798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tice, expressing conflicting opinions from precisely the same data. 

 (3ne part of the testimony will attach itself to some former expe- 

 rience in the case of a certain judge. That testimony may thereby 

 become powerfully swayed by that association, and may therefore 

 assume undue importance. Other testimony may not receive suf- 

 ficient attention, because there was no associated factor to inten- 

 sify the impression. A jury is especially exposed to such deflec- 

 tions. If there is a damage suit over injury to a child, any 

 jurymen who have children will be peculiarly sensitive to testi- 

 mony showing carelessness on the part of the one who occasioned 

 the injury, and peculiarly deaf to testimony establishing the fact 

 that the child's own fault was responsible for the harm. In gen- 

 eral, less important truths with a powerful attachment to some- 

 thing in our own experience will completely overshadow those 

 more important with no such association. No one can forecast 

 how many truths will affect certain people until he knows what 

 associated ideas these truths have to contend with. 



The association of ideas goes so far as even to affect the way 

 in which we perceive things. A passing bird may be perceived, 

 or, as some people prefer to say, " apperceived," by a lady as an 

 ornament to her bonnet ; by a fruit-grower as an insect-killer ; by 

 a poet as a songster ; by an artist as a fine bit of coloring and 

 form. The housewife may apperceive old rags as something to 

 be thrown away ; a rag-picker, as something to be gathered up. 

 A carpenter, walking in a forest, would see the trees as possi- 

 ble sticks of timber. A botanist would notice the shapes of 

 the leaves. A hunter would have an eye for coverts for game. 

 A fisherman would regard the stream flowing through the wood 

 as a good place for trout. An ornithologist would have an ear 

 for the birds. A man's profession can soon be detected by the 

 way he perceives things. The truths of our world are deter- 

 mined by what we see, and ive for the most part see only those 

 things which we can join to something in our own line of experi- 

 ence. All other things do not exist for us. Their truths are not a 

 part of our world. After we have perceived a thing, the brain 

 probably never returns to its former state. Any new perception 

 will feel the deflecting force of former perceptions. A butcher 

 and a cloth manufacturer perceive a sheep in an entirely different 

 way. If their perceptions have differed, it is impossible for two 

 persons to see a new thing in precisely the same way. It is of 

 the utmost importance for success in life that this truth be fully 

 apprehended. Men succeed in proportion to their fullness of un- 

 derstanding their fellow-men and influencing them. Educated 

 persons ought to expect different men to look at the same thing in 

 different ways, and the intelligent should be constantly prepared 

 to meet such cases. If psychology is to have practical worth, such 



