378 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— J. 



Mr. E. Farmer. — A Psychological Study of Accident-pr oneness. 



Prof. G. Dawes Hicks. — The Phenomena of so-called Fusion. 



By the ' blending ' or ' coalescence ' or ' fusion ' of presentations tliere has been 

 understood either (a) the synthesis or conjunction of heterogeneous contents — 

 contents belonging to distinct types of sense-experience, or (6) such synthesis or 

 combination as is supposed to be involved when the contents assumed to unite are 

 homogeneous in character. These two kinds of result are essentially different. 



(a) To this there corresponds exactly what Locke designated a ' complex idea ' : 

 and, so far as a title is needed for describiug what is meant, no better can be found 

 than ' complexes ' or ' complications.' The sense-organs are stimulated in most 

 cases together ; indeed, we have no experience involving stimulation simply of one 

 sense. From the outset, therefore, our sense-experience is complex. But we do not 

 start with recognition of this complexity as a fact ; nor do we start with the appre- 

 hension of isolated contents and recognition of their conjunction. The essential 

 process in sense-apprehension is, roughly speaking, the gradual recognition of 

 qualitative differences and, correlatively, the establishment of more or less iirm 

 conjunctions among presentations belonging to different orders, as also amongst 

 those belonging to different species of the same order. Here we find, in fact, the 

 germs of the process to which the name of ' association ' is usually given. Those 

 sense- presentations which are grouped together, and which are gradually recognised 

 as forming wholes, have their elements associated. There is, it seems to me, no real 

 ground for the law that is called that of ' similarity ' ; the only associative principle 

 is that of contiguity of whole and part. Now, so far as the first class of phenomena 

 to which the name of ' fusion ' has been applied is concerned, these are explicable 

 along the lines indicated. It is not to be assumed that there are originally experiences 

 of separate qualities, and that these become blended into a whole in which they are 

 no longer distinguishable. On the contrary, there is first the experience of an 

 undifferentiated whole, and gradually the conscious subject comes to recognise the 

 different qualities combined in this whole. Illustrations : ' tonal fusion,' the facts 

 of binocular vision, so-called fusion of retinal images, &c. In none of these cases is 

 there any such thing as a blending together into one fused totality of a number of 

 separate presentations. 



(6) If there is such a thing as a fusion of presentations at all, it would be of the 

 kind to which the Herbartian psychologists and, i n his earlier writings, Wundt, applied 

 the term — namely, a synthesis or blending of contents homogeneous in character. 

 According to the view in question, the formation of definite, sharply defined contents 

 comes about by a sort of superposition of contents already more or less definite and 

 precise in character. For such a view there is no real psychological foundation. We 

 do not start with the awareness of defim'te contents, which are subsequently revived 

 and superimposed upon new contents indistinguishably like them. An act of appre- 

 hending is essentially an act of discriminating, and the conditions under which 

 discrimination can be carried out are originally supplied in such small quantity that 

 the first apprehended contents are necessarily the least definite and precise. It is 

 due to the fact that apprehension of what we call the ' same ' content occurs in 

 conjunction with the most varied surroundings that there is rendered possible 

 recognition in what is apprehended of qualities, aspects, relations, which at first did 

 not form part of it. Accordingly, the increasing definiteness of a presentation does 

 not come about from anything that can rightly be called a fusion or blending of 

 presentatioiis. The results ascribed to such a process are not in truth explained 

 thereby, and they can readily find explanation in terms which are not thus out of 

 keeping with all that we know of the mental life. 



Mr. J. G. Taylor. — The Nature of Consciousness. 



Wednesday, July 24. 



Joint Discussion with Section L on Psychological Tests in Relation 

 to Education and Vocational Guidance. 



