The psychology of association / by Felix Arnold.

  • Arnold, Felix, 1879-
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of association / by Felix Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    all I have is a tendency to turn around and go back. I ean get back to the past no further. Iam held to the present; the present remains with me, the past is no more. We are satisfied to stamp a thing as ‘past’, ‘yesterday’ or what not, and act accordingly. More we need not, and more we have not. Those peculiar characteristics of the present image, constituted either by its qualities, by organic sensa- tions, motor tendencies or by some word connected with it, are all that we are immediately conscious of in a memory image, and these are sufficient to regulate our conduct. But pastness as such, we can never experience. I have not attempted to analyze fully what it is in the present which determines my attitude to it as past. Whatever it is, it is objective, 2. ¢., there is present in consciousness some object or objects, either our body or some part of it, together with a dim and indefinite object, which we call the image, and perhaps a word. These enable us to take our attitude, to guide our action. The same holds as regards future reference. The aid given by words in memory is greatly increased in the higher stages of consciousness. In fact, without words thought could hardly go on. In trains of the most abstract thought, consciousness can be occupied solely with words or word images. The word as spoken is constituted by the impression of sound, plus motor and tac- tile impressions from the throat, tongue, mouth, ete. That is to say, we have a combination of impressions, are conscious of a number of objects; and the persistence of such objects, in more or less constant relations, enables us to use them at all times for the guidance and determination of our attitude. We are prone to look at the word as existing first, and then to work back to the impressions. But what we have is simply a number of impressions. These form the word, they are the word. In the word image, likewise, we have simply a skeleton, as it were, of the actual impression, but enough is present to enable us to adjust ourselves as required. Whether the images are motor, visual or auditory, we are conscious of dim and hazy though persistent objects; though dim and hazy as felt impressions or images, they remain the same or nearly so at different times, and so are of use to us in facilitating consistent action. Consciousness of the objects constituting the word or word image, as such, does not give us thought. What is present is simply a num- ber of objects or, to put it more popularly, a number of impressions and images. ‘Taken as such, without any concomitant attitude, the prattle of a child is the same as the learned discourse of a philosopher. What differentiates the one from the other is the meaning attached to the one and lacking in the other. The child’s word ‘self’ is exactly or nearly the same as that of the philosopher. There is present
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