It is claimed that think comes from the same root as thick. From this one would conclude that the process of thinking is virtually a process of thickening. Surely as one thinks he enriches or thickens his knowledge. As one thinks percepts into concepts and concepts into judgments he makes richer in meaning the various notions concerned. Thinking is largely a matter of pressing many into one: of linking together the disconnected fragments of the conscious field.
DEFINITION:
Thinking is the deliberative process of affirming or denying connections.
The same idea may be expressed in a variety of ways as the following indicate.
(1) “Thinking is the conscious adjustment of a means to an end in problematic situations.” Miller.
(2) “To think is to designate an object through a mark or attribute or what is the same thing, to determine a subject through a predicate.” Bowen.
(3) “Thought is the comprehension of a thing under a general notion or attribute.” Wm. Hamilton.
(4) “To think is to make clear through concepts the perceived objects.” Dressler.
In the foregoing definitions it is implied that thinking is a connecting or thickening process. In all forms ofthinking from the simplest to the most complex the knowing mind hunts for some basis of connection and having found it thinks the relationship into a unified whole.
The thinking process is the digestive process of the mind. Much as the digestive organs assimilate the food stuff of the physical world, so the thinking organ assimilates the food stuff of the mental world.