256 Selective Thinking 



capable of the sort of subsumption which class recognition 

 is. This gives, in the sphere of general thought, the 

 analogue of the assimilation to habit which we found 

 necessary to the establishing of the platform of progres- 

 sive determination in the case of knowledge of external 

 objects. The two cases taken together, tJierefore, constitute 

 the function of ' systematic determination? 



8. Variations in Attention and the Environment of 



Thought 



But this is not yet selective thinking. The selection of 

 the particular concrete datum is more ; it is an affair of 

 the selection of variations in the attention complex, after 

 the datum has passed muster in the systematic determi- 

 nation. It is an affair of the variations of the a sort, at 

 the crest, so to speak, of the attention movement. How, 

 then, are these selected ? 



It is, I think, a process analogous to that which holds 

 for muscular accommodation by adjustment to the en- 

 vironment, i.e., it is a case of ' functional selection from 

 overproduced movements.' It is here, as there, the envi- 

 ronment's turn to get in its work, after the organism has 

 had its turn. Yet here, as there, we must be careful to 

 have a clear understanding of what the environment is. 



The environment is here tJie whole of knowledge not 

 possessed by tJie individual thinker ; that is, the whole of 

 the social store of opinions, beliefs, reflections, judgments, 

 criticisms, etc., within which the individual displays his 

 reasonable activities. The selection of thoughts as valid 

 is analogous of the selection of facts as true. Apart from 

 the direct necessity of accommodation and recognition 

 which the physical enforces upon us, and which consti- 



