Page images
PDF
EPUB

literary genius of his age, but had carved upon his proud tomb only this boast, that "The grove of Marathon could bear witness to his good soldierhood, and the long-haired Mede who felt it."

It would be foolish indeed to question whether or not the poetic are capable of purposeful achievement, and the practical capable of intense experience, for we are all, except those lost in apathy, in some degree both poetic and practical. But the example of the hero proves that it is possible for a man who can think clearly and command the differences that lie within him to be both poetic and practical in a high degree.

If we could but free our minds from a contamination with certain modern people who teach themselves that they are presided over by a pretty demon called an Artistic Temperament, we should not only cease cherishing by suggestion the tickle-brain condition into which they decay, but we should have for ourselves a sounder estimate of the place and dignity of the poetic. It is not an attribute of special, exotic, or disordered types, but a universal quality of our nature. No live man is without an arbitrary passion for some experience. Indeed, the defect of many of those most scornful of poetry is not that they are strong in the practical life, but that the attachment to some single state of being has got the better of them. There are fifty thousand morphinetakers in Paris, and all over the face of the earth how many million chewers, and breathers, and swallowers of what, far from being of practical value, is both costly and deleterious, bearing unconscious witness to the poetry of human nature.

The greatly poetic differ from them only in the healthy variety of their loves, prevailing everywhere and always. They are those who live variously as well as vividly in

the present. This alone distinguishes them from the millions. This alone distinguishes them from all those excluded by our experiment at the beginning, who confine their enjoyment to smoke while they are crossing the river. They are not without realization. But it is only the childlike and the poetic who make the innumerable intimate acquaintances that are to be made, who welcome all living qualities and perfect them, and finally, perhaps, in a supreme moment of morning sunshine and mist over the city, realize what we may call the essence of crossing a ferry. Their breast thrills, and their eyes drink with rapture the million moving and dancing details of that pageant of life—

"the white sails of schooners and sloops, the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars, The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,

The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,

The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges-the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,

Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets."

WHAT IS THOUGHT?1

JOHN DEWEY

John Dewey was born at Burlington, Vermont, October 20, 1859. The Burlington High School, the University of Vermont, and Johns Hopkins University provided his academic education. He began teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1884 and continued there until 1894, with the exception of one year at the University of Minnesota. In 1894 he became professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, and later also director of the School of Education. In 1904 he resigned at Chicago, and soon after accepted a professorship of philosophy at Columbia University. He is a member of several scientific and other learned societies, and a contributor to many philosophical, psychological, and educational magazines. Since 1885 he has published at least a dozen books, chiefly in the realms of philosophy and education. His Psychology (1886) is one of the most penetrating of all studies in the subject and has been one of the leading texts from the day of its publication; if superseded at all in use, it has been because of the vogue of the present day for the laboratory method in psychological studies. Dr. Dewey stands at the forefront among the real "intellectuals" of this country. His influence upon the mind of America has been incalculably great. This influence has been employed chiefly in the direction of thought in ethical, philosophical, and educational movements; but he "can write," and therefore he has been a power reaching far beyond the traditional walls of institutionalism. While he has differed widely in methods of thinking and in style of writing from William James, yet no other thinker in America is comparable with John Dewey in his chosen fields.

No words are oftener on our lips than thinking and thought. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. The aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. Assistance may be had by considering some typical ways in which the terms are employed.

1 From How We Think-reprinted by permission of the author and of the publishers, D. C. Heath & Company.

In the first place thought is used broadly, not to say loosely. Everything that comes to mind, that "goes through our heads," is called a thought. To think of a thing is just to be conscious of it in any way whatsoever. Second, the term is restricted by excluding whatever is directly presented; we think (or think of) only such things as we do not directly see, hear, smell, or taste. Then, third, the meaning is further limited to beliefs that rest upon some kind of evidence or testimony. Of this third type, two kinds-or, rather, two degrees must be discriminated. In some cases, a belief is accepted with slight or almost no attempt to state the grounds that support it. In other cases, the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value, and it forms, accordingly, the principal subject of this volume. We shall now briefly describe each of the four senses.

[ocr errors]

In its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." He who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. In calling the objects of his demand thoughts, he does not intend to ascribe to them dignity, consecutiveness, or truth. Any idle fancy, trivial recollection, or flitting impression will satisfy his demand. Daydreaming, building of castles in the air, that loose flux of casual and disconnected material that floats through our minds in relaxed moments are, in this random sense, thinking. More of our waking life than we should care to admit, even to ourselves, is likely to be whiled away in this inconsequential trifling with idle fancy and unsubstantial hope.

In this sense, silly folk and dullards think. The story

[ocr errors]

is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: "I hear you don't believe I know enough to hold office. I wish you to understand that I am thinking about something or other most of the time." Now reflective thought is like this random coursing of things through the mind in that it consists of a succession of things thought of; but it is unlike, in that the mere chance occurrence of any chance "something or other" in an irregular sequence does not suffice. Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a consequence-a consecutive ordering in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome, while each in turn leans back on its predecessors. The successive portions of the reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another; they do not come and go in a medley. Each phase is a step from something to something-technically speaking, it is a term of thought. Each term leaves a deposit which is utilized in the next term. The stream or flow becomes a train, chain, or thread.

Even when thinking is used in a broad sense,' it is usually restricted to matters not directly perceived: to what we do not see, smell, hear, or touch. We ask the man telling a story if he saw a certain incident happen, and his reply may be, "No, I only thought of it." A note of invention, as distinct from faithful record of observation, is present. Most important in this class are successions of imaginative incidents and episodes which, having a certain coherence, hanging together on a continuous thread, lie between kaleidoscopic flights of fancy and considerations deliberately employed to establish a conclusion. The imaginative stories poured forth by children possess all degrees of internal con

« PreviousContinue »