second step, may reach complete expression in outward act, or they may be affected by other tendencies to action so that they do not have such complete expression.

4. The check is overcome and nervous energy follows the open channel of the response of writing.

The mental steps which parallel these physical ones are as follows:

1. An habitual response checked in its expression is, as we have learned,' the parallel of a purpose.

2. Reaction directed towards the several parts of the situation until checked by the disturbing element, is the counterpart of defining the problem. When the disturbing element is met and, because no adequate response to this element has been acquired, the reaction is checked, a purpose appears in consciousness. This purpose marks a problem. When a purpose appeared in the first step of the process, it marked the problem very indefinitely, but the purpose now in consciousness as an accompaniment of a checked reaction towards only a part of the situation, makes the problem more definite, for this purpose lies immediately beyond the new means of control needed.

Tendencies to reaction through channels partly opened by similarity of stimuli correspond to hypotheses based upon analogy. They are hypotheses because subject to check by later activity or tendencies to activity, if they are ineffective in bringing adjustment. If they reach complete expression in outward act, their effectiveness in bringing adjustment is tested in action; if they are affected by other incipient tendencies to activity so that they do not reach such complete expression, they are tested only in thought.

3. When activity is turned directly towards removing

1 See p. 93.

the check, it is obviously paralleled by consciousness of solving the problem; or, in other words, of finding a new means of control for overcoming the difficulty. As in the case of the second step, this process is paralleled by the consciousness of hypotheses tested either in action or in thought.

fol

4. As the check is overcome and nervous energy lows again the open channel of the habitual response, the individual is conscious of using a new means of control, which is the conscious parallel of the new response, in the service of a purpose, which is the conscious parallel of the habitual response checked in its expression.

From the materialistic point of view, the basis of meanings with which nature endows the individual is found in the form of instincts, inborn connections between stimuli and responses. The simple meanings given by nature and common to all individuals are based upon instinctive responses, such as fixing the eyes upon or turning the ear towards some object. These are paralleled by the consciousness that the object is something to be looked at, listened to, or used in some other instinctive way.

Since there can be no stimuli without response, there can be no symbol without meaning. The symbol of a thing is the sensation which accompanies the immediate effect of the stimuli. This invariably passes on into reaction, which is the counterpart of meaning.

The fact that meanings acquired for a thing become so closely associated with it that they seem to be recognized intuitively as inherent in the thing, is explained in the natural science account of perception.

There is more to perception than passive impressibility by external forces. Every act of perception is really an act of association.

What is felt depends not only upon how the afferent neurones are stimulated, but also upon what neurones they in turn arouse; not only upon what the external object is, but also upon (A) the past experiences and (B) the present tendencies of the individual who perceives it. 1

Every perception is an acquired perception. Perception may then be defined, in Mr. Sully's words, as that process by which the mind "supplements a sense-impression by an accompaniment or escort of revived sensations, the whole aggregate of actual and revived sensations being solidified or 'integrated' into the form of a percept, that is, an apparently immediate apprehension or cognition of an object now present in a particular locality or region of space.

This association of meaning so intimately with the thing as to make the meaning appear inherent in the thing is one of the manifestations of habit, through which "the neurones they in turn arouse " become so intimately connected with the neurones first stimulated that nervous energy flows without interruption from one to the other. As they become the direct unitary effect of the stimulation on the physical side, they appear to be the direct unitary effect of the presence of the object on the mental side.

REFERENCES

DEWEY, J., How We Think, 1910, pp. 68-78. (Analyzes a complete act of thought.)

BAGLEY, W. C., The Educative Process, 1907, pp. 66-82, 128-138. (Discusses the reading of meanings into sense impressions and the nature of judgment.)

MOORE, E. C., What is Education? 1915, pp. 30-58. (Presents in a simple way the nature of knowledge.)

COLVIN, S. S., The Learning Process, 1917, pp. 295-318. (Discusses the nature of the higher thought processes and the thought process in judgment and reasoning.)

1 Thorndike, E. L., The Elements of Psychology, p. 226. The italics are mine.

2 James, William, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 78–79.

PROBLEMS

1. Select six utensils commonly used and state what problem each was invented to solve.

2. What is essential to a real problem?

3. To what steps in the making of a new means of control does Faraday refer when he says, "The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in stillness and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination; that in the most successful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized"?

4. Give three instances in which you have made several hypotheses before locating a difficulty.

5. Give three instances in which you have made several hypotheses before finding the one which solved your problem.

6. Show in six instances that the hypotheses you have made either to define or to solve problems were the result of analogy.

7. Give from your own experience an illustration of the acquiring of some means of control in which the four essential steps clearly

appear.

8. Criticize the doctrine of sense realism as advocated by Ratke and Comenius.

9. State and criticize Herbart's idea of the nature of the mind. 10. State and criticize Plato's theory of how ideas are acquired.

CHAPTER VI

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Personal development, which is the result of attaining purposes through means of control, takes place under the condition of interest or the condition of effort. Interest is felt when the process of self-realization runs smoothly, without conflict of purposes; effort is felt when there is a conflict of purposes. The condition of interest, when interest is intrinsic, is more favorable to personal development than is the condition of effort, with the exception that general regulative ideals such as duty and strength of will can be acquired only under the condition of effort. On the subjective side, personal development appears as character-building; on the objective side, it appears as worldbuilding. Character-building consists in acquiring purposes together with ability to use means of control in realizing them. World-building consists in making meanings and purposes objective and permanent by associating them so intimately with things of the world that they appear to be inherent in and to constitute the essential nature of these things.

I

In order to understand personal development, we must understand (1) the nature of interest and of effort, (2) the nature of character-building, and (3) the nature of world-building.

The self-active process, which consists of realizing purposes through means of control, is continuous throughout life. No sooner has one purpose been carried out than another desired condition of the self excites in the individual pleasurable anticipation and becomes the object of his attention. This fact has led the poet to say,