reproduced, and may exercise a transforming influence that seems altogether out of proportion to its importance. At least one conclusion of practical value may be drawn from this. In any attempt to determine the affiliations of versions of stories, or of pictured representations, apparently trivial details may often deserve the greatest attention.
When, how, and why this should be so are questions with which I hope to deal in detail on some future occasion. But, in order to prevent misunderstanding, a few additional remarks must now be made. I have spoken provisionally of a principle of persistence of the trivial. Very often details which appear to be trivial to any persons not engaged in the reproductions, are really far from trivial to those who have produced the versions in question. This gives a first broad distinction between what may be called the subjectively trivial and the objectively trivial. We then get three classes of cases: first that of the persistence of detail which is objectively trivial, but subjectively significant, the significance being clear to the subject at the time at which he produces his reproduction; second, that which is objectively trivial, but subjectively significant, the significance being entirely hidden from the subject at the time at which he makes the reproduction; and third, that which is both objectively and subjectively trivial, but which nevertheless persists. These three cases, and their conditions, have to be very carefully distinguished, and I shall hope to be able to show how particularly important each of the last two classes of cases may be.
Another extremely common type of change which does not appear to be capable of being brought under any of the general principles so far discussed is that of transposition. This takes many different forms. There may be duplication, in which case a detail is not only introduced into a wrong position, but is also retained in its right position. More commonly it is omitted from its proper place, and then it may either be transferred bodily to some new position,
