Defining 'thought,' however, as the direction of activity upon symbols and conceptions, there seems to be little warrant for asserting that it functions only on the occasion of a concrete, specific problem. One would say, on the contrary, that this would be an unfavorable occasion for the study of fundamental principles, whether scientific or practical. Summing up the external evidence, then, one would say that it accords as well with the hypothesis that the life processes constitute a single activity directed upon various objects, as with the hypothesis that thought is a very special organic activity, having a special biological function. At least, the evidence for the existence of such a special faculty is dubious and uncertain. What does the internal evidence prove? The analysis of thought contained in James's chapter on "Reasoning" in the _Principles of Psychology_ has been the guide for Dewey and other pragmatists in this connection.[285] James undertakes to show that reasoning is marked off from other processes by the employment of analysis, abstraction, and the use of mediating terms. It must be urged here, not only against James, but against a considerable modern tradition, that this account of thinking is misleading and inaccurate. The question to be faced, of course, is whether the processes of thought differ radically from the non-reflective processes _in kind_, or whether they are simply the intensification of processes which attend all conscious life. It should be noted that no concession is made to the notion that thinking is a special kind of process; only its subject-matter is special, or else thought is simply a period of wide-awakeness and alertness. In the latter sense, thought involves an intensification of the powers of observation, an awakening of memory, a general stimulation of all the faculties. It calls for the fullest possible apprehension, demands the most complete insight into the nature of the situation that the capacities can provide. The contrast between the adequate view of reality achieved in this manner and the common and inadequate apprehension of ordinary life is very great, and might easily lead to the supposition that thinking (so understood) contains elements which are added through the activities of a special nerve process.