ix EXPERIENTIAL RECONSTRUCTION 167 



The survey of these conditions carries us right through 

 the field of experience and includes therein the history and 

 structure of mind itself. Its aim is to set the organised 

 experience of the race in its right relation to the system 

 of Reality, showing on the one hand how it has grown up, 

 on the other, seeking to determine the extent to which it 

 enables us to judge of Reality as such. While the task 

 set in these terms is infinite as Reality itself we may con- 

 sider the mind as fairly entering on this phase at the point 

 at which, through the aid of the several movements that 

 have been mentioned, we are able to take a view of the 

 world of our thought as a growth resting on assignable 

 conditions and capable of extension, through the intelligent 

 appreciation of those conditions. 



This is for thought a new kind of self-consciousness 

 arising gradually in the course of history and realising 

 itself rather through the collective operation of many minds 

 than by change of any innate quality of individual minds. 

 None the less, it involves a new orientation, a change of 

 attitude and direction not less fundamental than that which 

 is implied in the dawn of self-consciousness in the indi- 

 vidual. The change is quite parallel to those which we 

 have noted at earlier stages. As the massive experience of 

 the past determined the reaction to present stimulus in such 

 manner as to avoid a pain or procure a satisfaction before 

 the pain or pleasure entered into consciousness, as the pain 

 or pleasure entered consciousness and determined action in 

 similar cases, though without consciousness of similarity 

 or generalisation, so lastly, general relations operated as 

 explicit grounds of inference without any consciousness of 

 the principles of method logically involved. And just as 

 the pain or pleasure rose into consciousness as an end of 

 action, and as the general relation that connected different 

 experiences became known for what it was, so finally do the 

 principles underlying generalisation or any other inference 

 come into the conscious area. The advance is always in 

 the same direction, the underlying forces guiding effort 

 are brought into relation with one another and with those 

 that are already known. Every such movement involves 

 a certain c turning of the eye of the soul, 3 a new direction 



