Variations in Attention 257 



tutes the selection of certain facts from all those possi- 

 ble but pseudo-facts which our habitual reactions might 

 allow to pass — apart from such physical facts, all truths 

 are selected by a testing in the social environment, from 

 the many pseudo-truths which have passed the gantlet 

 of our habitual attention reactions. 



To illustrate : we see a vague outline in the dusk ; it 

 might be a man, a beast, a tree-stump, so far as our pres- 

 ent adaptive attitudes and recognitions avail to define 

 it. To decide which it is and so to select one alternative 

 as true, we put it to the physical tests of nearer approach, 

 touch, hearing, etc. Here we have first the platform, 

 then the selection by further action. So in thinking : 

 we hear, let us say, a report that a friend is dead ; he 

 may have died by accident, by poison, by fire, so far as 

 our information goes. We find out the truth, however, 

 by getting information from some one who knows. Here, 

 again, is the platform with its alternatives (variations), 

 and then the selection by a social appeal. In the case of 

 a scientific invention the part which can be attested by an 

 appeal to fact is so tested, but the part which still remains 

 hypothetical is so far liable to social confirmation that 

 the inventor expects at least that others will judge as he 

 judges. 



The use of the word * judge' in the last sentence serves 

 to suggest certain further considerations, which show the 

 social appeal in operation, and, at the same time, give 

 evidence that it is this appeal which constitutes the 

 resource in selective thinking in the higher and more ideal 

 spheres. These considerations may be presented under 

 the third heading, dealing with the criteria of 'fitness' of 

 thoughts. 



