42 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



mind in relation to the life of the organism, we shall found 

 our classification of reactions on the nature and conditions 

 of the correlations involved. Now, generically correlation 

 is a term applied to the parts of a whole when they are 

 so arranged that their joint operation yields a result tending 

 to the maintenance of the whole or of some function, 

 character, or activity of the whole. 1 The source and nature 

 of the arrangement may be very various. In a machine 

 it is one thing, in an organism another, in the colour scheme 

 of a picture a third, in the concatenation of acts that con- 

 stitute a purpose a fourth. But in all these cases there is 

 an ordered whole consisting perhaps of physical parts, 

 perhaps of successive acts or events, and in all, whether by 

 the operation of one element on another, or by two or more 

 elements acting in conjunction, the whole is formed, or 

 maintained, or modified, as the case may be. 2 



We have spoken of consciousness as the special organ 

 of correlation. But we must distinguish between the corre- 

 lation which is effected in consciousness and the correlation 

 which is effected by consciousness. Consciousness, at any 

 rate in its more developed phases, has before it at any 

 moment many elements. Among these it moves selec- 

 tively, bringing into a connected whole those which stand 

 in some definite relation to one another and to its dominant 

 interest. This is a correlation effected within the conscious 

 area, though it may have the effect of bringing within that 

 area elements which would otherwise not be there. Thus 

 I grasp certain visual and tangible data and recognise a 

 book on psychology, which, operating on the prevailing 

 train of interest, reminds me of a passage on a certain page 

 which I can hunt up. The joint function which the several 

 elements combine to form is, say, the judgment that a refer- 

 ence that I need will be found somewhere in Chapter X. of 

 the book before me. This is correlation in consciousness. 

 But this act has wider bearings. It is a step in the train 



1 It must be borne in mind that an organic whole is maintained not 

 against all modification, but constantly through some modification. 



2 As a matter of terminology, the elements may be described as corre- 

 lated with one another in subservience to the result or as correlated 

 collectively or individually with the result. 



