This gives the doctrine of 'indissoluble association'--the pivot of the whole scheme --the doctrine,says J.S.Mill,which,'if it can be proved,is the greatest of all the triumphs of the Association Philosophy.'79The younger Mill always insisted upon the vast importance of the principle;but he here admits a difficulty.In a long note 80upon James Mill's chapter on 'Belief,'conspicuous for his usual candour,he confesses the inadequacy of his father's view.The comment indicates the point of divergence and yet shows curiously the ground common to both.James Mill's theory states facts in some sense undeniable.Our 'ideas'cohere and combine to form a tissue:an imagery or series of pictures which form the content and are somehow the ground of our beliefs.The process of formation clearly involves 'association.'The scent of the rose is associated with the colour:both with the visible form and so forth.But is this process the same thing as believing,or have we to explain the belief by some mental activity different from,however closely connected with,the imagination,or in his phrase the 'ideation'?Here J.S.Mill finds a difficulty.The statement,'I believe that thunder will follow lightning,'is something more than the statement,'the sight suggests or calls up the sound.'The mental picture considered by itself may be described as a fact,without considering what belief,or whether any belief,is implied.J.S.Mill therefore makes a distinction intended to clear up his father's confusion.There is a difference,he says,between remembering 'a real fact'and remembering a 'thought.'81He illustrates this by the difference between the idea of Lafayette and the idea of Falstaff.Lafayette was real,and had been seen by the rememberer.
Falstaff is a figment who,having never existed,can never have been seen.
Yet the idea of Falstaff may be quite as vivid as the idea of Lafayette.
What,then,is the difference between the two states of mind?One,says J.S.Mill,is a belief about 'real facts';the other about 'thoughts.'
This,he observes,corresponds to James Mill's distinction between a 'sensation'and an 'idea,'82a difference which he had admitted to be 'primordial.'
Then,says J.S.Mill,we may as well admit that there is an 'element'in the remembrance of a real fact not implied in the remembrance of a thought and not dependent on any difference in the 'ideas'themselves.It,too,may be taken as 'primordial,'or incapable of further analysis.This doctrine becomes important in some of Mill's logical speculations,83and is connected with his whole theory of belief in an external world.
It has an uncomfortable likeness to Reid's 'common-sense'view,and even to the hated 'intuitionism';and Mill deserves the more credit for his candour.
Meanwhile it seems clear that the criticism implies an important confusion.The line of distinction is drawn in the wrong place,So far as the simple 'imagination'is concerned,there may be no question of belief or disbelief.The picture of Falstaff or of Lafayette,a horse or a centaur,arises equally,and is put together,let us suppose,by simple association.But as soon as I think about either I believe or disbelieve,and equally whether I judge the object to be a thought or to be a 'real fact,'whether I say that I could have seen Lafayette,or that I could not have seen Falstaff.It is not a question between reality or unreality,but between two classes of reality.A dream is a real dream,just as a man is a real man.The question is simply where or how it exists,not whether it exists.The picture is,in one case,put together by my mind;in the other,due to a stimulus from without;but it exists in both cases;and belief is equally present whether I put it in one class of reality or the other:as we form a judgment equally when we pronounce a man to be lying,and when we pronounce him to be speaking the truth.J.S.Mill seems to suppose that association can explain the imagination of a centaur or a Falstaff,but cannot explain the belief in a horse or Lafayette.The imagination or 'ideation,'he should have said,accounts in both cases for the mere contents of the thought;but in neither case can it by itself explain the judgment as to 'reality.'That is to say,James Mill may have described accurately a part of the process by which the mental picture is constructed,but has omitted to explain the action of the mind itself.
Belief,we may agree,is a 'primordial'or ultimate faculty;but we must not interpret it as belief in a 'real fact'as distinguished from belief in 'a thought':that is a secondary and incidental distinction.
This confusion,as I have said,apparently prevents J.S.Mill from seeing how deeply his very frank admissions cut into the very structure of his father's system.He has,as I have said,remarked upon the singular absence of any reference to 'belief,''abstraction,'and so forth;but he scarcely observes how much is implied by the omission.His criticism should have gone further.James Mill has not only omitted a faculty which enables us to distinguish between 'thoughts'and 'things,'images of fancy and pictures of reality,but also the faculty which is equally present whenever we properly think instead of simply seeing images passively;and equally whether we refer an image to fact or fancy.His 'analysis of the mind'seems to get rid of the mind itself.
The omission becomes important at the next step.'Under the modest title of an explanation of the meaning of several names,'says his son,James Mill discusses 'some of the deepest and most intricate questions in all metaphysics.'A treatise on chemistry might almost as well be 'described as an explanation of the names,air,water,potass,sulphuric acid,and so forth.'84Why does the chapter come in this place and in this peculiar form?Probably because James Mill was partly conscious of the inadequacy of his previous chapters.