with which he works. The thinker is
supposed, let us say, to collect specimens of flowers in order to arrive
at a notion of the characteristics of a certain class--but why collect
these rather than any others? True, in the artificial situation of a
schoolroom or college, the learner often collects in a certain field
rather than another, simply because he is told to. But in daily life he
would not be told to---the incentive must come from some particular
situation which presents a problem and therefore limits the field of
search. The starting point must be a particular experience or situation.
The same thing is true in deduction, although the syllogistic form has
often been misleading. "Metals are hard; iron is a metal, therefore iron
is hard." But why talk about metals at all--and if so why hardness
rather than color or effect on bases or some other characteristic? Of
course, here again it is some particular problem that defines the search
for the general and directs attention to some class characteristics
rather than to others. Not only is the starting point of all reasoning
some definite situation for which there is no adequate response, but the
end point must naturally be the same. A particular problem demanding
solution is the cause for reasoning, and, of course, the end of the
process must be the solution of that problem.

From the foregoing it must not be concluded that the processes of
induction and deduction are manifested only in connection with
reasoning. In fact, their use as a conscious tool of technique in
reasoning comes only after considerable experience of their use when
there was no conscious purpose and no control. A little child's notion
of dog, or tree, or city--in fact, all his psychological concepts
necessitate the inductive movement, but it has taken place in his
spontaneous thinking and the meanings have evolved after considerable
experience without any definite control on his part. So with deduction.
As he recognizes this as a chestnut tree, that as a rocking chair, as he
decides that this is wrong or that it is going to clear, he is
classifying things, or conduct, or conditions, and so is following the
deductive movement. But the judgments may come as a result of past
experience, may be spontaneous and involve no protracted controlled
activity which has been defined as thinking. Man's mind works
spontaneously both inductively and deductively, and hence the
possibility of control of these opera