Psychical Processes 159 



of the rose. There is reason to believe that a 

 sensation is a purely automatic process; it is 

 only when the potential energy attached to its 

 nervous elements in the form of an impression 

 is released by a fresh stimulus of its mnemic 

 elements, and passes to surrounding association 

 nervous matter that an idea or intelligent image 

 of the constituent parts of the object which has 

 caused the impression becomes a reality. 



For instance, when we first saw a rose we 

 may have smelt it and have plucked it from 

 its stem. In this way, at the same time as our 

 visual mnemic elements received an impression 

 of the form and colour of the flower, our olfac- 

 tory and tactile sensory centres also became 

 impressed by its odour and feel. Energy dis- 

 charged from any one of these charged centres 

 releases energy from the other centres, and 

 leads to a real and complete idea of the rose. 

 The sensation imparted by a rose that we have 

 once seen is not totally lost after the flower has 

 disappeared, for if we again see a similar flower 

 we recognise it as one we have seen. 



Take another example. We see a friend and 

 greet him. In this case the form of our friend 



