IMAGINATION

A useful member of society does not merely work hard and produce much for his own benefit; he should add to the common fund of knowledge. In other words, he must produce new ideas, discover scientific laws, devise new literary or artistic presentations, perfect methods of government; in short, he must play a creative role.

What is the mechanism by which this progress is realized? Contrary to popular belief, our knowledge does not increase by leaps and bounds, but the development is regular and very slow. Each step forward, in the majority of cases, comes from the simple combination of facts previously known. It is only necessary to delve in the storehouse of knowledge and to bring new relations to light. This correlation is a fruit of the mental faculty, imagination, whose functioning is rather capricious. The solution of a problem may be sought unsuccessfully for a long time, and then suddenly it may flash into the mind at a time when the problem is no longer being consciously considered.

The work of all great men shows the employment of imagination; it constitutes the beginning of all great discoveries. Pascal created hydrostatics by connecting the limitation of the height of a barometric column with the weight of the atmosphere; Newton discovered universal gravitation by comparing the movement of the planets with the fall of an apple; Pasteur founded microbiology by connecting the spread of disease with the life processes of microscopic organisms. Likewise, in the field of letters, we find writers dealing with ideas common to all humanity and sending them forth in new attire. La Fontaine gave life to Aesop’s fables by endowing the animals with speech; Corneille introduced a sense of duty magnified almost to heroism into the Spanish dramas. Artists sometimes slightly exaggerate certain features of their models to produce a more striking representation. Michelangelo accentuated the muscular development of heroic figures and Raphael the grace of women.

The same is true in industry. Sir William Siemens applied the theoretical reasoning of Sadi-Carnot to the heating of hearths, and the regenerative furnace resulted. He invented neither thermo-dynamics nor industrial heating, but by uniting these two sets of facts, he brought about a great advance, which made possible the modern processes of making steel in open hearths and of glass in tank furnaces. All inventors possess this mental activity, sometimes to excess. It is interesting to read Bessemer’s autobiography from this point of view. We see his mind always in feverish agitation, trying each day to produce something new, usually without success.

This first type of imagination is meditative. It acts slowly, and to a certain degree may be governed by the will. There is a second type, rather more delicate in nature, whose action is sudden and not preceded by reflection. It is this type which enables us to see at a glance all the correlations and distant consequences of a chance observation. The predisposing factors are impressionability and nervous sensibility. This quality varies greatly from individual to individual, certain minds respond to the slightest external suggestion, while others feel nothing, see nothing. In general, great scholars are characterized by a highly developed aptitude for sensing and using facts presented to them. The accidental observation that his determinations of the density of nitrogen were discordant led Lord Rayleigh to the discovery of argon. Other investigators had been faced with the same phenomenon, but were not markedly impressed. While attempting to fuse platinum, Saint Claire Deville was struck by the difference between the calculated temperature of the oxy-hydrogen flame and the observed melting point of platinum. This led him to suspect the dissociation of water vapor, while his collaborators, possessed of the same facts, thought nothing of them. Similarly, Bessemer was led to his process of producing steel in a converter by the fortuitous observation of the formation of malleable steel during an attempt to harden cast iron. Or better still, Auer von Welsbach discovered the incandescent mantle through a chance observation of the light emitted on calcination of precipitated thoria. Numerous analytical chemists had doubtless seen the same thing, but their attention was not arrested.

Great artists viewing nature, great generals before a battle, great lawyers before a trial are sensible to instantaneous impressions which escape the notice of ordinary men. The two types of intellectual activity seem to be predominantly natural endowments. Some children have wide-awake minds, others are more dull and remain thus throughout life.

This quality may, however, be developed by education, and more attention should be paid to this phase of education, than is usually the case. Exercises in writing composition, problems in geometry, afford excellent material from which to build up mental habits of using accumulated knowledge or of seeking new correlations of known facts. This type of training is doubtless the most useful function of secondary education. On the other hand, education cannot develop the second type of mental activity which is not dependent on reflection, but which functions instantly in some way not known to us. Nevertheless, there seems to be some possibility of perfecting this natural endowment by suitable laboratory exercises.