Page:W. H. Chamberlin 1919, The Study of Philosophy.djvu/31

Rh ideas through which our interests were expressed during our first and second years, vivid as they doubtless were, and it is also impossible to recover those of pre-existent stages of growth through which man as an ultimate being has undoubtedly passed. As the outcome, however, of all prior periods of growth, when a man is born with a human brain he begins at once to manifest a large number of tendencies to action, many of which we have already referred to as instincts. At first man has interests in common with the animals. They have largely to do with the survival of the organic body. They manifest themselves in eating, in drinking, in capturing prey, in escaping from danger, in feeling comfortable, etc. It might be said that he lives to eat. He values eating, and drinking, and feeling comfortable for their own sake. They are the obvious thing to do, the practical.

During childhood man continues to grow through a period of transformation of these interests. At first, like the animals, he is preoccupied in living interests such as have just been mentioned. He lives in immediate responses to his environment. But correlated with his brain man has the power to check the immediate response and can try things on in mind. As he engages in action thoughtfully, he is led to attend to things that are but incidentally and automatically related to his doing of things and to the main interest. He can cease paying attention to the meaning of a friend, with whom he is conversing and can give attention to his words, his pronunciation, and his grammar. He can cease hoeing, and can attend to the hoe, or to the weeds, or to the plants being cultivated. Perceiving things and indulging in ideas of them are at first incidental, gratuitous, and not practical. Most people converse many times, where they perceive and ideate words once; they use brooms, brushes, etc., much and examine them but rarely. To stop and examine things is regarded as wasteful and unpractical. But these Incidental interests through exercise become interesting processes in themselves. They even become interests that characterize man and raise him so far above the animals. When men began to engage in these subsidiary interests, it was as if they, having been compelled no search for asses, had to their great surprise discovered a kingdom. For having once engaged in these subsidiary interests, men may be held by them. Having engaged in business interests for the sake of engaging in the practical interests of making a living, the business interests may come to preoccupy them. The practical interest in making a living may be lost sight of or itself become incidental to business interests being engaged in for their own sakes, and these interests may come to dominate life. The lives of men now consist of their business or industrial pursuits. Once engaging in these in order