ABSTRACT
General Principles.—The processes of judging facts, reasoning, following an argument and reaching conclusions are the same processes of association and dissociation as are found in all learning; the difference is that there is active selection within the present thought of some part or aspect which consequently determines the next thought, and selection again amongst the sequent thoughts, retaining one and discarding others. The laws of rational thought are, that is, the general laws of association and dissociation, but with predominance of the law of partial activity. The principles of teaching in the case of responses of comprehension, inference, invention and the like are the principles of apperception, habit formation and analysis, but special importance now attaches to principles derived from the fact that (1) the total set or context or system of thought and (2) any single feature of a thought, as well as the particular thing thought of, may decide the future course of thinking.
