Chapter 10. Ideas From Nature

No one should underestimate the importance of observation as a source of constructive imagination and idea suggestions.

As we stated earlier, everyone in search of ideas should cultivate first of all the habit of careful observation. This habit is essential to clear thinking. Ideas gained through observation are usually of the most vivid kind and appear to be much more definite and specific than those acquired by other means. Observation has been the source of good ideas ever since man arrived on this planet.

The primitive seemed a poor competitor against the powerful animals that were his rivals in the fight for survival. They had greater size, strength and speed, tougher claws and many other powers besides which his assets were weak and puny. But by means of his constructive imagination, well backed up by observation, these obstacles were overcome by man and he was able to outwit his adverse conditions. What Nature had denied him in physical powers, he supplied to himself through the exercise of such of his thinking as he could make dynamic and constructive.

Seeing the claws of animals, he took for his own use the idea of the rake and the hoe. He created artificial claws and teeth, imitating those he saw the animals possessed, making them in the form of spears, knives, axes and other tools.

From the woodpecker he visualized the gimlet; from the beaver the trowel; from the rolling log, a wheel to drag his burden.

Seeing a floating log, he imagined the idea of boats to carry him across the water.

And in turn, he imagined step by step all the ingenious improvements, comforts, buildings, clothes, foods, tools and inventions that have kept him alive and advancing through the ages.

As a general rule, Nature did it first. The spider taught us to spin. The human eye gave us the principle of the camera. The arm taught us about levers. The sun and moon suggested ways to measure time. A large leafy twig was the first sunshade. A sea shell was the first spoon. The fish, ages later, was model for the submarine, and the bird founded the aviation industry.

It is not the way of primitive man to imagine an Empire State building. But by taking a natural cave, he could roll a large rock at the entrance for a door, then gradually making other improvements and utilizing ideas built up in other connections over long periods of time, he could construct comfortable dwellings and later, complex structures for other purposes.

The primitive woman, style-conscious as she may have been, did not at a single step create what passes for modern attire. Each article of dress started simply, and gradually evolved.

It is so with all ideas. They begin simply, and only time and experience evolve from it a complex matter at which the uninitiated wonder as though it had sprung at one leap from the magician's mind.

The term "observation" is generally used to refer only to the sense of sight, but it may also be used in connection with the other senses as well. It is just as truly observation if we use the sense of hearing, taste, touch or smell.

Careful and fruitful observation requires that one should cultivate keen sense perception. When one looks at a thing he should really see it. He should notice every characteristic of the sounds he hears. He should sharpen his sense of taste and of smell, and his fingers should be sensitive to the distinctions, however slight, between soft and hard, wet and dry, warm and cold, rough and smooth, tense and flexible. In all his observations he should be keenly alert and sensitive.

It is well to look for the unusual in everything, ever the commonplace. Most people notice only the plainly obvious things and do nothing to exercise their sensibilities As a result we have dullness and boredom in our lives instead of vigorous enjoyment of all the things around us that are waiting to stimulate our minds, prod our thinking and give us the materials for many an idea.

There is no point in going around day after day expecting everything to be the same-the same sights and sounds as though as far as we are concerned, we might as well be robots in an automatic world. There are always differences even though they may be slight ones. So activate you senses, look for the differences, analyze them, put them to use. It will be a much more interesting and profitable world if you do.

All these habits of careful observation, of wide reading of always being on the lookout for material, should be sought, not necessarily with the view of any specific use, but for the purpose of broadening information and deepening thought. The object should always be the improving of oneself by adding to one's stock of information, that there may always be a full storehouse of material which may be drawn upon at will, making up that subtle background of authority and individuality which molds an idea in the long run.

Before the industrial era mankind had few benefits beyond those which Nature unassisted was able to supply. Since that time, man has tired of the slow process of evolution. He has found out how to utilize Nature's laws to advance his own creative ideas. He has realized that whatever the need might be, whether a new steel alloy, a synthetic rubber, a motion picture film, it can only be produced by adhering to Nature's laws. It must be created. Creative knowledge does not come of itself out of nowhere. It is built upon previous ideas and experiences.

Experience alone, however, was too slow. It also lacked reliability, for there was too much of an element of chance as to whether one would have the experience needed. So from relying upon experience, man utilized a creative idea to produce creative ideas-he devised experimenting as a process.

Soon he realized that an experiment had to be carefully planned and controlled. Further, the initial plan had to be continually revised as new facts developed. He learned that Nature, like himself, could answer but one question at a time. If he wished to discover the effect of more than me variable condition he could best do this by analyzing he influence of each one separately, namely by allowing only one at a time to vary, and keep the others constant. This is a clue for your own experimenting, whether you do it with materials or with ideas.

It has been said that certain intellectually honest, enthusiastically persevering individuals, endowed with insatiable curiosity, keen power of observation, ingenuity, patience, common sense, and the urge to take infinite pains, have been notably successful in inducing Nature to reveal her secret methods. You don't need all these qualities, but they help, just as in the case of the industrious man who died possessed of a fortune of $100,000. It helped that his uncle had left him $99,000.

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