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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enforce the other's action because, in the experience B, they have 

 already vibrated in unison. The lines in the diagram symbolize the 

 summation of discharges into each of the components of B, and the 

 consequent strength of the combination of influences by which B in 

 its totality is awakened. 



Hamilton first used the word " redintegration " to designate all 

 association. Such processes as we have just described might in an 

 emphatic sense be termed redintegrations, for they would necessarily 

 lead, if unobstructed, to the reinstatement in thought of the entire 

 content of large trains of past experience. From this complete redin- 

 tegration there could be no escape save through the irruption of some 

 new and strong present impression of the senses or through the exces- 

 sive tendency of some one of the elementary brain-tracts to discharge 

 independently into an aberrant quarter of the brain. Such was the 

 tendency of the word " heir " in the verse from " Locksley Hall," which 

 was our first example. How such tendencies are constituted, we shall 

 have soon to inquire with some care. Unless they are present, the 

 panorama of the past, once opened, must unroll itself with fatal literal- 

 ity to the end, unless some outward sound, sight, or touch divert the 

 current of thought. 



I prefer to discard the word "redintegration " altogether, and to give 

 to this unobstructed process the name of Complete Association by Con- 

 tiguity. Whether it ever occurs in this absolutely complete form is 

 doubtful. We all immediately recognize, however, that in some minds 

 there is a much greater tendency than in others for the flow of thought 

 to take this form. Those insufferably garrulous old women, those dry 



