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This view obviously assumes that the nervous centres of sensation and of ideation (representation) are the same; and physiological opinion appears to be tending towards this conclusion. The paths of connexion by which excitation is thus transmitted along definite lines are supposed to be partly laid down in the original structure of the brain, though largely evolved in connexion with the lifeexperience of the individual. As to the exact manner in which they arise, we are as yet very much in the dark. Although association is of all the psychical processes that which seems to lend itself best to translation into physiological terms, it cannot be said that the nature of the nervous changes involved has been fully elucidated. The fact that a concurrent stimulation of two points, P and Q, leads to a subsequently increased propagation of excitation from one point to another can only be fully explained when we understand the whole subject of irradiation of nervous excitation, together with its restriction or inhibition, much better than we do as yet.1

14. Unity of Elaborative Process. We have appeared by the order of our exposition to suggest that these three constituent processes follow one another. But this does not correspond with the facts. All three processes are closely inter-connected. We have already seen this in the case of the two processes, differentiation and assimilation. It now remains to show the same thing with respect to each of these and the third process.

Beginning with differentiation, we can easily see that it goes on hand in hand with integration. Looked at in one way, differentiation is the initial process in association. In order to mentally connect two psychical elements, A and B, we must, it is commonly said, first discriminate them. Hence discrimination has been viewed by Bain and others as the fundamental intellectual process.

That a sub-conscious differentiation is involved in all integration may be admitted. This does not, however, mean that we clearly apprehend differences, that is, consciously discriminate before we begin to integrate. As already remarked, sensations are given as complexes, and begin to be attended to as such, and so integrated before any careful analytic separation or discrimination of constituent parts is carried out. Thus the complex, warm-smooth-soft, corresponding to the

1 For an ingenious hypothetical account of the formation of such nervous channels or lines of least resistance, see H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 515 ff., and p. 577 ff.; cf. Wundt, Physiol. Psychologie, ii. p. 381 ff.; Münsterberg, Beiträge, heft i. p. 129 ff.; and James, op. cit., i. p. 562 ff.

UNITY OF ELABORATIVE PROCESS.

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mother's breast, begins to be known and marked off from other complexes before the comparatively abstract or analytical apprehension of warm as a separate sensation (or quality of object) is reached. This is sufficiently attested by the fact that even after the child can use words it names concrete objects, i.e., complexes of sense-experience, some time before it begins to qualify things, that is, mark off single qualities. It is only when experience has advanced a stage, bringing up constituent elements in comparative isolation and in different (partially like) complexes, that the child perfectly differentiates, that is, renders perfectly definite the constituent sensations themselves. Thus the sensation warm becomes definite only when it appears in the different complexes answering to the mother's breast, the bath, etc.

This view that the child apprehends the complex before it apprehends the constituents may seem paradoxical at first, and to contradict what was said above about the tendency to assimilate things on the ground of partial likeness and by overlooking differences. There is, however, no real contradiction here. What really happens is this. There is first a vague differentiation of a group in which some constituents as of greatest interest in all cases stand out prominently, e.g., the brightness (lustre) of the eyes in the mother's face-complex. This vague apprehension becomes clearer by repetition of the complex (automatic assimilation) and, still more, by minuter analytic attention to details. Here it is that variation in the arrangement of the constituents and the process of partial or analytic assimilation become so important. Thus the child gets a definite sensation, warm, by experiencing it not merely along with the other interesting sensations, soft and smooth, but also in comparative isolation, as when held near the fire, or as an element in another complex, e.g., the bath. All this goes to show how very abstract a supposition is the common one of psychologists that mental elaboration begins by weaving together a number of ready-made elementary sensations.1

It may be added that not only does associative integration thus run on concurrently with, and even in advance of, differentiation, it is one means by which the latter is rendered more exact. That is to say, any two things which are only imperfectly distinguished will become better distinguished by taking on unlike associative adjuncts, and the greater and more impressive the associated differences, the greater the amount of their improving effect on the discrimination. Thus if we let a and a stand for two imperfectly-differentiated sensations,

1 Cf. Ward, loc. cit., p. 45.

KM and XY for two contracting associative adjuncts, it is easy to see that aKM and aXY will be more readily distinguished than a and a apart. Instances of this will occur as we advance. One striking example of this reaction of association on discrimination is seen in the development of the differential local characters of our sensations, e.g., those corresponding to different points of the skin, through the associative addition of greater and more striking differences of motor experience.1

If now we inquire into the relation of assimilation to association, we find that the two proceed concurrently as organicallyconnected processes or parts of one process.

It follows, to begin with, from what has just been said that automatic assimilation (immediate reproduction) begins with a complex coherent mass rather than with its constituent parts. Thus the child assimilates the sensation warm as an ingredient of a complex before it assimilates it separately.

If now we look at the higher process of association (mediate reproduction) which involves distinct representation or reproduction of sensations, we find that automatic assimilation forms the initial phase of the whole operation. Thus, before the child can, upon seeing the milk, recall the taste, etc., it must assimilate or recognise the visual or presentative element, viz., the white colour, etc. Assimilation is here the initial step of the whole process.

This may be symbolised thus

V

(v)—s, t, etc.,

where the large letter V stands for the presentative parts (visual impressions), the small letter in brackets the residuum of past similar impressions which is excited by and at once coalesces with V, giving this its aspect of familiarity or representativeness, and the other letters the distinct representative elements, taste, etc. The reader must here bear in mind the warning already given, that when we speak of a presentation (V) exciting contiguously an idea (s) through assimilative reproduction of a past like sensation (v) we do not mean that the identical original experience (V) reappears. As Lehmann well points out in the article already quoted, sensations are not like persistent material things which may come and go. All that is meant by the above scheme is that the new sensation calls up the associated idea through and by means of an initial process of recognition. No doubt this stage of

1 W. James has well illustrated the improving effect of such associated differences on discrimination (op. cit., i. p. 510 f.).

UNITY OF ELABORATIVE PROCESS.

197 recognition is in many cases fugitive, and in some of those illustrated by Lehmann's experiments becomes evanescent.

According to some, assimilation is not a distinct process, but only a part of the process of integration or association. This question, already touched upon, will have to be discussed again later on in connexion with the processes of ideation and the Laws of Association. Here, however, it may be observed, in addition to what was said just now, that, while always found together, assimilation and association serve to mark off two distinct directions of the elaborative process. Assimilation, even in its lower automatic form, answers to the depth of the combining process, integration to the breadth or extent of it. And these two do not necessarily proceed pari passu. A particular taste or smell may answer to a whole series of past sensations, and in a manner represent these by its familiar aspect: yet it may not call up the contiguous concomitants of any one of these experiences. In like manner, as we shall see by-and-by, where a number of partially-like things are assimilated on the ground of a common constituent, the assimilative or classing process tends to exclude the revival of the several integrated concomitants. A familiar face, a familiar name, is associated with a rich variety of impressions answering to the various circumstances in which I have seen or met with it, etc. But, just because these are not uniform but variable concomitants, they neutralise one another's tendency to reappear in consciousness.

It may be added that retentiveness, which we have seen to be the fundamental condition of associative reproduction, must be assumed to be co-operating throughout the process of elaboration. Thus it is evident that the simplest type of differentiation, the conscious transition from one sensation to another and unlike one, as from cold to warm, involves the rudimentary form of retentiveness, viz., the temporary survival of the antecedent sensation. I must keep the sensation of cold in mind after the oncoming of the warm if I am to realise, however vaguely, the change as such. Similarly, when a person notes a difference or change in something recurring or constant, as in the flavour of a familiar dish, or the dress of a member of his family. Here the vague sense of a difference plainly presupposes the persistence of the idea of that which has changed. Again assimilation, as has been shown, not only involves retention, but is the first and simplest manifestation of its effect, viz., a revival of sensation. Not only so, as we shall see by-and-by, all the higher comparative discrimination and assimilation depend on the retention and reproduction of presentations.

The importance of retentiveness as a condition of this composite psychical process may be seen in another way. Each of the processes advances gradually, the new and higher stage

presupposing and depending upon the lower stages. Thus every succesive act of differentiation renders possible a higher degree of the process through the subsequent persistence of its products. For example, by distinguishing the colour blue from other colours and retaining this presentation as a distinct element, a child is prepared to take a new start, viz., in the direction of marking off from one another this, that and the other variety of blue; or, taking instead of single sensations the complexes which our experience gives us, we may say that the persistence of the first vaguely differentiated presentation of a flower as a whole, prepares the way for a more complete differentiation of it with this and that detail distinctly apprehended.1

COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT.

§ 15. Stages of Intellectual Development. Our analysis of the process of mental elaboration has now been carried sufficiently far to enable us to trace out in its main features the general course of intellectual development.

This intellectual development may be described agreeably to the general idea of development as a progressive double process of separation and combination, with the result of an emergence of more and more complex or highly elaborated products. This result is secured by the three processes just described. Differentiation obviously answers to the process of organic segmentation, assimilation and integration to the pro

1 See Ward, loc. cit., p. 46, col. a, and 47, col. b. W. James regards the effect of retentiveness in improving discrimination as due to a process of assimilation. Thus, having noted a difference of local character in two skin-sensations at a sensitive part, we are able to note a smaller and otherwise imperceptible difference elsewhere, because this "reminds us" of the larger one, or because we assimilate it to the "image of doubleness" already gained (op. cit., i. p. 510 and 514 and f.). This idea of assimilating an unperceived difference (not, be it noted, two different sensations) is not quite clear to me. A difference must surely be apprehended vaguely, at least, before we can assimilate it to other differences. Hence the meaning of saying that discrimination is the fundamental process in cognition. At the same time, James touches an important truth here. The effect of practice in improving discrimination is rightly attributed by psychologists to improved attention. Now, as we saw, attention is commonly aided by some amount of ideational preadjustment, some expectation of what there is to see. Hence, it is explainable that after observing broader differences of any kind our minds are focused for this class of differences, and so more likely to note a small one.

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