CHAPTER VII

CONSTRUCTIVE THINKING

"What a young man should aim at is to
acquire a habit of binding things together
according to their bonds of natural affinity."
JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

By constructive thinking we mean a weaving
together of the results of experience (in its all-
embracing sense) into a complete and system-
atic whole; or it might be defined as that
process of thought which, when we have
learned what is fact, we proceed to inquire
into reasons and causes, in order that our
knowledge may embrace things in their Entire know
entirety. We are all constructive ledge.
thinkers more or less, perhaps less than more,
inasmuch as every day we are taking the
threads of experience and weaving them into
theories. Thoughts gathered from books and
in the course of conversation; convictions

which are the harvest of ripened observations and, it may be, bitter disappointments; impressions coming to us in Wordsworthian fashion, we know not how or whence;* ideas gained as the result of definite creative effort—all these form the material which the constructive mind uses to frame its philosophy. Be that Construe- philosophy profound or shallow, full of tive moods. truth or full of error, there can be no

doubt that every mind has its constructive moods; times when it tries to reconcile the discrepancies of life, to discover the secrets of nature, or find out some means of accomplishing a desirable end. It is a mood which should be encouraged until it becomes habitual.

The purpose of this chapter is to create a desire and provide an effective medium for that kind of thinking which discovers, reconciles, and systematizes. The aim is high, but Difficulties to we are not blind to the difficulties inbe faced. volved. We know that every constructive effort has to face the inevitable exception;

* Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

that a small error can upset the best system ever conceived; and that the elements which resist analysis will always be with us. Still there are boundless possibilities open to the earnest mind—the story of the world's past is in constant need of a fresh setting, and in philosophy, art, science, literature, originality. and poetry, there is ample room for originality.

Room for

These remarks, however, refer to the general question-they scarcely touch those particular points on which the reader is perhaps anxious to hear something. Constructive thinking, though in a sense self-explanatory needs An illustra individualizing in an example. Let us tion. take one of the simplest kind. A traveller once stood on a bridge over a railway station, and a train drew up at the platform. He noticed at once that the roofs of the carriage were dripping wet, a fact which occasioned much surprise, for the weather had been unbroken sunshine for weeks past, and at that moment the sky 'was cloudless. Here, then, his constructive thinking began. What was the cause of this strange phenomenon? The first hypothesis was that of a shower of rain; but that was

I

dismissed as being in the highest degree improbable. At this point he noticed that the sides of the carriages were almost dry, indicaSteps to a ting that the water on the roofs had not conclusion. come in the manner of a shower of rain.

The traveller puzzled his mind further until it suddenly struck him that most likely the wet condition of the train was due to water droppings from the arch of a tunnel; the idea gained strength as he remembered a journey through a North of England tunnel; and on inquiring at the station he found his surmise was quite correct.

This may be taken as an elementary sample of those cases which, thousands of times, the events of life present to us unasked. In some instances the matter is of no consequence, as in that just referred to; but in others the issues are full of moment. It may not be true that Newton began to think about gravigravitation. tation on seeing the fall of an apple, but the story has a certain didactic worth. The fall of the apple was the fact observed-the starting-point of constructive thought. From that point to the finished statement of this great law there is almost an infinite number of

Newton and

suggested explanations-attempts at solution -considerations of the possible and probable -and at last a discovery of the truth.

We wish now to throw out a few suggestions as to mental procedure in matters of this kind.

(1) Be perfectly sure of your facts.-Nothing can atone for slipshod work in this Facts. department. If you are engaged in forming a new theory of literary criticism or a working hypothesis for the explanation of ghosts, be certain that you are dealing with truths about which there is no doubt. Every worker in every field of research needs this constant reminder. The scientist and the theologian, the political economist and the reminder to social reformer, the historian and the inventor, all these are none the worse for an occasional warning on this subject. Of course facts may be divided into many classes, and the acutest observer in the realm of nature, or the finest insight in the sphere of history may

A needful

all.

* Vide Podmore's Apparitions and Thought Transference. The last chapter is a good example of the careful handling of facts and theory. See also "Possibilities of malobservation" in Proceedings S. P. R. vol. iv.