ORIENTATION OF MENTAL IMAGERY 289 



that drives the virile intellectual leader to day-dreams, 

 to playful explorations and mental foragings which ul- 

 timately blossom into self-assertion, but bringing no 

 other profit to the forager save the joy of discovery and 

 the pleasure of mental procreation in mental giving. 

 Indeed his best gifts may be most unwelcome, and their 

 sowing the cause of his undoing; but they will be very 

 precious to those he can never know and from whom he 

 can receive no returns. 



III. The Parallelism Between Mental and Physical 



Evolution 



The self-saving and self-constructive methods of the 

 mind are therefore truly comparable with those of the 

 physical world, and the results are measured in similar 

 terms. We may say, for example, that an hypothesis, 

 theory, or explanation, is right, or true, or good, or 

 workable, or creative, if its component elements are 

 mutually confirmatory, cooperative, self-preservative, 

 or self -constructive; that it is wrong, or false, or evil, 

 if they are mutually conflicting, non-cooperative, or 

 destructive. And we may say that mental processes are 

 benevolent, or altruistic in effect when the mental 

 profits, or possessions, of the individual are transmitted 

 to other individuals through the instrumentalities of 

 education. 



That is to say, every mental image, every thought, 

 theory, or system of thought, to exist, must in some 

 measure sustain, or confirm, some other image, or 

 images, thought, or theory, and be sustained, or con- 

 firmed by them, just as every physical thing, or system 



