CHAPTER III

ANALYSIS OF THE INDIVIDUAL PROCESS

The factors of the individual process are purposes and means of control. A purpose, in its fullest sense, is a possible condition of the self which the individual feels to be better than the present condition of the self, and to the realization of which his activity is directed. A means of control is a thing through the use of which a purpose may be attained; it has significance only because, in the light of reason, it is seen to be the means to some end.

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The factors of the individual process are purposes and means of control, both of which appear when the individual is in action, and work together in forming new purposes and new means of control.

Having found that the individual process is one of the three larger factors in human development, let us now analyze this, process in order to find how it makes, in accordance with patterns given by society, new purposes and new ideas, which control the conduct of the individual and constitute his personal development.

It is conducive to clearer thinking to substitute for the word idea the expression means of control. The word idea has been used historically with such varied meanings that its significance has become more or less indefinite. In the previous chapters, where sharp discrimination was unnecessary, this word could be used advantageously without exact definition; but, as our analysis becomes more

detailed, the meaning intended must be stated more precisely. The development of the individual requires that he see in the things about him, such as a drinking cup, a pencil, a law of physics, or a rule of grammar, the means of control through which his purposes can be attained. By ideas we mean the recognition of these things as means of control. It is better, therefore, to use in place of the indefinite term idea the more definite expression means of control, which represents the idea embodied in physical form, as in the form of a drinking cup, a pencil, a law of physics, or a rule of grammar. It may be added that a law of physics and a rule of grammar are just as truly physical things as a drinking cup and a pencil; one can see them when they are printed in a book or hear them when they are spoken.

When the individual process is examined in order to analyze it, two sets of factors appear, one when the individual is apparently at rest, because no difficulty challenges his effort, and the other when he is in action, grappling with difficulties. This may be made plain by illustration. If I lean back leisurely in my chair and merely look at the pen with which I have been writing, I am apparently at rest; no problem disturbs me. Of this experience, there seem to be two essential factors, — I at one end of the experience and the pen at the other. Both appear to play essential parts in the experience, for it could not exist without both. These apparent factors are called subject and object. However, when I take up the pen and begin work, the scene changes. No longer do I simply contemplate the pen. The purpose of writing an analysis of the individual factor in human development looms before me; and, confronted by difficulties, I strive through various means of control to carry it out.

The pen, which a moment ago was a mere object of consciousness, now begins to play a new rôle; it has become one of the instruments or means used in carrying out my purpose. Whenever the individual is thus in action, the essential factors of his experience are (1) purposes and (2) the means of control used for attaining them,

In the analysis of the individual process, we are concerned primarily with the individual in action, because only when he is in action are new purposes and new means of control acquired. This may be seen more clearly through illustration. The new-born child, looking out into the world, is not conscious of the purposes felt by the adult; nor does he see in the things used in the realization of these purposes the meanings which they have for his elders. Moreover, if he does no more than passively to look and to listen, the world about him will continue to appear the same; he will remain unconscious of worthy purposes and meaningful things. Not until desires have awakened within him and he has striven to attain their objects can he become directly conscious of what the adult feels and understands as he looks upon the world. That the child must learn by doing is a commonplace. In the Book of Genesis it is recorded that God, in carrying out His divine purpose, created heaven and earth and the things that in them dwell, and then "saw everything that He had made." So with man; he must actually create the things in his experience through the process of working in the realizing of his purposes, before he can passively contemplate these things as mere objects.

It is a fallacy of popular thought to believe that knowledge of the world is made by the interaction of subject and object, the factors of the individual process when the individual is apparently at rest. This is a very natural

mistake, because when a person stops to examine his experience, he finds it in a static condition for the very reason that he has stopped. He passively looks at the pen or tablet, or merely gazes at the distant church steeple, and asks himself the question, How do I know this thing? There is activity, of course, in the attempt to answer the question, but this activity is engaged in making an analysis of the experience of himself looking at the object; this activity is not the experience that is being analyzed. The subject and object, which appear under these circumstances, seem to claim responsibility for the making of the experience analyzed.

Not a few great philosophers, indeed, have been misled in their theories of how knowledge is acquired by making this same mistake of confining their analysis to the mind in the passive condition of contemplation, in which the real factors of knowledge do not appear. Locke, for instance, took this view and thought that the subjective mind is like a blank tablet upon which the objective things of the world make their impressions through the medium of the senses. Another example is that of Kant, who with his keen logic analyzed the passive experience of the individual at rest, showing that the subject contributed such forms as time, space, and relation, which are always present, no matter what the content of experience may be, and that the objective things of the world contributed the "matter of sense," which is responsible for the differences in the various objects that are known. He assumed that, in the making of experience, the object began the interaction with the subject.

In both cases, these philosophers examined experience, not in the process of making, but after it had been made, and when, therefore, it could be an object of contempla