ABSTRACT
It seems rather dangerous to attempt to define such a term as “thinking.” It appears to be a catch-all of so many things regarding which we are ignorant or confused, a depository for unexplained odds and ends of behaviour, second perhaps to the word consciousness in ambiguity, for thinking is added unto the sins of consciousness. However, the process which would include “thinking” must be that during mediate response, in the field of excitation when the ordinary routine and otherwise balanced stimulus response situations or wholes fail to function. There are a large number of behaviour processes which are characterized by immediate and adequate response to stimuli, in which there is no place in the causal sequence for the phenomena called “thinking.” The equilibrium established by this immediate type of response is accounted for without the assumption of such an intermediate process. Thinking is a function of mediate response—stating the proposition in very general terms. Without any further explanation of thinking at this point, the mediate response cue will be followed.
