ASSOCIATION. 575 



he will, if a friiit-mercliant or an Arabian traveller, think of 

 the produce of the -palm ; if an habitual student of history, 

 figures with a.d. or B.C. before them will rise in his mind. 

 If I say bed, bath, morning, his own daily toilet will be in- 

 vincibly suggested by the combined names of three of its 

 habitual associates. But frequent lines of transition are 

 often set at naught. The sight of C. Goring's 'System der 

 kritischen Philosophie ' has most frequently awakened in 

 me thoughts of the opinions therein propounded. The 

 idea of suicide has never been connected with the volumes. 

 But a moment since, as my eye fell upon them, suicide was 

 the thought that flashed into my mind. Why? Because 

 but yesterday I received a letter from Leipzig informing me 

 that this philosopher's recent death by drowning was an 

 act of self-destruction. Thoughts tend, then, to awaken 

 their most recent as well as their most habitual associates. 

 This is a matter of notorious experience, too notorious, in 

 fact, to need illustration. If we have seen our friend this 

 morning, the mention of his name now recalls the circum- 

 stances of that interview, rather than any more remote 

 details concerning him. If Shakespeare's plays are men- 

 tioned, and we were last night reading ' Richard II.,' ves- 

 tiges of that play rather than of ' Hamlet ' or ' Othello ' 

 float through our mind. Excitement of peculiar tracts, or 

 peculiar modes of general excitement in the brain, leave a 

 sort of tenderness or exalted sensibility behind them which 

 takes days to die away. As long as it lasts, those tracts or 

 those modes are liable to have their activities awakened by 

 causes which at other times might leave them in repose. 

 Hence, recency in experience is a prime factor in determining 

 revival in thought.* 



Vividness in an original experience may also have the 

 same effect as habit or recency in bringing about likelihood 

 of revival. If we have once witnessed an execution, any 

 subsequent conversation or reading about capital punish- 

 ment will almost certainly suggest images of that particular 



* I refer to a recency of a few hours. Mr. Gallon found that experi- 

 ences froni boyhood and youth were more likely to be suggested by words 

 seen at random than experiences of later years. See his highly interesting 

 account of experiments in bis Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 191-203. 



