The processes of ideation.

Abstract

(from the chapter) It has just been said that the composite structure of the different fields of consciousness, and the order of their succession, can be only very imperfectly explained by the laws of the so-called "association of ideas." For no field of consciousness is a mere composite of ideas; and other influences than those which belong to processes of ideation determine the order of our mental states. Nevertheless the general conditions under which ideas recur undoubtedly have a most important bearing on the entire study of mental life. Although, then, the development of mind is not wholly a matter of the mechanism of ideas, and even involuntary memory and imagination are not explained satisfactorily without admitting far more than is thus provided for; yet without an understanding of this mechanism neither memory nor imagination nor thought can be explained. It is proper, therefore, to treat of the recurrence of ideas as among the elementary processes of mental life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (chapter)