# A Handbook of Phrenotypics for Teachers and Students/The Probability of a Common Phantom Springing Up is Dependent Upon the Degree of Familiarity of Each of the Two Given Notions

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As an illustration, let me adduce the following simile.—Suppose I had two boxes, one before my right and the other before my left hand: in each of these boxes there is one million of small cards, with a series of numbers from 1 to 1,000,000 written upon them. Now having well shuffled the cards in each box, I will take with each of my hands from its respective box as many cards as that hand can contain,—say a thousand. Two cases may take place, viz.—
​(1) All the numbers contained in the right hand are entirely different from those in the left, i.e. there is not a single number common to both hands;—or
(2) There will be one or more numbers common to both hands.
It is impossible to foretell which of the two cases will take place.
Next, I call in a little boy of seven years, and order him to try his luck. The boy is in the same predicament as myself; he may and he may not have a common number; but it is clear that he will have a great deal less chance of having a common number in both hands; and this will be merely on account of his hands being smaller—he can grasp with them less numbers than myself. My probability of having a common number will be just as much greater than the probability of the boy's having a common number, as my hands are larger than those of the boy.
My own probability will increase with the increasing expansion of my fingers: the more I stretch them, the more numbers I shall grasp with each hand, and in this degree will increase the degree of probability of my having a common number in both hands. Now, let me put before my senses the two notions—watch, pencil: each of them is highly familiar to me; they are ​i.e. each of them causes to jump up before my imagination a host of phantoms. One of the above two mental sceneriest I., II., will take place: i.e. there will be, or there will not be, a common phantom: it is impossible to foretel which of these two cases will take place.
Next, I put the same two notions, watch, pencil, before the senses of a little, say, pin-manufactory boy, of seven years. The boy is in the same predicament as myself; there will, or there will not, be a common phantom rising before his imagination; but it is clear that he will have a great many chances less than myself, on account of each of the two notions, watch, pencil, being a great deal less familiar to him than to myself; he knows, comparatively, very little about the properties and circumstances peculiarly belonging to or connected with watch, pencil,—they are for him while for me they are
The same two notions, watch, pencil, put before the senses of a boy who had passed his last seven years alternately in rambles in Covent-garden Market, in St. Catherine's Docks, police stations, and Newgate—to him, watch and pencil will be as familiar as to myself; i.e. the number of notions jumping up will be as great as mine. The kind of these jumped-up notions will be different from ​those in my case, still their number will be as infinitely greater than that in the case of the manufactory boy, who spent all his little life in sharpening pins, and saw watch and pencil perhaps no more than a dozen times:—the consequence is, that the rambler and myself will have just as great a probability of having a common phantom, as the familiarity of watch and pencil of the rambler and myself is greater than that of the pinmanufactory boy.
(Teachers will multiply such illustrations.)
This common phantom, or what is the same thing, this phantom which is a property or a circumstance belonging to or connected with each of the two given notions, will, we shall soon see, serve a useful and all-important purpose,—viz. that of connecting together the two given notions rapidly, and so strongly that whenever one of these is given, the other will rise before the imagination: hence, I will designate such common phantoms also by the expressions—agglutinating notions—associating notions.