together and breaking things up into parts, constantly work together.

§ 40. The Control of the Process of Analysis

The conditions favoring the analysis of a definite element out of a vague and complex total fact are:

1. The collection of a number of total facts in each of which (a) the element is as obtrusive as possible, as little encumbered by irrelevant detail as possible and in which (b) the element's concomitants or surroundings vary. Thus if the teacher wishes to develop in a pupil's mind the abstract idea of the passive voice, he uses such examples as he is struck, they were accepted, you will be applauded, Grant was elected, rather than the repetition four times of, I am satisfied. For in the last example the passive element is not at all prominent; the pupil may well think of satisfied as an adjective; and the element is not thrown into relief by variations in the other features of the examples.

2. That these facts be compared with attention directed toward the parts or elements of each fact, especially toward the element in question. In the illustration above, attention could readily be directed toward the passive voice aspect by comparing the four sentences each with its corresponding active (he is struck, he strikes; they were accepted, they accepted, etc.)

3. That a symbol or name of some kind be ready to be associated with the element when felt. Unconnected feelings cannot maintain an existence in the mind; a fact thought of without a name of some sort is just an unconnected feeling. Let me have never so clear an idea of the thing, I still gain by having also associated with it a name. So in the illustration above good teachers are

careful to give the name 'passive voice' as soon as the pupil has the feeling, 'subject does nothing, something is done to him.'

To assure the permanence of the feeling, repeated practice in detecting the element in new complexes is necessary. So the teacher sets the pupil to pick out all the passives he can on a page, or to divide a mixed list into actives and passives, or to perform some other exercise to the same end.

The conditions that favor analysis are thus those that would be met by a fertile and selective mind, one that would naturally summon together many facts and attend to their parts. More is required here than for the simple association of ideas and acts. Hence the capacity to dissociate or analyze is of later and higher development. Animals possessing the former lack it. Babies form many associative habits before they show any signs of analysis. In feeble minded adults analysis develops only to a slight extent. The commonest sense elements, such as color, size, shape, few, many, and the like, are known, but to feel the meaning of 'twenty,' or of 'a promise' or of 'opposite' is beyond their power. In individuals of high intellectual ability, on the other hand, the process of dissociation is very prominent.

Exercises

I. Which process, association or dissociation, is involved in

each of the following?

(a) in learning to ride a bicycle.

(b) in learning a poem by heart.

(c) in learning to understand the difference between the present tense and the past tense.

(d) in learning to understand the difference between by to express means and by to express agency.

(e) in learning the meanings of the numbers.

(f)

in learning the multiplication table.

(g) in learning the meanings of velocity and of accelera

tion.

(h) in learning to spell.

2. For which is dissociation more necessary, learning the grammar of a language or learning its vocabulary? Learning algebra or learning geometry? Learning physical geography or learning commercial geography?

3. What associations would be necessary before a child could by dissociation come to feel the meaning of if? Of longer than? Of positive, comparative and superlative?

4. How would you develop in the mind of a school-boy a definite and independent idea of acceleration, or of wealth, or of reciprocity?

References

A. James, Briefer Course, XV.

B. James, Principles, XIII. (502-508).

§ 41. Physiological Conditions of Human Nature

The three laws presented in this and the two preceding chapters summarize the method of action of nature and nurture, inborn mental constitution and acquired modifications, in its most essential features. The intellect and character of any one of us is due largely to the operation of these three laws. Not entirely, however; for any human being's thought and conduct, depending as they do upon the action of his nervous system, will sometimes show mysterious alterations,-behavior unexplainable by the laws of instinct, association and dissociation. The nervous system is influenced not only by the factors accounted for in these three laws, but also by fatigue, drugs, sickness, the decay of old age, shock, the chance variations of blood-pressure, metabolism and the like.

It is necessary in a brief treatment to omit the facts that are known concerning the action of these forces, as

well as the many problems answers to which are yet to be discovered. I have used and shall in the future, frequently use the phrase 'other things being equal' to recall to the reader's mind the fact that there are always many complex possibilities for mental action at any moment. Even when no such provisional clause is in the text the reader should supply it mentally. He should not forget, for instance, that though the general law of mental life is the law of association or habit, a sufficient dose of hashish will keep in temporary abeyance the most fixed habits of perception; that enough alcohol will weaken all inhibitory associations; that the law of frequency will be apparently suspended in the delirium of fever or even in ordinary sleep; that the capacity for intellectual achievement may be weakened by disease of the thyroid gland; that a child's temperament or disposition will suffer complete change during an attack of indigestion. This caution not to forget the real and frequent influence of direct physiological changes in the nervous system upon human intellect and character ought perhaps to be repeated at the beginning of every chapter from now on. But I shall entrust to the reader the duty of remembering it for himself.

CHAPTER XV

THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SENSE STIMULI AND MENTAL STATES: CONNECTIONS OF IMPRESSION

§ 42. Inborn and Acquired Connections of Impression

Inborn Connections. Every educated person knows that some sort of connection exists between events taking place in the physical world and his mental states; that he hears sounds because there are sound-waves, and smells odors when certain gases are present in the atmosphere. The immediate connection is between the action of neurones in the brain and the mental states; but since these neurones are aroused to action by afferent neurones from the sense organs, and since these afferent neurones are aroused by the physical event either directly or through some physiological process, we commonly speak of the total series of connections between the physical event and the mental state as one connection.

Such connections are due to inborn capacities. Sound waves of 50-100 vibrations per second arouse a feeling of a low tone and those of 10,000-20,000 vibrations per second arouse a feeling of a high tone, simply because man's mind is so constituted by nature that they do. Ether vibrations make us feel reds and greens and blues while rapid molecular motion makes us feel warm, just because these forms of connection have been established