s a more
decisive effect than it may justly deserve. As we noticed above, new
ideas, especially those coming directly through the senses, are often
more vivid and attractive than similar old ones. For this reason they
usually occupy greater attention and prominence at first than later,
when the old ideas have begun to revive and reassert themselves. Old
ideas usually have the advantage over the new in being better
organized, more closely connected in series and groups; and having been
often repeated, they acquire a certain permanent ascendency in the
thoughts. In this interaction between similar notions, old and new,
the differences at first arrest attention, then gradually sink into the
background, while the stronger points of resemblance begin to
monopolize the thought and bind the notions into a unity.

The use of familiar notions in acquiring an insight into new things is
a _natural tendency_ or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something
new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to
ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous
experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is
like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain
this new thing, though the two objects be in other points essentially
different. We are, in short, constantly falling back upon our old
experiences and classifications for the explanation of new objects that
appear to us.

So far is this true that the _most ordinary things_ can only be
explained in the light of experience. When John Smith wrote a note to
his companions at Jamestown, and thus communicated his desires to them,
it was unintelligible to the Indians. They had no knowledge of writing
and looked on the marks as magical. When _Columbus' ships_ first
appeared on the cost of the new world, the natives looked upon them as
great birds. They had never seen large sailing vessels. To vary the
illustration, the _art of reading_, so easy to a student, is the
accumulated result of a long collection of knowledge and experience.
There is an unconscious employment of apperception in the practical
affairs of life that is of interest. We often see a person at a
distance and by some slight characteristic of motion, form, or dress,
recognize him at once. From this slight trace we picture to ourselves
the person in full and say we saw him in the street. Sitting in my
room at evening I hear the regular