This simple example shows us that in reality the three successive ideas, _wife_, _journey_, _trunk_, are more under the influence of sentiments, representations and former volitions in a latent and subconscious state, than dependent on each other. But these latter activities are themselves the product of other antecedent activities of my brain, extraordinarily diverse and complex. I will attempt to make things a little more complete and comprehensible by the aid of a comparison. A man finds himself in the middle of a compact and moving crowd. He cries out to attract the attention of the crowd. His voice is heard by those immediately around him, but is lost on the moving mass. Against his will he is carried away by the crowd in the direction of the strongest movement. But if the crowd is immobile and tranquil the same man may make himself heard, and may even force his way through the crowd and impel it in his turn by the impression that his words have made on it. Something analogous to this occurs in the action of an idea according as it is produced in a brain which is awake, active and strongly associated, or on the contrary in a brain which rests and sleeps. The brain which is active and strongly associated resembles the agitated crowd which carries away everything by its activity. In this case a single idea, like a single man, cries out in vain, _i.e._, is produced strongly; it will not impel, but will be carried away or stifled, unless it already possesses, by the former remembrances (engrams) which it may revive, a particular power over the brain. It is the same with the agitated crowd; if the man who cries out is already known and has influence and power, he may arrest it and even bring it toward the center of his agitation. The brain which is at rest or sleeping, _i.e._, feebly associated and not active, resembles the immobile crowd. Even when it is new and has not yet become fixed in the memory, an idea may produce a deep impression, and awaken activities in its own direction. I repeat, if this idea has already acted more or less powerfully on the cerebral activity that it has often carried with it, it has accustomed this to follow it (_i.e._, fortified the engrams and facilitated their ecphoria), and then the powerful associated engrams which it has left in the organ of thought, will often be capable of carrying everything with them, even to the center of the agitation. In this way I succeeded in suddenly calming by hypnotism a woman who was mad with despair over the tragic death of half her family in a fire, by the simple fact that I had often hypnotized her previously. Immediately after the hypnosis she went away quietly to the place of the disaster and was the only one to keep her presence of mind and put things in order. I refer the reader to what has been said concerning the mneme (Chapter I). Semon's theory throws light on these questions.