The Theory of Advertising

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS . Every one has wondered how it happens that a thought or idea has suddenly and unexpectedly entered his mind. Not unfrequently the particular idea had not been entertained for years, ? perhaps it had no apparent connection with the present line of thought, ? and yet here it is,...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS . Every one has wondered how it happens that a thought or idea has suddenly and unexpectedly entered his mind. Not unfrequently the particular idea had not been entertained for years, ? perhaps it had no apparent connection with the present line of thought, ? and yet here it is, seemingly unaltered and as distinct as it had been years before. If anything in the world has the Mind appearance of lawlessness, it cer- Apparently ig the flight of thought in Lawless, ., . TT7. these minds of ours. We can go from Chicago to Peking; from the present moment to the building of the pyramids or the creation of the universe. We can pick out any object or event included within the borders of space or time. We can go from any one of these objects or events to any other in an instant of time, and whole multitudes of them may be passed in review in scarcely more than a single second. It would be difficult to imagine anything less confined and apparently less subject to laws than the human mind. Furthermore, no two minds are alike. Men differ as to facial expression in a much less degree than in the manner in which they think. However hopeless the task may seem at first sight, it is nevertheless true that from the time of Aristotle down to the present day great thinkers have been engaged in trying to find laws according to which the mind acts. They have not been content with the surprise which they have felt when an idea has unexpectedly entered their minds, but they have gone further and sought for the laws which regulate this sudden appearance. Much progress has been made, and the mind is gradually being recognized as consistent and law- abiding as are all other things in the universe. In many cases we can readily see why we are thinking ...