74 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



poses of the individual. It may be on the whole better for 

 the individual that it should acquire a stereotyped method 

 of reacting to a certain element than that it should act 

 purely at random. But it is better still that it should be 

 able to vary its actions according to the relations in which 

 that element stands, and this it is able to do by the con- 

 scious recognition of those relations. 



The conditions of such variation are in the main two. 

 First, the mind must be able to appreciate distinct elements 

 in relation. A and B must not fuse or be assimilated. 

 They must remain distinct and yet be related. Thus the 

 sound of the bell must not merely be charged with the 

 suggestion of dinner. It must remain a clearly-cut content 

 on which dinner as another clear-cut content follows in 

 time sequence. But secondly, the sequence once appre- 

 hended must somehow serve as a guide to action. At 

 lowest this involves that where C A,' say, is present as an 

 object there is an effort to institute the sequence AB. But 

 B is not here something present. It is not an object to the 

 senses. If there is true conscious effort to bring it about 

 there is a conscious state involving direction or reference 

 to something not present. Such a reference generically is 

 an idea. The emergence of ideas is a fundamental depar- 

 ture in the life of mind. Hitherto we have considered 

 consciousness as concerned with objects present or given to 

 it expressions which we may paraphrase, but which we 

 have not succeeded in analysing further. The mind is 

 either merely aware of what is given or reacts upon it, 

 seeking to enjoy it and maintain it, or to escape from it, be 

 rid of it. These are modes of conation, the first of which 

 is barely distinguishable from the feeling of pleasure, while 

 the second is evidenced in a series of definite efforts or 

 conations. Now with the emergence of ideas we get an 

 explicit reference to something which is not present at all, 

 and which serves from the outset to direct conation to the 

 production of something that is not yet, but can be 

 definitely anticipated. How does this transition effect 

 itself? 



Let us note in the first place that in perception we have 

 a mental act which may be said to occupy an intermediate 



