nfancy,
because, as it ascertained new relations, those already acquired would
escape, and a labor constantly renewed would be requisite to regain
them. Without association of ideas, no voluntary virtue would be
possible; and at the end of long years of effort and self-restraint, we
would have gained no additional control over the course of our impetuous
passions.

The fact that much of the difference in intellectual capacity so
strongly characterizing different individuals arises from their various
powers over the flow and logical association of ideas, has scarcely
elicited the attention it so well deserves. It is of immense importance
in the history of mental development. If an individual connects his
ideas with difficulty, or can continue to chain them in rational
sequence only with the most laborious efforts, he will have either a
dull and heavy, or flighty and illogical, mind.

If another has great trouble in modifying or arranging the association
of ideas which arise spontaneously in the soul, he will suffer himself
to be ruled by them, in place of exercising rational domination over
them; he will pursue every chimera; he will trust every impulse; he will
but dream, even when he tries to think; and will be of a weak and
fickle, but obstinate and self-opinionated, intellect. His whole
exhaustive logic will consist in clothing in exact and reiterated
assertions the heterogeneous order in which ideas are arbitrarily,
accidentally, and spontaneously associated in his own imagination.

Another will associate his ideas in logical sequence, yet with startling
rapidity; in a manner and through subtle relations quite unknown to
common men, incapable of such vivid, rational, and consequential
combinations; and will, in consequence, be a man of clear and vivid
intellect.

The wonderful faculty of improvisation so often seen in Italy, is an
example of the power of appropriate and rapid association. There is no
doubt that this power is susceptible of development and cultivation, and
that much that is brilliant in intuition is lost through the want of it.
In spite of this, no system has as yet been devised for its culture. Let
him who would labor for the real improvement of humanity think of it,
write for it, and aid us in its development: as the law of _internal
unity_ with regard to the immense range of possible associations is so
vital to our moral well being, so essential to our intellectual sanity,
let our deepest thi