The more untrained a mind, the more readily it works out a theory that
two things which catch its attention at the same time are causally
connected. We have already dwelt at some length on the way things
reach our attention. We have seen that our access to information is
obstructed and uncertain, and that our apprehension is deeply
controlled by our stereotypes; that the evidence available to our
reason is subject to illusions of defense, prestige, morality, space,
time, and sampling. We must note now that with this initial taint,
public opinions are still further beset, because in a series of events
seen mostly through stereotypes, we readily accept sequence or
parallelism as equivalent to cause and effect.
This is most likely to happen when two ideas that come together arouse
the same feeling. If they come together they are likely to arouse the
same feeling; and even when they do not arrive together a powerful
feeling attached to one is likely to suck out of all the corners of
memory any idea that feels about the same. Thus everything painful
tends to collect into one system of cause and effect, and likewise
everything pleasant.
"IId IIm (1675) This day I hear that G[od] has shot an arrow into the
midst of this Town. The small pox is in an ordinary ye sign of the
Swan, the ordinary Keepers name is Windsor. His daughter is sick of
the disease. It is observable that this disease begins at an alehouse,
to testify God's displeasure agt the sin of drunkenness & yt of
multiplying alehouses!" [Footnote: _The Heart of the Puritan_, p.
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