or of a third. The hopeful, courageous man, who e.g. goes out to battle, easily “accepts” any casual occurrence as a “good sign” for himself (accipio omen),—the idea of victory so excites him as to assimilate to itself every other idea; that idea combined with the wish is here the will. But the connexion between sign and signified is here only loose and superficial, it comes into existence and passes away again easily with the sensuous perception of the sign. A more permanent connexion is made by a permanent wish, an “interest”; there is always as basis the “wish” for favourable events, hence for favourable signs; delight in the former transfers itself to the latter, and for this reason recollection is as pleased to “linger” over them as perception. It is thus that the practical man who is dependent upon accidents, e.g., a farmer or a sailor, accustoms himself to make many kinds of observations and to connect them with the particular stages of his work in such a way that the recurring perception invariably is for him a favourable or unfavourable sign. It is of such habits of thought that the whole mass of traditional superstition is composed. Finally we may be incited by just such motives of will to actually learn, whether from others or from our own experience and reflexion, to “give a meaning” to events, e.g. to dreams, which stand in no natural relation with future events but can be brought into arbitrary connexion with our opinion about them. Here the recollection itself becomes of a markedly intellectual kind; e.g. the “conviction” arrived at by private thought that a dream of fat cows signifies fortunate years. In all these cases what we think of is only how something becomes for an individual through his will the sign of something else. In reality such signs generally have also, or obtain, a social significance preceding or through the individual significance. But this social significance is only necessary when signs become the objects of social use.
On the other hand we notice, that the wish for a given recollection constitutes of this an End and of something else, which is first connected with the idea of it, a Means, i.e. an assumed cause of the recollection. The desire may select for this purpose the natural sign, or a socially valid sign, or finally—and this alone concerns us here—it may connect with the idea a sign which is significant for it alone. The form of the will may be sufficiently illustrated for our present purpose by instances. 1. I make for myself a sign to be used once or upon occasion—e.g. a knot in my handkerchief, to remind me to-morrow of a letter to be written; marks in a book, to remind me at the next reading of my pleasure or
