Note 37 — Chapter XVI · ASSOCIATION.

Miss M. W. Calkins (Philosophical Review, I. 389, 1892) points out that the persistent feature of the going thought, on which the association in cases of similarity hinges, is by no means always so slight as to warrant the term 'focalized.' "If the sight of the whole breakfast-room be followed by the visual image of yesterday's breakfast-table, with the same setting and in the same surroundings, the association is practically total," and yet the case is one of similarity. For Miss Calkins, accordingly, the more important distinction is that between what she calls desistent and persistent association. In 'desistent' association all parts of the going thought fade out and are replaced. In 'persistent' association some of them remain, and form a bond of similarity between the mind's successive objects; but only where this bond is extremely delicate (as in the case of an abstract relation or quality) is there need to call the persistent process 'focalized.' I must concede the justice of Miss Calkins's criticism, and think her new pair of terms a useful contribution. Wundt's division of associations into the two classes of external and internal is congruent with Miss Calkins's division. Things associated internally must have some element in common; and Miss Calkins's word 'persistent' suggests how this may cerebrally come to pass. 'Desistent,' on the other hand, suggests the process by which the successive ideas become external to each other or preserve no inner tie.