(Ebook PDF) No Code Video Game Development Using Unity and Playmaker 1st Edition by Michael Kelley 1498735665 9781498735667 Full Chapters
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CHAPTER 2 ▪ File
CHAPTER 3 ▪ Edit
CHAPTER 4 ▪ Assets
4.1 PREFABS
4.2 MATERIALS
4.3 PACKAGES
CHAPTER 8 ▪ Window
CHAPTER 9 ▪ Help
CHAPTER 10 ▪ Toolbar
CHAPTER 28 ▪ Lighting
28.1 TROUBLESHOOTING
CHAPTER 29 ▪ Audio
CHAPTER 38 ▪ Raycasting
38.1 TROUBLESHOOTING
INTRODUCTION
The introduction contains information about conventions and
software versions. It also characterizes the importance of discipline
over motivation.
2. File
Here, we identify the Main Menu Bar and dissect the File Button.
Scene and Project are defined as analogous to, among other things,
level and game. Best practices for successful workflow are described
and Packages are introduced. We will create a Project named
“section1.”
3. Edit
This chapter introduces the Edit drop-down menu and all it has to
offer. Here, we examine useful hotkeys and editor settings.
4. Assets
The Asset Button and its drop-down menu are described in detail.
Assets are defined. The importance of packages and their use is
explained in this chapter. We will create and edit a prefab from
Yoshimi Vs. Face Punching Robots! We will also create a Unity
account and purchase and import PlayMaker. We will save our first
Scene.
7. PlayMaker Drop-Down
This chapter will inform the reader of the functionality made
available in the PlayMaker drop-down menu. Important terms will be
defined and readers will learn how to create a custom Layout
conducive to the use of PlayMaker.
8. Window
Unity’s Layout configurability will be expanded upon to include editor
management functions. The distinction between Windows and Views
will be made clear.
9. Help
Need help? This chapter will tell you where to find it.
10. Toolbar
Learn how to navigate the Scene View. This chapter teaches the
functionality provided by the Toolbar. The “too-many-dials” problem
is first introduced herein. GameObject Translation is described. Pivot
points, their importance, and pivot point hacks are taught in this
chapter.
38. Raycasting
In order to determine whether or not the player is able to
successfully hit the enemy, we will learn the common and useful
Action of Raycasting. We will create a Raycasting FSM and
troubleshoot it to satisfaction. This chapter will mark our first Section
III encounter with variables and the Send Event Action.
39. The User Interface
In Chapter 39, we will get a button into the Scene, configure and
position it, and texture it. The user interface (UI) Canvas will be
configured to accommodate multiple screen resolutions.
M
ICHAEL KELLEY IS A former adjunct professor at University,
where he pioneered the creation of video game development
courses. He is an internationally award-winning indie
developer and author of several game-related inventions. His
company, Nickel City Pixels, Inc., was accepted into multiple
technology incubators and is currently developing a number of IPs
including The Blind Shrine Maiden, DreamCasters’ Duel, Yoshimi Vs.
Face Punching Robots, and Star Foxy VR. With his No-Code series of
book he manifests the dream of game creation for a whole new
demographic previously limited by an inability to program.
Introduction
W
HAT YOU HAVE IN your hands is the fastest, surest way to
realize your game development dreams. It is greater than the
game development course I created and taught at university
and costs thousands of dollars less. By drawing upon my experience
as an educator and award-winning game developer you will be
saving time as well. If you can create a flowchart, you can forgo
years of study. You can make video games without having to write a
single line of code. It is all made possible by Unity 3D, PlayMaker,
and this kit.
Being able to forgo years and thousands of dollars worth of effort
means it is easier to make games now than it ever was. But it is not
too easy. Making games is work. Sometimes the work can be
overwhelming. One of the perennial questions indie developers ask
each other is, “How do you stay motivated?” My perennial answer is,
“You don’t.” You stay disciplined. Motivation is what made you pick
up this book; discipline is what will make you see it through to
completion. Remember that as you read Section I (it is a little dry).
To stay disciplined, remind yourself of the alternative: spending tons
of money and lots of time, or worse yet, never realizing your
dreams.
The following is a note on the practices and conventions used in
this book. The first time an important concept or software-specific
name appears in the text, it will appear in bold type. Software-
specific names and labels are capitalized. Instructions are in bullets.
The first time a software-specific name appears in a block of
instructions, it will appear in bold type. It will reappear in bold type
each time it appears for the first time in a new block of instructions.
The downloadable content provided with this book can be
acquired from http://nickelcitypixels.com/noCodeBook/dlc.zip or
from the results of a web search. In the section1.unityPlayMaker
package, Scenes are provided incomplete; you will have to edit the
Scenes as instructed by the book in order to complete them. In
Sections II and III of the downloadable content, the Scenes are
provided as already complete (but staggered). It is recommended
that you try to recreate the Scenes from scratch as you follow along
with the book. Refer to the corresponding downloadable content
only when you need clarification. Always remember that importing
new content can overwrite files of the same name in your Unity
Project, so please be careful!
The examples in this book were written using Unity Version
4.6.7f1, the final entry in series 4. It has the benefit of a proven
track record and stability. If you would like to use the most recent
version of Unity, feel free! The differences between the latest
iteration of 5 and the last version of 4 are, for our purposes, mostly
cosmetic. Any significant divergence between the two versions will
be noted.
That’s it! The sooner we get started, the sooner you will become a
successful game developer. Let’s go!
I
All about Unity
CHAPTER 1
T
HE HISTORY OF VIDEO game development is relatively short yet
decidedly dramatic. In turn, borne of revolutionary technology
and revolutionizing technology, its history has at times been
cyclical. From an independent developer’s perspective, its major
epochs are defined by how easy or difficult it has been to complete a
commercially viable game product.
The first video games were mostly proof-of-concept projects
cooked up in university laboratories and government research
facilities. Games such as OXO, Tennis for Two, and Spacewar! were
one- and two-man affairs whose graphics consisted of simple 2D
shapes. By recycling mechanics and graphics, small teams were able
to churn out a glut of space shooters and pong clones. Pac Man,
despite being more complex both in terms of graphics and game
mechanics, was completed by Toru Iwatani and a nine-man team in
about a year. Iwatani’s small team created something that raked in
money hand over fist, one quarter at a time, until they’d amassed
billions. This was the Golden Age of Arcade Gaming.
The Golden Age of Arcade Gaming was a decent time to be an
indie developer. It was simple enough for anyone with solid
programming skills and a home computer to experiment with game
creation. A small team with good financing could then take those
experiments to market.
The Age of the Home Console, generations three through seven,
was not as kind to indies. Arcades and PCs were no longer the place
to play. Ever-evolving hardware drove demand for ever-impressive
graphics. More money in meant more money out, which in turn
meant more money in. This money-primed feedback loop resulted in
a need for ever-expanding teams of highly skilled artists and
programmers. By the turn of the century, a “Triple A” title required
hundreds of workers and a budget of as many millions. Arcades died
out. The little guy could no longer compete.
And so, they didn’t. Individuals who wanted to experiment and
innovate pursued game development as a hobby. They cannibalized
retail PC games, putting the games up on blocks, stripping them
down, and carrying away the engines. A game engine is what makes
games (and game development) go. A game engine is a
generalized software development toolbox that provides
functionality typical of game development and game play.
This functionality includes rendering, networking, and physics
simulation. It facilitates the development of video games by
providing tools that allow the user to create levels, import new art
assets, and implement additional scripts (code). By using engines
and swapping out art assets and scripting new scenarios, skilled
“modders” could transform a sci-fi game such as Half-Life into a
tactical shooter like Counter-Strike. Impressed by these
accomplishments, big-budget developers like Epic quickly realized
that they could license their game engines to developers that were
slightly less big. They could not be too much less big, however; the
Unreal Tournament 2004 engine, for example, cost a quarter-million
dollars to license. This left a vacuum that, in time, less-expensive
engines could fill.
Some hobbyists came together in the realization that while they
could not create a “Triple A” game, they could create a game engine.
They created many game engines. In fact, DevMaster.net lists 370
game engines, most of which are free. A “you-get-what-you-pay-for”
caveat applies here though; many of the engines are incomplete,
their documentation is lacking, and their capabilities are limited.
One such limitation is a lack of extensibility. Updates to these
game engines’ functionality only come by way of an update to the
game engine itself. Typical of freeware, these updates tend to be
infrequent. Furthermore, by not attempting the completion of a
game, game engine hobbyists may lack the foresight to anticipate a
game developer’s needs. Any added capability therefore is bound by
the insight, ability, and time constraints of a relatively small, unpaid
development team.
Free engines, typically, will lock creators into a programming
language. No matter what programming language is chosen, the
choice will decimate an already curt list of available programmers.
These engine’s art asset pipelines may be wonky too, similarly
draining the talent pool of potential artists.
One of the worst limitations of just about every game engine is
that each can only build to one platform. To build to a PC requires
one engine, separate consoles pair to separate engines, and each
mobile OS will likewise necessitate a different engine. Deciding upon
an engine therefore locks you into a platform, restricting revenue.
Good luck predicting what the market for any particular platform will
be like once you are finally ready to release your game!
1.1.1 Unity
Allows developers to publish to a multitude of platforms all with
the press of a button
Allows developers to program in several languages: C#,
Javascript (UnityScript), and Boo
Offers a cost-effective solution to many problems through its
crowdsourced Asset Store
Offers a free version
File
W
E ARE GOING TO look at File, the first menu provided by Unity’s
Main Menu Bar. In this chapter, we will learn of Unity’s three
most important file and folder types: Project, Scene, and
Package. Crucially, we will learn which to use when and why. We will
create a Project. Briefly, we will examine building a project to a
game.
This is Unity; this is home (Figure 2.1). Along the top, you will see
what looks to be a very standard Main Menu Bar. And in many
ways it is, but do not be fooled; there is a lot of powerful functionality
in this Main Menu Bar and some things in it that are absolutely
essential to know and understand. For example, if you click on File
(Figure 2.2), you will see a lot of reference to Scenes and Projects.
It is really important to understand what Scenes and Projects are and
how they relate to each other. One way to think of Scene and Project
is that Scene is a level within a game and Project is the game
itself. Simultaneously, think of Scene as a file (with the
extension .unity) and Project as a folder. Your Project’s name
will wind up being the name of your folder (and vice versa). Once
this folder has been created through the Project (Creation)
Wizard, Unity will propagate additional folders throughout. It is
important that you not drag and drop files in and out of the Project
folders in the operating system (OS) as it may wind up confusing
Unity. The Unity engine adds metadata to the files and folders it
creates to keep track of everything and to keep everything in its right
place. To reiterate, Scene is a game level and a file. Project is
the game and a folder system. Do not move your game’s files
in the operating system. Always do so in Unity.
One thing we are not really seeing yet, but is worth mentioning
now, is the file type Package. Along with Scene and Project,
Package completes the trinity of Unity file and folder types. Package
is Unity’s proprietary compressed file format (with the
extension .unityPackage). It is very much like a .zip or .rar except
that it contains metadata unique to Unity. It allows you to import
and export individual assets or entire Projects while
retaining their hierarchical relationships and cross-
references. PlayMaker, as well as other Unity Asset Store
assets, is sold as a .unityPackage file. Projects and Scenes
should be shared as .unityPackages. Projects should be
backed up as .unityPackages.
When you begin a game, you will first create a new Project and
then a new Scene. Unity will ask what, if any, standard Packages
should be imported. It is advisable to refrain from importing any
Packages that are not absolutely and immediately necessary.
Unnecessary Packages will cause bloat; you can always import
Packages later as needed.
Some standard Packages that should almost always be imported
when creating a Project are the following:
Once you have your Project and Scene created, from here on, you
will be primarily opening and saving Scenes. “Save Project” saves all
unsaved modifications to any asset in your Project folder. This also
automatically happens when you close Unity. For this reason, there
really is no need to save Projects, and opening anything other than
the most recent Project will load without a Scene (no matter how
many times you experience this, seeing a Project open devoid of its
carefully crafted Scenes will cause you to panic). Any iterations of the
game should be saved as Scenes. You do not want to have multiple
Project files for the same game. Typically, you should only, have one
Project per game title. Let’s create a Unity Project now.
Edit
I
N THIS CHAPTER WE will be looking at the Edit drop-down menu
(Figure 3.1). The Edit drop-down menu may seem extensive and
tedious, but learning it will help provide a solid foundation for
your future as a game developer working in Unity. The most
important concepts here are those of Tags and Layers.
Much of the Edit menu is typical: Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy,
Paste, and Delete. Duplicate should likewise be familiar and self-
explanatory. It is worth mentioning though that there are some
distinguishing features between duplicate and a copy and paste
procedure. First of all, duplicate is one less operation for the user.
This may seem insignificant but as game developers, we are always
looking for ways to do things in one less operation. Cumulatively,
this, coupled with other transactional shortcuts, will pay huge time-
saving dividends. Always remember that time is money. Another
important difference between duplicate and copy and paste is that
you can copy and paste across Scenes. It is possible to copy a
GameObject in one Scene, open another Scene, and paste it in.
GameObjects will be covered in detail in Chapter 5.
Frame Selected can be actuated by using F as a hotkey. If you
select a GameObject in the Scene View and press F, it will center
the object in the Scene View. Moreover, if you select an object from
the textual list in the Hierarchy View and then hover your mouse
over the Scene View and press F, the selected object will be found
and centered. This is especially useful for pinpointing GameObjects
that you cannot currently see in Scene View.
Quality allows you to specify the visual fidelity of your built game
according to several presets that can be selected by the player.
Perhaps the most easily overlooked parameter with the greatest
consequence in the Quality Inspector View is Pixel Light Count. It
will be covered in Chapter 28.
Graphics allows you to specify what shaders should always be
included with your build. Similar to Pixel Light Count, it is an easily
overlooked setting that can have a significant impact on how good
your game looks. This will also be covered in greater depth in
Chapter 28.
Render Settings affects how the game handles visual
processing. In upcoming projects, we will be looking at Fog and its
associated settings. We will also tackle Ambient Light and Skybox
Materials. Fog causes the visuals to be obscured in direct
proportion to their distance from the camera. Ambient Light allows
you to tint the game rendering in order to achieve a particular
ambiance. Skybox Materials renders so as to give the appearance of
surrounding sky.
In the next grouping, Network Emulation and Graphics
Emulation allow you to test your game under certain conditions
such as fast or slow internet conditions and high- and low-Render
Settings.
Finally, Snap Settings allows you to position GameObjects at
intervals specified in the Unit Snapping View. It is activated by
holding the Control key (Command on Mac).
In Unity 5, there are additional Sign in and Sign out options that
should be self-explanatory. Render Settings, which will be important
later, has been moved to a new Lighting View.
Many of Unity’s Edit menu items you’ve seen before in other
software packages. For the most part, it is important that you simply
know of the options located here. Once again, the most important
concepts are those of Tags and Layers. Be aware that there are
important settings buried inconspicuously in Quality, Graphics,
and Render Settings that will affect how good your game looks. In
the next chapter, assets will be discussed.
CHAPTER 4
Assets
I
N THIS CHAPTER, WE will look at the Assets drop-down menu (Figure
4.1). We are going to learn some key concepts and vocabulary such
as Prefab, Instantiation, Materials, Textures, and Shaders. We
will revisit Packages, both importing and exporting, and learn about
PlayMaker’s (free) bolt-on system for managing its extensibility.
The Assets drop-down can be accessed by clicking on Assets along the
Main Menu Bar. As with most things in Unity, there is more than one way
to access the Assets menu. The alternate method can be accomplished by
right-clicking the right-hand pane of the Project View (Figure 4.2).
This is the most convenient way of accessing the menu. That will
expand the menu and expose Create. Speaking of alternate access, there
is an alternate way to access the Create submenu too. In addition to
exposing it through the Main Menu bar drop-down and by right-clicking
the right-hand pane of the Project View, Create options can be accessed
by clicking the Create button at the top of the left-hand pane of the
Project View (Figure 4.3).
However it is accessed, its wealth of options remains the same. The
first option, Folder, allows for folder creation. This folder will appear in
the Project View. In the next subsection, we are provided the ability to
create any number of script types. Since this book is all about creating
without coding, you can safely ignore Javascript through Compute
Shader.
FIGURE 4.1 The Assets drop-down menu.
FIGURE 4.2 The alternate method of accessing the Assets menu by right-clicking the
right-hand pane of the Project View.
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the systems of philosophers, who have not made the very simple
analysis, which alone seems to me to be necessary for a more
precise arrangement.
In like manner, those suggestions of another class, which constitute
our notions of proportion, resemblance, difference, and all the
variety of relations, may, as I have already remarked, arise, when we
have had no previous desire of tracing the relations, or may arise
after that previous desire. But, when the feelings of relation seem to
us to arise spontaneously, they are not in themselves, different from
the feelings of relation, that arise, in our intentional comparisons or
judgments, in the longest series of ratiocination. Of such
ratiocination, they are truly the most important elements. The
permanent desire of discovering something unknown, or of
establishing, or confuting, or illustrating, some point of belief or
conjecture, may coexist, indeed, with the continued series of
relations that are felt, but does not alter the nature of that law, by
which these judgments, or relative suggestions, succeed each other.
There is no power to be found, but only the union of certain
intellectual states of the mind, with certain desires,—a species of
combination not more wonderful in itself, than any other complex
mental state, as when we, at the same moment, see and smell a
rose,—or listen to the voice of a friend, who has been long absent
from us, and see, at the same moment, that face of affection, which
is again giving confidence to our heart, and gladness to our very
eyes.
Our intellectual states of mind, then, are either those resemblances
of past affections of the mind, which arise by simple suggestion, or
those feelings of relation, which arise by what I have termed relative
suggestions,—the one set resulting, indeed, from some prior states
of the mind, but not involving necessarily, any consideration of these
previous states of mind, which suggested them,—the other set,
necessarily, involving the consideration of two or more objects, or
two or more affections of mind, as subjects of the relation which is
felt.
How readily all the intellectual states of mind, which are commonly
ascribed to a variety of powers, may be reduced to those two, will
appear more clearly, after we have considered and illustrated the
phenomena of each set.
I shall proceed, therefore, in the first place, to the phenomena of
simple suggestion, which are usually referred to a principle of
association in our ideas.
Footnotes
[135] Traite des Sensations, Part I. Chap. vii. Sect. 2.
[136] Ovid. Metamorph. Lib. XV. v. 234–6, and 252–8.
[137] Mart. Scrib. c. xii.
LECTURE XXXIV.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE INTERNAL
AFFECTIONS OF MIND, CONTINUED,—
ON SIMPLE SUGGESTION,—
ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM THE
PRINCIPLE OF SUGGESTION,—ON MR
HUME'S CLASSIFICATION OF THE
CAUSES OF ASSOCIATE FEELINGS.
SIMPLE SUGGESTION.
The intellectual phenomena which we are, in the first place, to
consider, then, are those of Simple Suggestion, which are usually
classed under the general term of the Association of Ideas,—a term
employed to denote that tendency of the mind, by which feelings,
that were formerly excited by an external cause, arise afterwards, in
regular successions to each other, as it were spontaneously, or at
least without the immediate presence of any known external cause.
The limitation of the term, however, to those states of mind, which
are exclusively denominated ideas, has, I conceive, tended greatly to
obscure the subject, or at least to deprive us of the aid which we
might have received from it in the analysis of many of the most
complex phenomena. The influence of the associating principle itself
extends, not to ideas only, but to every species of affection of which
the mind is susceptible. Our internal joys, sorrows, and all the
variety of our emotions, are capable of being revived in a certain
degree by the mere influence of this principle, and of blending with
the ideas or other feelings which awakened them, in the same
manner as our conceptions of external things. These last, however, it
must be admitted, present the most striking and obvious examples
of the influence of the principle, and are, therefore, the fittest for
illustrating it. The faint and shadowy elements of past emotions, as
mingling in any present feeling, it may not be easy to distinguish;
but our remembrances of things without are clear and definite, and
are easily recognized by us as images of the past. We have seen, in
the history of our senses, by what admirable means Nature has
provided for communicating to man those first rude elements of
knowledge, which are afterwards to be the materials of his sublimest
speculations,—and with what still more admirable goodness she has
ministered to his pleasure in these primary elements of thought, and
in the very provision which she has formed for the subsistence of his
animal frame,—making the organs by which he becomes acquainted
with the properties of external things, not the fountain of knowledge
only, but an ever-mingling source of enjoyment and instruction.
It is through the medium of perception, as we have seen,—that is to
say, through the medium of those sensitive capacities already so
fully considered by us,—that we acquire our knowledge of the
properties of external things. But if our knowledge of these
properties were limited to the moment of perception, and were
extinguished forever with the fading sensation from which it sprang,
the acquisition of this fugitive knowledge would be of little value. We
should still, indeed, be sensible of the momentary pleasure or pain;
but all experience of the past, and all that confidence in the regular
successions of future events, which flows from experience of the
past, would of course, be excluded by universal and instant
forgetfulness. In such circumstances, if the common wants of our
animal nature remained, it is evident, that even life itself, in its worst
and most miserable state, could not be supported; since, though
oppressed with thirst and hunger, and within reach of the most
delicious fruits and the most plentiful spring-water, we should still
suffer without any knowledge of the means by which the suffering
could be remedied. Even if, by some provision of Nature, our bodily
constitution had been so framed, as to require no supply of
subsistence, or if, instinctively and without reflection, we had been
led on the first impulse of appetite, to repair our daily waste, and to
shelter ourselves from the various causes of physical injury to which
we are exposed, though our animal life might then have continued
to be extended to as long a period as at present, still, if but a
succession of momentary sensations, it would have been one of the
lowest forms of mere animal life. It is only as capable of looking
before and behind,—that is to say, as capable of those spontaneous
suggestions of thought which constitute remembrance and foresight,
—that we rise to the dignity of intellectual being, and that man can
be said to be the image of that Purest of Intellects, who looks
backward and forward, in a single glance, not on a few years only,
but on all the ages of eternity. “Deum te scito esse,” says Cicero, in
allusion to these powers,—“Deum te scito esse, siquidem Deus est,
qui viget, qui sentit,—qui meminit, qui prævidet, qui tam regit et
moderatur et movet id corpus, cui præpositus est, quam hunc
mundum princeps ille Deus.”
“Were it not so, the Soul, all dead and lost,
As the fix'd stream beneath the impassive frost,[138]
Form'd for no end, and impotent to please,
Would lie inactive on the couch of ease;
And, heedless of proud fame's immortal lay,
Sleep all her dull divinity away.”[139]
Without any remembrance of pleasures formerly enjoyed, or of
sorrows long past and long endured,—looking on the persons and
scenes which had surrounded us from the first moment of our birth,
as if they were objects altogether unknown to us,—incapable even
of as much reasoning as still gleams through the dreadful stupor of
the maniac,—or of conveying even that faint expression of thought
with which the rudest savages, in the rudest language, are still able
to hold some communication of their passions or designs;—such, but
for that capacity which we are considering, would have been the
deplorable picture of the whole human race. What is now revered by
us as the most generous and heroic virtue, or the most profound
and penetrating genius, would have been nothing more than this
wretchedness and imbecility. It is the suggesting principle, the
reviver of thoughts and feelings which have passed away, that gives
value to all our other powers and susceptibilities, intellectual and
moral—not indeed, by producing them, for, though unevolved, they
would still, as latent capacities, be a part of the original constitution
of our spiritual nature,—but by rousing them into action, and
furnishing them with those accumulating and inexhaustible
materials, which are to be the elements of future thought and the
objects of future emotion. Every talent by which we excel, and every
vivid feeling which animates us, derive their energy from the
suggestions of this ever-active principle. We love and hate,—we
desire and fear,—we use means for obtaining good, and avoiding
evil,—because we remember the objects and occurrences which we
have formerly observed, and because the future, in the similarity of
the successions which it presents, appears to us only a prolongation
of the past.
In conferring on us the capacity of these spontaneous suggestions,
then, Heaven has much more than doubled our existence; for,
without it, and consequently without those faculties and emotions
which involve it, existence would scarcely have been desirable. The
very importance of the benefits which we derive from it, however,
renders us perhaps less sensible of its value; since it is so mingled,
with all our knowledge, and all our plans of action, that we find it
difficult to conceive a state of sentient being, of which it is not a
part, and to estimate, consequently, at a just amount, the advantage
which it affords. The future memory of perception seems to us
almost implied in perception itself; and to speculate on that strange
state of existence which would have been the condition of man, if he
had been formed without the power of remembrance, and capable
only of a series of sensations, has, at first, an appearance almost of
absurdity and contradiction, as if we were imagining conditions
which were in their nature incompatible. Yet, assuredly, if it were
possible for us to consider such a subject a priori, the real cause of
wonder would appear to be, not in the absence of the suggestions of
memory, as in the case, imagined, but in that remembrance of which
we have the happy experience. When a feeling, of the existence of
which consciousness furnishes the only evidence, has passed away
so completely, that not even the slightest consciousness of it
remains, it would surely,—but for that experience,—be more natural
to suppose that it had perished altogether, than that it should, at the
distance of many years, without any renewal of it by the external
cause which originally produced it, again start, as it were of itself,
into being. To foresee that which has not yet begun to exist, is, in
itself, scarcely more unaccountable, than to see as it were before us,
what has wholly ceased to exist. The present moment is all of which
we are conscious, and which can strictly be said to have a real
existence, in relation to ourselves. That mode of time, which we call
the past, and that other mode of time, which we call the future, are
both equally unexisting. That the knowledge of either should be
added to us, so as to form a part of our present consciousness, is a
gift of Heaven, most beneficial to us indeed, but most mysterious,
and equally, or nearly equally mysterious, whether the unexisting
time, of which the knowledge is indulged to us, be the future or the
past.
The advantage which we derive from the principle of suggestion, it
must, however, be remarked, consists, not in its mere revival of
thoughts and feelings, of which we had before been conscious, but
in its revival of these in a certain order. If past objects and events
had been suggested to us again, not in that series, in which they
had formerly occurred, nor according to any of those relations,
which human discernment has been able to discover among them,
but in endless confusion and irregularity, the knowledge thus
acquired, however gratifying as a source of mere variety of feeling,
would avail us little, or rather would be wholly profitless, not merely
in our speculative inquiries as philosophers, but in the simplest
actions of common life. It is quite evident, that, in this case, we
should be altogether unable to turn our experience to account, as a
mode of avoiding future evil or obtaining future good; because, for
this application of our knowledge, it would be requisite that events,
before observed, should occur to us, at the time, when similar
events might be expected. We refrain from tasting the poisonous
berry, which we have known to be the occasion of death to him who
tasted it; because the mere sight of it brings again before us the
fatal event, which we have heard or witnessed. We satisfy our
appetite with a salutary fruit, without the slightest apprehension;
because its familiar appearance recals to us the refreshment, which
we have repeatedly received. But, if these suggestions were
reversed,—if the agreeable images of health and refreshment were
all that were suggested by the poisonous plant, and pain, and
convulsions, and death were the only images suggested by the sight
of the grateful and nourishing fruit, there can be no doubt, to which
of the two, our unfortunate preference would be given. To take the
most familiar of all instances,—that of language,—which, either as
written or spoken, is in such constant use, and which is so essential,
not merely to our first advance, from absolute barbarism, but to the
common domestic necessities, even of barbarous life, that, without
it, we can scarcely conceive two individuals, however rude, to exist
together,—this, it is evident, could not have been invented,—nor, if
invented, could it serve any other purpose than to mislead,—if the
words spoken were to have no greater chance of suggesting the
meaning intended by the speaker, than any other meaning, which
any other words of the language might be employed to denote.
What social affection could continue for an hour, if the sight of a
friend were to suggest, in intimate combination, not the kindnesses
which he had conferred, and all the enjoyments of which he had
been the source, but the malice, and envy, and revenge of some
jealous and disappointed enemy?
He who has given us, in one simple principle, the power of reviving
the past, has not made his gift so unavailing. The feelings, which
this wonderful principle preserves and restores, arise, not loosely
and confusedly—for what is there in the whole wide scene of nature,
which does so occur?—but, according to general laws or tendencies
of succession, contrived with the most admirable adaptation to our
wants, so as to bring again before us the knowledge formerly
acquired by us, at the very time when it is most profitable that it
should return. A value is thus given to experience, which otherwise
would not be worthy of the name; and we are enabled to extend it
almost at pleasure, so as to profit, not merely by that experience
which the events of nature, occurring in conformity with these
general laws, must at any rate have afforded to us,—but to regulate
this very experience itself,—to dispose objects and events, so that,
by tendencies of suggestion, on the firmness of which we may put
perfect reliance, they shall give us, perhaps at the distance of many
years, such lessons as we may wish them to yield,—and thus to
invent and create, in a great measure, the intellectual and moral
history of our future life, as an epic or dramatic writer arranges at
his will the continued scenes of his various and magnificent
narrative. I need not add, that it is on this skilful management of the
laws, which regulate our trains of thought, the whole theory and
practice of education are founded;—that art, which I have already
repeatedly represented to you as the noblest of all the arts of man—
itself the animating spirit of every other art—which exerts its own
immediate operation, not on lifeless things, but on the affections and
faculties of the soul itself—and which has raised us from the dust,
where we slept or trembled, in sluggish, yet ferocious ignorance, the
victims of each other, and of every element around us, to be the
sharers and diffusers of the blessings of social polity, the measurers
of the earth and of the skies, and the rational worshippers of that
eternal Being by whom they and we were created.
That there is a tendency of ideas to suggest each other, without any
renewed perception of the external objects which originally excited
them, and that the suggestion is not, altogether loose and indefinite,
but that certain ideas have a peculiar tendency to suggest certain
other relative ideas in associate trains of thought, is too familiar to
you, as a general fact of our intellectual nature, to require to be
illustrated by example.
It has been beautifully compared, by the most philosophic of our
poets, to the mutual influence of two sympathetic needles, which
Strada, in one of his Prolusions, availing himself of a supposed fact,
which was then believed, or scarcely doubted by many philosophers,
makes the subject of verses, supposed to be recited by Cardinal
Bembo, in the character of Lucretius. The needles were fabled to
have been magnetized together, and suspended over different
circles, so as to be capable of moving along an alphabet. In these
circumstances, by the remaining influence of their original kindred
magnetism, they were supposed, at whatever distance, to follow
each other's motions, and pause accordingly at the same point; so
that, by watching them at concerted hours, the friends, who
possessed this happy telegraph, were supposed to be able to
communicate to each other their feelings, with the same accuracy
and confidence as when they were together.
“For when the different images of things,
By chance combin'd have struck the attentive soul
With deeper impulse, or, connected long,
Have drawn his frequent eye; howe'er distinct
The external scenes, yet oft the ideas gain
From that conjunction an eternal tie
And sympathy unbroken. Let the Mind
Recal one partner of the various league,—
Immediate, lo! the firm confederates rise,
And each his former station straight resumes;
One movement governs the consenting throng,
And all at once with rosy pleasure shine,
Or all are sadden'd with the glooms of care.
'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold,
Two faithful needles, from the informing touch
Of the same parent-stone, together drew
Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd
With fatal impulse quivering to the pole,
Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms,—though the main
Roll'd its broad surge betwixt,—and different stars
Beheld their wakeful motions,—yet preserv'd
The former friendship, and remember'd still
The alliance of their birth. Whate'er the line
Which one possessed, nor pause nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere, with trembling speed,
He found its path, and fixed unerring there.
Such is the secret union, when we feel
A song, a flower, a name, at once restore
Those long connected scenes where first they mov'd
The attention. Backward through her many walks,
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
To temples, courts, or fields,—with all the band
Of (living)[140] forms, of passions, and designs,
Attendant; whence, if pleasing in itself,
The prospect from that sweet accession gains
Redoubled influence o'er the listening Mind.
By these mysterious ties, the busy power
Of Memory her ideal train preserves
Entire; or, when they would elude her watch,
Reclaims their fleeting footsteps, from the waste
Of dark Oblivion.”[141]
What then are these mysterious ties?—or, to state the question more
philosophically, what are the general circumstances which regulate
the successions of our ideas?
That there is some regularity in these successions, must, as I have
already remarked, have been felt by every one; and there are many
references to such regularity in the works of philosophers of every
age. The most striking ancient reference, however, to any general
circumstances, or laws of suggestion,—though the innumeration of
these is hinted, rather than developed at any length,—is that which
you will find in a passage, quoted by Dr Beattie and Mr Stewart,
from Aristotle. It is a passage explanatory of the process by which,
in voluntary reminiscence, we endeavour to discover the idea of
which we are in search. We are said to hunt for it—(Θηρεὺομεν is
the word in the original)—among other ideas, either of objects
existing at present, or at some former time; and from their
resemblance, contrariety, and contiguity— ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν, ἢ ἂλλου
τινὸς, καὶ ἀφ' ὁμοίου, ἢ ἐναντίου, ἢ τοῦ συνέγγυς. Διὰ τοῦτο γινεταὶ
ἡ ἀνάμνησις.[142] This brief enumeration of the general
circumstances which direct us in reminiscence is worthy of our
attention on its own account; and is not less remarkable on account
of the very close resemblance which it bears to the arrangement
afterwards made by Mr Hume, though there is no reason to believe
that the modern philosopher was at all acquainted with the
classification which had, at so great a distance of time, anticipated
his own.
I must remark, however, that though it would be in the highest
degree unjust to the well-known liberality and frankness of Mr
Hume's character, to suppose him to have been aware of any
enumeration of the general circumstances on which suggestion
appears to depend, prior to that which he has himself given us, his
attempt was far from being so original as he supposed. I do not
allude merely to the passage of Aristotle, already quoted, nor to a
corresponding passage, which I might have quoted, from one of the
most celebrated of his commentators, Dr Thomas Aquinas, but to
various passages which I have found in the works of writers of much
more recent date, in which the influence of resemblance and
contiguity, the two generic circumstances to which, on his own
principles, his own triple division should have been reduced, is
particularly pointed out. Thus, to take an example from an
elementary work of a very eminent author, Ernesti, published in the
year 1734,—his Initia Doctrinæ Solidioris,—with what precision has
he laid down those very laws of association of which Mr Hume
speaks. After stating the general fact of suggestion, or association,
under the Latin term phantasia, he proceeds to state the principles
which guide it. All the variety of these internal successions of our
ideas, he says, may be reduced to the following law. When one
image is present in the mind, it may suggest the image of some
absent object—either of one that is similar in some respect to that
already present—or of one of which the present is a part—or of one
which has been present together with it on some former occasion.
“Hujus autem phantasiæ lex hæc est; Præsentibus animo rerum
imaginibus quibuscunque, recurrere et redire ad animum possunt
rerum absentium olimque perceptarum imagines, præsentibus
similes, vel quarum, quæ sunt præsentes, partes sunt,—vel denique,
quas cum præsentibus simul hausimus.”[143]
Even the arrangement, as stated by Mr Hume, is not expressed in
more formal terms. But as it is to his arrangement the philosophers
of our own country are accustomed to refer, in treating of
association, the importance thus attached to it gives it a preferable
claim to our fuller discussion. It is stated by him briefly in two
paragraphs of his Essay on the Association of Ideas.
“Though it be too obvious to escape observation,” he says, “that
different ideas are connected together, I do not find that any
philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of
association; a subject, however, that seems worthy of curiosity. To
me there appear to be only three principles of connexion among
ideas, viz. resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause or
effect.
“That these principles serve to connect ideas, will not, I believe, be
much doubted. A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original.
The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an
inquiry or discourse concerning the others. And if we think of a
wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows
it. But that the enumeration is complete, and that there are no other
principles of association except these, may be difficult to prove to
the satisfaction of the reader or even to a man's own satisfaction. All
we can do, in such cases, is to run over several instances, and
examine carefully the principle which binds the different thoughts to
each other,—never stopping, till we render the principle as general
as possible. The more instances we examine, and the more care we
employ, the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration
which we form from the whole is complete and entire.”[144]
On these paragraphs of Mr Hume, a few obvious criticisms present
themselves. In the first place, however, I must observe,—to qualify
in some degree the severity of the remarks which may be made on
his classification,—that it is evident, from the very language now
quoted to you, that he is far from bringing forward his classification
as complete. He states, indeed, that it appears to him, that there are
no other principles of connexion among our ideas than the three
which he has mentioned; but he adds, that though the reality of
their influence as connecting principles will not, he believes, be
much doubted, it may still be difficult to prove, to the satisfaction of
his reader, or even of himself, that the enumeration is complete; and
he recommends, in consequence, a careful examination of every
instance of suggestion, in the successive trains of our ideas, that
other principles, if any such there be, may be detected.
But to proceed to the actual classification, as presented to us by Mr
Hume. A note, which he has added to the paragraph that contains
his system, affords perhaps as striking an instance as is to be found
in the history of science of that illusion, which the excessive love of
simplicity tends to produce, even in the most acute and subtile
philosopher, so as to blind, to the most manifest inconsistencies, in
his own arrangement, those powers of critical discernment which
would have flashed instant detection on inconsistencies far less
glaringly apparent in the speculations of another. After stating, that
there appear to him to be only the three principles of connexion
already mentioned, Mr Hume adds, in a note,—as an instance of
other connexions apparently different from these three, which may,
notwithstanding, be reduced to them,—
“Contrast or contrariety, also, is a species of connexion among ideas.
But it may perhaps be considered as a mixture of causation and
resemblance. Where two objects are contrary, the one destroys the
other, i. e. is the cause of its annihilation, and the idea of the
annihilation of an object implies the idea of its former existence.”
When we hear or read for the first time this little theory of the
suggestions of contrast, there is, perhaps no one who does not feel
some difficulty in believing it to be a genuine speculation of that
powerful mind which produced it. Contrast, says Mr Hume, is a
mixture of causation and resemblance. An object, when contrasted
with another, destroys it. In destruction there is causation; and we
cannot conceive destruction, without having the idea of former
existence. Thus, to take an instance,—Mr Hume does not deny, that
the idea of a dwarf may suggest, by contrast, the idea of a giant;
but he says that the idea of a dwarf suggests the idea of a giant,
because the idea of a dwarf destroys the idea of a giant, and thus,
by the connecting principle of causation involved in all destruction,
may suggest the idea destroyed; and he adds, as an additional
reason for the suggestion, that the idea of the annihilation of a giant
implies the idea of the former existence of a giant. And all this
strange and complicated analysis,—this explanation, not of the
obscurum per obscurius, which is a much more intelligible
paralogism, but of the lucidum per obscurum, is seriously brought
forward by its very acute author, as illustrating the simple and
familiar fact of the suggestion of opposites, in contrast, by opposites.
In the first place, I may remark, that in Mr Hume's view of contrast,
it is not easy to discover what the resemblance is of which he
speaks, in a case in which the objects in themselves are said by him
to be so contrary, that the one absolutely destroys the other by this
contrariety alone; and, indeed, if there be truly this mixed
resemblance in contrast, what need is there of having recourse to
annihilation or causation at all, to account for the suggestion, since
the resemblance alone in this, as in every other case, might be
sufficient to explain the suggestion, without the necessity of any
separate division;—as the likeness of a single feature in the
countenance of a stranger, is sufficient to bring before us in
conception the friend whom he resembles, though the resemblance
be in the single feature only.
In the second place, there is no truth, if, indeed, there be any
meaning whatever, in the assertion that in contrast one of the
objects destroys the other; for, so far is the idea of the dwarf from
destroying the idea of the giant, that, in the actual case supposed, it
is the very reason of the existence of the second idea; nay, the very
supposition of a perceived contrast implies that there is no such
annihilation; for both ideas must be present to the mind together, or
they could not appear either similar or dissimilar, that is to say, could
not be known by us as contrasted, or contrary, in any respect. It is,
indeed, not very easy to conceive, how a mind so acute as that of
Mr Hume should not have discovered that grossest of all logical and
physical errors, involved in his explanation, that it accounts for the
existence of a feeling, by supposing it previously to exist as the
cause of itself. If as he says, the idea of the annihilation of an object
implies the idea of its former existence—an assertion which is by no
means so favourable as he thinks to his own theory—it must surely
be admitted, that no annihilation can take place before the existence
of that which is to be annihilated. Whether, therefore, we suppose,
that the idea of the dwarf, which suggests the idea of the giant,
annihilates that idea, or is itself annihilated by it, the two ideas of
the dwarf and the giant must have existed, before the annihilation of
either. The suggestion, in short, which is the difficulty, and the only
difficulty to be explained, must have completely taken place, before
the principle can even be imagined to operate, on which the
suggestion itself is said to depend.
Such minute criticism, however, is perhaps more, than it is necessary
to give to a doctrine so obviously false, even sanctioned as it is by so
very eminent a name.
Footnotes
[138] “Like the tall cliff beneath the impassive frost.”—
Orig.
[139] Cawthorn.—Regulation of the Passions, &c. v.
15–20.
[140] Painted—Orig.
[141] Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 312–352.
[142] Aristot. de Memor. and Reminisc. c. ii.–v. II. p.
86. Edit. Du Val.
[143] De Mente Humana, C. I. Sect. xvi. p. 138, 139.
[144] Hume's Inquiry concerning Human
Understanding, Sect. III.
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