230 The Unity of the Organism 



is now very familiar to us as biologists, takes when it ap- 

 pears in garments of a psychologist's making. The "huge 

 error" of the association doctrine, mentioned above, James 

 explains, is "that of the construction of our thoughts out 

 of the compounding of themselves together of immutable 

 and incessantly recurring 'simple ideas.' " ^"^ 



If there be any doubt as to the meaning of this surpris- 

 ingly un-James-like wording, there certainly can not be as 

 to the following: "For Herbart each idea is a permanently 

 existing entity, the entrance whereof into consciousness is 

 but an accidental determination of its being. So far as it 

 succeeds in occupying the theatre of consciousness, it crowds 

 out another idea previously there. . . . The ingenuity w^ith 

 which most special cases of association are formulated in 

 this mechanical language of struggle and inhibition, is great, 

 and surpasses in analytic thoroughness anything that has 

 been done by the British school. This, however, is a doubt- 

 ful merit, in a case where the elements dealt with are arti- 

 ficial ; and I must confess that to my mind there is something 

 almost hideous in the glib Herbartian jargon about Vorstel- 

 lungsmassen and their Hemmungen and Hemmungssummen, 

 and sinken and erhehen and schwehen, and Verschmehungen 

 and C omplexionen.^^ ^^ 



The long and short of the "huge error" of associationist 

 psychology is that ideas are no such independent, immutable, 

 simple entities as the doctrine supposes ; that in their origin 

 and in all they are, and all they do, and all that comes forth 

 from their association, they are in some sort and measure 

 dependent upon — what? Something. Search after this 

 something has been a large motive of more recent psycho- 

 logical inquiry. 



One way of supplementing and rectifying associationist 

 doctrines is to epitomize the shortcoming of these doctrines 

 in the statement that they recognize only the objective side 

 of the association process, whereas the subjective side is 



