140 galton.org
140
Inquiries into Human Faculty
My associated ideas were for the most part due to my own unshared
experiences, and the list of them would necessarily differ widely from that
which another person would draw up who might repeat my experiments.
Therefore one sees clearly, and I may say, one can see measurably, how
impossible it is in a general way for two grown-up persons to lay their
minds side, by side together in perfect accord. The same sentence cannot
produce precisely the same effect on both, and the first quick impressions
that any given word in it may convey, will differ widely in the two minds.
I took pains to determine as far as feasible the dates of my life at which
each of the associated ideas was first attached to the word. There were
124 cases in which identification was satisfactory, and they were
distributed as in Table II.
TABLE II.
RELATIVE NUMBER OF ASSOCIATIONS FORMED AT
DIFFERENT PERIODS OF LIFE.
Occurring
Whose first
formation
was in
Total
number of
different
Associatio
ns
four times
three
times
twice.
once.
Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
Per cent
48
39
12
10
11
9
9
7
16
13
boyhood and
youth
57
46
10
8
8
7
6
5
33
26
subsequent
manhood
19
15
—
—
4
3
1
1
14
11
quite recent
events.
124
100
22
18
23
19
16
13
63
50
Totals
It will be seen from the Table that out of the 48 earliest associations no
less than 12, or one quarter of them, occurred in each of the four trials; of
the associations first formed in manhood, 10, or about one-sixth of them,
had a similar recurrence, but as to the 19 other associations first formed in
quite recent times, not one of them occurred in the whole of the four trials.
Hence we may see the greater fixity of the earlier associations, and might
measurably determine
