• Mechanical Association. — Evidently the connecting
link in the case of things mechanically associated is time ;
but we must be careful to remember that the time which
forms this connecting link is not the time in which events
happen, but the time in which we think of them. The
Declaration of Independence makes you think of the
Fourth of July, not because it was made on that day, but



I98 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
because the thought of the two has been in your mind at
the same time.
Logical Association. — But in order that we may asso-
ciate things rationally or logically, we must be able to per-
ceive some inner relation between them. Things as un-
related as it is possible for things to be in this world may
be brought side by side in space ; and if so, we may see
them at the same time, and so associate them mechanically.
But in order to associate them logically we must be able
to apprehend an inner relation between them — a relation
not depending on accident or chance, but growing out of
their very nature.
