268 Selective Thinking 



a series of generations — lines which produce the deter- 

 minations first secured in the individual under the control of 

 the environment. On this view, there would be a constant 

 selection of individuals by natural selection, from a plat- 

 form of organic selection which is analogous to the plat- 

 form of * systematic determination ' in the individual. 

 Race evolution would thus, on the whole, conform to the 

 exigencies of experience, which would seem to be directly 

 transmitted by heredity, while due, in truth, to a series of 

 variations accumulated by natural and organic selection. 



4. Furthermore, the content of the intellectual and 

 social environment is kept constant by the handing down 

 of tradition through * social transmission,' and the same 

 demands are thus made upon the individuals of each new 

 generation, both as to their concrete selections under the 

 control of the environment and as to the forms in which 

 the ' systematic determination ' of knowledge is cast. 



5. Finally, the 'systematic determination* of the indi- 

 vidual thinker reflects, on the subjective side, his sense of 

 self. Judgment is Iho. personal indorsement of the data of 

 knowledge. Belief is a personal attitude. The person is 

 the whole of the organization of knowledge ; and as the 

 social criteria of selection — and the social data selected — 

 play an essential role in the process of systematic deter- 

 mination, as explained above, so the person is always 

 social. This I have developed at length elsewhere.^ 



1 In Social and Ethical Interpretations ; in the third edition, Appendix K, 

 a further note is made on * Selective Thinking ' in reply to a criticism by Dr. 

 B. Bosanquet. 



