The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1875-10-30
Rapidly of Thought.

Sir Henry Holland, in his recen,ly.pub
lished "Fragmentary Papers," touches upon
some minor, but very interesting, questions OF
psychology. In one of these dispositions lac
treats of mental operations in relation to time
He says: Within minute have been able
to coerce the mind, Sd to speak, into more
than dozen acts or states of thought, so in
IcOngruous that no natural association could
possibly bring them into succession. In IL
lustratlon | note here certain objects which,
with watch before me, | have just succeed.
ed in COMPRISING, distinctly and successive.
ly, within thirty seconds OF time-the pyra-
mids of Ghizeh, the Ornithorbynchus, Jul
us Cesar the Ottawa Falls, the rings of Sa-
turn, the Apollo Belvedere. This is an ex-
pertinent have often made on myself, and
with the same general result. 1t would be
hard TO name or describe the operation of
mind by which these successive objects have
been thus suddenly evoked and dismissed.
There Is the volition to CHANGE bat how
must we define that effort by which the mind,
without any principle of selection or associ.
alton, can grasp so rapidly succession of
images incongruous, drawn seemingly at ran
dom from past thoughts and memories?
call ii an effort because ii is felt as such and
cannot be long continued without fatigue"
In commenting upon this a writer in Ma
tire says: This is a curious subject, which
easily admits of experiment, but 1t will be
found that the velocity with which thoughts
can be made to succeed each other depends
entirely upon the degree of similarity or con.
nection between them. Judging from my
own experience and that Of three students,
well qualified to test the matter, | find that,
where the objects thought of are as incongru-
Gus as possible, the number which the mind
can suggest to itselfin minute varies from
twclve-the result of Sir Henry Holland-up
to about twenty. Anyone who tries the ex-
pertinent, however, will find that there is an
almost an lnsuperable temptation to 20 off on
lines Of association. TO avoid these, and yet
to think rapidly, requires very disageeable
effort. becoming more and more painful by
repetition When the thoughts are restric-
ted within certain grooves, as II wge, the
result IS more rapid SUCCESSION. Thus one
student was able to think in minute bt thir-
ty different kinds of actions, forty.sS ami.
mails, fifty places or fifty persons. can my
self Think without much effort Of thihy-two
animals or forty persons or places IN min.
ute. Even in these cases, however, it will be
found that the rapidity greatly depends upon
the degree in which the objects have been as
sociated. When thoughts have been very
closely and frequently linked together, the
number which may be compressed within a
minute is much greater. find that | can
count about ninety-six in halfa minute, which,
without allowing for the two places Of fig
ures, gives 1872 thoughts per minute. l can
think ofevery letter of the alphabet in five
seconds ut most, which is at the rate of more
than 800 per minute. Finally, by counting
the first ten numbers over and over again, |
have compressed nearly 400 changes of idea
within the minute