account given of the brute is correct, his condition is unlike that of
things only in this respect, that in him curious automatic springs are
provided which set him in appropriate motion whenever he is exposed to
harm, so enabling him suitably to face a future of which, however, he
forms no image. In both brutes and things there is entire limitation
to the present. This is not the case with a person. He takes the
future into his reckoning, and over him it is at least as influential
as the past. A person, through imagination laying hold of future
possibilities, has innumerable auxiliary forces at his command. Choice
appears. A depicted future thus held by attention for causal purposes
is no longer a mere idea; it becomes an ideal.

But in order to transform the depicted future from an idea to an
ideal, I must conceive it as rooted in my nature, and in some degree
dependent on my power. Attracted by the brilliancy of the crescent
moon, I think what sport it would be to hang on one of its horns and
kick my heels in the air. But no, that remains a mere picture. It will
not become an ideal, for it has no relation to my structure and
powers. But there are other imaginable futures,--going to Europe,
becoming a physician, writing a book, buying a house, which, though
not fully compatible with one another, still represent, each one of
them, some capacity of mine. Attention to one or the other of these
will make it a reality in my life. They are competing ideals, and
because of such competition my future is uncertain. The ambiguous
future is accordingly a central characteristic of a person. He can
imagine all sorts of states of himself which as yet have no existence,
and one of these selected as an ideal may become efficient. This first
stage, then, in the formation of the purpose, where various depicted
future possibilities are summoned for assessment, may be called our
fashioning of an ideal.