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Page 22
The teacher can formulate his function to himself therefore in terms of
'association' as well as in terms of 'native and acquired reaction.' It
is mainly that of _building up useful systems of association_ in the
pupil's mind. This description sounds wider than the one I began by
giving. But, when one thinks that our trains of association, whatever
they may be, normally issue in acquired reactions or behavior, one sees
that in a general way the same mass of facts is covered by both
formulas.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have
once grasped the principles of association. The great problem which
association undertakes to solve is, _Why does just this particular field
of consciousness, constituted in this particular way, now appear before
my mind?_ It may be a field of objects imagined; it may be of objects
remembered or of objects perceived; it may include an action resolved
on. In either case, when the field is analyzed into its parts, those
parts can be shown to have proceeded from parts of fields previously
before consciousness, in consequence of one or other of the laws of
association just laid down. Those laws _run_ the mind: interest,
shifting hither and thither, deflects it; and attention, as we shall
later see, steers it and keeps it from too zigzag a course.
To grasp these factors clearly gives one a solid and simple
understanding of the psychological machinery. The 'nature,' the
'character,' of an individual means really nothing but the habitual form
of his associations. To break up bad associations or wrong ones, to
build others in, to guide the associative tendencies into the most
fruitful channels, is the educator's principal task. But here, as with
all other simple principles, the difficulty lies in the application.
Psychology can state the laws: concrete tact and talent alone can work
them to useful results.
Meanwhile it is a matter of the commonest experience that our minds may
pass from one object to another by various intermediary fields of
consciousness. The indeterminateness of our paths of association _in
concreto_ is thus almost as striking a feature of them as the uniformity
of their abstract form. Start from any idea whatever, and the entire
range of your ideas is potentially at your disposal. If we take as the
associative starting-point, or cue, some simple word which I pronounce
before you, there is no limit to the possible diversity of suggestions
which it may set up in your minds. Suppose I say 'blue,' for example:
some of you may think of the blue sky and hot weather from which we now
are suffering, then go off on thoughts of summer clothing, or possibly
of meteorology at large; others may think of the spectrum and the
physiology of color-vision, and glide into X-rays and recent physical
speculations; others may think of blue ribbons, or of the blue flowers
on a friend's hat, and proceed on lines of personal reminiscence. To
others, again, etymology and linguistic thoughts may be suggested; or
blue may be 'apperceived' as a synonym for melancholy, and a train of
associates connected with morbid psychology may proceed to unroll
themselves.
In the same person, the same word heard at different times will provoke,
in consequence of the varying marginal preoccupations, either one of a
number of diverse possible associative sequences. Professor M�nsterberg
performed this experiment methodically, using the same words four times
over, at three-month intervals, as 'cues' for four different persons who
were the subjects of observation. He found almost no constancy in their
associations taken at these different times. In short, the entire
potential content of one's consciousness is accessible from any one of
its points. This is why we can never work the laws of association
forward: starting from the present field as a cue, we can never cipher
out in advance just what the person will be thinking of five minutes
later. The elements which may become prepotent in the process, the parts
of each successive field round which the associations shall chiefly
turn, the possible bifurcations of suggestion, are so numerous and
ambiguous as to be indeterminable before the fact. But, although we
cannot work the laws of association forward, we can always work them
backwards. We cannot say now what we shall find ourselves thinking of
five minutes hence; but, whatever it may be, we shall then be able to
trace it through intermediary links of contiguity or similarity to what
we are thinking now. What so baffles our prevision is the shifting part
played by the margin and focus--in fact, by each element by itself of
the margin or focus--in calling up the next ideas.
For example, I am reciting 'Locksley Hall,' in order to divert my mind
from a state of suspense that I am in concerning the will of a relative
that is dead. The will still remains in the mental background as an
extremely marginal or ultra-marginal portion of my field of
consciousness; but the poem fairly keeps my attention from it, until I
come to the line, "I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of
time." The words 'I, the heir,' immediately make an electric connection
with the marginal thought of the will; that, in turn, makes my heart
beat with anticipation of my possible legacy, so that I throw down the
book and pace the floor excitedly with visions of my future fortune
pouring through my mind. Any portion of the field of consciousness that
has more potentialities of emotional excitement than another may thus be
roused to predominant activity; and the shifting play of interest now in
one portion, now in another, deflects the currents in all sorts of
zigzag ways, the mental activity running hither and thither as the
sparks run in burnt-up paper.
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