ASSOCIATION. 587 



The tension present from the first in Z, even thougli it 

 keep below the threshold of discharge, is jDrobably to some 

 degree co-operative with a, b, c in determining that I, m, n 

 shall awake. Without Z's tension there might be a slower 

 accumulation of objects connected with it. But, as aforesaid, 

 the objects come before us through the brain's own laAvs, 

 and the Ego of the thinker can only remain on hand, as it 

 were, to recognize their relative values and brood over 

 some of them, whilst others are let droj). As when we have 

 lost a material object we cannot recover it by a direct ef- 

 fort, but only through moving about such neighborhoods 

 W'herein it is likely to lie, and trusting that it will then 

 strike our eye ; so here, by not letting our attention leave 

 the neighborhood of what we seek, we trust that it will end 

 by speaking to us of its own accord.* 



Turn noio to the case of finding the unJcnoivn means to 

 a distinctly conceived end. The end here stands in the 

 place of a, b, c, in the diagram. It is the starting-point of 

 the irradiations of suggestion ; and here, as in that case, 

 what the voluntary attention does is only to dismiss some 

 of the suggestions as irrelevant, and hold fast to others 

 which are felt to be more pertinent— let these be symbolized 

 by I, m, n. These latter at last accumulate sufficiently to 

 discharge all together into Z, the excitement of which pro- 

 cess is, in the mental sphere, equivalent to the solution of 

 our problem. The only difference between this case and 

 the last, is that in this one there need be no original sub- 

 excitement in Z, co-operating from the very first. When 



* No one has described this process better than Hobbes : " Sometimea 

 a man seeks what he hath lost ; and from that place and time wherein 

 he misses it, his miud runs back from place to place and time to time to 

 find where and when he had it; that is to say, to find some certain and 

 limited time and place, in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, 

 from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what 

 action or other occasion might make him lose it. This we call Remem- 

 brance, or calling to mind. Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, 

 within the compass whereof he is to seek ; and then his thoughts run over 

 all the parts thereof, in the samemanner as one would sweep a room to find 

 a jewel, or as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a scent, or as a man 

 should run over the alphabet to start a rhyme." (Leviathan, 165, p. 10.) 



