In the working and composition of mind the same difference is observable between association and organisation. Mere association means that any perception or idea may suggest absolutely any mental element whatever with which it has developed a connection by entering into the same mental whole. A study of the purely associative mind is sometimes said to be found in the character of Miss Bates in “Emma.” Perhaps, as really uncontrolled association can hardly be found in a sane intellect, we may say that the character in question is something more subtle and more true to nature; and that is, a study of the tendency to pure association continually breaking out, and as continually repressed, or “herded back” to the main subject, to use the expression which Walter Scott applies to the way in which just such an associative talker [1] is brought back to his point by his hearer. [1] Claude Halcro in the _Pirate_. In mind, as in the external world, the higher stage of association is organisation. The characteristic of organisation is control by a general scheme [1] as opposed to influence by juxtaposition {163} of units. The zigzag course of thought which is represented in such a character as Miss Bates is due to the absence of control by any general scheme. Every idea--every significant word--has practically innumerable connections in the mind. If the course of thought has no general direction impressed upon it, no selective control operative within it, it may change its line altogether at every principal word. [2] The possibilities of the ideas at our command make them like a complex of railways, wholly consisting of turn-tables, so that, on any one of these component parts, the train may swing round and go off in a wholly new direction. This is notably illustrated by the sense of context in interpretation. For anyone who has no such sense, possible errors are endless, beyond the hope of correction. [1] For the psychological theory of such control see Stout, _Analytic Psych_. ii. 3. [2] If it has not enough control to complete a significant sentence, of course there is insanity or idiocy.