ns are at command, and what the difficulties
and obstacles are. This foresight and this survey with reference to
what is foreseen constitute mind. Action that does not involve such a
forecast of results and such an examination of means and hindrances
is either a matter of habit or else it is blind. In neither case is
it intelligent. To be vague and uncertain as to what is intended and
careless in observation of conditions of its realization is to be, in
that degree, stupid or partially intelligent.
If we recur to the case where mind is not concerned with the physical
manipulation of the instruments but with what one intends to write, the
case is the same. There is an activity in process; one is taken up with
the development of a theme. Unless one writes as a phonograph talks,
this means intelligence; namely, alertness in foreseeing the various
conclusions to which present data and considerations are tending,
together with continually renewed observation and recollection to
get hold of the subject matter which bears upon the conclusions to be
reached. The whole attitude is one of concern with what is to be, and
with what is so far as the latter enters into the movement toward the
end. Leave out the direction which depends upon foresight of possible
future results, and there is no intelligence in present behavior. Let
there be imaginative forecast but no attention to the conditions upon
which its attainment depends, and there is self-deception or idle
dreaming--abortive intelligence.
If this illustration is typical, mind is not a name for something
complete by itself; it is a name for a course of action in so far as
that is intelligently directed; in so far, that is to say, as aims,
ends, enter into it, with selection of means to further the attainment
of aims. Intelligence is not a peculiar possession which a person owns;
but a person is intelligent in so far as the activities in which he
plays a part have the qualities mentioned. Nor are the activities
in which a person engages, whether intelligently or not, exclusive
properties of himself; they are something in which he engages and
partakes. Other things, the independent changes of other things and
persons, cooperate and hinder. The individual's act may be initial in
a course of events, but the outcome depends upon the interaction of
his response with energies supplied by other agencies. Conceive mind as
anything but one factor partaking along with others in the pro
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