TNH 1.3.06.13

Ideas are indeed subject to a uniting force that may at first sight seem different from any of these, but will be found ultimately to depend on the same origin. When every individual of some kind of objects is found by experience to be constantly united with an individual of another kind, the appearance of any new individual of either kind naturally conveys our thought to its usual attendant. Thus, because a particular idea is commonly attached to a particular word, nothing is required but the hearing of that word to produce the corresponding idea; and this transition will be one that the mind is hardly able to prevent, however hard it tries. In this case it is not absolutely necessary that on hearing the sound we should reflect on past experience and consider what idea has usually been connected with the sound. The imagination, unaided, takes the place of this reflection; it is so accustomed to pass from the word to the idea that it doesn’t delay for a moment between hearing the word and conceiving the idea.

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