Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/469

 ROUTINE PROCESS. 455 or seven. The plasticity passes slowly, and can hardly be said to cease when we reach maturity. Skill, which is acquired with slight effort at fifteen, is impossible to the man of thirty- five compare the respective capacities of these two ages for shorthand. Again, what the child of six can learn with little trouble, the boy of fifteen may be debarred from acquiring efficiency in violin playing is of such a nature. In the evolution of routine the stage of general development must be borne in mind. As we grow older, deeper changes or fundamental acquisitions are less and less possible. Not by any means an insignificant factor in this staidness of age is the type of mind which the mature man evolves and the conditions under which he lives. Where the circumstances and the type are similar to that of the young child, there we expect and find similar results. 14. Each Organic Trend is Based on others of its Kind. In analysing the evolution of the child's power of writing we assumed that we start with a non-organised process and end in an organised one. At the commencement, we were face to face with complexity; at the end, all was simplicity. There seemed to be a definite initial stage and a definite winding up. All these assumptions are far from being defensible. Strictly speaking, as we shall see at once, there was no beginning. In writing we make certain muscular efforts which, we previously noted, are guided by recollection. If we neglect the general muscular memories, there remain only random movements ; but we do not start with such in learning to write. We are consequently making use of existing systems in the formation of a new one. Organised trends, in other words, are only new to a certain extent. Let us realise this more completely. A person is not used to lifting weights. One moment he exerts more energy than is needed, the next less. He sees a weight, but being ignorant of the precise effort required for lifting it, he mis- takes the possible result of his efforts. Yet, after amassing experiences, he almost always puts forth the proper force. A glance recalls the appropriate effort, and the merest attempt at lifting suggests the weight. Picking up a piece of alu- minium, the specific gravity of which we are not acquainted with, we find we have exerted ourselves too much. Moving a papier-macM table we feel, owing to our mistaken idea of its weight, a peculiar sensation caused by its unexpected lightness. We measure off the weight of an object by memory (sec. 5). We graduate our output of energy accord- ing to experience. Very early in life the child learns to know