252 Selective Thinking 



world our first-hand knowledges arise as reflexes of such 

 accommodations.^ 



§ 7. Selection of Ideas by Attention 



2. In the life of general and ideal thinking the same 

 questions come upon us. Here we have, it is true, a cer- 

 tain restating of the problem, but it seems that in its 

 essential features the principles already worked out have 

 application. First, as to the platform — for as we saw 

 above, thought-variations to be selected must be projected 

 from a platform of earlier progressive thinking or system- 

 atic determination. The platform on the side of function 

 — that is, apart from the content organized — is, I think, 

 the attention. The attention is a function of organization, 

 a function which grows with the growth of knowledge, 

 reflects the state of knowledge, holds in its own integrity 

 the system of data already organized in experience. I 

 shall not dwell long upon this, seeing that it will be gen- 



1 In Social and Ethical Interpretations, Sect. 57, these two phases are 

 generalized as follows : * With the formula : what we do is a function of what 

 we think, we have this other: what we shall think is a function of what we 

 have done.'' In general conception this is Simmel's position. In the following 

 sentence (of which the passage in the text might almost be considered an 

 English rendering) he is accounting for the ' Harmonie ' between thought and 

 action; he says: "Dies (Harmonie) wird erst dann begreiflich wenn die Niitz- 

 lichkeit des Handelns als der primare Faktor erscheint, der gewisse Handlungs- 

 weisen und mit ihnen die psychologischen Grundlagen ihrer ziichtet, welche 

 Grundlagen eben dann in theoretischen Hinsicht als das * wahre ' Erkennen 

 gelten; so das ursprunglich das Erkennen nicht zuerst wahr und dann niitzlich, 

 sondern erst niitzlich und dann wahr genannt wird" {loc. cit., p. 43). Simmel 

 makes the further argument that in animals of lower orders having senses dif- 

 ferent or differently developed from ours, the motor accommodations by which 

 the sense organs have arisen must be to different forces and conditions in the 

 environment. So what would be counted * truth ' in the mental systems of 

 such creatures would vary among them and also from our ' truth ' {loc. cit,, 

 p. 41). An important point of difference between Simmel's view and the 

 writer's is noted below. 



