_B_, later _F_?

It is because every image is comparable to a force, which may pass from
the latent to the active condition, and in this process may be
reinforced or checked by other images. There are simultaneous and
inhibitory tendencies. _B_ is in a state of tension and _C_ is not; or
it may be that _D_ exerts an arresting influence on _C_. Consequently
_C_ cannot prevail. But an hour later conditions have changed and
victory rests with _C_. This phenomenon rests on a physiological basis:
the existence of several currents diffusing themselves through the brain
and the possibility of receiving simultaneous excitations.[24]

A few examples will make plainer this phenomenon of reinforcement, in
consequence of which an association prevails. Wahle reports that the
Gothic _Hotel de Ville_, near his house, had never suggested to him the
idea of the Doges' Palace at Venice, in spite of certain architectural
likenesses, until a certain day when this idea broke upon him with much
clearness. He then recalled that two hours before he had observed a lady
wearing a beautiful brooch in the form of a gondola. Sully rightly
remarks that it is much easier to recall the words of a foreign language
when we return from the country where it is spoken than when we have
lived a long time in our own, because the tendency toward recollection
is reinforced by the recent experience of the words heard, spoken,
read, and a whole array of latent dispositions that work in the same
direction.

In my opinion we would find the finest examples of "constellation,"
regarded as a creative element, in studying the formation and
development of myths. Everywhere and always man has had for material
scarcely anything save natural phenomena--the sky, land, water, stars,
storms, wind, seasons, life, death, etc. On each of these themes he
builds thousands of explanatory stories, which vary from the grandly
imposing to the laughably childish. Every myth is the work of a human
group which has worked according to the tendencies of its special genius
under the influence of various stages of intellectual culture. No
process is richer in resources, of freer turn, or more apt to give what
every inventor promises--the novel and unexpected.

To sum up: The initial element, external or internal, excites
associations that one cannot always foresee, because of the numerous
orientations possible; an analogous case to that which occurs in the
realm of the will when there