Similarity

“ How is it that those who deny sameness in character can in logic, and wherever they find it convenient, speak of terms as ‘the same,’ and mention ‘their identity,’ and talk of ‘one note’ and ‘one colour’? The expedient used is the idea or the phrase of ‘exact likeness’ or ‘precise similarity.’ When resemblance is carried to such a point that perceptible difference ceases, then, I understand, you have not really got sameness or identity, but you can speak as if you had got it. ”

“ The ideas of being, distinction, and similarity enter into that of two. The idea of being, because nothing cannot be counted: that of distinction, or negation of the one being the other, because the identical does not constitute number: that of similarity, because things are only numbered when abstraction is made of their difference. Being is the basis of perception; distinction, of comparison; and similarity, of union. Perception begins with unity, proceeds with distinction, and ends with similarity, which is a kind of unity. ”

“ The similarity of really distinct individuals, which is the conceptual identity of their qualities, is the ground on which we conceptually identify their essences. Now is there any reason for thinking that these grounds of similarity, as found in the individual, are really distinct from one another in the latter? ”

“ If another man's body is not exactly like mine, I am not justified by argument from similarity in reading into it an exactly similar experience. It is not the similarity of the two percepts that I am thinking of chiefly when I speak of them as percepts of the same object. I am thinking of the relation in which I suppose them to stand to each other. I think of the possible existence of the one under given circumstances as conditioning the possible existence of the other. ”

“ There remains the consideration of Contrast, as a link of association. It is easy to show that both Contiguity and Similarity may enter into the association of contrasts. All contrasts that we are interested in are habitually coupled in language, as light and dark, heat and cold, up and down, life and death. Again contrasts suppose a common genus, that is a generic similarity; at least until we ascend to the highest contrast of all, the subject mind, and the object or extended world. Cold and Hot are grades of the common attribute called Temperature. ”

“ The Help given by Association by Similarity.—It is probable, also, that man's superior association by similarity has much to do with those discriminations of character on which his higher flights of reasoning are based. ”

“ Those who cannot understand how the recognition of similarity in creatures of the same kind, can have any alliance with reasoning, will get over the difficulty on remembering that the phenomena among which equality of relations is thus perceived, are phenomena of the same order and are present to the senses at the same time ”

“ For, the almost limitless variations of contour and complexion, amidst misleading degrees of similarity, between one creature and another, constitute not merely a rich provision for the charms of Nature but, even more, a convincing witness unto the direct interest of Providence in each individual. ”

“ On the other hand, association by similarity is largely put in our own power; for we, in a measure, select those objects that are to be associated, and bring them together in the mind. We must be careful, however, only to associate together such things as we wish to be associated together and to recall each other ”

“ So much, then, for the relation of correspondence, viewed by itself. If we apply this consideration to the case of the definition of truth, we see that, for the first, a true idea, in corresponding to its object, need not in the least be confined to any particular sort or degree of general similarity to its object. The similarity may be as close or as remote, as sensuously interesting or as abstractly formal as you please. A scientific idea about colors need not be itself a color, nor yet an image involving colors. ”

“ When, in so-called association by similarity, a presentation is recalled through the recurrence in consciousness of one or more of its elements, both the recurring and the associated presentation being now together in consciousness, what was at first association through the common element becomes finally association by simultaneity. ”

“ It is a quite universal phenomenon in psychology that certain qualitatively quite different series of percepts mutually awaken and reproduce one another and in a certain aspect produce the appearance of sameness or similarity. ”

“ Accordingly we find, that where, beside the general resemblance of our natures, there is any peculiar similarity in our manners, or character, or country, or language, it facilitates the sympathy. The stronger the relation is betwixt ourselves and any object, the more easily does the imagination make the transition, and convey to the related idea the vivacity of conception, with which we always form the idea of our own person. ”

“ We do not doubt for a moment that the association we desire to have illuminated is due either to contiguity or to a perceived similarity of ideas, but why have we this particular association instead of the limitless multitude of associations that would be equally intelligible by the same formulae? ”

“ Again, if I can speak of two simultaneous sensations of redness in one consciousness (e. g., the two halves of a red surface) , as the same, meaning to indicate simply similarity, why may I not also speak of two simultaneous "experiences of triangularity" in one consciousness as the same, and keep clearly in mind here, too, that I mean only to indicate similarity? ”

“ While organic, and more especially animal forms, occasionally exhibit this perfection of likeness out of which the notion of simple equality arises, they more frequently exhibit only that kind of likeness which we call similarity; and which is really compound equality. For the similarity of two creatures of the same species but of different sizes, is of the same nature as the similarity of two geometrical figures. ”

“ Whereas sameness, in the primary sense, does not even necessarily imply similarity; for if we say of any man that he is greatly altered since such a time, we understand, and indeed imply by the very expression, that he is one person, though different in several qualities. ”

“ There is thus a genuine effect of the nature of pure similarity, or resemblance, and a mode of consciousness accompanying that effect; but there is not the full energy of reproduction without a concurring bond of pure contiguity. A portrait may fail to give us the consciousness of having ever seen the original. ”

“ In Reality, all Arguments from Experience are founded on the Similarity, which we discover among natural Objects, and by which we are induc'd to expect Effects similar to those, which we have found to follow from such Objects. ”

“ In truth, the psychological development of the idea of individuality proceeds along with that of generality, each being grasped as a different way of interpreting partial similarity among our percepts. ”

“ But the dispassionate reader, turning over these sulphurous leaves, will perceive deeply-rooted similarity in that narrowness of view, and that undisturbed consciousness that it alone is right, which distinguish the reflections, and are found in the observations, of 'Arry when he views society from his lower standpoint. ”

“ Association by similarity is a fusion of impressions merging what is common in them, interchanging what is peculiar, and cancelling in the end what is incompatible; so that any excitement reaching that centre revives one generic reaction which yields the idea. ”

“ We can only judge what other men's minds are like by observing their outward manifestations, and similarity in the most direct and simple kind of utterance is good evidence of similarity in the mental processes which it communicates to the outer world. ”

“ The stranger, as a whole individual, has never been contiguous with my friend, but some characteristic of the stranger has been thus contiguous. In association by similarity, it is not the whole present object that arouses recall of the similar object, but some part of the present object. This kind of association is important in thinking, since it brings together facts from different past experiences, and thus assembles data that may be applied to a new problem. ”

“ When we deal with faces of the same type, the points of similarity far outnumber those of dissimilarity, and there is a much greater resemblance between faces generally than we who turn our attention to individual differences are apt to appreciate. ”

“ Turning now to association by similarity we find that the relations of the elements are somewhat more complex than in that of contiguity. Where mental life is complex and where there are present many different trains of ideas and images, there will be a tendency for them to cross and intersect at many points. The course of a given train of ideas and images instead of running in its habitual line will tend to become deflected along other lines and give rise to that particular form of association of representative elements known as association by similarity and contrasts. ”

“ It is a kinship of soul and sympathy, as well as of race—a similarity of aim and influence upon humanity; a similarity, even in the kind of effect produced, and the means employed to produce it, which renders them largely interdependent and reciprocally helpful. The purpose of both is expression, chiefly emotional expression, descriptions of nature and references to natural phenomena being introduced merely as accessories, as background or setting for the human life and interest, which are of primary importance. ”

“ If there is one general conclusion which seems to emerge from the mass of particulars, I venture to think that it is the essential similarity in the working of the less developed human mind among all races, which corresponds to the essential similarity in their bodily frame revealed by comparative anatomy. ”

“ Similar incompatibilities may arise without the intrusion of percepts, as when, in trying to guess a riddle or to solve a problem, or generally to eliminate intellectual differences, we have images which in themselves are only logically opposite, psychologically opposed, or in conflict, because each strives to enter the same complex. In all such conflicts alike we find, in fact, a relation of presentations the exact converse of that which constitutes similarity. ”

“ But while this general mental similarity may, I believe, be taken as established, we must always be on our guard against tracing to it a multitude of particular resemblances which may be and often are due to simple diffusion, since nothing is more certain than that the various races of men have borrowed from each other many of their arts and crafts, their ideas, customs, and institutions. ”

“ Association by contiguity is that form of association by which an idea is linked, connected, or associated with the sensation, thought, or idea immediately preceding it, and that which directly follows it. Each idea, or thought, is a link in a great chain of thought being connected with the preceding link and the succeeding link. Association by similarity is that form of association by which an idea, thought, or sensation is linked, connected, or associated with ideas, thoughts, or sensations of a similar kind, which have occurred previously or subsequently. ”

“ No two moments in the life of an individual are exactly alike; there is between the later and the earlier periods only the similarity of the higher and lower parts of a spiral ascent. ”

“ From this practical point of view it would be a true ignoratio elenchi to flatter one's self that one has dealt a heavy blow at the psychology of association, when one has exploded the theory of atomistic ideas, or shown that contiguity and similarity between ideas can only be there after association is done. [511] The whole body of the associationist psychology remains standing after you have translated 'ideas' into 'objects,' on the one hand, and 'brain-processes' on the other ”

“ In a preceding part of the argument criticized, I have, in various ways, aimed to show that, alike when we analyze the product of thought and when we analyze the process of thought, we are brought to the conclusion that invariably “a thought involves relation, difference, likeness;” and that even from the very nature of Life itself, we may evolve the conclusion that “thinking being relationing, no thought can ever express more than relations.” ”

“ I dwell on this before passing on to the poem, because I want to bring before you the remembrance of what a tremendous factor in literature, as in thought and in the whole of life is the principle of comparison, or, as we might put it, the principle of similitude or likeness. We learn about a thing we do not know through its likeness, as a whole or in some parts, to a thing we do know. ”

“ In speaking of arguments I mentioned a kind of similitude which, as an ornament to a discourse, contributes to make it sublime, florid, pleasing, and admirable. For the more far-fetched a similitude is, the more new and unexpected it will appear. Some may be thought commonplace, yet will avail much for enforcing belief; as, "As a piece of ground becomes better and more fertile by cultivation, so does the mind by good institutions." ”

“ And, as we have seen, if quality is restricted to that which is the term of a relation, then at any stage before distinction obviously you will have no quality. The unity of a felt whole, for example, which is certainly an identity, will as certainly not be qualitative, nor will there be qualitative sameness ever between what is felt and then later perceived. ”

“ For I immediately reply, that a succession of related objects places the mind in this disposition, and is considered with the same smooth and uninterrupted progress of the imagination, as attends the view of the same invariable object. The very nature and essence of relation is to connect our ideas with each other, and upon the appearance of one, to facilitate the transition to its correlative. ”