ASSOCIATION. 571 



the slaves of literal fact, the stumblers over the smallest 

 abrupt step in thought, 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 char- 

 acters and some of Dickens's minor personages supply 

 excellent instances. 



Perhaps as successful a rendering as any of this mental 

 type is the character of Miss Bates in Miss Austen's * Em- 

 ma.' Hear how she redintegrates : 



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

 possibly hear it, Mr. Kuightley ? For it is not five minutes since I received 

 Mrs. Cole's note— no, it cannot 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 Haw- 

 kins—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 Mi's. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins — ' " 



But in every one of us there are moments when this 

 comj)lete reproduction 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 con- 

 sists 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 noio 

 and then which forms the central interest of our contempla- 

 tion. 



ORDINARY OR MIXED ASSOCIATION. 



This case helps us to understand why it is that the 

 ordinary spontaneous flow of our ideas does not follow the 

 law of impartial redintegration. In no revival of a past ex- 

 perience are all the items of our thought equally operative in 

 determining ivhat the next thought shall he. Aliuays some in- 

 gredient is prepotent over the rest. Its special suggestions or 



