On Mental Suggestion, Association, and Reproduction

From Hobbes to the present day considerable attention has been paid by philosophers to this subject. So little,however, was known of its history until recently, that Priestley claims for Locke the honour of having first observed this great mental process, and Hume takes to himself the credit of having first generalized its laws,' which, according to him, are resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause and effect. Sir James Mackintosh again states that Hobbes was the first to discover the laws of association in anything like their full proportion. Sir W. Hamilton, however, to whom we are indebted for this brief historical sketch, vindicates Aristotle's right, not only to be the founder but the finisher of this doctrine. " The laws of association," he says, " whose evolution