response. So long as the situation, because of its
simplicity or familiarity, receives immediately a response which
satisfies, there is no need for thinking. Only when the response is
inadequate or when no satisfactory response is forthcoming is thinking
aroused. By far the majority of the daily adjustments made by people,
both mental and physical, require no thinking because instinct, habit,
and memory suffice. It is only when these do not serve to produce a
satisfactory response that thinking is needed--only when there is
something problematic in the situation. Even in new situations thinking
is not always used to bring about a satisfactory adjustment. Following
an instinctive prompting when confronted by a new situation; blindly
following another's lead; using the trial and error method of response;
reacting to the situation as to the old situation most like it; or
response by analogy: all are methods of dealing with new situations
which often result in correct adjustments, and yet none of which need
involve thinking. This does not mean that these methods, save the first
mentioned, may not be accompanied by thinking; but that each of them may
be used without the conscious adjustment of means to end demanded by
thinking. That these methods, and not thinking, are the ones most often
used, even by adults, in dealing with problems, cannot be denied. They
offer an easy means of escape from the more troublesome method of
thinking. It is so much easier to accept what some one else says, so
much easier to agree with a book's answer to a question than to think it
out for oneself. Following the first suggestion offered, just going at
things in a hit-or-miss fashion, uncritical response by analogy, saves
much time and energy apparently, and therefore these methods are adopted
and followed by the majority of people in most of the circumstances of
life. It is human nature to think only when no other method of mental
activity brings the desired response. We think only when we must.

Not only is it true that problems are often solved correctly by other
methods than that of thinking, but on the other hand much thinking may
take place and yet the result be an incorrect conclusion, or perhaps no
solution at all be reached. Think of the years of work men have devoted
to a single problem, and yet perhaps at the end of that time, because of
a wrong premise or some incorrect data, have arrived at a result that
later years have proved to h