Finally, we are not to forget that all this, however probable and "saisissable par l'esprit," is, after all, hypothesis, and that, for so necessary a presupposition as that of the identity of the subject, there is no neural parallel.
Of course the associative processes of our ordinary conscious life do not follow dutifully the beaten tracks which we have marked out. A given train of thought is seldom a perfect example of any one kind of desistent or of persistent association, but rather an illustration of both sorts, in varied combination. For instance, the sight of the desk at which I write may be followed by the thought of the brother to whom it belongs; after pondering upon my brother I may remember his thesis on German literature and his characterization of Lessing. This, of course, is still desistent association, but if I next find myself thinking about Dionysios of Halikarnassos, this is evidently a case of persistent association, for the connection between the thoughts is genius-in-criticism, which is possessed by Lessing and by Dionysios, and is therefore a persisting element of both thoughts. If I next think of truth, it is because of a certain apt comparison, made by Dionysios, between truth and grace of style, — and now I have returned once more to desistent association. I may finally interrupt myself in an involuntary shudder at the memory of the artificial, French funeral-wreaths, and may remember that my succeeding objects of consciousness have been: Pilate's question, "What is truth"; the nature of truth (a case of persistent association in which the observed similarity is a resemblance); the ethical problem of the possible justification of a lie (an instance of persistent association in which the similarity is, superficially, a contrast); the story of the Sœur Sulpice, Victor Hugo, his tomb in the Pantheon, the funeral wreaths which I saw piled up on its porch (cases of desistent association, except the first and the last). Of course the greater part of our trains of thought are illustrations of this sort of mixed association, and what we call the links of thought are by turn subtle and explicit.
One interesting suggestion from these various illustrations is the comparison, often attempted, of the intellectual values of
