develop a thought

Pinker is right about the machine’s amnesic qualities—it can’t develop a thought, based on a previous one.

We may develop a thought, expand an illustration, extend a discussion, expatiate on a hobby, dilate on something joyous or sad, enlarge a volume, unfold a scheme, widen the range of treatment.

To develop a thought which has already been touched on in these pages, mediæval fortification was dual in character: it had either a purely strategical object, in which case the site was chosen with an eye to its military value, whether inhabited or not, or the stronghold or fortification was made to develop an already existing town or site of importance.

To develop a thought's meaning we need therefore only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce; that conduct is for us its sole significance; and the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-distinctions is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice.