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not because it is of a mysteriously different kind from that of ordinary men. The marvel is in the superior activity of the processes of dissociation or abstraction by which a fact reveals to the genius elements or aspects never before seen in it, and in the superior fertility by which one after another of the consequences of this new insight are passed in review and so used to test its value.

Training in Reasoning.-(1) Facts to reason with are the first essential to progress in reasoning. It is by other facts that the pertinence of any fact is judged; it is by calling up some decisive fact that the selected element brings the thinker nearer to the desired conclusion.

(2) Practice in attending to the parts or elements of facts, in examining each detail, in thinking of things not in their gross total appearance but in their different aspects and with respect to their different features, is the second essential. The student must learn to conquer facts by dividing them.

(3) The greatest aid in this process is comparison. Elements appear in a fact when it is in juxtaposition with others which would never be noticed in it by itself. Thinking things together, putting them in groups, looking for similars and opposites, supplanting the random order of the world's facts by an arrangement into classes,-into likes and unlikes, causes and effects, conditions and dependents and the like,-is the preliminary to insight into the world's nature. It furnishes the opportunity for the law of dissociation to operate.

(4) Practice in criticising one's ideas,-in asking 'Does this fit the problem?' 'Is this a relevant, useful idea?' 'Where will this fact lead?' 'Am I on the right track?'-will improve the power to select wisely and to resist the attractions of unessential ideas. This process

of criticism, of learning to judge whether the idea present is the one essential to the end in view, will be improved (5) by knowledge of the common fallacies or mistakes to which thinking is subject, and of the useful methods of verification of thought by appeal to observation and experiment. Practice in detecting fallacies and verifying conclusions is the business of logic and scientific method, not of psychology.

Exercises

I. Which of the trains of thought of question 3 of the exercises following § 45 seem most purposive or controlled?

2. Is it harder or easier to make out the causes of the connections in the controlled than in the spontaneous trains of thought? 3. Why?

4. Notice what happens as you try to think of a word meaning 'not capable of being taken away from or given away by the possessor.'

5. Note what happens in your mental life when you think out the answer to the question, 'What are the opposites of because, if, and, adroit, loquacious, to degrade?'

6. Prove the following proposition: The diagonals of a rectangle are equal. Write down every idea you have in the course of thinking out the proof. After you have finished, examine the series of ideas recorded and note instances of selection and of rejection.

7. Compare a passage involving reasoning with a simple descriptive passage of equal length :-1

(a) In the number of general notions.

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Experiment 26. Spontaneous and Controlled Association.Cover the lists of words printed below and look at them only as necessary for the experiment.

1 Selections of the one sort will be readily found in text books on mathematics, physics, economics and the like; and of the other sort in novels or biographies.

Get a friend to measure, with a stop watch if one is obtainable, the time taken in calling up the things or words suggested by the words in list A. That is, uncover the words at a given signal, looking at the first word. As soon as any thing or word comes to your mind, look at the second; as soon as it arouses an idea look at the third and so on. When the tenth word has called up its associated idea record the time that has elapsed in seeing the ten words and thinking of ten things.

Do the same with lists B, C and D except that the idea called up must mean in every case the opposite of the thing or quality meant by the printed word (e. g., for work you must think play, or be idle or the like, for friend you must think enemy or foe or the like).

Compare the times taken in the four cases. Record, so far as you can remember them, any instances of the inhibition of irrelevant or misleading ideas that came to mind in the course of thinking of the opposites of list D.

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Experiment 27. Spontaneous and Controlled Association.(a) With pencil in hand read the passage that follows, writing in each of the blank spaces the very first word that comes to mind as you read. Have some one note the number of seconds which the experiment takes. Read the same passage as before, writing in each of the blank spaces the word which seems to you the right one. Have some one note the time taken as before. Describe the differences between the two mental processes.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is

;

We have given our hearts away, a

boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be at all

And are up-gathered now like fut flowers;
For this, for
we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
Ahead suckled in a creedouwe;

So might I, standing on this arres lea,
Have that would make me less arts;
that

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

(b) Do likewise with the following passage:—
TRANSPORTATION. The transporting

water

enormous

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of running as the sixth-power of the velocity. Even at this of increase, blocks of stone of many hundreds of of glaciers,

tons weight, such as are often found in the

would require, if carried by

But glaciers carry

of all sizes, with

tons

are

an almost incredible

by them and left in

resting on their surfaces, and therefore ease. Rock-fragments of thousands of path by retreat. Again: fragments carried by water are always more or less bruised, worn, and rounded, while fragments carried on the surface of Again, water-currents set down blocks positions; while glaciers, in their slow melting,

of stone in

are

often leave them perched in

as rocking-stones.

positions, and even sometimes

References

A. James, Briefer Course, XVI. (271-279), XXII.
Stout, Manual, 447-458.

Titchener, Outline, §§ 84-85.

B. James, Principles, XXII.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MENTAL STATES AND ACTS: CONNECTIONS OF EXPRESSION

§ 50. The General Laws of Human Action

The same laws which describe the connections between sense stimuli and mental states and between one mental state and another, apply to the connections between mental states and movements.

The Law of Instinct.-Given any mental state, that movement will be made which the inborn constitution of the nervous system has connected with the mental state or part of it. The baby reaches for a bright object seen because by inner organization that sense-presentation connects with that act. For the same reason he puts the object into his mouth when he feels it within his grasp. The boy puts up his arm and wards off a blow, and strikes back at the giver of the blow, because his brain is so organized by nature as to connect those responses with those situations.

The Law of Association.-Given any mental state, that movement will be made which has been connected with it or part of it most frequently, most recently, in the most vivid experience and with the most resulting satisfaction, and which has been so connected with the general system of thought and conduct present. We say five when we think five; we take off our clothes when we decide to go to bed; we shake hands with a caller; we pat a dog; we stroke a kitten; we put a hat on our head and a

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