CHAPTER XVI 



SYSTEMATIC THOUGHT l 



i. THE central feature of the stage of intelligence de- 

 scribed in the two preceding chapters is that comprehen- 

 sive reference to the permanent conditions of experience 

 which we know as the concept. We might regard the ideal 

 action of this stage as directed by generalisations which 

 embody vast masses of previous experience towards an end 

 which will comprehend vast masses of future experience. 

 And it is not merely the individual but the race whose 

 experience is thus organised. Through this organisation, 

 not merely the particular actions but the general setting or 

 framework of life comes to rest quite as much upon 

 tradition as upon instinct. A mass of social customs, 

 political obligations, religious beliefs, environ a child from 

 the first, and are often in marked conflict with his inherited 

 impulses. Instinct as modified by social tradition is now 

 the ground-work of life, while apart from simple reflexes, 

 there is very little in the detailed adjustment of means to 

 ends in daily life in which acquired knowledge does not 

 take the principal part. 



But no words are needed to show how incomplete even 

 at this stage is the organisation of life. Man is man, but 

 not yet master of his fate. All that he has done by 

 centuries of progress is to reclaim a little garden plot out 

 of the vast wilderness of unknown and unmanageable 



1 The substance of this chapter has been more fully dealt with in the 

 writer's Development and Purpose. I have thought it better not to 

 attempt to incorporate fresh matter, and have therefore left it with trifling 

 corrections as originally printed. 



364 



