xvii STAGES OF CORRELATION 407 



the central feature of the inexplicit u process," has now 

 passed over into the recognised "content," leaving outside 

 those general methods and assumptions of thought by 

 which the universal and all other products of intelligence 

 are built up. 



The scope of intelligence in this stage extends to the 

 permanent and substantial in the world of experience 

 and to the causal relations underlying its variations. 

 It includes the permanent interests of the individual 

 or of society among its ends, and regulates behaviour 

 in accordance with general rules. 



Intelligence thus extends its sphere of influence to the 

 permanent conditions under which life Is maintained^ and of 

 the great ends that make it desirable. In this it partly 

 replaces and partly remodels hereditary tendencies. Yet 

 by these tendencies it is itself unconsciously guided, and 

 for this reason its grasp of the conditions remains partial 

 and uncertain. 



Under its Ethical Aspect, this is the stage of Will 

 guided by general conceptions of the permanent welfare of 

 self, others, or the community, as well as by the code of 

 rules in accordance with which the life of any given society 

 is organised. 



Stage IV. Rational System. 



The interconnection of experience with experience, which 

 is the essence of what we mean by system, has been seen 

 at work in all the preceding stages, and in the third stage 

 the work of systematisation has gone so far as to group 

 experiences and purposes into more or less organised 

 bodies. Nevertheless it is a familiar characteristic of 

 " common sense " knowledge that it is unsystematic. 

 This is as much as to say that its systematisation is inex- 

 plicit and incomplete. We may consider that the fourth 

 stage begins when system, i.e., the formation of a coherent, 

 self supporting, exact and exhaustive body of knowledge 

 upon a subject begins to be made an explicit object of 

 mental effort. The stage would be complete when such 

 a system should embrace the conditions and possibilities 

 of human evolution. 



From an early stage of its development, the effort 



