To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it. It is to be able to respond to the thing in view of its place in an inclusive scheme of action; it is to foresee the drift and probable consequence of the action of the thing upon us and of our action upon it.

You can teach students to develop the ability to think reflectively, and you can help them understand what this means, but if they are not inclined to do so they never will.

No system has ever as yet existed which did not in some form involve the exploitation of some human beings for the advantage of others.

In undeveloped social groups, we find very little formal teaching and training. Savage groups mainly rely for instilling needed dispositions into the young upon the same sort of association which keeps adults loyal to their group. They have no special devices, material, or institutions for teaching save in connection with initiation ceremonies by which the youth are inducted into full social membership. For the most part, they depend upon children learning the customs of the adults, acquiring their emotional set and stock of ideas, by sharing in what the elders are doing.

Criticism of the commitment of religion to the supernatural is thus positive in import.

Giving and taking of orders modifies actions and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.

While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing.