Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/798

778 I found the purely verbal associations to contrast forcibly in their rapid, mechanical precision with the tardy and imperfect elaboration of highly generalized ideas; the former depending on an elementary action of the brain, the latter upon an exceedingly complicated one. It was easy to infer from this the near alliance between smartness and shallowness.

It so happens that my mental imagery concerns itself more with aspects of scenery than with the faces of men, as I have rather a good memory for localities, and much pleasure in thinking about them, while I am distressed by natural inaptitude for recollecting features. I was therefore surprised to find that the names of persons were just twice as frequent in my associations as those of things, including places, books, and pictures. The associated words that formed parts of sentences or quotations were twenty-seven in number, and tended strongly to recurrence. The majority were of good verse or prose; the minority were doggerel. I may as well specify their origin. Four of the verse quotations were from Tennyson, two from Shakespeare, and eight from other sources partly doggerel. Of the prose, five were from the Bible, and seven from other sources, partly grotesque, and some of them family phrases. I suspect there is a great deal of rubbish in the furniture of all our brains.

The occasional vividness of an idea is very startling, and I do not see my way to explaining it fully; but sometimes I am sure it is due to the concurrence of many associations, severally of small intensity, but in the aggregate very effective. An instance of this is the powerful effect produced by multitudes subject to a common feeling of enthusiasm, religious fervor, or pure panic. On the few occasions on which I have had the opportunity of experiencing such manifestations, it seemed to me that every one of the multitudinous sounds and movements that reached the ear and eye, being inspired by a common feeling, added its effect to that of all the others. When we are in the presence of a single person or of a small company, the empty background fills a large part of the field of view, and dilutes the visual effect of their enthusiasm. Nay, the larger part of the forms of the persons themselves are similarly inexpressive, unless they be consummate actors. But nothing is seen in an enthusiastic multitude but excited faces and gestures, nothing is heard but excited voices and rustlings. Their variety is such that every chord in the heart of a bystander, that admits of vibrating in sympathy with the common feeling, must be stimulated to do so by some of them.

The background of our mental imagery is neither uniform nor constant in its character. It changes in color, tint, and pattern, though, in my case, all these are usually very faintly marked, and it requires much attention to study them properly. Its peculiarities have nothing to do with associated ideas; they appear to depend solely upon chance physiological causes, to which some of our ideas are also undoubtedly due.