ent is no timeless state; it is
a continuing process. To say that a change takes time may be to say
something about the event which is external and uninstructive. But
adjustment of organism to environment takes time in the pregnant sense;
every step in the process is conditioned by reference to further
changes which it effects. What is going on in the environment is the
concern of the organism; not what is already "there" in accomplished and
finished form. In so far as the issue of what is going on may be
affected by intervention of the organism, the moving event is a
challenge which stretches the agent-patient to meet what is coming.
Experiencing exhibits things in their unterminated aspect moving toward
determinate conclusions. The finished and done with is of import as
affecting the future, not on its own account: in short, because it is
not, really, done with.

Anticipation is therefore more primary than recollection; projection
than summoning of the past; the prospective than the retrospective.
Given a world like that in which we live, a world in which environing
changes are partly favorable and partly callously indifferent, and
experience is bound to be prospective in import; for any control
attainable by the living creature depends upon what is done to alter the
state of things. Success and failure are the primary "categories" of
life; achieving of good and averting of ill are its supreme interests;
hope and anxiety (which are not self-enclosed states of feeling, but
active attitudes of welcome and wariness) are dominant qualities of
experience. Imaginative forecast of the future is this forerunning
quality of behavior rendered available for guidance in the present.
Day-dreaming and castle-building and esthetic realization of what is not
practically achieved are offshoots of this practical trait, or else
practical intelligence is a chastened fantasy. It makes little
difference. Imaginative recovery of the bygone is indispensable to
successful invasion of the future, but its status is that of an
instrument. To ignore its import is the sign of an undisciplined agent;
but to isolate the past, dwelling upon it for its own sake and giving it
the eulogistic name of knowledge, is to substitute the reminiscence of
old-age for effective intelligence. The movement of the agent-patient to
meet the future is partial and passionate; yet detached and impartial
study of the past is the only alternative to luck in assuring succe