Chapter IV
THE LAWS OF RECALL
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.
For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed between its pages. At once the memory What Ordinary "Thinking" Amounts to 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 The Reverse of Complex Formation 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.
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.
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.