Volume 1

Analytic psychology.

  • George Frederick Stout
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Analytic psychology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    to see that the law of contiguity does not apply to pleasure- pain as it applies to presentations, we have only to recall some very common experiences. The sight of food awakens pleasure before eating; but after we have eaten to satiety it gives rise only to indifference or disgust. This is inexplicable by the law of contiguity. If the pleasure of eating became associated with the sight of the food by repetition, it ought easily to be revived whenever we concentrate attention on a well-furnished dinner-table. The pleasure depends on the satisfaction of an appetite, and when the appetite has disappeared it disappears also, and cannot be revived by mere association. The application of the principle of contiguity to the conative aspect of consciousness can only be accepted under certain reserves and restrictions. Its operation is modified by the principle of finality. In the above instance it is as impossible ■fo revive by mere association the appetite for food as it is the pleasure of eating. Not only has the conation itself ceased to exist in attaining its end, but the corresponding psycho- physical disposition has also ceased to exist, and cannot therefore be re-excited. If a sufficient interval of time elapse, * any circumstance associated with eating wall suffice to awaken the desire for food ; but this is only possible because the other conditions on which the appetite depends have come into play in the meanwhile. The organism again requires food, and the felt craving which corresponds to this organic need, if, be- cause of mental pre-occupation, it does not of itself emerge into clear consciousness, is readily evoked by association. Another important difference between Professor Bain's for- mula and my own is that, wffiere I say a preformed disposition is re-excited, he says that a previous experience is “ brought up in idea”. Mr. Bradley has very severely criticised this mode of expression.1 With this criticism I largely agree, though its significance is perhaps rather logical than psycho- 1 Principles of Logic, p. 287.
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