Successful responses to novel data, associations by similarity and purposive behavior are in only apparent opposition to the fundamental laws of associative learning. Really they are beautiful examples of it. Man's successful responses to novel data--as when he argues that the diagonal on a right triangle of 796.278 mm. base and 137.294 mm. altitude will be 808.022 mm., or that Mary Jones, born this morning, will sometime die--are due to habits, notably the habits of response to certain elements or features, under the laws of piecemeal activity and assimilation. Nothing is less like the mysterious operations of a faculty of reasoning transcending the laws of connection-forming, than the behavior of men in response to novel situations. Let children who have hitherto confronted only such arithmetical tasks, in addition and subtraction with one- and two-place numbers and multiplication with one-place numbers, as those exemplified in the first line below, be told to do the examples shown in the second line. ADD ADD ADD SUBT. SUBT. MULTIPLY MULTIPLY MULTIPLY 8 37 35 8 37 8 9 6 5 24 68 5 24 5 7 3 -- -- 23 -- -- -- -- -- 19 -- MULTIPLY MULTIPLY MULTIPLY 32 43 34 23 22 26 -- -- -- They will add the numbers, or subtract the lower from the upper number, or multiply 3 × 2 and 2 × 3, etc., getting 66, 86, and 624, or respond to the element of 'Multiply' attached to the two-place numbers by "I can't" or "I don't know what to do," or the like; or, if one is a child of great ability, he may consider the 'Multiply' element and the bigness of the numbers, be reminded by these two aspects of the situation of the fact that '9 9 multiply' -- gave only 81, and that '10 10 multiply' --