In the field covered by scholastic logic Mill is frankly associationist.
So again in determining the " import " of propositions, it is no accident that in all save existential propositions it is to the familiar rubrics of associationism - co-existence, sequence, causation and resemblance - that he refers for classification, while his general formula as to the conjunctions of connotations is associationist through and through.
Once more, it would be possible to forget that Mill's ultimate laws or axioms are not in his view intuitions, nor forms constitutive of the rational order, nor postulates of all rational construction, were it not that he has made the endeavour to establish them on associationist lines.
But that truth is not what Mill expounds, nor is it capable of development within the limits imposed by the associationist formula.
As regards moral sentiments generally, the view suggested by Mill is more definitely given by the chief living representative of the associationist school, Alexander Bain; by whom the distinctive characteristics of conscience are traced to " education under government or authority," though prudence, disinterested sympathy and other emotions combine to swell the mass of feeling vaguely denoted by the term moral.