OBJECT AND LIVING ORGANISM 95 



objects ; and it is worth while giving special attention to 

 these confusions, for we can learn something very interesting 

 from their study. I remember once seeing quite distinctly a 

 great toad hop across the road in front of me, and afterwards 

 this resolved itself into a fiat stone and a bumble-bee flying 

 past. 



The following experience made an especial impression on 

 me. I wanted to make sure that a boat, which I used every 

 day for crossing a pond, was lying at its proper place, and I 

 bent aside a branch of a bush that obstructed my view. 

 There in the bright sunshine the boat lay before me, in its 

 familiar colours ; the oars, which had been shipped, threw 

 their shadows on the seats just as usual. But as I came round 

 the bush, the boat was gone ! Through the compelling force 

 of the schema already in my mind, I had made use of the 

 reflection in the water in such a way as to form the boat, 

 down to every detail. 



It is really surprising that these mistakes do not occur 

 much more often, considering how swiftly the eye, when we 

 come into a strange room, takes in a hundred different objects 

 of all kinds ; and it is not possible for all the schemata to 

 have died away completely while this happens. No doubt 

 the coloured content-signs make it easier to select the right 

 schema. 



That we do not make use of memory-pictures already 

 existing, but of the process of image-creation itself, becomes 

 especially clear if we give play to our imagination ; as, for 

 example, when we see bizarre human faces in the pansy 

 flowers, for which we have no preconceived image whatsoever. 

 The man in the moon is another instance of the same kind. 



It is very instructive to turn over the pages of a photo- 

 graph-album, and study the impression produced on us by 

 the sudden sounding of a schema. When, among all the 

 strange faces, we unexpectedly come upon one that we know. 



