246 Selective Thinking 



of thoughts. Selective thinking is the gradual enlarge- 

 ment of the system, a heaping-up of the structure. If 

 this be true, a little reflection convinces us that variations 

 in the items of material merely, in the stones of the struc- 

 ture, in the brute experiences of sense or memory, cannot 

 be fruitful or the reverse for the system. It is variations 

 only in the organization which can be that. It is the re- 

 adjustments, the modifications or variations in the ' know- 

 ledge-about,' which constitute the gain or loss to thought. 

 A thousand flashing colours may pass before my eyes, a 

 thousand brute sounds make a din in my ears, a thousand 

 personal situations flit through my imagination, a thousand 

 reports reach me through the 'yellow journals' of the con- 

 dition of Cuba ; but having no tendency or force to work 

 changes in my organized systems of knowledge, they are 

 not even possible candidates for my selection. The rich 

 data of the world and of history might shower upon us : 

 the music of the spheres might tickle our ears ; the ideals 

 of the Almighty might be displayed before us in colour, 

 form, and action ; but, be we incapable of organizing them, 

 they are * as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.' The 

 things of time and eternity may vary infinitely in their 

 appeals to us, but unless we vary to meet them they cannot 

 become ours. So do we find actually fruitless and barren, 

 not only the kaleidoscopic changes, the variations on varia- 

 tions, of our dreams and our fancy, but equally so the 

 pages of mathematical symbols in which we have not been 

 trained, though they embody the highest thoughts of some 

 great genius. They do not fit into the coordinations of 

 knowledge which are ours, nor bring about readjustments 

 in the arrangements of them. The items, to appeal to me, 

 must never quite break with the past of my knowledge : 



