be to show how these
clusters are connected in the process of reasoning. Here the
difficulty about predication recurs. J. S. Mill[530] remarks that his
father's theory of predication consistently omits 'the element
Belief.' When I say, 'John is a man,' I make an affirmation or assert
a belief. I do not simply mean to call up in the mind of my hearer a
certain 'cluster' or two coincident clusters of ideas, but to convey
knowledge of truths. The omission of reference to belief is certainly
no trifle. Mill has classified the various ideas and combinations of
ideas which are used in judgment, but the process of judgment itself
seems to have slipped out of account. He may have given us, or be able
to give us, a reasoned catalogue of the contents of our minds, but has
not explained how the mind itself acts. It is a mere passive recipient
of ideas, or rather itself a cluster of ideas cohering in various
ways, without energy of its own. One idea, as he tells us, calls up
another 'by its own associating power.'[531] Ideas are things which
somehow stick together and revive each other, without reference to the
mind in which they exist or which they compose. This explains his
frequent insistence upon one assertion. As we approach the question of
judgment he finds it essential. 'Having a sensation and having a
feeling,' he says, 'are not two things.' To 'feel an idea and be
conscious of that feeling are not two things; the feeling and the
consciousness are but two names for the same thing.'[532] So, again,
'to have a sensation and to believe that we have it, are not
distinguishable things.'[533] Locke's reflection thus becomes nothing
but simple consciousness, and having a feeling is the same as
attending to it.[534] The point is essential. It amounts to saying
that we can speak of a thought as though it were simply a thing.

Thus belief not only depends upon, but actually _is_ association. 'It
is not easy,' he says, 'to treat of memory, belief, and judgment
separately.'[535] As J. S. Mill naturally asks, 'How is it possible to
treat of belief without including in it memory and judgment?' Memory
is a case of belief, and judgment an 'act of belief.'[536] To James
Mill, however, it appears that as these different functions all
involve association, they may be resolved into varying applications of
that universal power. Memory involves 'an idea of my present self' and
an 'idea of my past self,' and to remember is to 'run over the
inte