210 EXPERIENCE AND IDEALISM 



rangements of objects in experience, their mark 

 is that they are not thoughts, but habits, customs 

 of action. 1 



Moreover, such reflective thought as does inter 

 vene in the formation and maintenance of these 

 practical organizations harks back to prior prac 

 tical organizations, biological and social in nature. 

 It serves to valuate organizations already existent 

 as biological functions and instincts, while, as itself 

 a biological activity, it redirects them to new con 

 ditions and results. Recognize, for example, that 

 a geometric concept is a practical locomotor 

 function of arranging stimuli in reference to main 

 tenance of life activities brought into consciousness, 

 and then serving as a center of reorganization of 

 such activities to freer, more varied flexible and 

 valuable forms ; recognize this, and we have the 

 truth of the Kantian idea, without its excrescences 

 and miracles. The concept is the practical activ 

 ity doing consciously and artfully what it had 

 aforetime done blindly and aimlessly, and thereby 

 not only doing it better but opening up a freer 

 world of significant activities. Thought as such a 

 reorganization of natural functions does naturally 



* t 



1 The relationship of organization and thought is precisely 

 that which we find psychologically typified by the rhythmic 

 functions of habit and attention, attention being always, 

 ab quo, a sign of the failure of habit, and, ad quern, a recon 

 structive modification of habit. 



