side, not as an association of a plurality of identical presentations. Indeed in the case of dexterities acquired by practice, it is obvious that there is no such series of identicals at all. From the first rude beginning-say the schoolboy's pothooks or the schoolgirl's curtsies-up to the finished performance of the adept there is continuous approximation: awkward and bungling attempts pass gradually into the bold strokes and graceful sweep of mastery. Looking simply at the movements themselves we are impressed, not by the sameness of, but by the difference between, the final adroitness and the initial clumsiness. There was little of what characterises the former to begin with and there may remain no trace of the latter in the end. Or if we take note of the effect produced on muscles and limbs by exercise we find that these also gradually change and that such changes may be indefinitely great. Whenever the blacksmith "swings his heavy sledge" there may be physically the same amount of work done. But for the smith himself the same work, now that "his arms are strong as iron bands," does not entail the same effort, is not a repetition of the same experience, as at first. Facility and faculty (or function) are much the same both etymologically and actually. If the facility, efficiency or function is the psychical concomitant-whether directly or indirectly-of structural growth and development, and if the perfected structure has actually superseded the rudimentary, may we not assume the like of the perfected function? As little as new structures are a combination of old so little are new functions an association of old. The less fit may be fossilised and preserved elsewhere but at least it is not embodied in the fittest that finally survives.

If we look next at cases of instinctive or innate skill these seem to point to the same conclusion. The young ring-plover, for instance, can run as soon as it emerges from the shell, that is, without practice and without repetitions. Yet it seems reasonable to assume that the newly-hatched plover has at the outset much the same sense of use and ease that a kitten only has when after many trials it has attained a like facility. Of all but the fundamental endowments of mind, whatever these may be, it is probably true that innate faculty is, in general, due to facility previously acquired by practice and transmitted by heredity. The fact of such transmission-though it lies outside

our present psychological inquiry-seems to force us to admit that, whatever be the means by which a 'given organism is called into existence, the psychological concomitants normal to such an organism will be there too; and cannot be there otherwise. Were the newly-hatched plover to be put on the water, its first experience would be strange; but the newly-hatched duck so treated would begin by feeling at home. Might not the case be essentially the same, if for plover and duck we substitute, say a boy who has not, and a boy who has, thoroughly learnt to swim? More generally: If, in the case of instinctive ability, the characteristic of facility-y as we have called it-is not an associative series, may we not assume that even when such a series is an indispensable condition of facility, viz., when the facility is acquired by a subject sufficiently advanced, the series is still no part of the essence of y? Anyone with a turn for psychology might analyse the several steps of his progress in learning some feat of skill and observe the gradual elimination of the gauche and irrelevant and the gradual advance of the graceful and fitting. But these observations would not constitute the skill; and in fact they would probably hinder it. The whole situation would be comparable to that of a botanist from time to time interfering with a growing plant to see how it developed. As the botanist may record the several phases of such development so may the psychologist note in himself the rise and progress of some new aptitude he is in course of acquiring. Such records may quite naturally form an associated series, and this series might even be itself associated with the perfection finally attained. The great thing is to take care

that we do not confound the two.

It will perhaps be urged that the familiarity concerned in cognition is different from the facility concerned in movement. In acquired dexterity there is a gradual approximation towards perfection, but in acquired perception the object perceived is identically the same from first to last. Though neither my juvenile pothooks, nor therefore the movements that produced them, form a series of identicals, yet all my former impressions of the moon's disc may form one. Perhaps such a plea for separating facility from familiarity has never been explicitly made; still it seems fairly implied in the diverse treatment of the two by many psychologists. But if we consider as it is plain we ought –

not the physical thing but the individual's perception of it, then surely this too is an acquisition, entails activity and progress, gradually approximates towards completeness like motor acquisitions. It too has its physical concomitant in differentiation of structure; and just as there are innate dexterities so there seem to be innate cognitions. The young rabbit begins by being indifferent to mice and interested in carrots, the young cat by being indifferent to carrots and interested in mice, while both are alarmed at the sight of a dog1. So much for the subjective side of the process: its bearing in detail on the objective products resulting will be apparent as we proceed.

We have already described this process from the objective side as assimilation or immediate recognition; and have noted how the older psychology described it as association of the completely similar, or automatic association. That the two views have something in common is shewn by the juxtaposition of 'automatic' and 'immediate,' 'similarity' and 'assimilation.' To prepare the way for further discussion, let us first ascertain these points of agreement. "When I look at the full moon," said Bain, "I am instantly impressed with the state arising from all my former impressions of her disc added together." This we may symbolize in the usual fashion as A+ an... + a + а2+α1. Now, it will be granted (1) that the present occurrence (full moon) has been preceded by a series of like occurrences, enumerable as 1, 2, 3,...,n; (2) that the preceding experiences of those occurrences were a necessary condition of the present experience (A); and (3) that this arises instantly' in consequence of our previous attention to them. But it is denied (1) that this present experience is the mere sum, or even the mere 'fusion,' of the experiences preceding it; (2) that they were qualitatively identical; (3) that they persist severally unaltered, in such wise that experience "drags at each remove a lengthening chain" or a greater mass of them. The successive experiences of n identical occurrences does not then result in an accumulation of n identical residua. The ineptness of the atomistic psychology with its 'physical' and 'chemical' analogies is nowhere more

1 Many striking instances in point are to be found in the classic papers by the late Douglas Spalding or in the pages of Romanes. 3 Cf. ch. iv, § 4.

2 Cf. above, ch. vi, § 2.

▲ Senses and Intellect, 4th ed., 1894, p. 489.

apparent than here. Considering the intimate relation of life and mind, and the strong physiological bias shewn by the Associationists from Hartley onwards, it is surely extraordinary how completely they have failed to appreciate the light-bearing significance of such concepts as function and development. Whatever superficial resemblance there may be between the relation of a chemical compound or alloy to the elements composing it, and that of a complex presentation to its constituents, their supposed analogy is faulty in the most essential point. A chemical association that cannot be dissociated is, I fancy, a contradiction in terms. But indissociability is the one distinguishing peculiarity of 'mental chemistry.' So it is also of organic development, between which and mental development there is, however, more than analogy: in certain respects, at any rate, there is minute and exact correspondence. Development implies change of form in a continuous whole: every growth into means an equal growth out of; thus one cannot find the caterpillar in the butterfly. All that is true in Mill's 'inseparable association'—and there is much that is true in it—is intelligible only when connected with such development.

But though assimilation cannot be analysed into a series of identical ideas (a1, a, ..., an), either 'added together' or 'instantaneously fused,' yet it can result in an a which may provisionally be called an idea inasmuch as it may eventually become one. To ascertain how it does so, is our second problem -the objective side of our inquiry. Now such idea in the making is, as yet, neither a memory-image in the proper sense nor an idea within the meaning of the term implied in 'constructive imagination' or in thought. For it is devoid of the temporal signs1 indicated by the subscript numerals in a1, a„,..., and it has not yet become part of an ideational continuum, one, that is to say, divested of the definite spatial and temporal marks belonging to what actually is or has been. It is, so to say, embryonic, something additional to the mere percept as assimilated, and yet something less than a 'free or independent idea.' It is, as it has been happily called, a tied

1 On this term cf. below, ch. viii, § 3 fin.

2 Cf. Drobisch, Empirische Psychologie, 1842, § 31; Höffding, "Ueber Wiederkennen, Association und psychische Activität," in Vierteljahrsschr. f. wissenschaftl.

(gebundene) or implicit idea. We have clear evidence of the sense-bound stage of this immature idea in the so-called 'memory after-image.' There is, however, nothing in this of memory, save as the term is loosely used for mere retentiveness; and after-percept would so far be a less objectionable name for it. This along with its earlier name, 'primary memory-image,' indicates its transitional character, as already remarked. This after-percept is entirely sense-sustained and admits of no ideal recall, though-in minds sufficiently advanced-as it persists for a few moments, it may form the basis of such comparison with a second sensation, as we find in the experiments of Weber, Fechner and others1.

It is saying too little to maintain, as the hypothesis of inseparable association in effect does, that this immature idea is subconscious, on the ground that it is not discoverable by direct analysis. Yet it is saying too much, regardless of this defect, to describe a percept as a presentative-representative complex, if representation is to imply the presence of a free or independent idea. To call the representative constituent of the percept a 'tied or nascent idea' on the ground of its possible later development into an independent one seems, then, nearest the truth'. The same meaning is sometimes expressed in a wholly different and designedly paradoxical way, by saying that all cognition (perception) is recognition. This statement has been met by elaborate expositions of the difference between knowing and knowing again, the irrelevance of which any lexicon would shew; and, further, by the question, how on such a view a first cognition is possible, or how otherwise an indefinite regress of assimilation is to be avoided? We may confidently reply that it cannot be avoided: an absolute beginning of experience, we have again to remember, is beyond us. Assimilation means further assimilation; in this sense all cognition is further cognition, Philosophie, 1889, Bd. xiii. pp. 437 ff. To Höffding we are also indebted for the term Bekanntheitsqualität, which has suggested the y character used above.

1 Cf. above, p. 178. Recent experiments, however, seem to prove that the after-percept is not the sole factor, and often is not a factor at all in such successive comparison (so-called); but that what is now termed 'the absolute impression' may supplement it or even replace it altogether. As to what is meant by absolute impression, cf. ch. iv, § 5, c.

2 Accordingly Höffding symbolizes it as (4), which, by the way, we might call

the objective aspect of our A.