v INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE 85 



enough material to indicate some of the leading phases in 

 the evolution, and we shall review this material in the next 

 chapters. We shall there see clearly enough that the c self- 

 consciousness ' of the human mind is by no means the same 

 thing as self-criticism. In all its earlier phases the opera- 

 tions of the mind, however clearly it be aware of its 

 immediate object, are set in a framework which is built up 

 by the joint action of social tradition and the hereditary 

 structure of mind. When criticism is turned upon this 

 framework a higher stage is reached. 



The phase at present before us then may be characterised 

 in general terms as that of the correlation of the common 

 elements universals which run through the perceptual 

 order. It arises as these universals, which previously 

 operate unconsciously, emerge into explicit objects of con- 

 sciousness. With their aid it arranges masses of experience 

 in ordered groupings and forms general rules for the guid- 

 ance of action. If, as before, we conceive it to advance 

 upon its own plane without leaving it, if we put together 

 all that may be effected by consciousness without necessarily 

 constituting a unitary object of consciousness, we may say 

 that it will effect a comprehensive order co-ordinating the 

 general relations found in experience with permanent ele- 

 ments of well-being, and the experience would be social as 

 well as personal experience, and the well-being social as well 

 as personal well-being. But still, upon this plane, however 

 far-reaching the order may be, the methods of correlation 

 are determined by massive forces reaching far into the 

 background of social tradition and racial heredity. When 

 the work of correlation has advanced to a certain point the 

 existence of these forces emerges into consciousness and 

 provokes questions which give a new direction to effort. 

 This effort initiates a higher phase of mental activity. The 

 characteristic work of the stage now described is a Corre- 

 lation of Universals based on the conditions of racial and 

 social development which are not yet brought into con- 

 sciousness. 



(6) Correlation of Governing Principles. 



The unifying work of thought has no assignable limit, 



