1 88 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



problem of society resembles that of the individuals (as must be the case). 

 It is that of keeping the outline preparations for adaptive behaviour 

 sufficiently fluid to be sensitive to variations in the problems presented. 

 The Hegelian limit of efficiency is inflexible specific habit, which is a skill 

 so perfectly developed as to become a hindrance. 



Ideals as well as institutions express the developing patterns of society. 

 Can we suggest a psychological treatment of ideals ? It seems to me that 

 an ideal is a schema of behaviour made sufficiently inspectable to receive 

 a name. Probably it is never made completely amenable to description. 

 Our own difficulties in attempting to discuss our ideals, together with 

 the fact that there is obviously something in us which we feel we must 

 explain to others, prove that their mode of existence lies deeper than the 

 level of language behaviour. But not only can few men state their ideals 

 adequately and many not at all, it is not necessary that they should be 

 so expressed. No one should be described as without ideals merely 

 because he is not sufficiently aware of them to call them by name. It is 

 more charitable, and better psychology, to deduce the ideals from the 

 prevailing patterns of his behaviour. I suspect that the underlying fabric 

 of ideals suffers at times from premature display or too zealous propaganda. 



Now to summarise briefly the thread of this discussion. The subject- 

 matter of psychology is taken to be the activities of the individual organism 

 striving to maintain its full integrity in the universe in which it lives. 

 To obtain control it must organise the presented material of experience 

 into patterns manageable by it, and to this end it develops skills in its 

 activities. Naming these skills by a word not inconvenienced by over- ' 

 much usage, we have called them schemata, and the system of a person's 

 schemata embodies all his experience up to the present moment, and deter- 

 mines the direction of his future experiencing. The patterns of experi- 

 ence are formed by them, though not independently of objective conditions. 

 Thus in outline the ' ways of seeing ' and the ' ways of living ' — whether 

 socially or otherwise — are reducible to a common psychological genus. 



I have already disclaimed any pretence that this view offers a great 

 addition to the content of psychology, and it is at present too sketchy to 

 be called a theory. I have given, as I said at the outset, a profession of 

 faith, just one way of seeing psychology. Its value to me lies in its pro- 

 viding a unitary point of view from which, it is hopefully claimed, one 

 can survey the whole extent of psychological study. At least it may 

 prevent a born eclectic, like the present speaker, from degenerating into 

 a kind of scientific jackdaw. So I invite you to regard experience, in the 

 fullest sense of that word, as formed in a complex of patterns largely 

 made by the experiencer, patterns in some cases interlacing, in others 

 forming a hierarchy of increasing generality. Or, to start from the other 

 end, let us take our science to be the study of all the detailed embroideries 

 upon that most common and most comprehensive of patterns, the formula 

 of which runs : He was born, and strove to master his world for his own 

 safety ; he mated, fought for his offspring, and died. 



References. 



(i) ' On Conceptual Thinking ' (British Journal of Psychology, xxiv, 133-143). 



(2) Remembering, p. 201. 



(3) ' Social Relationships in the Factory ' (The Human Factor, ix, 381-394). 



