Thought-Culture; Or, Practical Mental Training

Wundt speaking of this difficult distinction says: "Psychologists are accustomed to define memory images as ideas which exactly reproduce some previous perception, and fancy images as ideas consisting of a combination of elements taken from a whole number of perceptions. Now memory images in the sense of this definition simply do not exist… Try, for instance, to draw from memory some landscape picture which you have only once seen, and then compare your copy with the original. You will expect to find plenty of mistakes and omissions; but you will also invariably find that you have put in a great deal which was not in the original, but which comes from landscape pictures which you have seen somewhere else."

While we generally speak of Representation picturing the recollected percepts, still, we must not make the mistake of supposing that it is concerned with, or limited to, only mental pictures. We are able to represent not only visual percepts but also sounds, smells, tastes or feelings, often so vividly that they appear as almost actually existent. We may also even represent, symbolically the processes of reasoning, mathematical operations, etc. In short nearly, if not all experiences which are possible in Presentation are also possible in Representation.

The phase of Representation, in the processes of Memory, is of course subject to the general laws of the Cultivation of Memory which we have stated in detail in our previous volume on that subject. But there are some special points of development and cultivation which may be considered briefly in this place. In the first place the importance of Attention and clear Perception, as necessary precedents for clear Representation, may be emphasized. In order to form clear mental images of a thing we must have perceived it clearly in the first place. The advice regarding the use of the Attention and Perception given in preceding chapters need not be repeated here, but special attention should be directed toward them in connection with the processes of Representation. If we wish to cultivate the Representative faculties, we must begin by cultivating the Presentative faculties.

Then again we must remember what we have said elsewhere about the facts of development through (1) Use; and (2) Nourishment, in all mental faculties. We must begin to use the faculties of Representation in order to exercise them. We must give them nourishment in the shape of objects of mental food. That is to say we must furnish these faculties with materials with which they may grow and develop, and with exercise in order to strengthen the mental-muscle and also to give the faculties the opportunity to "acquire the knack." The exercises and methods recommended in our chapter on Perception will furnish good material for the Representative faculties' growing requirements. By perceiving the details of things, one is able to reproduce clear mental images of them. In studying an object, always carry in your mind the fact that you wish to reproduce it in your mind later. In fact, if you have the opportunity, let your mind "repeat it to itself" as soon as possible after the actual occurrence and experience. Just as you often murmur to yourself, or else write down, the name of a person or place which you have just heard, in order that you may recollect it the better thereafter, so it will be well for you to "mentally repeat" to yourself the experiences upon which you wish to exercise your Representative faculties.

As to the matter of development and cultivation by Use, we would advise that you begin gradually to train your mind to reproduce the experiences of the day or week or month, at intervals, until you feel that you are developing a new power in that direction. Tonight, if you try you will find that you can reproduce but a very small part of today's happenings with any degree of clearness. How clearly can you image the places you have been, the appearances of the people you have met, the various details of persons and things which you perceived during the experiences of the day? Not very clearly, we dare say. Try again, and you will find that you will be able to add new details. Keep it up until you feel tired or think that you have exhausted all the possibilities of the task. Tomorrow, try it again, and you will find that the second day's experiences are more clearly reproduced in your mind. Each day should find you a little more advanced, until you get to a place where the normal degree of power is attained, when the advance will be slower.

Then, at the end of the week, review its experiences. Do the same the following week. At the end of the month, take a hasty mental trip over the month's experiences. And so on. Exercise, in moderation, along these lines will work wonders for you. Not only will it develop the Representation, but your powers of observation and your general memory will be found to be improved. And, moreover, in "chewing the mental cud" you will think of many things of interest and importance in connection with your work, etc., and your general mental efficiency will be increased for the faculties of the mind are interdependent and share benefits with each other.

CHAPTER VIII

ABSTRACTION

As we have seen, the first stage or step in the process of Thought is that called Perception, which we have considered in the preceding chapter. Perception, as we have seen, is the process by which we gain our first knowledge of the external world as reported to us by the channels of sense. The Perceptive faculties interpret the material which is presented to us by the senses. Following upon Perception we find the processes resulting from the exercise of the group of faculties which are classified under the general head of Understanding.

Understanding is the faculty, or faculties, of the mind by means of which we intelligently examine and compare the various percepts, either separating them by analysis, or else combining them by synthesis, or both, and thus securing our general ideas, principles, laws, classes, etc. There are several sub-phases of Understanding which are known to psychologists and logicians as: (1) Abstraction; (2) Conception or Generalization; (3) Judgment, and (4) Reasoning, respectively. In this chapter we shall consider the first of these sub-phases or steps of Understanding, which is known as "Abstraction."

Abstraction is that faculty of the mind by which we abstract or "draw off," and then consider apart, the particular qualities, properties, or attributes of an object, and thus are able to consider them as "things" or objects of thought. In order to form concepts or general ideas, from our percepts or particular ideas, we must consider and examine two common points or qualities which go to make up differences and resemblances. The special examination or consideration of these common points or qualities result in the exercise of Abstraction. In the process of Abstraction we mentally "draw away" a quality of an object and then consider it as a distinct object of thought. Thus in considering a flower we may abstract its qualities of fragrance, color, shape, etc., and think of these as things independent of the flower itself from which they were derived. We think of redness, fragrance, etc., not only in connection with the particular flower but as general qualities. Thus the qualities of redness, sweetness, hardness, softness, etc., lead us to the abstract terms, red, sweet, hard, soft, etc. In the same way courage, cowardice, virtue, vice, love, hate, etc., are abstract terms. No one ever saw one of these things – they are known only in connection with objects, or else as "abstract terms" in the processes of Thought. They may be known as qualities, and expressed as predicates; or they may be considered as abstract things and expressed as nouns.

In the general process of Abstraction we first draw off and set aside all the qualities which are not common to the general class under consideration, for the concept or general idea must comprise only the qualities common to its class. Thus in the case of the general idea of horse, size and color must be abstracted as non-essentials, for horses are of various colors and sizes. But on the other hand, there are certain qualities which are common to all horses, and these must be abstracted and used in making up the concept or general idea.

So, you see, in general Abstraction we form two classes: (1) the unlike and not-general qualities; and (2) the like or common qualities. As Halleck says: "In the process of Abstraction, we draw our attention away from a mass of confusing details, unimportant at the time, and attend only to qualities common to the class. Abstraction is little else than centering the power of attention on some qualities to the exclusion of others… While we are forming concepts, we abstract or draw off certain qualities, either to leave them out of view or to consider them by themselves. Our dictionaries contain such words as purity, whiteness, sweetness, industry, courage, etc. No one ever touched, tasted, smelled, heard, or saw purity or courage. We do not, therefore, gain our knowledge of these through the senses. We have seen pure persons, pure snow, pure honey; we have breathed pure air, tasted pure coffee. From all these different objects we have abstracted the only like quality, the quality of being pure. We then say we have an idea of purity, and that idea is an abstract one. It exists only in the mind which formed it. No one ever saw whiteness. He may have seen white clouds, snow, cloth, blossoms, houses, paper, horses, but he never saw whiteness by itself. He simply abstracted that quality from various white objects."

In Abstraction we may either (1) abstract a quality and set it aside and apart from the other qualities under consideration, as being non-essential and not necessary; or we may (2) abstract a quality and hold it in the mind as essential and necessary for the concept which we are forming. Likewise, we may abstract (1) all the qualities of an object except one, and set them aside that we may consider the one quality by itself; or we may (2) abstract the one particular quality and consider it to the exclusion of all its associated qualities. In all of these aspects we have the same underlying process of considering a quality apart from its object, and apart from its associated qualities. The mind more commonly operates in the direction of abstracting one quality and viewing it apart from object and associated qualities.

The importance of correct powers of Abstraction is seen when we realize that all concepts or general ideas are but combinations of abstract qualities or ideas. As Halleck says: "The difference between an abstract idea and a concept is that a concept may consist of a bundle of abstract ideas. If the class contains more than one common quality, so must the concept; it must contain as many of these abstracted qualities as are common to the class. The concept of the class whale would embody a large number of such qualities." As Brooks says: "If we could not abstract, we could not generalize, for abstraction is a condition of generalization." The last-mentioned authority also cleverly states the idea as follows: "The products of Abstraction are abstract ideas, that is, ideas of qualities in the abstract. Such ideas are called Abstracts. Thus my idea of some particular color, or hardness, or softness, is an abstract. Abstract ideas have been wittily called 'the ghosts of departed qualities.' They may more appropriately be regarded as the spirits of which the objects from which they are derived are the bodies. In other words, they are, figuratively speaking, 'the disembodied spirits of material things.'"

The cultivation of the faculty of Abstraction depends very materially, in the first place, upon the exercise of Attention and Perception. Mill holds that Abstraction is primarily a result of Attention. Others hold that it is merely the mental process by which the attention is directed exclusively to the consideration of one of several qualities, properties, attributes, parts, etc. Hamilton says: "Attention and Abstraction then are only the same process viewed in different relations. They are, as it were, the positive and negative poles of the same act." The cultivation of Attention is really a part of the process of the cultivation of the faculty of Abstraction. Unless the Attention be directed toward the object and its qualities we will be unable to perceive, set aside, and separately consider the abstract quality contained within it. In this process, as indeed in all other mental processes, Attention is a prerequisite. Therefore, here, as in many other places, we say to you: "Begin by cultivating Attention."

Moreover, the cultivation of the faculty of Abstraction depends materially upon the cultivation of Perception. Not only must we sense the existence of the various qualities in an object, but we must also perceive them in consciousness, just as we perceive the object itself. In fact, the perception of the object is merely a perception of its various qualities, attributes and properties, for the object itself is merely a composite of these abstract things, at least so far as its perception in consciousness is concerned. Try to think of a horse, without considering its qualities, attributes and properties, and the result is merely an abstract horse– something which belongs to the realm of unreality. Try to think of a rose without considering its color, odor, shape, size, response to touch, etc., and you have simply an ideal rose which when analyzed is seen to be a nothing. Take away the qualities, properties and attributes of anything, and you have left merely a name, or else a transcendental, idealistic, something apart from our world of sense knowledge. Thus it follows that in order to know the qualities of a thing in order to classify it, or to form a general idea of it, we must use the Perception in order to interpret or translate the sense-impressions we have received regarding them. Consequently the greater our power of Perception the greater must be the possibility of our power of Abstraction.

Beyond the cultivation, use and exercise of the Attention and the Perception, there are but few practical methods for cultivating the faculty of Abstraction. Of course, exercise of the faculty will develop it; and the furnishing of material for its activities will give it the "nourishment" of which we have spoken elsewhere. Practice in distinguishing the various qualities, attributes and properties of objects will give a valuable training to the faculty.

Let the student take any object and endeavor to analyze it into its abstract qualities, etc. Let him try to discover qualities hidden from first sight. Let him make a list of these qualities, and write them down; then try to add to the list. Two or more students engaging in a friendly rivalry will stimulate the efforts of each other. In children the exercise may be treated as a game. Analysis of objects into their component qualities, attributes and qualities – the effort to extract as many adjectives applicable to the object– this is the first step. The second step consists in transforming these adjectives into their corresponding nouns. As for instance, in a rose we perceive the qualities which we call "redness," "fragrance," etc. We speak of the rose as being "red" or "fragrant" – then we think of "redness," or "fragrance" as abstract qualities, or things, which we express as nouns. Exercise and practice along these lines will tend to cultivate the faculty of Abstraction. By knowing qualities, we know the things possessing them.

CHAPTER IX

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS

Having formed general ideas, or Concepts, it is important that we associate them with other general ideas. In order to fully understand a general idea we must know its associations and relations. The greater the known associations or relations of an idea, the greater is our degree of understanding of that idea. If we simply know many thousands of separated general ideas, without also knowing their associations and relations, we are in almost as difficult a position as if we merely knew thousands of individual percepts without being able to classify them in general concepts. It is necessary to develop the faculty of associating ideas into groups, according to their relations, just as we group particular ideas in classes. The difference, however, is that these group-ideas do not form classes of a genus, but depend solely upon associations of several kinds, as we shall see in a moment.

Halleck says: "All ideas have certain definite associations with other ideas, and they come up in groups. There is always an association between our ideas, although there are cases when we cannot trace it… Even when we find no association between our ideas, we may be sure that it exists… An idea, then, never appears in consciousness unless there is a definite reason why this idea should appear in preference to others." Brooks says: "One idea or feeling in the mind calls up some other idea or feeling with which it is in some way related. Our ideas seem, as it were, to be tied together by the invisible thread of association, so that as one comes out of unconsciousness, it draws another with it. Thoughts seem to exist somewhat in clusters like the grapes of a bunch, so that in bringing out one, we bring the entire cluster with it. The law of association is thus the tie, the thread, the golden link by which our thoughts are united in an act of reproduction."

The majority of writers confine their consideration of Association of Ideas to its relation to Memory. It is true that the Laws of Association play an important part in Memory Culture, but Association of Ideas also form an important part of the general subject of Thought-Culture, and especially in the phase of the latter devoted to the development of the Understanding. The best authorities agree upon this idea and state it positively. Ribot says: "The most fundamental law which regulates psychological phenomena is the Law of Association. In its comprehensive character it is comparable to the law of attraction in the physical world." Mill says: "That which the law of gravitation is to astronomy, that which the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology, the Law of Association of Ideas is to psychology."

There are two general principles, or laws, operative in the processes of Association of Ideas, known as (1) Association by Contiguity; and (2) Association by Similarity, respectively.

Association by Contiguity manifests particularly in the processes of memory. In its two phases of (1) Contiguity of Time; and (2) Contiguity of Space, respectively, it brings together before the field of consciousness ideas associated with each by reason of their time or space relations. Thus, if we remember a certain thing, we find it easy to remember things which occurred immediately before, or immediately after that particular thing. Verbal memory depends largely upon the contiguity of time, as for instance, our ability to repeat a poem, or passage from a book, if we can recall the first words thereof. Children often possess this form of memory to a surprising degree; and adults with only a limited degree of understanding may repeat freely long extracts from speeches they have heard, or even arbitrary jumbles of words. Visual memory depends largely upon contiguity of space, as for instance our ability to recall the details of scenes, when starting from a given point. In both of these forms of association by contiguity the mental operation is akin to that of unwinding a ball of yarn, the ideas, thus associated in the sequence of time or place, following each other into the field of consciousness. Association by Contiguity, while important in itself, properly belongs to the general subject of Memory, and as we have considered it in the volume of this series devoted to the last mentioned subject, we shall not speak of it further here.

Association by Similarity, however, possesses a special interest to students of the particular subject of the culture of the Understanding. If we were compelled to rely upon the association of contiguity for our understanding of things, we would understand a thing merely in its relations to that which went before or came after it; or by the things which were near it in space – we would have to unwind the mental ball of time and space relations in order to bring into consciousness the associated relations of anything. The Association of Similarity, however, remedies this defect, and gives us a higher and broader association. Speaking of Association of Similarity, Kay says: "It is of the utmost importance to us in forming a judgment of things, or in determining upon a particular line of conduct, to be able to bring together before the mind a number of instances of a similar kind, recent or long past, which may aid us in coming to a right determination. Thus, we may judge of the nature or quality of an article, and obtain light and leading in regard to any subject that may be before us. In this way we arrange and classify and reason by induction. This is known as rational or philosophical association."

Halleck says: "An eminent philosopher has said that man is completely at the mercy of the association of his ideas. Every new object is seen in the light of its associated ideas… It is not the business of the psychologist to state what power the association of ideas ought to have. It is for him to ascertain what power it does have. When we think of the bigotry of past ages, of the stake for the martyr and the stoning of witches, we can realize the force of Prof. Ziehen's statement: 'We cannot think as we will, but we must think as just those associations which happen to be present prescribe.' While this is not literally true, it may serve to emphasize a deflecting factor which is usually underestimated."

Locke says: "The connection in our minds of ideas, in themselves loose and independent of one another, has such an influence, and is of so great force, to set us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural, passions, reasonings, and notions themselves, that, perhaps, there is not any one thing that deserves more to be looked after." Stewart says: "The bulk of mankind, being but little accustomed to reflect and to generalize, associate their ideas chiefly according to their more obvious relations, and above all to the casual relations arising from contiguity in time and place; whereas, in the mind of a philosopher ideas are commonly associated according to those relations which are brought to light in consequence of particular efforts of attention, such as the relations of cause and effect, or of premises and conclusion. Hence, it must necessarily happen that when he has occasion to apply to use his acquired knowledge, time and reflection will be requisite to enable him to recollect it."

This Association by Similarity, or the "rational and philosophical association of ideas," may be developed and cultivated by a little care and work. The first principle is that of learning the true relations of an idea– its various logical associations. Perhaps the easiest and best method is that adopted and practiced by Socrates, the old Greek philosopher, often called "the Socratic method" – the Method of Questioning. By questioning oneself, or others, regarding a thing, the mind of the person answering tends to unfold its stores of information, and to make new and true associations. Kays says: "Socrates, Plato, and others among the ancients and some moderns, have been masters of this art. The principle of asking questions and obtaining answers to them may be said to characterize all intellectual effort… The great thing is to ask the right questions, and to obtain the right answers." Meiklejohn says: "This art of questioning possessed by Dr. Hodgson was something wonderful and unique, and was to the minds of most of his pupils a truly obstetric art. He told them little or nothing, but showed them how to find out for themselves. 'The Socratic method,' he said, 'is the true one, especially with the young.'"