suggested through this point of likeness the power of the animal, - - a new addition was made to the class of prime movers, and when circumstances permitted, this power could become a substitute for the others. it may seem to the modern understanding, familiar with water - wheels and drifting rafts, that the similarity here was an extremely obvious one. but if we put ourselves back into an early state of mind, when running water affected the mind by its brilliancy, its roar, and irregular devastation, we may easily suppose that to identify this with animal muscular energy was by no means an obvious effect. doubtless when a mind arose, insensible by natural constitution to the superficial aspects of things, and having withal a great stretch of identifying intellect, such a comparison would then be possible. we may pursue the same example one stage further, and come to the discovery of steam power, or the identification of expanding vapor with the previously known sources of mechanical force. to the common eye, for ages, vapor presented itself as clouds in the sky ; or as a hissing noise at the spout of a kettle, with the formation of a foggy curling cloud at a few inches ' distance. the forcing up of the lid of a kettle may also have been occasionally observed. but how long was it ere any one was struck with the parallelism of this appearance with a blast of wind, a rush of water, or an exertion of animal muscle? the discordance was too great to be broken through by such


how long was it ere any one was struck with the parallelism of this appearance with a blast of wind, a rush of water, or an exertion of animal muscle? the discordance was too great to be broken through by such a faint and limited amount of likeness. in one mind, however, the identification did take place, and was followed out into its consequences. the likeness had occurred to other minds previously, but not with the same results. such minds must have been in some way or other distinguished above the millions of mankind ; and we are now endeavoring to give the explanation of their superiority. the intellectual character of watt contained all the elements preparatory to a great stroke of similarity in such a case ; - - a high susceptibility, both by nature and by education, to the mechanical properties of bodies ; ample previous knowledge or familiarity ; and indifference to the superficial and sensational effects of things. it is not only possible, however, but exceedingly probable, that many men possessed all these accomplishments ; they are of a kind not transcending common abilities. they would in some degree attach to a mechanical education almost as a matter of course. that the discovery was not sooner made supposes that something farther, and not of common occurrence, was necessary ; and this additional endowment appears to be the identifying power of similarity in general ; the tendency to detect likeness in the midst of disparity and disguise. this [ p. 603 ] supposition accounts for the fact, and is consistent with the known intellectual character of the inventor of the steam - engine. " dr. hodgson ' s account of association is by all odds the best yet propounded in english. all these writers hold more or less explicitly to the notion of atomistic ' ideas ' which recur. in germany, the same mythological supposition has been more radically grasped, and carried out to a still more logical, if more repulsive, extreme, by herbart and his followers, who until recently may be said to have reigned almost supreme in their native country. for herbart each idea is a permanently existing entity, the entrance whereof into consciousness is but an accidental determination of its being. so far as it succeeds in occupying the theatre of consciousness, it crowds out another idea previously there. this act of inhibition gives it, however, a sort of hold on the other representation which on all later occasions facilitates its following the other into the mind. the ingenuity with which most special cases of association are formulated in this mechanical language of


. this act of inhibition gives it, however, a sort of hold on the other representation which on all later occasions facilitates its following the other into the mind. the ingenuity with which most special cases of association are formulated in this mechanical language of struggle and inhibition, is great, and surpasses in analytic thoroughness anything that has been done by the british school. this, however, is a doubtful merit, in a case where the elements dealt with are artificial ; and i must confess that to my mind there is something almost hideous in the glib herbartian jargon about vorstellungsmassen and their hemmungen and hemmungssummen, and sinken and erheben and schweben, and verschmelzungen and complexionen. herr lipps, the most recent systematic german psychologist, has, i regret to say, carried out the theory of ideas in a way which the great originality, learning, and acuteness he [ p. 604 ] shows make only the more regrettable. such elaborately artificial constructions are, it seems to me, only a burden and a hindrance, not a help, to our science. in french, m. rabier in his chapter on association, handles the subject more vigorously and acutely than any one. his treatment of it, though short, seems to me for general soundness to rank second only to hodgson ' s. in the last chapter we already invoked association to account for the effect of use in improving discrimination. in later chapters we shall see abundant proof of the immense part which it plays in other processes, and shall then readily admit that few principles of analysis, in any science, have proved more fertile than this one, however vaguely formulated it often may have been. our own attempt to formulate it more definitely, and to escape the usual confusion between causal agencies and relations merely known, must not blind us to the immense services of those by whom the confusion was unfelt. from this practical point of view it would be a true ignoratio elenchi to flatter one ' s self that one has dealt a heavy blow at the psychology of association, when one has exploded the theory of atomistic ideas, or shown that contiguity and similarity between ideas can only be there after association is done. the whole body of the associationist psychology remains standing after you have translated ' ideas ' into ' objects, ' on the one hand, and ' brain - processes ' on the other ; and the analysis


little to the one side or the other ; for this reason the animal spirits, falling into the contiguous traces, present other related ideas in lieu of that which the mind desired at first to survey. this change we are not always sensible of ; but continuing still the same train of thought, make use of the related idea which is presented to us, and employ it in our reasoning, as if it were the same with what we demanded. this is the cause of many mistakes and sophisms in philosophy ; as will naturally be imagined, and as it would be easy to show, if there was occasion. " op. cit. prop. xi. see chapter iii, p. 82 - 5. i strongly advise the student to read his senses and intellect, pp. 544 - 556. time and space, p. 266. compare coleridge : " the true practical general law of association is this : that whatever makes certain parts of a total impression more vivid or distinct than the rest will determine the mind to recall these, in preference to others equally linked together by the common condition of contemporaeity or of contiguity. but the will itself, by confining and intensifying the attention, may arbitrarily give vividness or distinctness to any object whatsoever. " ( biographia litteraria, chap. v. ) leviathan, pt. i. chap. iii., init. i refer to a recency of a few hours. mr. galton found that experiences from boyhood and youth were more likely to be suggested by words seen at random than experiences of later years. see his highly interesting account of experiments in his inquiries into human faculty, pp. 191 - 203. for other instances see wahle, in vierteljsch f. wiss. phil., ix. 144 - 417 ( 1885 ). i retain the title of association by similarity in order not to depart from common usage. the reader will observe, however, that my nomenclature is not based on the same principle throughout. impartial redintegration connotes neural processes ; similarity is an objective relation perceived by the mind ; ordinary or mixed association is a merely denotative word. total recall, partial recall, and focalized recall, of associates, would be better terms. but as the denotation of the latter word is almost identical with that of association by similarity, i think it better to sacrifice propriety to popularity, and to keep the latter well - worn


february 22, 2012 — " religion today " is contributed by the university of wyoming ' s religious studies program to examine and promote discussion of religious issues. the goal of the enlightenment, that intellectual movement of the 18th century, was to establish human reason as the highest arbiter of knowledge, as opposed to divine revelation, the christian church ' s source of truth. although the accuracy of this claim is still debated among philosophers and theologians, it is clear that reason and its offspring, " science, " have become important arenas of knowledge in our intellectual and cultural worlds. indeed, wherever religion and science have offered differing explanations of the natural world, or even the cosmos, our society nearly always treats the scientific view more seriously than the religious one. but even as religion ' s descriptions of the world have seemingly been beaten back before the unrelenting onslaught of science, there is one question where the roles are absolutely reversed. this is the question of meaning. put in large - scale terms, what meaning does nature, the universe and the cosmos, hold? placed in a smaller scale, what is the meaning of a flower ' s blooming in the spring? science can answer the questions of how a flower blooms, why a flower blooms, and even why it blooms in the spring. but it cannot assign an ultimate meaning or purpose to that event. in fact, science cannot even assign ultimate meaning to its own explanations. the theory of evolution, for example, gives strong explanatory power to biology, enabling it to tell us why and how new species of animals and plants develop, why some disappear, and so on. but evolution does not, even cannot, reveal its own ultimate purpose. this inability is not restricted to biology. astronomy, for instance, can describe the formation of black holes and develop a theory of gravitation to explain it, but trying to specify the purpose of a black hole is almost nonsensical in scientific terms. physics can explain why water is the only compound that expands as a solid form rather than contracts, but it does not tell us what that means. does this mean that " life, the universe, and everything " ( as douglas adams would describe it ) is meaningless? absolutely not. instead, meaning must come from outside of science itself. it turns out that religions have been doing a pretty good job at answering the question of ultimate meaning. as the biologist kenneth miller argues in his book, " finding darwin ' s god " ( cliff street books, 2000 ), " our human tendency to assign meaning and value


new technique advances carbon - fiber composites. a revised view of continental tectonics is emerging from the research of an mit professor who has made the first statistical evaluation in the west of long - secret gravity - field data for a large section of the former soviet union. dr. marcia k. mcnutt of the department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, played a leading role, in collaboration with mikhail g. kogan of the institute of physics of the earth, moscow, in making the russian data available to colleagues throughout the world. they published their findings in a recent issue of science magazine. gravity - field data help geologists understand the nature of the various layers deep below the earth ' s surface, giving clues to the influence those layers have on the formation of mountain ranges and other surface features, like the tibetan plateau. the data also have important economic and strategic values which lead many nations to keep information for their territories under wraps. the information is of vital importance in finding and extracting mineral resources, oil and gas, especially for terrain where surface features are obscured by forests. information on gravity - field data can also be used to measure subsurface stress. some nations believe that a knowledge of gravity data can aid the targeting of intercontinental ballistic missiles. this was the original reason for the classification of the soviet data, but now a more important russian imperative has led to the release of the data to help stimulate the economy. the basic geologic question professor mcnutt sought to answer in reviewing the russian data was : when continental blocks such as italy, arabia and india collided with the southern border of eurasia why were narrow mountain belts created in the west and very broad ones in the east? her conclusion : differences in the lateral strength of the upper mantle control intracontinental deformation. the difference between western and eastern eurasia, she found, can be explained by the presence of a low - viscosity zone in the uppermost mantle beneath eastern eurasia that is absent in the west. professor mcnutt ' s statistical analysis of the russian data shows that the location of the change in viscosity corresponds with the geologic boundary between the older shields and platforms of the baltics, russia and siberia with the younger, geologically active mountain belts of eastern asia. " our conclusions from dynamic modeling of gravity and seismic velocity anomalies from northern eurasia point to a revised view of continental tectonics according to which the physical properties of the upper mantle to depths as great as 400 km ( 248 miles ) are affected by the thermal structure and


new technologies make new ways of learning possible. with computational technologies, ideas of control, sensing, and feedback can be made accessible and exciting to learners as young as six or eight years old. this talk presents a brief history of the ideas, prototypes, and research that led to lego mindstorms, the immensely popular robot construction kit, launched just two years ago but easily thirty years in the making. lego mindstorms has its roots in the pioneering work on the logo programming language begun by dr. seymour papert in the 1960s. papert was perhaps the first to suggest that children should program computers, then an absurdly radical idea. this notion led to papert ' s theory of learning called " constructionism " which suggests both that ( 1 ) learning is an active process of building ideas which is unique and personal for each learner, and ( 2 ) this journey can be greatly facilitated when the learner builds things - in - the - world which become social and shared objects of reflection. papert ' s logo programming language, the later lego / logo system, and ultimately lego mindstorms all inherit from this set of ideas. the talk will conclude with a technological discussion of mit crickets, the latest in this line of design toys for learners. crickets are tiny programmable bricks that can interconnect in myriad ways, and employ an unusual virtual machine / compiler architecture that will be described in detail. - " metacricket : a designer ' s kit for making computational devices, " f. martin, b. mikhak, and b. silverman, ibm systems journal, volume 39 numbers 3 - 4, 2000. presents the mit cricket, a tiny embedded controller created for kids but valuable as a prototyping tool for professional designers who aren ' t necessarily engineers. full published paper available at - " to mindstorms and beyond : evolution of a construction kit for magical machines, " f. martin et. al, in " robots for kids : exploring new technologies for learning, " a. druin & j. hendler, editors, morgan kaufman, 2000. the paper from which this talk takes its name, describing the history of the ideas and prototypes which led to the lego mindstorms product, and our further work and motivations behind developing the crickets. a pre - publication draft is available from - " design, story - telling, and robots in irish primary education, " f. martin, d. butler, and w. gleason, presented at the ieee systems, man,


possible to arrive at it, would consist in two principal things : the one, in employing no term the meaning of which had not first been clearly explained ; the other, in never advancing any proposition which could not be demonstrated by truths already known ; that is, in a word, in defining every term, and in proving every proposition. but to follow the same order that i am explaining, it is necessary that i should state what i mean by definition. the only definitions recognized in geometry are what the logicians call definitions of name, that is, the arbitrary application of names to things which are clearly designated by terms perfectly known ; and it is of these alone that i speak. their utility and use is to elucidate and abbreviate discourse, in expressing by the single name that has been imposed what could otherwise be only expressed by several terms ; so that nevertheless the name imposed remains divested of all other meaning, if it has any, having no longer any than that for which it is alone designed. here is an example : if we are under the necessity of discriminating numbers that are divisible equally by two from those which are not, in order to avoid the frequent repetition of this condition, a name is given to it in this manner : i call every number divisible equally by two, an even number. this is a geometrical definition ; because after having clearly designated a thing, namely, every member divisible equally by two, we give it a name divested of every other meaning, if it has any, in order to give it that of the thing designated. hence it appears that definitions are very arbitrary, and that they are never subject to contradiction ; for nothing is more permissible than to give to a thing which has been clearly designated, whatever name we choose. it is only necessary to take care not to abuse the liberty that we possess of imposing names, by giving the same to two different things. but if we fall into this error, we can oppose to it a sure and infallible remedy : that of mentally substituting the definition in the place of the thing defined, and of having the definition always so present, that every time we speak, for example, of an even number, we mean precisely that which is divisible into two equal parts, and that these two things should be in such a degree joined and inseparable in thought, that as soon as the discourse expresses the one, the mind attaches it immediately to the other. for geometricians, and all


into two equal parts, and that these two things should be in such a degree joined and inseparable in thought, that as soon as the discourse expresses the one, the mind attaches it immediately to the other. for geometricians, and all those who proceed methodically, only impose names on things to abbreviate discourse, and not to diminish or change the idea of the things of which they are discoursing. and they pretend that the mind always supplies the full definition to the concise terms, which they only employ to avoid the confusion occasioned by the multitude of words. nothing more promptly and more effectually removes the captious cavils of sophists than this method, which it is necessary to have always present, and which alone suffices to banish all kinds of difficulties and equivocations. this method would certainly be beautiful, but it is abso - lutely impossible ; for it is evident that the first terms that we wished to define would imply precedents to serve for their explanation, and that in the same manner, the first propositions that we wished to prove would imply others which had preceded them ; and thus it is clear that we should never reach the first. thus, in pushing our researches further and further, we arrive necessarily at primitive words which can no longer be defined, and at principles so clear that we can find no others that can serve as a proof of them. for there is one, and it is that of geometry, which is in truth inferior in that it is less convincing, but not in that it less is certain. it does not define every thing and does not prove every thing, and it is in this that it is inferior ; but it assumes nothing but things clear and constant by natural enlightenment, and this is why it is perfectly true, nature sustaining it in default of discourse. this order, the most perfect of any among men, consists not at all in defining every thing or in demonstrating every thing, nor in defining nothing or in demonstrating nothing, but in adhering to this middle course of not defining things clear and understood by all mankind, and of defining the rest ; of not proving all the things known to mankind, and of proving all the rest. against this order those sin alike who undertake to define everything and to prove every thing, and who neglect to do it in those things which are not evident of themselves. this is what is perfectly taught by geometry. she does not define any of these things, space, time, motion,


undertake to define everything and to prove every thing, and who neglect to do it in those things which are not evident of themselves. this is what is perfectly taught by geometry. she does not define any of these things, space, time, motion, number, equality, and similar things which exist in great number, because these terms so naturally designate the things that they mean, to those who understand the language, that their elucidation would afford more obscurity than instruction. for there is nothing more feeble than the discourse of those who wish to define these primitive words. what neces - sity is there, for example, of explaining what is understood by the word man? do we not know well enough what the thing is that we wish to designate by this term? and what advantage did plato think to procure us in saying that he was a two - legged animal without feathers? as though the idea that i have of him naturally, and which i cannot express, were not clearer and surer than that which he gives me by his useless and even ridiculous explanation ; since a man does not lose humanity by losing the two legs, nor does a capon acquire it by losing his feathers. there are those who are absurd enough to explain a word by the word itself. i know some who have defined light in this wise : light is a luminary movement of luminous bodies, as though we could understand the words luminary and luminous without the word light. 2 we cannot undertake to define being without falling into the same absurdity : for we cannot define a word without beginning with the word it is, either expressed or understood. to define being therefore, it is necessary to say it is, and thus to employ the word defined in the definition. we see clearly enough from this that there are some words incapable of being defined ; and, if nature had not supplied this defect by a corresponding idea which she has given to all mankind, all our expressions would be confused ; whilst we use them with the same assurance and the same certainty as though they were explained in a manner perfectly exempt from ambiguities : because nature herself has given us, without words, a clearer knowledge of them than art could acquire by our explanations. for, for example, time is of this sort. who can define it? and why undertake it, since all men conceive what is meant in speaking of a time, without any further definition? nevertheless there are many different opinions touching the essence of time. some say that it is the movement of


who can define it? and why undertake it, since all men conceive what is meant in speaking of a time, without any further definition? nevertheless there are many different opinions touching the essence of time. some say that it is the movement of created thing ; others, the measure of the movement, etc. thus it is not the nature of these things that i say is known to all ; it is simply the relation between the name and the thing ; so that at the expression time, all direct their thoughts towards the same object ; which suffices to cause this term to have no need of being defined, though afterwards, in examining what time is, we come to differ in sentiment after having been led to think of it ; for definitions are only made to designate the things that are named, and not to show the nature of them. but after this definition there will be two things that will be called by the name of time : the one is what the whole world understands naturally by this word and what all those who speak our language call by this term ; the other will be the movement of a created thing, for this will also called by his name, according to this new definition. it is necessary therefore to shun ambiguities and not to confound consequences. for it will not follow from this that the thing that is naturally understood by the word time is in fact the movement of a created thing. it has been allowable to name these two things the same ; but it will not be to make them agree in nature as well as in name. thus, if we advance this propositiontime is the movement of a created thing, it is necessary to ask what is meant by this word time, that is, whether the usual and generally received meaning is left to it, or whether it is divested of this meaning in order to give to it on this occasion that of the movement of a created thing. for if it be stripped of all other meaning, it cannot be contradicted, and it will become an arbitrary definition, in consequence of which, as i have said, there will be two things that will have the same name. but if its ordinary meaning be left to it, and it be pretended nevertheless that what is meant by this word is the movement of a created thing, it can be contradicted. it is no longer an arbitrary definition, but a proposition that must be proved, if it is not evident of itself ; and this will then be a principle or an axiom, but never a definition


created thing, it can be contradicted. it is no longer an arbitrary definition, but a proposition that must be proved, if it is not evident of itself ; and this will then be a principle or an axiom, but never a definition, since in this enunciation it is not understood that the word time signifies the same thing as the movement of a created thing, but it is understood that what is conceived by the term time is this supposed movement. if i did not know how necessary it is to understand this perfectly, and how continually occasions like this, of which i give the example, happen both in familiar and scientific discourses, i should not dwell upon it. but it seems to me, by the experience that i have had from the confusion of controversies, that we cannot too fully enter into this spirit of precision, for the sake of which i write this treatise rather than the subject of which i treat in it. for how many persons are there who fancy that they have defined time, when they have said that it is the measure of movement, leaving it, however, its ordinary meaning! and nevertheless they have made a proposition and not a definition. how many are there, in the like manner, who fancy that they have defined movement, when they have said : motus nec simpliciter motus, non mera potentia est, sed actus entis in potentia! and nevertheless, if they leave to the word movement its ordinary meaning as they do, it is not a definition but a proposition ; and confounding thus the definitions which they call definitions of name, which are the true arbitrary definitions permissible and geometrical, with those which they call definitions of thing, which, properly speaking, are not at all arbitrary definitions but are subject to contradiction, they hold themselves at liberty to make these as well as others ; and each defining the same things in his own way, by a liberty which is as unjustifiable in this kind of definitions as it is permissible in the former, they perplex every thing, and losing all order and all light, become lost themselves and wander into inextricable embarrassments. we shall never fall into such in following the order of geometry. this judicious science is far from defining such primitive words as space, time motion, equality, majority, diminution, whole, and others which every one understands. but apart from these, the rest of the terms that this science employs are to such a degree elucidated and defined