# The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Wundt - Bemerkungen zur Associationslehre

Phil. Stud. = Philosophische Studien
After a short statement of the rival theories of association by similarity and by continuity, the author asks if problem of association cannot be approached from another side. Current theories of association have taken mainly successive associations into account, but the forms of simultaneous association, known as complications and assimilations, together with the simple, intermediate form of sensuous recognition, are also to be considered. Hence W. proposes successive and simultaneous associations as the fundamental forms. Complications are combinations of ideas from disparate senses: as such their elements are easily found by introspection. Assimilations are formed by the coalescence of ideas or parts of ideas from the same sense: every impression of sense sets a throng of tendencies left over from earlier impressions in sympathetic vibration: of this throng, some enter into fitting combinations with the given impression, while others remain below the threshold of consciousness. In this way illusions are formed. Inasmuch as memory-pictures as well as sense-impressions must be affected by the assimilative process, it may be said that every representation is a picture of fancy. Two combining processes underlie assimilation: firstly, the given impression calls up components of ideas like itself; secondly, the latter arouses other components not found in the given impressions, but still combined with it in former cases. The second form is mediate, and clearly a form of association by contiguity. As in the first form, only like elements are aroused, association by similarity does not take place: the fundamental processes of association are consequently the combination of the like and of the contiguous. In successive associations the same processes are at work: if to the given idea or perception like ideas attach themselves, we call the result association by similarity; if the objective connections alone are observed, we call it association by contiguity. The simplest case of assimilation is the cognition of an object; recognition of an object is the simplest case of successive association: into each of these as well as into the more complicated forms, both processes of association enter. As all feelings have a basis in ideation, the feeling of cognizing must result from indefinite memory-pictures in the background of ​consciousness — probably those which give the assimilating elements to an impression of sense. Next to sensuous cognition comes immediate recognition, which may or may not be attended with representations of accompanying circumstances: the latter form shades off into mediate recognition when the accompanying circumstances connect impression with recognition. As an idea may be apperceived after its appearance in consciousness, it may be that associated ideas, apprehended after recognition takes place, mediate between impression and recognition. It may also happen that the auxiliary ideas, after bringing about a recognition, disappear before they rise to apperception. Mediate and immediate recognition, with or without associated ideas, would thus be reduced to one form. The peculiar feeling which accompanies recognition is in evidence of this view. Similar to the feelings of cognition, though more intense, feelings of recognition are aroused by contact associations. If recognition only took place when one idea called up another similar to it, recognition would amount to assimilation. Of the presence of the auxiliary ideas, producing the feeling of recognition, there can be in cases of mediate recognition no doubt. From experiments with instantaneous impressions we may infer that in cases of immediate recognition without attendant ideas, we are still darkly conscious of the latter: the alternative hypothesis, that the feeling is due to ideas below the threshold of consciousness, would lead to the assumption that ideas which have disappeared from consciousness retain the properties of ideas present in consciousness. Sensuous recognition is the connecting link between simultaneous and successive associations: it differs from the latter in that the acts of ideation do not follow one another, but happen together. This simply means that some of the parts of an associated whole take more time to rise to apperception than others: if the principal part of an idea is first assimilated, while the secondary ideas arise later, we have a case of association by contiguity; but if out of an indefinite number of assimilating ideas, one alone is apperceived, we have association by similarity. One outcome of the reduction of cognition, recognition, and association to the same fundamental processes is, that every idea which is not aroused by impressions from without, rests on associative influences. In cases of the emergence of seemingly unconnected ideas, it can be experimentally shown that the connecting link is present though not perceived. Consequently we can lay down the proposition that all changes of ideas, not arising through direct impressions of sense, rest on association; that is, on the unbroken complication in which are connected together all tendencies towards revival of ideas once experienced and still accessible to consciousness.