nearly half of them in sense imagery, and these were almost always
visual. The names of persons also more frequently occurred in this
series than in any other. It will be recollected that in Table II. I
drew attention to the exceptionally large number, 33, in the last
column. It was perhaps 20 in excess of what would have been expected
from the general run of the other figures. This was wholly due to
visual imagery of scenes with which I was first acquainted after
reaching manhood, and shows, I think, that the scenes of childhood
and youth, though vividly impressed on the memory, are by no means
numerous, and may be quite thrown into the background by the
abundance of after experiences; but this, as we have seen, is not the
case with the other forms of association. Verbal memories of old date,
such as Biblical scraps, family expressions, bits of poetry, and the
like, are very numerous, and rise to the thoughts so quickly,
whenever anything suggests them, that they commonly outstrip all
competitors. Associations connected with the "abasement" series are
strongly characterised by histrionic ideas, and by sense imagery,
which to a great degree merges into a histrionic character. Thus the
word "abhorrence" suggested to me, on three out of the four trials,
an image of the attitude of Martha in the famous picture of the
raising of Lazarus by Sebastian del Piombo in the National Gallery.
She stands with averted head, doubly sheltering her face by her hands
from even a sidelong view of the opened grave. Now I could not be
sure how far I saw the picture as such, in my mental view, or how
far I had thrown my own personality into the picture, and was acting
it as actors might act a mystery play, by the puppets of my own brain,
that were parts of myself. As a matter of fact, I entered it under
the heading of sense imagery, but it might very properly have gone
to swell the number of the histrionic entries.
The "afternoon" series suggested a great preponderance of mere catch
words, showing how slowly I was able to realise the meaning of
abstractions; the phrases intruded themselves before the thoughts
became defined. It occasionally occurred that I puzzled wholly over
a word, and made no entry at all; in thirteen cases either this
happened, or else after one idea had occurred the second was too
confused and obscure to admit of record, and mention of it had to be
omitted in the foregoing Table. These entries have forcibly shown to
me the great imperfection in my generalising powers; and I am sure
that most persons would find the same if they made similar trials.
Nothing is a surer sign of high intellectual capacity than the power
of quickly seizing and easily manipulating ideas of a very abstract
nature. Commonly we grasp them very imperfectly, and cling to their
skirts with great difficulty.
In comparing the order in which the ideas presented themselves, I
find that a decided precedence is assumed by the histrionic ideas,
wherever they occur; that verbal associations occur first and with
great quickness on many occasions, but on the whole that they are
only a little more likely to occur first than second; and that
imagery is decidedly more likely to be the second than the first of
the associations called up by a word. In short, gesture-language
appeals the most quickly to my feelings,
It would be very instructive to print the actual records at length,
made by many experimenters, if the records could be clubbed together
and thrown into a statistical form; but it would be too absurd to
print one's own singly. They lay bare the foundations of a man's
thoughts with curious distinctness, and exhibit his mental anatomy
with more vividness and truth than he would probably care to publish
to the world.
It remains to summarise what has been said in the foregoing memoir.
I have desired to show how whole 1 strata of mental operations that
have lapsed out of ordinary consciousness, admit of being dragged
into light, recorded and treated statistically, and how the
obscurity that attends the initial steps of our thoughts can thus be
pierced and dissipated. I then showed measurably the rate at which
associations sprung up, their character, the date of their first
formation, their tendency to recurrence, and their relative
precedence. Also I gave an instance showing how the phenomenon of a
long-forgotten scene, suddenly starting into consciousness, admitted
in many cases of being explained. Perhaps the strongest of the
impressions left by these experiments regards the multifariousness
of the work done by the mind in a state of half-unconsciousness, and
the valid reason they afford for believing in the existence of still
deeper strata of mental operations, sunk wholly below the level of
consciousness, which may account for such mental phenomena as cannot
otherwise be explained. We gain an insight by these experiments into
the marvellous number and nimbleness of our mental associations, and
we also learn that they are very far indeed from being infinite in
their variety. We find that our working stock of ideas is narrowly
limited and that the mind continually recurs to the same instruments
in conducting its operations, therefore its tracks necessarily
become more defined and its flexibility diminished as age advances.
ANTECHAMBER OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
When I am engaged in trying to think anything out, the process of
doing so appears to me to be this: The ideas that lie at any moment
within my full consciousness seem to attract of their own accord the
most appropriate out of a number of other ideas that are lying close
at hand, but imperfectly within the range of my consciousness. There
seems to be a presence-chamber in my mind where full consciousness
holds court, and where two or three ideas are at the same time in
audience, and an antechamber full of more or less allied ideas,
which is situated just beyond the full ken of consciousness. Out of
this antechamber the ideas most nearly allied to those in the
presence-chamber appear to be summoned in a mechanically logical way,
and to have their turn of audience.
The successful progress of thought appears to depend--first, on a
large attendance in the antechamber; secondly, on the presence there
of no ideas except such as are strictly germane to the topic under
consideration; thirdly, on the justness of the logical mechanism
that issues the summons. The thronging of the antechamber is, I am
convinced, altogether beyond my control; if the ideas do not appear,
I cannot create them, nor compel them to come. The exclusion of
alien ideas is accompanied by a sense of mental effort and volition
whenever the topic under consideration is unattractive, otherwise it
proceeds automatically, for if an intruding idea finds nothing to
cling to, it is unable to hold its place in the antechamber, and
slides back again. An animal absorbed in a favourite occupation
shows no sign of painful effort of attention; on the contrary, he
resents interruption that solicits his attention elsewhere. The
consequence of all this is that the mind frequently does good work
without the slightest exertion. In composition it will often produce
a better effect than if it acted with effort, because the essence of
good composition is that the ideas should be connected by the
easiest possible transitions. When a man has been thinking hard and
long upon a subject, he becomes temporarily familiar with certain
steps of thought, certain short cuts, and certain far-fetched
associations, that do not commend themselves to the minds of other
persons, nor indeed to his own at other times; therefore, it is
better that his transitory familiarity with them should have come to
an end before he begins to write or speak. When he returns to the
work after a sufficient pause he is conscious that his ideas have
settled; that is, they have lost their adventitious relations to one
another, and stand in those in which they are likely to reside
permanently in his own mind, and to exist in the minds of others.
Although the brain is able to do very fair work fluently in an
automatic way, and though it will of its own accord strike out
sudden and happy ideas, it is questionable if it is capable of
working thoroughly and profoundly without past or present effort.
The character of this effort seems to me chiefly to lie in bringing
the contents of the antechamber more nearly within the ken of
consciousness, which then takes comprehensive note of all its
contents, and compels the logical faculty to test them _seriatim_
before selecting the fittest for a summons to the presence-chamber.
Extreme fluency and a vivid and rapid imagination are gifts
naturally and healthfully possessed by those who rise to be great
orators or literary men, for they could not have become successful
in those careers without it. The curious fact already alluded to of
five editors of newspapers being known to me as having phantasmagoria,
points to a connection between two forms of fluency, the literary
and the visual. Fluency may be also a morbid faculty, being markedly
increased by alcohol (as poets are never tired of telling us), and
by various drugs; and it exists in delirium, insanity, and states of
high emotions. The fluency of a vulgar scold is extraordinary.
In preparing to write or speak upon a subject of which the details
have been mastered, I gather, after some inquiry, that the usual
method among persons who have the gift of fluency is to think
cursorily on topics connected with it, until what I have called the
antechamber is well filled with cognate ideas. Then, to allow the
ideas to link themselves in their own way, breaking the linkage
continually and recommencing afresh until some line of thought has
suggested itself that appears from a rapid and light glance to
thread the chief topics together. After this the connections are
brought step by step fully into consciousness, they are
short-circuited here and extended there, as found advisable until a
firm connection is found to be established between all parts of the
subject. After this is done the mental effort is over, and the
composition may proceed fluently in an automatic way. Though this, I
believe, is a usual way, it is by no means universal, for there are
very great differences in the conditions under which different
persons compose most readily. They seem to afford as good evidence
of the variety of mental and bodily constitutions as can be met with
in any other line of inquiry.
It is very reasonable to think that part at least of the inward
response to spiritual yearnings is of similar origin to the visions,
thoughts, and phrases that arise automatically when the mind has
prepared itself to receive them. The devout man attunes his mind to
holy ideas, he excludes alien thoughts, and he waits and watches in
stillness. Gradually the darkness is lifted, the silence of the mind
is broken, and the spiritual responses are heard in the way so often
described by devout men of all religions. This seems to me precisely
analogous to the automatic presentation of ordinary ideas to orators
and literary men, and to the visions of which I spoke in the chapter
on that subject. Dividuality replaces individuality, and one portion
of the mind communicates with another portion as with a different
person.
Some persons and races are naturally more imaginative than others,
and show their visionary tendency in every one of the respects named.
They are fanciful, oratorical, poetical, and credulous. The
"enthusiastic" faculties all seem to hang together; I shall recur to
this in the chapter on enthusiasm.
I have already pointed out the existence of a morbid form of piety:
there is also a morbid condition of apparent inspiration to which
imaginative women are subject, especially those who suffer more or
less from hysteria. It is accompanied in a very curious way,
familiar to medical men, by almost incredible acts of deceit. It is
found even in ladies of position apparently above the suspicion of
vulgar fraud, and seems associated with a strange secret desire to
attract notice. Ecstatics, seers of visions, and devout fasting
girls who eat on the sly, often belong to this category.
EARLY SENTIMENTS.
The child is passionately attached to his home, then to his school,
his country, and religion; yet how entirely the particular home,
school, country, and religion are a matter of accident! He is born
prepared to attach himself as a climbing plant is naturally disposed
to climb, the kind of stick being of little importance. The models
upon whom the child or boy forms himself are the boys or men whom he
has been thrown amongst, and whom from some incidental cause he may
have learned to love and respect. The every-day utterances, the
likes and dislikes of his parents, their social and caste feelings,
their religious persuasions are absorbed by him; their views or
those of his teachers become assimilated and made his own. If a
mixed marriage should have taken place, and the father should die
while the children are yet young, and if a question arise between
the executors of his will and the mother as to the religious
education of the children, application is made as a matter of course
to the Court of Chancery, who decide that the children shall be
brought up as Protestants or as Catholics as the case may be, or the
sons one way and the daughters the other; and they are, and usually
remain so afterwards when free to act for themselves.
It is worthy of note that many of the deaf-mutes who are first
taught to communicate freely with others after they had passed the
period of boyhood, and are asked about their religious feelings up
to that time, are reported to tell the same story. They say that the
meaning of the church service whither they had accompanied their
parents, and of the kneeling to pray, had been absolutely
unintelligible, and a standing puzzle to them. The ritual touched no
chord in their untaught natures that responded in unison. Very much
of what we fondly look upon as a natural religious sentiment is
purely traditional.
The word religion may fairly be applied to any group of sentiments
or persuasions that are strong enough to bind us to do that which
we intellectually may acknowledge to be our duty, and the possession
of some form of religion in this larger sense of the word is of the
utmost importance to moral stability. The sentiments must be strong
enough to make us ashamed at the mere thought of committing, and
distressed during the act of committing any untruth, or any
uncharitable act, or of neglecting what we feel to be right, in
order to indulge in laziness or gratify some passing desire. So long
as experience shows the religion to be competent to produce this
effect, it seems reasonable to believe that the particular dogma is
comparatively of little importance. But as the dogma or sentiments,
whatever they be, if they are not naturally instinctive, must be
ingrained in the character to produce their full effect, they should
be instilled early in life and allowed to grow unshaken until their
roots are firmly fixed. The consciousness of this fact makes the
form of religious teaching in every church and creed identical in
one important particular though its substance may vary in every
respect. In subjects unconnected with sentiment, the freest inquiry
and the fullest deliberation are required before it is thought
decorous to form a final opinion; but wherever sentiment is involved,
and especially in questions of religious dogma, about which there is
more sentiment and more difference of opinion among wise, virtuous,
and truth-seeking men than about any other subject whatever,
free inquiry is peremptorily discouraged. The religious instructor
in every creed is one who makes it his profession to saturate his
pupils with prejudice. A vast and perpetual clamour arises from the
pulpits of endless proselytising sects throughout this great empire,
the priests of all of them crying with one consent, "This is the way,
shut your ears to the words of those who teach differently; don't
look at their books, do not even mention their names except to scoff
at them; they are damnable. Have faith in what I tell you, and save
your souls!" In which of these conflicting doctrines are we to place
our faith if we are not to hear all sides, and to rely upon our own
judgment in the end? Are we to understand that it is the duty of man
to be credulous in accepting whatever the priest in whose
neighbourhood he happens to reside may say? Is it to believe
whatever his parents may have lovingly taught him? There are a vast
number of foolish men and women in the world who marry and have
children, and because they deal lovingly with their children it does
not at all follow that they can instruct them wisely. Or is it to
have faith in what the wisest men of all ages have found peace in
believing? The Catholic phrase, "_quod semper quod ubique quod
omnibus_"--"that which has been believed at all times, in all places,
and by all men"--has indeed a fine rolling sound, but where is the
dogma that satisfies its requirements? Or is it, such and such
really good and wise men with whom you are acquainted, and whom, it
may be, you have the privilege of knowing, have lived consistent
lives through the guidance of these dogmas, how can you who are many
grades their inferior in good works, in capacity and in experience,
presume to set up your opinion against theirs? The reply is, that it
is a matter of history and notoriety that other very good, capable,
and inexperienced men have led and are leading consistent lives
under the guidance of totally different dogmas, and that some of
them a few generations back would have probably burned your modern
hero as a heretic if he had lived in their times and they could have
got hold of him. Also, that men, however eminent in goodness,
intellect, and experience, may be deeply prejudiced, and that their
judgment in matters where their prejudices are involved cannot
thenceforward be trusted. Watches, as electricians know to their cost,
are liable to have their steel work accidentally magnetised, and the
best chronometer under those conditions can never again be trusted
to keep correct time.
Lastly, we are told to have faith in our conscience? well we know
now a great deal more about conscience than formerly. Ethnologists
have studied the manifestations of conscience in different people,
and do not find that they are consistent. Conscience is now known to
be partly transmitted by inheritance in the way and under the
conditions clearly explained by Mr. Darwin, and partly to be an
unsuspected result of early education. The value of inherited
conscience lies in its being the organised result of the social
experiences of many generations, but it fails in so far as it
expresses the experience of generations whose habits differed from
our own. The doctrine of evolution shows that no race can be in
perfect harmony with its surroundings; the latter are continually
changing, while the organism of the race hobbles after, vainly
trying to overtake them. Therefore the inherited part of conscience
cannot be an infallible guide, and the acquired part of it may,
under the influence of dogma, be a very bad one. The history of
fanaticism shows too clearly that this is not only a theory but a
fact. Happy the child, especially in these inquiring days, who has
been taught a religion that mainly rests on the moral obligations
between man and man in domestic and national life, and which, so far
as it is necessarily dogmatic, rests chiefly upon the proper
interpretation of facts about which there is no dispute,--namely, on
those habitual occurrences which are always open to observation, and
which form the basis of so-called natural religion.
It would be instructive to make a study of the working religion of
good and able men of all nations, in order to discover the real
motives by which they were severally animated,--men, I mean, who had
been tried by both prosperity and adversity, and had borne the test;
who, while they led lives full of interest to themselves, were
beloved by their own family, noted among those with whom they had
business relations for their probity and conciliatory ways, and
honoured by a wider circle for their unselfish furtherance of the
public good. Such men exist of many faiths and in many races.
Another interesting and cognate inquiry would be into the motives
that have sufficed to induce men who were leading happy lives, to
meet death willingly at a time when they were not particularly
excited. Probably the number of instances to be found, say among
Mussulmans, who are firm believers in the joys of Mahomet's Paradise,
would not be more numerous than among the Zulus, who have no belief
in any paradise at all, but are influenced by martial honour and
patriotism. There is an Oriental phrase, as I have been told, that
the fear of the inevitable approach of death is a European malady.
Terror at any object is quickly taught if it is taught consistently,
whether the terror be reasonable or not. There are few more stupid
creatures than fish, but they notoriously soon learn to be
frightened at any newly-introduced method of capture, say by an
artificial fly, which, at first their comrades took greedily. Some
one fish may have seen others caught, and have learned to take fright
at the fly. Whenever he saw it again he would betray his terror by
some instinctive gesture, which would be seen and understood by
others, and so instruction in distrusting the fly appears to spread.
All gregarious animals are extremely quick at learning terrors from
one another. It is a condition of their existence that they should
do so, as was explained at length in a previous chapter. Their
safety lies in mutual intelligence and support. When most of them
are browsing a few are always watching, and at the least signal of
alarm the whole herd takes fright simultaneously. Gregarious animals
are quickly alive to their mutual signals; it is beautiful to watch
great flocks of birds as they wheel in their flight and suddenly
show the flash of all their wings against the sky, as they
simultaneously and suddenly change their direction. Much of the
tameness or wildness of an animal's character is probably due to the
placidity or to the frequent starts of alarm of the mother while she
was rearing it. I was greatly struck with some evidence I happened
to meet with, of the pervading atmosphere of alarm and suspicion in
which the children of criminal parents are brought up, and which, in
combination with their inherited disposition, makes them, in the
opinion of many observers, so different to other children. The
evidence of which I speak lay in the tone of letters sent by
criminal parents to their children, who were inmates of the Princess
Mary Village Homes, from which I had the opportunity, thanks to the
kindness of the Superintendent, Mrs. Meredith, of hearing and seeing
extracts. They were full of such phrases as "Mind you do not say
anything about this," though the matters referred to were, to all
appearance, unimportant.
The writings of Dante on the horrible torments of the damned, and
the realistic pictures of the same subject in frescoes and other
pictures of the same date, showing the flames and the flesh hooks
and the harrows, indicate the transforming effect of those cruel
times, fifteen generations ago, upon the disposition of men. Revenge
and torture had been so commonly practised by rulers that they seemed
to be appropriate attributes of every high authority, and the
artists of those days saw no incongruity in supposing that a
supremely powerful master, however beneficent he might be, would
make the freest use of them.
Aversion is taught as easily as terror, when the object of it is
neutral and not especially attractive to an unprejudiced taste. I
can testify in my own person to the somewhat rapidly-acquired and
long-retained fancies concerning the clean and unclean, upon which
Jews and Mussulmans lay such curious stress. It was the result of my
happening to spend a year in the East, at an age when the brain is
very receptive of new ideas, and when I happened to be much
impressed by the nobler aspects of Mussulman civilisation, especially,
I may say, with the manly conformity of their every-day practice to
their creed, which contrasts sharply with what we see among most
Europeans, who profess extreme unworldliness and humiliation on one
day of the week, and act in a worldly and masterful manner during
the remaining six. Although many years have passed since that time, I
still find the old feelings in existence--for instance, that of
looking on the left hand as unclean.
It is difficult to an untravelled Englishman, who has not had an
opportunity of throwing himself into the spirit of the East, to
credit the disgust and detestation that numerous every-day acts,
which appear perfectly harmless to his countrymen, excite in many
Orientals.