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FR. PAULHAN, Esprits Logiques et Esprits Faux. 105 principle of systematic association. A contradiction we under- stand to be the predication of contradictory qualities of the same subject ; he interprets it to be the association for the same end of materials tending to different ends. This unity, he remarks, is a "fallacious unity". Once the ideas are sufficiently developed for their opposition to be real, it " becomes impossible for them to associate together for a common end, to draw the mind to the same conclusion ".* Thus he resolves the fundamental character of thought into a case of systematic association. The fundamental character of thought is such that when we think of anything, we must think of it as qualified in some way. There is a unity of two : the thing, and the idea we predicate of it. And as we cannot get below this character of thought or explain it by any form of association, so we cannot explain by any form of association its other character, equally fundamental, that when we predicate one quality of a subject we cannot predicate of it a contradictory quality unless we suppose the subject to be in process of change and the contradictory qualities to be true of its successive states. Association expresses the tendency of a mental element to suggest some other element, and systematic association, according to M. Paulhan, to suggest such another as will be " capable of associating with it for a common end ". Systematic association is then controlled by the thought of an end, pre- supposes thought and does not account for it. The elements we associate together are thoughts. We may indeed assume that beneath thought there is " anoetic experience " : 2 but the combina- tion of anoetic experiences still leaves us with anoetic experience. Their association cannot create thought. Thought is a unique differentiation, and cannot be resolved into an association of elements which we may suppose to be present at a low r er psychical level. We come now to the question how far the various types of illogical thought can be explained as due to the incompleteness or decay of the systematic association of ideas. I am not sure whether M. Paulhan thinks that every variety of illogical thought can be interpreted by his principle, and classified under it. There can be no doubt that in proportion as a man compares his opinions and ideas, and associates them together for the purpose of eliminat- ing their errors, through this very connexion of them he becomes conscious of their disagreement and contradictions, and that with " the progressive relaxation of mental co-ordination," 3 contradic- tions between them develop which a higher degree of systematic association would have arrested. In the interesting type of the divided minds (les divises) the author well shows how " the family, the school, business, the different circumstances of life develop in 1 P. 260. '-' See Analytic Psychology, by G. F. Stout, vol. i., pp. 50, 91. 3 P. 859.