The Trained Memory | Page 5

is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that a paper rose is likely to prove just as effective in producing all the symptoms of the disease as a rose out of Nature's garden.
Another striking illustration of the working of this principle is afforded by two gentlemen of my acquaintance, brothers, each of whom since boyhood has had unfailing attacks of sneezing upon first arising in the morning. No sooner is one of these men awake and seated upon the edge of his bed for dressing than he begins to sneeze, and he continues to sneeze for fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter, although he has no "cold" and never sneezes at any other time.
[Sidenote: Two Classes of "Complexes"]
Obviously, if absolutely all mental experiences are preserved, they consist altogether of two broad classes of complexes: first, those that are momentarily active in consciousness, forming part of the present mental picture, and, second, all the others--that is to say, all past experiences that are not at the present moment before the mind's eye.
There are, then, conscious complexes and subconscious complexes, complexes of consciousness and complexes of subconsciousness.
[Sidenote: The Subconscious Storehouse]
And of the complexes of subconsciousness, some are far more readily recalled than others. Some are forever popping into one's thoughts, while others can be brought to the light of consciousness only by some unusual and deep-probing stimulus. And _the human mind is a vast storehouse of complexes, far the greater part buried in subconsciousness_, yet somehow, like impressions on the wax cylinder of a phonograph, preserved with life-like truth and clearness.
Turn back for a moment to our definition of memory. You will observe that its second essential element is Recall.
Recall is the process by which the experiences of the past are summoned from the reservoir of the subconscious into the light of present consciousness. We necessarily touched upon this process in a previous book, in considering the Laws of Association, but here, in relation to memory, we shall go into the matter somewhat more analytically.

THE LAWS OF RECALL
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CHAPTER IV
THE LAWS OF RECALL
[Sidenote: The Law of Integral Recall]
Law I. The primary law of recall is this: _The recurrence or stimulation of one element in a complex tends to recall all the others._
In our explanation of "complex" formation we necessarily cited instances that illustrate this principle as well, since _recall is merely a reverse operation from that involved in "complex" formation_.
[Sidenote: What Ordinary "Thinking" Amounts to]
For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed between its pages. At once the memory of the friend who gave it to me springs into consciousness and becomes the subject of reminiscence. This recalls the mountain village where we last met. This recalls the fact that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which should transform the village into a popular resort. This in turn suggests my coming trip to the seashore, and I am reminded of a business appointment on which my ability to leave town on the appointed day depends. And so on indefinitely.
Far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even of your ordinary "thinking," commonly so-called, consists of trains of mental pictures "suggested" one by another. If the associated pictures are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you have a prosaic mind; if, on the other hand, the associations are unusual or unique, you are happily possessed of wit and fancy.
[Sidenote: The Reverse of Complex Formation]
These instances of the action of the Law of Recall illustrate but one phase of its activity. They show simply that groups of ideas are so strung together on the string of some common element that _the activity of one "group" in consciousness is apt to be automatically followed by the others. But the law of association goes deeper than this. It enters into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements of every group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to be simultaneously manifested._
[Sidenote: Prolixity and Terseness]
There is no principle to which we shall more continually refer than this one. Our explanation of hay fever a moment ago illustrates our meaning. Get the principle clearly in your mind, and see how many instances of its operation you can yourself supply from your own daily experience.
So far as the mere linking together of groups of ideas is concerned, this classifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater degree than in others. It finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original subject in pursuit of every suggested idea.
[Sidenote: The Law of Contiguity]
Law II. _Similarity and nearness in time or space between two experiential facts causes the thought of