PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
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for practical use would be a classification showing: (1) every possible use or end to which a certain thing might be applied, employed or directed; and (2) every possible thing which might be applied, employed, or directed to a certain use or end. The nearer you approach to this ideal, in your work of classification of the things concerned with, connected with or related to the general subject of your Definite Purpose and Definite Ideal, the better will be your chances of the successful achievement of that purpose, the successful realization of that ideal.
It is said that a certain eminent inventor possesses a very complete index, and series of crossindexes, of nearly everything concerned with the general field in which he is working. For instance, he has lists showing (1) all the discovered uses to which each and every such thing has been put; the discovered effects of its combinations with other things; the things most nearly related to or resembling it; and, (2), each and every such thing which has been discovered to be possible of use, employment and effect in the direction of producing or effecting a certain result, effect, combination or composition. In short, he has the causerelations and the effectrelations of every object on his list, noted and classified, indexed and crossindexed.
When this inventor wishes to know the possible causes of a desired effect, he turns to his indexes, and the information is at hand. Likewise, when he wishes to know the possible results and effects related to a particular thing, he puts his hand on the information in the same way. The list is kept checked up and posted by a corps of assistants who note the reports contained in the scientific journals, etc., and also the results of their employer’s own original experiments. He has built up, and maintained, a veritable encyclopaedia of information relating to the things concerned with his own particular line of work. Consequently, he not only has a wealth of valuable information on hand, but he also saves an immense amount of time and labor when he is engaged in actual experimental and inventive work.
While the illustrated instances above cited represent extreme cases, yet they serve to bring out the principle involved. It is not expected that you should undertake any such elaborate system of classification; yet you should not fail to employ its general principle to the highest degree of which you are capable, or which you find possible under the circumstances. All else being equal, the person who has (1) the greatest store of concepts or mental images concerning the general subject of his Definite Purpose and Definite Ideal; and who (2) has that material the most thoroughly classified and indexed, either in his memory or mechanically; that person will manifest the highest degree of success in his work of Constructive Imagination.
You will do well to impress upon your memory all new facts arranged according to their logical classification. You will do well also to use your pencil in making written lists of the things involved in your creative work. In short, in every possible manner and by every possible method seek to (1) Acquire concepts, ideas, or mental images related to your Definite Purpose and Definite Ideals; and then (2) Classify these concepts, ideas, or mental images according to a definite, logical, scientific plan, so that you may find them easily and quickly when you need them in the work of Constructive Imagination. With wellselected materials, in sufficient amount and stored away systematically so that you may “put your hand on them” when needed, you will have progressed very far on the road to the achievement of your Definite Purpose and Definite Ideal by the processes of the Constructive Imagination.
Now then, when you have (1) acquired the concepts, ideas, or mental images related to your Definite Purpose and Definite Ideal; have (2) ascertained and thoroughly apprehended the full meaning of each of these items of material; and have (3) properly classified, indexed, and charted them so that you have them arranged for efficient reference; what have you at your command?
In the first place, you have compiled what may be called a “Thesaurus” of your ImageIdeas. A “Thesaurus” is, “A treasury, or repository: the term often applied to a comprehensive reference work, a lexicon, containing lists of words arranged according to the ideas or concepts which they express.” A Dictionary contains a list of words, with the definition of each—the statement of the idea or concept which each expresses. A Thesaurus, on the other hand, contains lists of words arranged in groups, each group representing a certain general idea or concept which its several particular words express. When you wish to know the meaning of a word or term, you consult your Dictionary. When you wish to find the several words or terms expressing a certain idea or concept, you consult your Thesaurus; discovering there the term denoting the general class of ideas or concepts which you have in mind, you find arranged opposite it the several particular words or terms employed to express that class of ideas or concepts.
In the Thesaurus of ImageIdeas which you have compiled, you will find the imageideas related to, or associated with, the general idea or concept which you are employing in your work of Constructive Imagination. The smaller classes are grouped into greater classes, and these into still greater, and so on and so on, until under your Central ImageIdea you will find classified and grouped each and every particular related or associated imageidea. Stop a moment, and consider how valuable such a Thesaurus of ImageIdeas will be to you, or to any thinker, discoverer, investigator, researcher, or inventor, or business man, in the work of Constructive Imagination! The individual here performs his creative work surrounded by all the materials which he will require—all at hand!
Employing another illustrative figure of speech, we may say that, by following the previously mentioned plan of the collection and classification of the materials of imageideas, you have built and stocked for yourself a great and valuable Mental Laboratory. You have proceeded upon the same general plan as that employed by scientists in the creation of their experimental laboratories. In these laboratories—their workshops in which these scientists perform their experimental work—are to be found the various elements which, when combined in certain arrangements and proportions, produce the soughtfor synthetic compositions. The scientist in his laboratory, and in his actual work, follows the Same general plan which you are to follow in your experimental work along the lines of Constructive Imagination, i. e., he tries first this combination, and then that one, until he reaches the best working combination—the most satisfactory composition.
It is stated that Edison has perfected a similar laboratory, which he employs in his work of creative invention. It is reported that, several years ago, he proceeded to test out every conceivable substance which seemed at all possible of being used as a filament for the electriclight bulb; and that, step by step, by experiment after experiment, employing the process of test, trial, elimination, and selection, he finally settled upon the best possible known substance for that special purpose.
Luther Burbank is said to conduct his experimental work in Plant Creation in a similar way: he tests, trys, experiments; combines, separates, eliminates; and finally, selects and preserves the “fittest.”
Moreover, Nature, herself, in her creative evolutionary processes, is discovered to proceed along the same general lines; the history of Natural Evolution is but a record of ageslong series of experiments, tests, combinations, adaptations, and “natural selection,” ending in the “survival of the fittest” for the particular purpose at each particular stage of the process. The plan is but the taking of a leaf from the Book of Nature—it is based upon the sound, fundamental principles of Natural Creation.
Herbert Spencer once thought out a plan whereby the patterns for fabrics, woven, knitted, or printed, and for wall papers and other decorative material, might be easily and systematically discovered or created by means of the same general plan to which we have referred, and which is followed in laboratory work. His plan was that of combination and recombination of certain elemental patterns, figures, and designs according to a definite and systematic plan of test for desirable combinations and conjunctions. He said concerning this plan: “Could there not be a methodical use of components of designs, so that relatively few ideas should, by modes of combination, be made to issue in multitudinous products? And could not this be so done that draughtsmen might produce them with facility, the system serving, as it were, not as a physical kaleidoscope, but as a mental kaleidoscope?”
Elmer Gates, the psychologistinventor, is stated to have made many of his important discoveries and inventions in precisely the way indicated in our preceding consideration of Effective Constructive Imagination—the method of combining the elements of previously