DISCRIMINATION AND COMPARISON. 511 



may, as wholes, be judged very distinct. The effect of 

 practice in increasing discrimination must then, in part, be due 

 to the reinforcing effect, upon an original slight difference between 

 the terms, of additional differences betiveen the diverse associates 

 tvhich they severally affect. Let B and C be tlie terms : If 

 A contract adhesions with B, and C with D, AB may ap- 

 pear very distinct from CD, though B and C per se might 

 have been almost identical. 



To illustrate, how does one learn to distinguish claret 

 from burgundy? Probably they have been drunk on 

 different occasions. When we first drank claret we heard 

 it called by that name, we were eating such and such a 

 dinner, etc. Next time we drink it, a dim reminder of all 

 those things chimes through us as we get the taste of the 

 wine. When we try burgundy our first impression is that 

 it is a kind of claret ; but something falls short of full iden- 

 tification, and presently we hear it called burgundy. Dur- 

 ing the next few experiences, the discrimination may still 

 be uncertain — " which," we ask ourselves, " of the two wines 

 is this present specimen ?" But at last the claret-flavor re- 

 calls pretty distinctly its own name, ' claret,' "that wine I 

 drank at So-and-so's table," etc. ; and the burgundy -flavor 

 recalls the name burgundy and some one else's table. And 

 only when this different setting has come to each is our dis- 

 crimination betiveen the tivo flavors solid and stable. After a 

 while the tables and other parts of the setting, besides the 

 name, grow so multifarious as not to come up distinctly into 

 consciousness ; but pari passu with this, the adhesion of 

 each wine with its own name becomes more and more in- 

 veterate, and at last each flavor suggests instantly and cer- 

 tainly its own name and nothing else. The names differ far 

 more than the flavors, and help to stretch these latter farther 

 apart. Some such process as this must go on in all our 

 experience. Beef and mutton, strawberries and rasp= 

 berries, odor of rose and odor of violet, contract different 

 adhesions which reinforce the differences already felt in 

 the terms. 



The reader may say that this has nothing to do with 

 making us feel the difference between the two terms. It is 

 merely fixing, identifying, and so to speak substantializing, 



