Thought-Culture; Or, Practical Mental TrainingAtkinson, William Walker
Science
Thought-Culture; Or, Practical Mental Training
Atkinson, William Walker
Thought and thinking
Galton says: "There is no doubt as to the utility of the visualizing
faculty where it is duly subordinated to the higher intellectual
operations. A visual image is the most perfect form of mental
representation wherever the shape, position and relation of objects in
space are concerned. It is of importance in every handicraft and
profession where design is required. The best workmen are those who
visualize the whole of what they propose to do before they take a tool
in their hands."
Kay says: "If we bear in mind that every sensation or idea must form an
image in the mind before it can be perceived or understood, and that
every act of volition is preceded by its image, it will be seen that
images play an important part in all our mental operations. According to
the nature of the ideas or images which he entertains will be the
character and conduct of the man. The man tenacious of purpose is the
man who holds tenaciously certain ideas; the flighty man is he who
cannot keep one idea before him for any length of time, but constantly
flits from one to another; the insane man is he who entertains insane
ideas often, it may be, on only one or two subjects. We may distinguish
two great classes of individuals according to the prevailing character
of their images. There are those in whose mind sensory images
predominate, and those whose images are chiefly such as tend to action.
Those of the former class are observant, often thoughtful, men of
judgment and, it may be, of learning; but if they have not also the
active faculty in due force, they will fail in giving forth or in
turning to proper account their knowledge or learning, and instances of
this kind are by no means uncommon. The man, on the other hand, who has
ever in his mind images of things to be done, is the man of action and
enterprise. If he is not also an observant and thoughtful man, if his
mind is backward in forming images of what is presented to it from
without, he will be constantly liable to make mistakes."
Galton says of the faculty of visualization: "Our bookish and wordy
education tends to repress this valuable gift of nature. A faculty that
is of importance in all technical and artistic occupations, that gives
accuracy to our perceptions and justness to our generalizations, is
starved by lazy disuse, instead of being cultivated judiciously in such
a way as will, on the whole, bring the best return. I believe that a
serious study of the best method of developing and using this faculty
without prejudice to the practice of abstract thought in symbols, is
one of the many pressing desiderata in the yet unformed science of
education."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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