and the savages that eclipses were caused by animals eating up the moon. Not a
few people today believe that potatoes and other vegetables should be planted at
a certain phase of the moon, that sickness is a visitation of Providence, and that
various "charms" are potent to bring good fortune or ward off disaster. Probably
not one in a thousand of those who accept such beliefs could give, or have ever
tried to give, any rational reason for their point of view.
But we must not be too harsh toward such crude illustrations of uncritical
thinking. It is entirely possible that not all of us who pride ourselves on our
trained powers of thought could give good reasons discovered by our own
thinking why we think our political party, our church, or our social organization
is better than some other one. How few of us, after all, really discover our creed,
join a church, or choose a political party! We adopt the points of view of our
nation or our group much as we adopt their customs and dress—not because we
are convinced by thinking that they are best, but because they are less trouble.
Assimilative Thinking.—It is this type of thinking that occupies us when we
seek to appropriate new facts or ideas and understand them; that is, relate them
to knowledge already on hand. We think after this fashion in much of our study
in schools and textbooks. The problem for our thought is not so much one of
invention or discovery as of grasp and assimilation. Our thinking is to apprehend
meanings and relations, and so unify and give coherence to our knowledge.
In the absence of this type of thinking one may commit to memory many facts
that he does not understand, gather much information that contains little meaning
to him, and even achieve very creditable scholastic grades that stand for a small
amount of education or development. For all information, to become vital and
usable, must be thought into relation to our present active, functioning body of
knowledge; therefore assimilative thinking is fundamental to true mastery and
learning.
Deliberative Thinking.—Deliberative thinking constitutes the highest type of
thought process. In order to do deliberative thinking there is necessary, first of
all, what Dewey calls a "split-road" situation. A traveler going along a well-
beaten highway, says Dr. Dewey, does not deliberate; he simply keeps on going.
But let the highway split into two roads at a fork, only one of which leads to the
desired destination, and now a problem confronts him; he must take one road or
the other, but which? The intelligent traveler will at once go to seeking for
evidence as to which road he should choose. He will balance this fact against
that fact, and this probability against that probability, in an effort to arrive at a