Quote from "Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Habit"

Commens

Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce

‘Law of Mind’ (pub. 26.07.15-20:58). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-cambridge-lectures-reasoning-and-logic-things-habit-8.

Term:

Law of Mind

Quote:

The most plastic of all things is the human mind, and next after that comes the organic world, the world of protoplasm. Now the generalizing tendency is the great law of mind, the law of association, the law of habit taking. We also find in all active protoplasm a tendency to take habits. Hence I was led to the hypothesis that the laws of the universe have been formed under a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking.

Source:

Peirce, C. S. (1898). Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Habit. MS [R] 951.

References:

RLT 241; CP 7.515

Date of Quote:

1898

URL:

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-cambridge-lectures-reasoning-and-logic-things-habit-8