The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners

by William Henry Pyle

Further discussion of the point that reasoning is determined by past experience may be necessary. Suppose the teacher ask the class a number of different questions, moral, religious, political. Many different answers to the questions will be received, in some cases as many answers to the questions as there are pupils. Ask whether it is ever right to steal, whether it is ever right to lie, whether it is ever right to fight, whether it is ever right to disobey a parent or teacher, whether oak is stronger than maple, whether iron expands more when heated than does copper, whether one should always feed beggars, etc. The answers received, in each case, depend on the previous experience of the pupils. The more nearly alike the experiences of the pupils, the more nearly alike will be the answers. The more divergent the experiences, the more different will be the answers.

The basis of reasoning is ultimately the same sort of thing as the basis of habit. We have repeated experiences of the same kind. The ideas of these experiences become welded together in a definite way. Association between certain groups of ideas becomes well fixed. Later situations involving these groups of ideas set up definite trains of association. We come always to definite conclusions from the same situations provided that we are in the same mental set and the factors involved are the same.

Throughout early life we have definite moral and religious ideas presented to us. We come to think in definite ways about them or with them. It therefore comes about that every day we live, we are determining the way we shall in the future reason about things. We are each day getting the material for the solution of the problems that will be presented to us by future situations. And the reason that one of us will solve those problems in a different way from another is because of having somewhat different experiences, and of organizing them in a different way.

Meaning and the Organization of Ideas. In the preceding paragraphs we have several times spoken of the organization of ideas. Let us now see just what is meant by this expression. Intimately connected with the organization of ideas is meaning. What is the meaning of an idea? The meaning of an idea is another idea or group of ideas that are very closely associated with it. When there comes to mind an idea that has arisen out of repeated experience, there come almost immediately with it other ideas, perhaps vivid images which have been connected with the same experience. Suppose the idea is of a horse. If one were asked, “What is a horse?” ideas of a horse in familiar situations would present themselves. One may see in imagination a horse being driven, ridden, etc., and he would then answer, “Why, a horse is to ride,” or “A horse is to drive,” or “A horse is a domestic animal,” etc.

Again, “What is a cloud? What is the sun? What is a river? What is justice? What is love?” One says, “A cloud is that from which rain falls,” or “A cloud is partially condensed vapor. The sun is a round thing in the sky that shines by day. A river is water flowing along in a low place through the land. Justice is giving to people what they deserve. Love is that feeling one has for a person which makes him be kind to that person.” The answer that one gives depends on age and experience.

But it is evident that when a person is asked what a thing is or what is the meaning of a thing, he has at once ideas that have been most closely associated with the idea in question. Now, since the most important aspect of a thing is what we can do with it, what use it can be to us, usually meaning centers about use. A chair is to sit in, bread is to eat, water is to drink, clothes are to wear, a hat is a thing to be worn on one’s head, a shovel is to dig with, a car is to ride in, etc.

Use is not quite so evident in such cases as the following: “Who was Cæsar? Who was Homer? Who is Edison? What was the Inquisition? What were the Crusades?” However, one has, in these cases, very closely associated ideas, and these ideas do center about what we have done with these men and events in our thinking. “Cæsar was a warrior. Homer was a writer of epics. Edison is an inventor,” etc. These men and events have been presented to us in various situations as standing for various things in the history of the world. And when we think of them, we at once think of what they did, the place they fill in the world. This constitutes their meaning.

It is evident that an idea may have many meanings. And the meaning that may come to us at any particular moment depends upon the situation. A chair, for example, in one situation, may come to mind as a thing to sit in; in another situation, as a thing to stand in the corner and look pretty; in another, a thing to stand on so that one may reach the top shelf in the pantry; in another, a thing to strike a burglar with; in another, a thing to knock to pieces to be used to make a fire.

The meaning of a thing comes from our experience with it, and the thing usually comes to have more and more meanings as our experience with it increases. When we meet something new, it may have practically no meaning. Suppose we find a new plant in the woods. It has little meaning. We may be able to say only that it is a plant, or it is a small plant. We touch it and it pricks us, and it at once has more meaning. It is a plant that pricks. We bite into it and find it bitter. It is then a plant that is bitter, etc. In such a way, objects come to have meaning. They acquire meaning according to the connections in which we experience them and they may take on different meanings for different persons because of the different experiences of these persons. The chief interest we have in objects is in what use we can make of them, how we can make them serve our purposes, how we can make them contribute to our pleasure.

The organization of experience is the connecting, through the process of association, of the ideas that arise out of our experience. Our ideas are organized not only in accordance with the way we experience them in the first place, but in accordance with the way we think them later in memory. Of course, ideas are recalled in accordance with the way we experience them, but since they are experienced in such a multitude of connections, they are recalled later in these various connections and it is possible in recall to repeat one connection to the exclusion of others.