And there is good reason to suppose that in the order of mental development the power of distinctly expecting an event precedes that of distinctly recollecting one.

Thus, in the case of the infant mind, as of the animal intelligence, the presence of signs of coming events, as the preparation of food, seems to excite distinct and vivid expectation.[137] As a mode of assurance, expectation is clearly marked off from memory, and is not explainable by means of this.

It is a fundamentally distinct kind of conviction.

So far as we are capable of analyzing it, we may say that its peculiarity is its essentially active character.

To expect a thing is to have stirred the active impulses, including the powers of attention; it is to be on the alert for it, to have the attention already focussed for it, and to begin to rehearse the actions which the actual happening of the event--for example, the approach of a welcome object--would excite.