THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 585 



and fanciless beings who spare you no detail, however petty, of the 

 facts they are recounting, and upon the thread of whose narrative all 

 the irrelevant items cluster as pertinaciously as the essential ones, the 

 slaves of literal fact, the stumblers over the smallest abrupt step in 

 thouo-ht, are figures known to all of us. Comic literature has made 

 her profit out of them. Juliet's nurse is a classical example. George 

 Eliot's village characters and some of Dickens's minor personages sup- 

 ply excellent instances. 



Perhaps as successful a rendering as any of this mental type is the 

 character of Miss Bates in Miss Austen's " Emma." Hear how she 

 redintegrates : " ' But where could you hear it ? ' cried Miss Bates. 

 ' Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley ? For it is not five 

 minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's note— no, it can not be more than 

 five — or at least ten — for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just 

 ready to come out — I was only gone down to speak to Patty again 

 about the pork — Jane was standing in the passage — were not you, 

 Jane ? — for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan 

 large enough. So I said I would go down and see, and Jane said : 

 " Shall I go down instead ? for I think you have a little cold, and 

 Patty has been washing the kitchen." " Oh, my dear," said I — well, 

 and just then came the note. A Miss Hawkins — that's all I know — a 

 Miss Hawkins, of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley, how could you possibly 

 have heard it ? for the very moment Mr. Cole told Mrs. Cole of it, she 

 sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins — ' " 



But in every one of us there are moments when this complete re- 

 production of all the items of a past experience occurs. What are 

 those moments ? They are moments of emotional recall of the past as 

 something which once was, but is gone for ever — moments, the interest 

 of which consists in the feeling that our self was once other than it 

 now is. When this is the case, any detail, however minute, which 

 will make the past picture more complete, will also have its effect in 

 swelling that total contrast between now and then which forms the 

 central interest of our contemplation. 



This case helps us to understand why it is that the ordinary spon- 

 taneous flow of our ideas does not follow the law of " complete " Asso- 

 ciation by Contiguity. In no revival of a past experience are all the 

 items of our thought equally and impartially operative in determining 

 what the next thought shall be. Always some ingredient is prepotent 

 over the rest. Its special suggestions or associations in this case will 

 often be different from those which it has in common with the whole 

 group of items ; and its tendency to awaken these outlying associates 

 will deflect the path of our reverie. Just as in the original sensible 

 experience our attention focalized itself upon a few of the impressions 

 of the scene before us, so here in the reproduced representation of those 

 impressions the same partiality is shown, and some items emphasized 

 above the rest. What these items shall be is, in most cases of sponta- 



