but should always allow a long interval to elapse. There are several
reasons for this. After an interval we acquire perspective; we are
in a position to know whether a book has done us any good and just
about how much. We may find after this interval that a work of which
we thought quite highly at the time of reading has really not helped
us appreciably either in thought or action. We may find that we have
outgrown the need of it. Even if we finally decide to re-read we shall
find the wait of immense help to our memory. If we re-read a book after
an interval of six months, three years after our second reading we will
remember its contents much better than if we had read it three times
in unbroken succession. Add to this that in the lapse of time we shall
have forgotten most of the work, and shall therefore approach it the
second time with greater interest than if it were still fresh in mind;
that our experience, reading and thinking in the meantime will make us
see every sentence in a different light, enabling us to judge our own
marginal criticisms (if we have made any) as well as the book, and the
advantage of waiting cannot be doubted. I do not believe it will ever
be necessary to read a book more than twice, that is, so far as thought
and knowledge are concerned. With books read for their style or for
mere amusement the case is different.
How long should one read at a sitting? Some men find that their
thought is choked by reading. Some find it stimulated. But results
vary according to the length of time reading is carried on. Reading
for very long periods at a stretch often deadens original thought. The
writer finds that he nearly always derives benefit from reading for
short periods, say ten or fifteen minutes. This is in some measure due
to the increased concentration which short periods allow. On the other
hand, some people find that a certain momentum is acquired during long
reading periods. The reader can only experiment to find how long a
period best suits his individual case.
How about concentration? This has been considered in relation to
independent thinking, but in reading the problem is somewhat different.
In thinking our task is to choose relevant associates. In reading the
associates are chosen for us. Our task is to stick to them, instead of
following the associates which occur to us either from what we read
or from sights and sounds about us. But associates which occur to us
from what we read are of two kinds: relevant and irrelevant, and the
former should of course be followed out. This however should be done
deliberately, in the manner I have previously indicated, and when the
vein of suggested thought has been exhausted we should bring attention
back to our book. The problem of concentration is not a very serious
one in reading. It may sometimes be difficult to concentrate on a book.
But it is infinitely easier than concentrating on a problem by unaided
independent thought.
* * * * *
The plan of reading I have laid out is merely suggestive. What I
chiefly wanted to show was that all books cannot be treated alike, that
we cannot lay down dogmatic inflexible rules to apply to every volume.
Our method of reading will vary with the nature of a book or of the
subject it treats. It will depend upon the books we have already read
and even upon the books we contemplate reading later.
The good you get out of reading will depend entirely on how you allow
it to affect you. If every book you read suggests more problems,
gives you worth-while questions and topics to think about in spare
moments, enriches your intellectual life and stimulates your thought,
it is performing its proper function. But if you read solely to answer
problems you cannot answer for yourself, if every time you are puzzled
about anything you run to a book to have it explained, and accept
without question the explanation there given; in short, if you use your
reading to save yourself from thinking, you had better stop reading
altogether. Smoking is a far less harmful form of dissipation.
I have not yet definitely indicated the ratio which time given to
reading should bear to time devoted to thinking. I have avoided this
because of the many factors to be taken into account. But if the reader
happens to have a spare hour to devote to the improvement of his mind,
he will not go very far wrong if he gives thirty minutes to reading and
thirty minutes to thinking. His thinking may be on the subject he has
read, or part of it may be on other problems. That is not so important.
But the reader must not imagine that his thinking need be restricted
to these thirty minutes or any other thirty minutes. The glorious
advantage of thinking is that it can be fitted in at any odd moment.
The entire apparatus for carrying it on is always with you. You do not
even need a book for it. I remind the reader of this at the risk of
repeating myself.
* * * * *
It was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter that the reading
of any book is not an end in itself, but should be subordinated to the
larger end of obtaining the best from reading in general. But for the
sake of clearness our end was temporarily considered as the mastery of
some particular subject. I indicated a plan of reading to best serve
that end. I also promised that needful qualifications would come later.
In stating the law of diminishing returns it was pointed out that it
applied to whole subjects as well as to books, that “past a certain
point every book we read on a subject, while it will probably add to
our knowledge, will not yield as much return as a book of equal merit
on another subject new to us.”
While this is true it applies to but a small extent when subjects are
read by the method just outlined, for while we do not get as much out
of any book as we would out of one of equal merit on another subject,
we read it so much faster that the return per time and energy expended
is practically as great. This fast reading is made possible by our
previous knowledge on the old subject. If the book on the new subject
were read in the same manner, we might get little or nothing from it.
With this objection out of the way I suggest that the reader get a
specialty. Books read in the ordinary unsystematic fashion, now on
this subject and now on that, leave little permanent impression. Even
if they do, we feel that though our range of reading may be wide we
have at best but a smattering of many things. In the final analysis
a smattering of knowledge is in most cases of no more use than total
ignorance. Better by far be ignorant of many things and know one thing
well, than know many things badly.
Besides the utility of having a specialty is the pleasure we derive.
There is always an intense satisfaction in feeling that one is an
“expert,” an “authority” in some subject. When some Congressman makes
an inaccurate remark which trespasses on your specialty you can write
a letter to the _Times_ or the _Sun_ explaining the error of his ways,
and incidentally exhibiting your own limitless erudition. When your
friends get into an argument on some question within your chosen field
they will remark, “Ask John Jones. He ought to know.” And even when
you have to confess abysmal ignorance on some question outside of your
domains, you may still have the satisfaction of believing that people
are excusing you within themselves with an “Oh, well, but he knows a
lot about someology.”
One writer estimates that “fifteen minutes a day or a half hour three
days a week devoted to one definite study will make one a master in
that field in a dozen years.”[20] This statement should interest
those people who “haven’t the time” to take up any specialty outside
their own business, but who spend at least half an hour every day in
newspaper or magazine reading—with nothing to show for it at the end
of twenty years.
Just what subject you make your specialty I am not at present
concerned. It may be aeronautics, astronomy, banking, Greek history,
differential calculus, social psychology, electricity, music,
philosophy of law, submarines, soap manufacture, religion, metaphysics,
sun-motors, education, literary style or the moon. But whatever it
is, it ought to be a subject in which you are interested for its
own sake—which most frequently means one which you do not make your
vocation. If you get tired of it, drop it and take up something in
which you are interested. Your thinking and study should be pursued as
a pleasure—not as a duty.
If your subject is a narrow one, if let us say it is merely a branch of
what is generally considered a science, you should first get a clear
idea of the broad outlines of the science before taking the specialty
up. Should you, for instance, select the tariff, begin your study by
using as your main text a book on general economics.
Even if you make your specialty an entire science you will derive
great help by reading in other sciences. In ethics, for instance, a
knowledge of psychology, biology and sociology will prove of surprising
value. This means that for the sake of knowing the specialty itself,
if for nothing else, you should not pursue it exclusively. If ever you
find yourself in danger of doing this it would be well to lay down a
rule that every third or fourth book you read must be one which does
not deal with the subject you have chosen as your own.
VIII
WRITING ONE’S THOUGHTS
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
exact man.—BACON.
Any attempt to formulate a science or art of thinking would not be
complete without at least some discussion of writing. Indeed writing is
so closely bound up with thinking that I have been compelled to refer
to it several times in the discussion of thought and reading.
I have already spoken of writing as an aid to concentration. I was wont
to depreciate it on account of its slowness. But this is practically
its only fault. Thoughts come to us when writing which we get in no
other way. One is often surprised, when reading something one has
written at a previous time, at some of the remarks made. We seem to
have temporarily grown wiser than ourselves.
But the great advantage of writing is that it preserves thought. What
printing has done for humanity in preserving the knowledge of the ages,
writing will do for the individual in preserving his own reflections.
When some thought has occurred to us we believe at the time we are
thinking it that it is ours forever. We cannot conceive that it shall
ever be forgotten. Perish that belief! I have sometimes had an idea
occur to me (really!), and have believed it absolutely new, at least
so far as I was concerned. But on looking over things written before,
I have found that I had had almost identically the same thought at
another time. Not only did I forget the idea; I did not even recognize
it at its second appearance. To be sure, in these cases the thoughts
came a second time. But thoughts are seldom so obliging.
Therefore when an idea occurs or when you have solved a problem, even
a problem suggested by a book, you should immediately put the idea
or solution in writing. You may of course wait until the end of the
day. But the safest way of capturing an idea is to write it the minute
after it flashes through your brain, or it may be lost forever.
It was with this in mind that in the chapter on reading I advised
immediately writing not only ideas but problems which occurred to one.
The discovery of a new problem is just as important and necessary for
intellectual advance as the solution of an old one. If we do not write
our problems we are apt to forget they exist; we put ourselves in
danger of assuming without question some proposition which is not true.
To facilitate the writing of your thoughts and meditations I suggest
a notebook kept specially for that purpose. In addition to this you
should always carry about with you some blank paper and a pencil, so
as to be ever ready to jot down anything. To write an idea does not of
course imply that you cannot later reject it, or change it, or develop
it further.
The elusiveness of thoughts is most strikingly brought out when writing
them down. When we are writing a long sentence we have in mind the
exact words with which we are going to finish it. But our attention is
called for the moment to the physical act of writing, and presto!—the
words are gone; we are compelled to end our sentence in a different
way. I have mentioned the advantages of shorthand and typewriting for
keeping pace with thought. I need merely repeat my advice to use these
acquirements if you have them. Thoughts, I must repeat, are fleeting.
No device for trapping them should be despised.
Not least among the advantages of a notebook in which to write thoughts
is the permanent historical record it gives. Every thought we write
should be dated, day, month and year, like a letter. When we come
to read over ideas jotted down from time to time in this manner, we
shall see before us an intellectual autobiography. We shall see how
our recent thoughts compare with those written sometime ago. We shall
see just what our opinions were at certain times, and how they have
changed. And we shall see whether our mental progress has been marked,
or whether we have been standing still.
It may be considered absurd to suggest that every thought you write in
your note-book be put in the best style you can command. We are wont
to differentiate “style” and “matter.” It is doubtful whether this
distinction is quite valid. It is doubtful whether we know just what we
mean when we make it. Indeed Arnold Bennett goes so far as to say:
“Style cannot be distinguished from matter. When a writer conceives
an idea he conceives it in the form of words. That form of words
constitutes his style, and it is absolutely governed by the idea. The
idea can only exist in words, it can only exist in one form of words.
You cannot say exactly the same thing in two different ways. Slightly
alter the expression, and you slightly alter the idea. Surely it is
obvious that the expression cannot be altered without altering the
thing expressed! The writer, having conceived and expressed an idea,
may, and probably will, ‘polish it up.’ But what does he polish up? To
say that he polishes up his style is merely to say that he polishes up
his idea, that he has discovered faults and imperfections in his idea,
and is perfecting it. The idea exists in proportion as it is expressed;
it exists when it is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. A
clear idea is expressed clearly and a vague idea vaguely.”[21]
Mr. Bennett, I suspect, is a victim of exaggeration. But this much is
true: Thought and style are mutually dependent to a far greater degree
than is generally supposed. Not only will an improvement in a thought
improve its wording; an improvement in wording will improve the thought.
Now as to the application of this. I have referred to the occurrence
in reading of “inarticulate” objections. The sole reason these are
inarticulate is because the objection is too vague even to find
expression. In a case like this we should word our objection the best
we can, no matter how ridiculous or indefensible it at first sounds.
But we should word it in as many ways as possible; we should say it
in all different sorts of ways; we should write it in every different
kind of way. Gradually our objection will become definite, clear,
forceful. In short, we shall not only have improved our way of stating
our thought; we shall have improved the thought itself. To study
clearness of statement or acquisition of vocabulary is to study means
of improving thought. Your notebook should not be used solely for the
entry of “thoughts” as such, but any striking way of wording a thought
which occurs to you should likewise be immediately written.
But while there is some truth in Arnold Bennett’s statement that the
wording is the thought, from another point of view its very opposite
is true. The wording is _never_ the thought. Strictly speaking,
“thought” is something which can exist only in the mind. It can never
be transferred to paper. What then is it that we write? If words and
sentences are not thought, what are they? If they are not thought how
is it possible to transfer thought through the medium of writing?
The fact is that words, though they are not thought, are the
_associates_ of thought. You hear the word “horse.” Very likely the
visual image of a horse arises in mind. This image, idea, notion,
“concept,” will depend on your experience of particular horses. It will
never be a logical abstract of these. It will never be a horse without
color, particular size, sex or breed, as is sometimes thought. It may
however have different elements in it from different horses you have
seen. It may be the image of just one particular horse you remember.
But no such thing as a general concept exists in the mind. We have a
particular image which stands for all horses. The name of course is
general. It—or its definition—may be called the logical concept. But
the name itself is not used in thought. It is an arbitrary symbol which
serves merely to arouse a particular image associated with it, and
this image is dealt with as if general. This image we shall call the
concept. It is the working concept: the psychological as opposed to the
logical concept.
As your concept of a horse will depend on your experience of particular
horses, another person’s concept will depend on _his_ experience of
that animal. And as his experience can never be exactly the same as
yours, his concept, though it may be similar to yours, will not be the
same. Not only will no one else have the same mental image or concept
as you _but you yourself will never have exactly the same image twice_.
This image will vary with the setting in which it occurs—with the
associates which happen to arouse it. If you are reading about a great
battle and the word “horse” is mentioned, a certain kind of horse will
suggest itself to you. If you are reading about a grocery wagon and see
the word “horse” another kind will suggest itself. This whether the
animal is described by adjectives or not. At one time you may think of
the horse as in motion, at another time as at rest.
Unfortunately many so-called psychologists seem to consider the
concept, even this image-concept, as something fixed in the individual,
or at best as only changing with actual experience of the thing
conceived. The truth is that the image or images aroused on hearing
any word are not the same for two seconds at a time. They are fluid,
dynamic; never static, immobile. They are associates of the words
in a constant state of flux.[22] When the concept of one individual
varies from one moment to the next, how must the concepts of different
individuals differ from each other!
I have instanced the idea of a horse because it is so simple and
concrete. In actual thinking we never meet with a simple separated
concept or with a single word; we deal with at least an entire
sentence. This means that our images vary even more widely at different
times than was the case in the example. It means that the images of
other people are at a correspondingly greater variance from ours.
As to the application of all this to writing. We have an idea; thinking
it important we decide to jot it down. Now we cannot jot down the idea,
but only words associated with it. We cannot even write all the words
associated with it, for there are too many. So we write a comparative
few; and we say we have written the idea. _But all we have really
written is something associated with the idea._ When we read this over
at a later time we shall not have the same ideas aroused as were in
mind originally, but at best only similar ideas. For the associates of
words, like all associates, are constantly changing; and thanks to the
frailties of human memory exactly the same associates are never aroused
twice. So after a long interval they will be much different than at the
time we wrote. The reader will often have the experience of “writing a
thought” and thinking it very important, but on reading it at another
time he will fail to see why he ever considered it worth putting on
paper. The truth is that at the time he wrote the idea it probably
_was_ important, because he had the right concepts. But when he came
back to the words he had written they failed to re-suggest the former
concepts and associates.
This difference between words and thought is even more strikingly
brought out when the written thought is read by some other person than
the writer. The writer is likely at least to have approximately the
same concepts as at the time of writing. And he is greatly aided by his
memory in recalling the concepts and associated ideas previously in
mind, the words suggesting these. But when a person reads what some one
else has written, he translates the words into the concepts previously
connected with them in his own mind. Thus an author can never literally
transfer an idea. He can merely put down certain arbitrary symbols,
which will serve to arouse a similar thought in his readers. How
greatly the reader’s thought differs from the author’s it is difficult
if not impossible to determine, for minds can only communicate by
words. It is this difference in associated concept which often makes a
reader fail to appreciate the profoundest thoughts of an author, and
even, on the other hand, occasionally to see depth where it does not
exist.
We come now to the solution of the problem to which this rather
extended discussion has been preparatory. How is an author to convey,
as nearly as possible, his actual idea? And the answer is: _he should
word it in as many different ways as possible_.
If a person had never been to a city and you wanted to give him an idea
of it, you would show him photographs taken from different viewpoints.
One photograph would correct and supplement the other. And the more
photographic viewpoints he saw the more complete and accurate would be
his idea—the more his concept would approximate the actual city. But he
could never more than approximate; he could never obtain the idea of a
man who had visited that city.
An author’s language is a photograph of his thought. He can never
actually transfer an idea, but by wording it in different ways he can
show different photographs of it.
If, for example, a second wording does not conform with the first
concept which a reader has formed, the reader will be obliged to modify
that concept. And if the idea is repeated in a number of different ways
he will have to modify his concept so much that he will gradually more
and more approximate the idea of the author.
I remember the story in some educational treatise of an inspector who
entered a school room, asked the teacher what she had been giving her
class, and finally took up a book and asked the following question,
“If you were to dig a hole thousands and thousands of feet deep, would
it be cooler near the bottom or near the top, and why?” Not a child
answered. Finally the teacher said, “I’m sure they know the answer but
I don’t think you put the question in the right way.” So taking the
book she asked, “In what state is the center of the earth?” Immediately
came the reply from the whole class in chorus, “The center of the earth
is in a state of _igneous fusion_.” . . .
There is, and has been for the past generation, a great cry in
educational circles that we should teach things, not words. In some
instances this is inadvisable, even impracticable. But if the teacher
in the foregoing story had taken the trouble to word her idea in at
least more than one way, she might have implanted a real idea in her
pupils. She would at least have found that as it was they had none.
* * * * *
One more question remains. If you are writing a composition, a letter,
an essay, or even a book, what is the best way to get down all your
thoughts, without losing any of value; to get them down in the best
order and in the best style? In other words what is the path of
greatest efficiency in transferring thoughts from your mind to paper?
We have already considered such devices as shorthand. Of course
dictation, where it is possible, is an obvious advantage. But I mean
here to consider the aspects of the problem which apply more especially
to compositions of some length.