means, and the phase of organization, or specific method. These three are mutually determining of one another, yet they represent different points of stress at which the problem may center. At whatever one of these points the situation becomes problematic we have the conditions which require the functioning of thinking to solve the problem. Thinking comes in to further the process of adjustment at points in that process where problems arise.

If we try to gather up the results of our discussion of the conditions of thinking in the form of a general principle, it would run somewhat as follows: Thinking is called forth in situations in which there is something consciously problematic in some phase of the process of adjustment of means to ends.

On the basis of the principle just stated, we may give the following brief definition: Thinking is the process of consciously adjusting means to ends in problematic situations. This definition must not be interpreted too mechanically. It is merely a brief statement to suggest to us the fuller meaning of the thinking process without having to go through a lot of qualifying phrases.

6. RELATION OF THINKING TO OTHER CONSCIOUS PRO

CESSES.

If we have in deliberative action the best illustrations of the function of thinking, so also does it give us striking evidence of the fact that the thinking process is not separate and distinct from other conscious processes If we were to go over in detail the illustration of deliberation given in Chapter VII in the case of the troublesome furnace fire and also all the illustrations given in the earlier part of this chapter, supplying the details in what has only been sketched, we should find that the process of deliberation is often a vast complex of conscious processes of every sort, all working upon a given situation from the point of view of a common problem. There are involved processes of obser

vation, or further perception. Past experiences are called up in the form of memory and reproductive imagination. Images appearing in consciousness are judged and evaluated with reference to their relevancy or their irrelevancy, and on the basis of this judging some are selected and others rejected. Processes of constructive imagination are at work in the organization of new modes of procedure. And so we might go on through the whole range of specific conscious processes.

In

Thinking is not so much a distinct conscious process as it is an organization of all the conscious processes which are relevant in a problematic situation for the performance of the function of consciously adjusting means to end. the performance of this function it may take up into itself perception, memory, imagination, judgment, etc. These all become phases in the whole process of consciously solving the problem. Their activity is dominated and unified throughout by their relevancy to that problem. Thinking is to be named from the function which is being performed, from the organization of the conscious processes to do a certain kind of work, rather than from the specific ideational elements of structure which are employed.

7. GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THINKING FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF CONTROL.

If our ideational modes of control were limited to those which have already been reduced to the form of ideo-motor reactions, our growth in individual control would be at an end. Fortunately not all voluntary action is of the ideomotor type. The idea that comes does not immediately get its appropriate expression mechanically. The reaction is delayed and becomes problematic. In the interval of delay between the original idea, or the original impulse, and the motor response, thinking intervenes to reconstruct the situation with reference to the main point of stress, or tension, on which the right adjustment depends. Thinking

is the very heart and center of deliberative modes of adjustment. It is the vital phase of all reconstruction that is reflected in consciousness as problematic. It marks the highest point of the functioning of consciousness in voluntary action. Thinking is always doing reconstructive work rather than routine work. Through thinking we may reconstruct our existing modes of reaction to deal more efficiently with situations already partly under our control, and particularly through thinking we may devise methods of dealing with new situations for which our other conscious processes furnish us with no method of control. Thus, thinking is continually enlarging the field of control, particularly in those fields where adjustment is neither on the one hand a racial matter nor on the other a matter of common ideo-motor routine. What thinking achieves may, however, if repeated frequently enough, be reduced to the more automatic ideo-motor form of control, while the thinking process goes on dealing with new needs the satisfaction of which is not yet attained. Thinking is, then, preeminently the conscious process which is concerned in the development and attainment of that highest form of adjustment which we have called individual control.

The conception of thinking which we have developed is thoroughly functional and biological. The thinking process is viewed from its dynamic aspect as a factor of significance in the concrete life of the individual. It is easy in reading rapidly to suppose that by this concrete life of the individual is meant primarily his physical life. It may be well not to conclude this chapter without warning the reader once more that such an interpretation of the biological point of view is too narrow to be justified. Problems of the higher life are a part of the concrete life of the individual as well as those of the physical life. There have to be mental, moral, æsthetic, and spiritual adjustments and readjustments in the process of satisfying the needs of human beings. The life of action and physical existence

is, indeed, more immediate and primary, 1 that reason of any more value in the whole lution. Personality and individuality in th control which we exercise in the affairs of is certainly preferable to the dead level of in blind custom or blind obedience to author control is to be achieved in the realm of soc values, or any other aspect of the higher life ing, just as truly as in the world of phy industrial pursuit.

8. RELATION BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL AN INTERPRETATIONS OF THINKING.

In giving a functional interpretation of t not mean to imply that it has no characte features. The very fact that thinking is of the conscious processes to perform a work would imply that the organization mu acter that is relevant to the kind of work t this work is marked by variations in the problems to be solved, we should expect v structural aspects, or the technique, of the t to meet differences of need inherent in the problems. These elements of special stru discuss in later chapters. Suffice it for the that functional psychology does not ignore ferentiations, but when it discusses them it as themselves definitely related to the mor formance of function. So it will be in ot thinking. We must at some time point elements of technique in the thinking proce do so not for the sake of the analysis itself of the light which it will throw upon the the thinking function.

CHAPTER IX

UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THE THINKING

PROCESS

I. UNITY AND CONTINUITY.

From the crudest, simplest, and least adequate forms of thinking employed by the small child up to the most complex, most highly controlled, and most adequate forms used by the trained scientist or philosopher, the thinking process is from the point of view of function the same. In all the stages of its development it has the same biological significance, it has the same task to perform, namely, that of consciously adjusting means to ends. The only test that can be applied to determine whether an individual does think, be he animal, child, or scientist, is this common test of function. We must have evidence that he does consciously adjust means to ends in situations which are undeniably too problematic to be controlled by routine or customary modes of action.

2. THE PRINCIPLE OF DIFFERENCE.

The difference in the thinking process at its lower and its higher limits is a matter of the difference in the technique of the process. In the higher thinking process, consciousness guides and directs activities to the more adequate performance of their function through the use of a larger number and a more powerful kind of mental tools which it has forged in the course of experience. Illustrations of what we mean by these mental tools are the abstract image, the logical concept, definite modes of reasoning, etc. In the higher forms of thinking the tools have been perfected more fully, and there has been attained a

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