The Origin of Thought-variations 241 



development are furthered and enriched occur as accidental 

 but happy hits in the overproduced disjecta membra of the 

 imaging processes ? 



I put the question at once in this way in order to come 

 to close quarters with a current way of looking at selective 

 thinking — indeed, about the only current way. To be sure, 

 this question of selection has not been much discussed ; 

 but those who have concerned themselves with it have 

 generally been content to say that in imagination, broadly 

 understood, we have the platform on which the true, the 

 good, the valuable thought-variations occur, and from the 

 multitudinous overplus of whose output they are selected.^ 



§ 2. The Origin of ThoiigJit-variations 



This, however, as it seems to me, is quite mistaken. We 

 do not find ourselves acquiring knowledge in our dreams, 

 thinking true in our revery, building up our aesthetic and 

 ethical ideals through castle-building. We do not scatter 

 our thoughts as widely as possible in order to increase the 

 chances of getting a true one; on the contrary, we call the 

 man who produces the most thought-variations a ' scatter- 

 brain,' and expect nothing inventive from him. We do not 

 look to the chance book, to the babbling conversation of 

 society, or to the vagaries of our own less strenuous moods 

 for the influence which — to readapt the words of Dr. 



1 This seems to be the assumption, for example, of James (^Principles of 

 Psychology, II., Chap. XXVIII.). So also Dr. G. Simmel in an article {Arch, 

 f. sys. Philos., I., pp. 34 ff.) which has come to my notice just as this paper 

 goes to print; at least no suggestion appears in his article of any selection except 

 that by movement, to which all thought-variations are alike brought, through 

 what he calls their ' dynamic aspect.' The general positions of Simmel on the 

 origin and meaning of 'truth' are in considerable accord with certain of the 

 conclusions of this address. 



