240 Selective Thinking 



When we come to do this, we find, indeed, certain consist- 

 ent lines taken by our thought systems in their forward 

 movement — lines which characterize certain more promi- 

 nent series of stages in the descent or development of the 

 mental life. First, we find the line of knowledges which 

 reveal necessary fact, as we may call it — the line of cor- 

 respondence between internal relations and external rela- 

 tions upon which Mr. Spencer enlarges, and to which the 

 life of perception and memory must conform. Here there 

 seems to be the minimum of personal selection, because all 

 the data stand on approximatively the same footing, and the 

 progress of knowledge consists mainly in the recognition 

 of reality as it is. Then, second, there is the line of devel- 

 opment which shows the sort of concatenation of its mem- 

 bers which goes in formal logic by the term ' consistency ' 

 and results in some organization. This is often described 

 as the sphere of 'truth' and belief, and is in so far con- 

 trasted with that of immediate fact. Third, there is the 

 line of development whose terms show what has been and 

 may be called ' fitness ' — a certain very peculiar and pro- 

 gressive series of selections which go to build up the so- 

 called 'ideals,' as in aesthetic and ethical experience. 



In addition to these more or less selectively ' determined ' 

 lines of orderly arranged materials, there are besides mani- 

 fold scattered products in the mind at all its levels ; and 

 these become especially noticeable when we cast an eye 

 upon the outcome of imagination. We have in so-called 

 'passive imagination' or 'fancy,' in dreams, in revery, in 

 our air-castle building, untold variations, combinations, and 

 recombinations. The question which comes up for answer 

 in this first survey of these things is this : do the varia- 

 tions by which the Hnes of consistent, or determined. 



