264 Selective Thinking 



form from which new things, to be eligible for selection, 

 must be viewed. The details of organization, thus grad- 

 ually built up, show the relationships of our theoretical 

 thought ; and these relationships are valid since they 

 reveal the motor organization which has accrued to the 

 attention complex. The data of fact or objective truth are 

 the items which have passed through the selective ordeals.^ 



§11. Summary 



The general conclusions which the sketchy development 

 so far made would suggest may be stated in summary form 

 before we go on to note some further points of interpreta- 

 tion in the last remaining section. These conclusions are 

 as follows. Selective thinking is the result of motor 

 accommodation to the physical and social environment ; 

 this accommodation taking place in each case, as all 

 motor accommodation does, from a platform of earlier 

 * systematic determination ' or habit. In the sphere of 

 the physical environment as such, the selection is from 



1 * So erzeugen sich fiir unser Denken, gemass dem Niitzlichkeitsprincip, 

 gewisse Normen seines Verhaltens, durch welche iiberhaupt erst das zustande 

 kommt was wir Wahrheit nennen, und die sich in abstracter Formulirung als die 

 logischen Gesetze darstellen ' (Simmel, loc. cit., p. 45). It is here that the differ- 

 ence between Simmel's view and my own may be noted. He makes (so far as 

 the undeveloped form of his article justifies an interpretation) the function 

 of movement that of giving * truth ' to thought-variations already present. The 

 ' dynamic aspect ' in its issue secures the selection of the ready-formed * pre- 

 sentative aspect.' This I hold to be true (when supplemented by the 'sys- 

 tematic determination ' of the variations on a platform) of presentative data, 

 wholes, or facts as such. But there still remain the determining effects of the 

 motor selections themselves upon the systematic determination. The synergies, 

 inhibitions, etc., of the new motor accommodations with old habits produce 

 changes in the organization or relationships of the data and give rise to 

 theoretical and analytical * validity ' in our knowledge, which differs (as 

 Simmel himself points out, and as Urban has independently suggested) from 

 the objective ' truth ' of given data or * wholes.' 



