see the smaller expenditure of time for the learning of series II, IV, VI, and it was only because I thought something of this sort that I changed the method of derivation of the transformed series. I cannot, therefore, exclude the possibility that, merely on the basis of this hidden presupposition and in a manner altogether unrevealed to consciousness, a greater concentration of attention was present in learning series II, IV, VI than in learning series I, III, V. However, this assumption is not to be taken positively as the correct one. The assumption that the whole of the difference found is to be traced back to the influence of this source of error would involve the ascription of a pretty large function to an involuntary and completely unconscious accommodation of attention due to a secret expectation.
There remains, accordingly, a certain probability for the third possibility, namely, that the contrasting character of the average differences has in part at least an objective basis, that the more rapid learning of the derived series, II, IV, VI, was in part due to their manner of derivation.
The proper way in which to think of this causation would become dear only by the introduction of physiological conceptions which must first be constructed or at least remodelled. If use is made of the language of psychology, then, as in the case of all unconscious processes, expression can be only figurative and inexact.
As a result of the learning by heart of a series in the original form the separate syllables, we must say, retain fairly strong tendencies upon their own return to consciousness to bring after them the syllables which immediately succeeded them. If, therefore, the syllables 1, 3, 5, etc., return to consciousness, the syllables 2, 4, 6, etc., have a tendency also to appear. This tendency is not strong enough to bring about as a consciously perceivable event the actual appearance of 2, 4, 6. The latter are in evidence only in a certain inner condition of excitability; something takes place in them which would not have occurred if 1, 3, 5 had not been repeated. They behave like a forgotten name which one attempts to recollect. This is not consciously present; on the contrary, it is being sought. In a certain way, however, it is undeniably present. It is on the way to consciousness, as one might say. For if ideas of all sorts were called up which stood in connection with the earlier experienced
