Logical ideas are like keys which are shaping with reference to
opening a lock. Pike, separated by a glass partition from the
fish upon which they ordinarily prey, will--so it is said--butt
their heads against the glass until it is literally beaten into
them that they can not get at their food. Animals learn (when
they learn at all) by a “cut and try” method; by doing at random
first one thing and another thing and then preserving the things
that happen to succeed. Action directed consciously by ideas--by
suggested meanings accepted for the sake of experimenting with
them--is the sole alternative both to bull-headed stupidity
and to learning bought from that dear teacher--chance
experience.--JOHN DEWEY, “How We Think.”
(1482)