Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/80

74 is that of contiguity, by means of which sensations and ideas that have been in the mind together or in close succession, tend to unite together, or cohere in such a way that the one can afterward recall the other. The connection that naturally subsists between a sensation or idea in the mind, and that which immediately preceded or followed it, is of the strongest and most intimate nature. The two, strictly speaking, are but one, forming one complete thought.” As Taine says: “To speak correctly, there is no isolated or separate sensation. A sensation is a state which begins as a continuation of preceding ones, and ends by losing itself in those following it; it is by an arbitrary severing, and for the convenience of language, that we set it apart as we do; its beginning is the end of another, and its ending the beginning of another.” As Ribot says: “When we read or hear a sentence, for example, at the commencement of the fifth word something of the fourth word still remains. Association by contiguity may be separated into two sub-classes—contiguity in time; and contiguity in space. In