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We see from this that the associations of the “abbey” series are nearly half of them in sense imagery, and these were almost always visual. The names of persons also more frequently occurred in this series than in any other. It will be recollected that in Table II. I drew attention to the exceptionally large number, 33, in the last column. It was perhaps 20 in excess of what would have been expected from the general run of the other figures. This was wholly due to visual imagery of scenes with which I was first acquainted after reaching manhood, and shows, I think, that the scenes of childhood and youth, though vividly impressed on the memory, are by no means numerous, and may be quite thrown into the background by the abundance of after experiences; but this, as we have seen, is not the case with the other forms of association. Verbal memories of old date, such as Biblical scraps, family expressions, bits of poetry, and the like, are very numerous, and rise to the thoughts so quickly, whenever anything suggests them, that they commonly outstrip all competitors. Associations connected with the “abasement” series are strongly characterised by histrionic ideas, and by sense imagery, which to a great degree merges into a histrionic character. Thus the word “abhorrence” suggested to me, on three out of the four trials, an image of the attitude of Martha in the famous picture of the raising of Lazarus by Sebastian del Piombo in the National Gallery. She stands with averted head, doubly sheltering her face by her hands from even a sidelong view of the opened grave. Now I could not be sure how far I saw the picture as such, in my mental view, or how far I had thrown my own personality into the picture, and was acting it as actors might act a mystery play, by the puppets of my own brain, that were parts of myself. As a matter of fact, I entered it under the heading of sense imagery, but it might very properly have gone to swell the number of the histrionic entries.
The “afternoon” series suggested a great preponderance of mere catch words, showing how slowly I was able to realise the meaning of abstractions; the phrases intruded themselves before the thoughts became defined. It occasionally occurred that I puzzled wholly over a word, and made no entry at all; in thirteen cases either this happened, or else after one idea had occurred the second was too confused and obscure to admit of record, and mention of it had to be omitted in the foregoing Table. These entries have forcibly shown to me the great imperfection in my generalising powers; and I am sure that most persons would find the same if they made similar trials. Nothing is a surer sign of high intellectual capacity than the power of quickly seizing and easily manipulating ideas of a very abstract nature. Commonly we grasp them very imperfectly, and cling to their skirts with great difficulty.
