The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
"The leading characteristic of algebra is that of operation on
relations. This also is the leading characteristic of Thought.
Algebra cannot exist without values, nor Thought without Feelings.
The operations are so many blank forms till the values are assigned.
Words are vacant sounds, ideas are blank forms, unless they symbolize
images and sensations which are their values. Nevertheless it is
rigorously true, and of the greatest importance, that analysts carry
on very extensive operations with blank forms, never pausing to
supply the symbols with values until the calculation is completed;
and ordinary men, no less than philosophers, carry on long trains
of thought without pausing to translate their ideas (words) into
images.... Suppose some one from a distance shouts 'a lion!' At once
the man starts in alarm.... To the man the word is not only an ...
expression of all that he has seen and heard of lions, capable of
recalling various experiences, but is also capable of taking its
place in a connected series of thoughts without recalling any of
those experiences, without reviving an image, however faint, of the
lion--simply as a sign of a certain relation included in the complex
so named. Like an algebraic symbol it may be operated on without
conveying other significance than an abstract relation: it is a sign
of Danger, related to fear with all its motor sequences. Its logical
position suffices.... Ideas are _substitutions_ which require a
secondary process when what is symbolized by them is translated into
the images and experiences it replaces; and this secondary process is
frequently not performed at all, generally only performed to a very
small extent. Let anyone closely examine what has passed in his mind
when he has constructed a chain of reasoning, and he will be surprised
at the fewness and faintness of the images which have accompanied the
ideas. Suppose you inform me that 'the blood rushed violently from
the man's heart, quickening his pulse at the sight of his enemy.'
Of the many latent images in this phrase, how many were salient in
your mind and in mine? Probably two--the man and his enemy--and these
images were faint. Images of blood, heart, violent rushing, pulse,
quickening, and sight, were either not revived at all, or were passing
shadows. Had any such images arisen, they would have hampered thought,
retarding the logical process of judgment by irrelevant connections.
The symbols had substituted _relations_ for these _values_.... There
are no images of two things and three things, when I say 'two and
three equal five;' there are simply familiar symbols having precise
relations.... The verbal symbol 'horse,' which stands for all our
experiences of horses, serves all the purposes of Thought, without
recalling one of the images clustered in the perception of horses,
just as the sight of a horse's form serves all the purposes of
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