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 CHAPTER III

MENTAL SYSTEMS

THINKING may be defined as an effort to carry out or complete an arrested response to a stimulus by bringing the revived images of past experience to bear upon the situation. It is an attempt to solve a present problem by means of past experience. The problem may be a puzzling practical situ ation, with respect to which one is uncertain what course to pursue, and in which, therefore, the response is arrested i.e., a state of things in which the instinctive or habitual re sponse is not adequate. Were the situation an entirely familiar one, an instinctive or habitual reaction would be sufficient ; there would be no need for thought, and it would not take place. &quot; Direct, immediate discharge or expression of an impulsive tendency is fatal to thinking. Only when the impulse is to some extent checked and thrown back upon itself does reflection ensue. . . . Every vital activity of any depth and range inevitably meets obstacles in the course of its effort to realize itself.&quot; 1 But the problem may not be so immediately practical; it may be a problem of curiosity, and therefore chiefly of an intellectual character. The practical meaning, the proper motor response, may not be obvious, or if obvious, may not be immediately required. In either kind of a situation the thinking process takes place in an effort to answer one or more of the questions : What? When? Where? How? Why? These ques tions can only be answered by correlating this situation with the rest of experience. In this process our knowledge grows ; our experience extends beyond the narrow limits of

1 Dewey, &quot; How We Think,&quot; p. 64.

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