§ 5. Ideal Construction. — We have seen in the last section that the total mental state, at the time at which ideal revival takes place, is a most important factor in determining what ideas shall be revived. We have now to add that the ideally revived objects are in various manners and degrees modified and transformed by the conditions under which their reinstatement takes place. They enter into new combinations and acquire new relations, so that they appear under fresh aspects. If in the past the sight of a house has become associated with the ideal representation of a person living in it, whenever I see or think of the house I shall tend to think of the person inside it. Supposing that I see the house on fire, or hear that it is on fire, the ideal representation of the person who lives in it will be transformed by the special circumstances of the case. I shall think of him as in danger of being burnt. The same transforming influence also comes into play in association of similars. A draper serving at the counter may remind me by his personal appearance of Napoleon; but the special circumstances will tend to make me think of Napoleon in a special way. My mind will dwell on the contrast between the life of the great conqueror and that of the man before me.

In these instances, the object ideally recalled is modified by the relations into which it enters at the time of its recall. In some manner or degree, this always takes place. But there is another kind of transformation which only becomes prominent under special conditions. The ideally revived object may not only be modified by the new relations into which it enters; it may require to be modified as a precondition of its entering into these relations. The nature of any whole is determined, not merely by the nature of its constituent parts, but also by the form of their combination. Now suppose that we have two terms b and d so related as to form a whole bd. If the relation which constitutes this whole is to be maintained while one of its constituents is altered, it may be necessary for the other constituent to be changed in a corresponding manner. If instead of b we substitute we must substitute 8 instead of d. A familiar illustration is supplied by mathematical ratios. Suppose that we have given the ratio 1 : 4 ; if 1 be changed into 5, we must change 4 into 20, in order to preserve the same ratio.

Now in ideal revival based on preformed association, it may and frequently does happen that the trend of mental activity at the moment requires the relation between the associated terms b and d to be reinstated. But the given term may be only similar to b, not identical in its nature with it. Let us call the given term may so differ from b that it can no longer enter into the same relation with d, so as to form the same kind of whole. In order to reconstitute the form of combination characteristic of this whole, it may be necessary that the ideal revival should take the form instead of d.

A simple instance " is supplied by the singing or mental repetition of a tune in a different key from that in which it has been previously heard. The absolute pitch of the notes is determined by the keynote, which may vary. The identity of the tune is preserved by correspondence in the transitions between the notes." *

* Analytic Psychology, vol. ii., p. 57.

To take an example of a more common type, suppose that the sight of a piece of sugar arouses the ideal representation of its sweetness. It is this special piece of sugar as seen by me at this moment which recalls the sweet taste. The special conditions operative at the moment of reproduction enter into and modify process and result. "If the sugar seen is beyond my reach, then the sweetness suggested is a sweetness beyond my reach, though in all my past experiences the sugar may have been easily attainable."* "Mr. Lloyd Morgan tells a story of a little boy who 'after gazing intently at a spirited picture of a storm at sea with a ship being struck by lightning, asked, Mother, why doesn't it rumble? ' Now, what kind of a rumble was in this case actually suggested to the boy ? Was it anything in the nature of a literal reproduction of any thunderclap which he had ever heard? If he had heard an actual peal of thunder at the moment, this would not have fitted itself in as a natural complement of the painted scene. If his mother had told him that painted lightning could only be accompanied by painted thunder, the answer would in all probability have appeared to him a satisfactory one." A little girl, playing with a doll, treats it as if it were a baby. The doll becomes a centre from which a train of associated ideas starts, analogous to those which would be suggested by a living child. But the fact that she has not to deal with a living child, but only with a doll, makes a difference. She puts food to its mouth, but does not expect the food to be swallowed. She would certainly be verymuch startled if it actually began to cry. The train of ideas connected with babies is only reproduced in analogue.

* Op. cit., pp. 4445. Ibid., p. 46.

" Some children, it seems, have a way of putting food on the floor near the doll; others go further, and hold the food long to the doll's mouth; or, insisting on a still more realistic performance, break out some of its teeth, and push the food into the mouth with a pin. Others again, stopping short of such violent realism, cover the unreality by a dodge, as when one child, after holding the food to the doll's mouth for a while, slipped it down its neck." Sully, Article on "Dollatry," Contemporary Review, Jan. 1899.

In these examples, the relations which determine the ideal construction are revived by association. But in other cases, the form of combination is entirely determined by the predominant interest at the moment at which revival takes place; so that objects are brought into relations in which they have never occured before. If a man is in the mood for making puns, or for drawing epigrammatic contrasts, or for tracing relations of cause and effect, these modes of combination will impose themselves on the objects revived by association, and will tend to transform these objects so far as may be necessary to make them fit into the ideally constructed whole. I once heard a man propound the riddle, Why is a sparrow like a chimney? The answer, which of course nobody guessed, was, Because it has a crooked flue! Obviously, his mind must have been very bent on riddlemaking, before he could have perpetrated such an atrocity. Hence he utilised most unpromising material and transformed it to suit his purpose in the most uncompromising way. The first clue is probably the verbal resemblance flue with flew; but in working out the analogy he had mentally to turn flight into flew and to do violence to the nature both of sparrows and chimneys. This is probably the worst joke on record; yet many a better has evoked less laughter. Another, I hope more serious example, is the state of my own mind when this illustration occurred to me. I had never before thought of the sparrow and chimney joke as connected with the psychological doctrine I am now expounding, yet my mind, preoccupied with this doctrine, and bent on using all material which could help in its development, summoned up this reminiscence and wove it into its ideal construction.

It should be noted that differences in the mental constitution of individuals largely consist in differences in the kind of relation in which they are predominantly interested. Some attend by preference to mere relations of contiguity and time and space; others to metaphorical analogy; others to rhetorical contrast; others to logical connexion; and the kind of transition which is relatively dominant in the sequence of their ideas varies accordingly. In the mind of a schoolman, the ruling scheme of connexion was apt to be the form of the syllogism. In many minds, and especially in those which are saturated with the study of Hegel, a special form of transition is favoured, which consists in a triple movement, passing from a onesided view of the case to the opposite onesided view, and then to a more comprehensive view which embraces the two extremes in harmony.*