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The main premise of this book is that thoughts exist and that thinking is a function which has been and is being developed in order to deal with the thoughts. Stated thus, the view is contrary to the usual presumption that thoughts are a result or by-product of thinking. I am not educing evidence in support of his hypothesis which appears here as one of the premises in a deductive system and must therefore be treated as part of the apparatus of investigation, to be justified or condemned according to its usefulness as such.
A thought is an emotional experience which may be independent of any recognizable physical sensory stimulation. Should a man be threatened by another with physical violence, it is supposed that he would have an emotional experience and would be able to feel that he could see why he was afraid or angry or whatever he did in fact feel. (But) there is a class of patient who has an emotional experience and cannot see why he has it because the emotional experience cannot be related to an episode such as I have just imagined, and cannot be related to any other because he is incapable of recognizing that quality in thoughts which makes them capable of arousing feelings, or indeed of recognizing the existence of thoughts themselves.
It is exactly this phenomenon that such a patient cannot recognize that I describe as an emotional experience independent of any recognizable physical sensory stimulation. I do not wish to deny the existence of thoughts (which are) dependent on, or at least associated with, a recognizable physical sensory stimulation, but to emphasize that they need not so depend.