CHAPTER ONE

TYPES OF THINKING

WHEN do we think?

On consideration we shall probably answer that when- When ever we are awake and conscious we are thinking-at least in do we some sense. In our humorous moods, or impressed by the un- think? substantiality of much that goes through our minds, we may be tempted to deny this fact. All are familiar with the old rustic who, on being questioned as to how he spent his time, replied, "Sometimes I set and think, and sometimes I just set.” And a rather unimaginative damsel is reported to have answered her lover's jealous appeal, “Darling, do you always think of me?" with a return that was no doubt sufficiently appeasing, "Yes, dear, whenever I am thinking at all." On careful examination, however, we find that such witticisms exaggerate. During our waking hours something, however vague and profitless, is always flitting through our minds, and the amount and variety of it, as revealed to introspective analysis, may rather startle us, As Robinson remarks, "Our thought moves with such incredible rapidity that it is almost impossible to arrest any specimen of it long enough to have a look at it. When we are offered a penny for our thoughts we always find that we have recently had so many things in mind that we can easily make a selection which will not compromise us too nakedly." In fact, there is ground for suspecting that one of the reasons for our tendency to suppose that we are not always thinking is the very wealth and variety of our mental activity, making it often difficult to recover in retrospect anything precise enough to be easily called a definite thought.

What

common

forms does thinking take?

But this conscious activity is obviously not all of the same sort. Let us examine a typical stream of it in order to distinguish the common forms which it takes. Consider the following experience.1

One calm summer morning, not long ago, I took my family for a ride in our little motor-boat down the shore of Lake Michigan. During part of the trip my thinking was so vague and effortless, and so pliable to the mood of the moment, that it is exceedingly difficult to recover it with confidence. There were the sensations of relaxed bodily comfort in the genial warmth of the sun and the gentle play of the breeze; there were the feelings of spontaneous muscular activity as I changed position in the boat from time to time, or found my attention attracted by this or that object around me. Then there were the free constructions of imagination, built by the passing mood in response to the cues offered by the environment, quickly waning and being abandoned as some new color, shape, or sound forced itself upon my attention. The steady purring of the motor reminded me of the earlier time when I had had difficulty in adjusting the flow of gas to the carburetor, and suggested how much more fun it would be to have an engine geared to secure much greater speed than this one could achieve at best. The small discharge of water from the cooling apparatus made me think of the order I had recently sent in for a new pump cam to replace a badly worn one, and I told myself that I must not run the motor too long before the replacement had been made, lest the engine be overheated. The succession of sand bars extending irregularly out into the lake from the shore became the stimulus for my imagination to picture playfully a war between different schools of fishes, who used these bars as natural ramparts for protection and cover in attack. And so on without end whenever nothing more incisive appeared to control my thinking in any more. fruitful fashion, attention being caught by this or that feature of the environment and furnishing material for spontaneous 1 In fact, elements of two separate experiences, selected to make the illustration more adequate.

imaginative play until some new stimulus became sufficiently powerful to check and replace it.

At times this succession of vague sensations and loose fancies passed into the experience of appreciative enjoyment of some feature of the scene through which we were passing. Objects did not become merely brief cues for imaginative construction, but some of them were able to attract and hold attention on their own account, as having in themselves, so to speak, the resources necessary to yield continued satisfaction. The blue of the lake, as it shifted its pattern under the puffy clouds screening it here and there from the sun; that lone clump of birches giving the knoll on which it grew a white crown above the green mantle of the pines below; these will exemplify, from the trip mentioned, those many common experiences which suddenly surprise us with beauty and hold our thoughts eagerly captive while they give up their riches to our admiring contemplation.

But a large, apparently concrete slab set up on the shore ahead attracts our attention. We draw up opposite it and stop. On it are inscribed the words: "On this spot was made the first settlement of, by, in the month of

Erected

by the Historical Society of." We had hardly absorbed this information when one of us noticed a strange dark object floating out in the lake some distance farther on. wondered what it might be we saw several people gathered on the shore opposite it. We started the motor and moved toward them. Soon a man emerged from the group and ran down the beach to meet us. When we were near enough he dashed out into the water, clad, as we now saw to our surprise, only in his underclothes. In response to his frantic waving we drew up and stopped the motor. "There's a boy being carried out to sea in a barrel," he shouted. "He's going fast." "We'll get him,' I called in reply, and started the engine. At once my thinking became a quite different sort of thing from any of the above types. The exigencies of the situation controlled it. First thought-shall I land my youngsters, so that there will be no danger of their causing anxiety and difficulty? For the drifting boy was already more than half a mile from shore, and was

swept on by a stiff offshore breeze. And it is not impossible for a small boat to be upset. No, for every moment is precious. The barrel must be harder to balance as it gets out in the waves caused by the offshore wind; furthermore, our boat is pretty steady for its size, and if I tell the children to sit down in the bottom they will both be safer and make an upset less likely. So I command them to sit in the bottom, and steer directly for the drifting barrel. As we approach, two other important questions need an answer. Is the boy self-possessed, or is he so nervous and excited that he might jump for the boat too soon and thus endanger us as well as his own chance of rescue? Can I bring the boat close to the barrel without tipping it over before we quite reach it? I slow down at a distance of a few rods and scan closely the boy and his conveyance. He seems quiet and is maintaining his balance as perfectly as the ripples permit. And under his weight the small craft seems fairly steady. So I greet him in a matter-of-fact tone, and stop the engine just far enough away so that the boat can glide up beside the barrel. He scrambles in-a moment sooner than would have been best, but none too soon for safety—and in a few minutes we have him ashore.

Day- What different types of thinking are exemplified in this illusdreaming tration? Well, let us distinguish them in order. First, much of or reverie the time was evidently occupied by a free play of conscious activity merely controlled by the mood of the moment. This is what we call reverie or daydreaming. Though vague, accidental, and almost worthless for anything beyond itself, it is, as Robinson puts it, "our spontaneous and favorite kind of thinking." By this is meant that most of our conscious life, and vastly more than we should like to admit, is occupied with precisely this lazy and undirected play of feeling and fancy. "On inspection we find that even if we are not downright ashamed of a great part of our spontaneous thinking, it is far too intimate, personal, ignoble, or trivial to permit us to reveal more than a small part of it. . . . We find it hard to believe that other people's thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are." 1 The 1 Op. cit., p. 37.