ecall
places and routes. Any sort of problem is solved by means of recalled
facts put together in a new way. A writer in constructing a story puts
together facts that he has previously noted, and any work of the
imagination consists of materials recalled from past experience and
now built into a new composition.

What Can Be Recalled

If recall is so important in thinking and acting, it is worth while to
make a survey of the materials that recall {367} furnishes. In
general, using the term "recall" rather broadly, we say that any
previously learned reaction may be recalled. Writing _movements_ may
be said to be recalled when we write, and speech movements when we
speak. "Higher units", like the word habits and phrase habits of the
telegrapher and typist, are in a broad sense recalled whenever they
are used. The typist does not by any means recall the experience of
learning a higher unit, but he calls into action again the response
that he has learned to make. In the same way, the word habits and
phrase habits of vocal speech are called into action, i.e., recalled,
whenever we speak.

Besides these motor reactions, _tendencies_ to reaction can be
recalled. The attitude of hostility that may have become habitual in
us towards a certain person, or towards a certain task, is called into
activity at the mention of that person or task. The acquired interest
in architecture that we may have formed by reading or travel is
revived by the sight of an ambitious group of buildings. A slumbering
purpose may be recalled into activity by some relevant stimulus.

Observed _facts_ can be recalled, and this is the typically human form
of recall. In animals, we see the recall of tendencies and of learned
movements, but no clear evidence of the recall of observed facts. To
be recalled with certainty, a fact must have been definitely noted
when it was before us. If we have definitely noted the color of a
person's eyes, we are in a position to testify that his eyes are
brown, for example; otherwise, we may say that we think probably his
eyes are brown; because we have certainly noticed that he is dark, and
the dark eyes fit best into this total impression.

We say that a fact is recalled when we think of it without its being
present to the senses. While the original {368} observation of the
fact was a response to a sensory stimulus, the recall of it is a
response to some other stimulus, some "substitute stimulus". When John
is befor