4. NECESSITY OF RIGHT THINKING.
In the main, man’s thinking has been for his good, that is, in the long run, it has contributed to his general progress. If this had not been so, long since would he have dropped back to the level of the non-thinking animals.
Thinking has been defined as the process of affirming or denying connections. Right thinking is, therefore, a matter of affirming the right connections or denying the wrong connections. To put it differently: right thinking is the process of adjusting the best means to a right end; whereas wrong thinking is a matter of overlooking the best means, or directing improper means to a wrong end. Right thinking involves proper adjustment; wrong thinking improper adjustment. In the intellectual world as in the physical, improper adjustment means extinction. Illustrations of this:
(1) A contractor undertakes to build a skyscraper. In the excavation an old wall is discovered. The thought of the contractor is, “I must make a pot of money out of this job, and since this old wall is in the right spot I will build on it, and thus save me ‘five hundred’.” In the course of ten years, without warning, the building topples over and fifty women and children are killed. The contractor is convicted and sent to prison for life. If the builder had thought the right thought; namely, “I want to put up a building that will stand for generations,” he would have survived the competition of his fellows andentered his long home with success etched upon his soul.
(2) Two school teachers, A and B, are working in the same system. A’s ambition is to be promoted and she uses “pull” as the means. For a time she succeeds in pulling the wires, and likewise in pulling the “wool” over the eyes of the Board of Education. B aspires to professional growth, using as the means every opportunity for genuine improvement. In time both are known as they really are, not as they seem to be. A is denominated a “shirk,” a politician, a mere school keeper; whereas B is looked up to as the best equipped worker in the building, a real school teacher.
There may seem to be many exceptions to this point of view, and yet in the last analysis we find that these exceptions are only apparent. When we maintain that right thinking means survival and wrong thinking extinction, we assume that the standard adopted is genuine efficiency and not a certain money basis. High positions may be secured through wrong thinking, but these cannot be filled creditably without the preponderance of right thinking.