3. Serial Reproduction.
First we will consider omissions, of which there were many in every series.
Each event, or incident, in a narration, possesses a certain potency of reproduction. To borrow terms used by Thorndike of words in a sentence, the incident, or event, may be under potent, or just normally potent, or over potent.[1] The under potent is omitted; the normally potent is reproduced; the over potent is not only reproduced, but may so dominate all the rest as to change the whole course of the narration.
Now so far as my observation goes, the under potent falls into one of three classes. First there is omission of the irrelevant, then omission of the unfamiliar, and then omission of the unpleasant.
Irrelevant is a term most often used in a certain kind of logic. Any constituent of a chain of argument which does not logically aid in establishing the validity of an argument is called irrelevant. But here the term must be used in a wider sense. Psychologically, everything is irrelevant which to the observer concerned does not appear fitting, or in place. And what does appear fitting, or in place, is determined by social environment and training, as well as by individual temperament and education. To most of the members of a modern civilised community, for example, the relevant and the irrelevant are almost wholly concerned with connexions between facts, events, words, or arguments, and not merely with the character in itself of these elements. In a phantasy practically any sort of connexion is enough to secure relevance, but clearly this is not so in the argument, or in the straightforward narrative. More and more, however, as we approach the primitive attitude, we cease to determine what is relevant by considering how the members of a series are related to a central aim or topic. We
- ↑ Psychological Review, 1917, xxiv. pp. 220-34.
