[156]. It is of interest to note again in this connection that these secondary images may emerge from a subconscious process to form the structure of an hallucination. Various facts of observation which I have collected support the thesis advanced by Sidis (loc. cit.) on theoretical grounds “that hallucinations are synthesized compounds of secondary sensory elements dissociated completely or incompletely from their primary elements.” It would carry us too far away from our theme to consider here this problem of special pathology. Sidis further insists that hallucinations are not central, but always “are essentially of peripheral origin,” a view which, it seems to me, is incompatible with numerous facts of observation.
[157]. I once dictated into a phonograph a passage of a published work. Whenever I read that passage now I hear the sound of my own voice as it was emitted by the phonograph.
[158]. I intentionally do not here say idea of a horse because the use of the preposition (while, of course, correctly used to distinguish horse as an idea from a material horse, or the former as a particular idea among ideas in general) has led, as it seems to me, insidiously to specious reasoning. Thus Mr. Hoernlé (Image, Idea and Meaning, Mind, January, 1907) argues that every idea has a meaning because every idea is an idea of some thing. Although this is true in a descriptive sense, psychologically idea-of-a-horse is a compound term and an imagined horse. The idea itself is horse. The speciousness of the reasoning appears when we substitute horse for idea; then the phrase would read, a “horse is always a horse of something.” I agree, of course, that every idea has a meaning, but not to this particular reasoning by which the conclusion is reached, as when, for example, Mr. Hoernlé when traversing James’ theory cites “image of the breakfast table” to denote that the breakfast table is the meaning of the image. The image is the (imagined) breakfast table. They are not different things as are leg and chair in the phrase, “leg of the chair,” where chair plainly gives the meaning to leg.
[159]. R. F. Hoernlé, Image, Idea and Meaning, Mind, January, 1907.
[160]. Idea, according to Mr. Hoernlé’s context, is here used in the sense of a word, image or sign.
[161]. Of course the constituents of the content must vary in each individual instance, but the kind of conscious elements that in general give meaning to the sensory part of the idea can be determined.
[162]. P. 462, Lecture XIV.
[163]. Prince: The Mechanism of Recurrent Psychopathic States, with Special Reference to Anxiety States, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, June-July, 1911, pp. 153-154.
[164]. Ibid., p. 152. It is interesting to note that statistics show that traumatic psychoses following railway accidents are comparatively rare among trainmen, while exceedingly common among passengers. The reason is to be found in the difference in the settings of ideas of accidents in the two classes of persons. It is the same psychological difference that distinguishes the seasoned veteran soldier from the raw recruit in the presence of the enemy.