A
Technique for Producing Ideas
James
Webb Young
CONTENTS
Foreword
Prefatory Note
How It Started
The Formula of Experience
The Pareto Theory
Training the Mind
Combining Old Elements
Ideas Are New Combinations
The Mental Digestive Process
"Constantly Thinking About It"
The Final Stage
Some After-Thoughts
FOREWORD
by William Bernbach, Chairman, Worldwide and Chief Executive Officer Doyle Dane
Bernbach Inc.
James
Webb Young conveys in his little book something more valuable than the most
learned and detailed texts on the subject of advertising. For he is talking
about the soul of a piece of communications and not merely the flesh and bones.
He is talking about the idea. A chemist can inexpensively put together a human
body. What he can't do is spark it with life. Mr. Young writes about the
creative spark, the ideas, which bring spirit and life to an advertisement.
Nothing is more important to the practice of our craft.
Mr.
Young is in the tradition of some of our greatest thinkers when he describes the
workings of the creative process. It is a tribute to him that such scientific
giants as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein have written similarly on this
subject.
They
agree that knowledge is basic to good creative thinking but that it is not
enough, that this knowledge must be digested and eventually emerge in the form
of fresh, new combinations and relationships. Einstein refers to this as
intuition, which he considers the only path to new insights.
The
quality of the ideas you get cannot be guaranteed and James Webb Young would, I
am sure, be the first one to tell you this. That quality would be the result of
all the forces in your life that have played on you, including your genes. But
you will be making the most of those forces and all your natural equipment if
you follow the procedures he outlines so simply and lucidly.
We
are indebted to Mr. Young for getting to the heart of the matter. The result of
many years of work in advertising have proved to him that the key element in
communications success is the production of relevant and dramatic ideas. He not
only makes this point vividly for us but shows us the road to that goal.
THESE
THOUGHTS were first presented to graduate students in advertising at the School
of Business of the University of Chicago, and later before several gatherings of
active advertising practitioners. This accounts for the informal tone.
The
subject is properly one which belongs to the professional psychologist, which I
am not. This treatment of it, therefore, can have value only as an expression of
the personal experience of one who has had to earn his living by producing what
were alleged to be ideas.
It
was first prepared one Sunday afternoon when I had to consider what I should say
to a Monday class. No literature on the subject was at the moment available; nor
had I any recollection of having seen any. Since then many readers of this book
have called my attention to writings on the same subject, from different areas
of experience; and there have been published several recent books with something
worthwhile to say on this topic. On the last page of this edition I have listed
three which I have found stimulating.
JAMES
WEBB YOUNG
Rancho
de la Canada, Pena Blanca, New Mexico July 1960
ONE
DAY In my last year as an advertising agency executive in Chicago I had a
telephone call from the western advertising manager of a well-known magazine.
He
asked if he could see me immediately on a matter of importance. Shortly
thereafter he arrived in my office, somewhat out of breath.
"We
are having a meeting today," he said, "of our entire western sales
staff. Its purpose is to discuss how we can improve our selling.
"In
our discussions we have tried to analyze the selling methods of other successful
publications and salesmen. And among these we have been particularly impressed
by the success of Mr. Kobler in his selling of the American Weekly.
"After
studying just why he is so successful we have come to the conclusion that it all
rests on just one thing: he doesn't sell space; he sells Ideas.
"And
so," he continued, with enthusiasm, "we have decided that that is just
what we are going to do. From here on we are not going to sell space at all.
Beginning tomorrow morning every single one of us is going to sell Ideas!"
I
said I thought that was just dandy, but wondered what it was that he wanted to
discuss with me.
"Well,"
he said, somewhat ruefully, "we could see that what we ought to do is to
sell ideas, all right. But after that we sort of got stuck.
"What
we are not clear about is just how to get ideas.
"So
I said maybe you could tell us, and that is what I am here for.
"You
have produced a lot of advertising ideas. Just how do you get them? The boys are
waiting for me to come back and tell them."
Now
I know that if I had not been so flattered by this question, and if my
questioner had not been so obviously serious in asking it, I would have had a
hearty fit of laughing at this point.
I
thought at the time that I had never heard a funnier or more naive question. And
I was completely unable to give any helpful answer to it.
But
it struck me afterward that maybe the question "How do you get ideas?"
wasn't as silly as it sounded. Maybe there was some answer to it. And off and on
I thought about it.
An
idea, I thought, has some of that mysterious quality which romance lends to
tales of the sudden appearance of islands in the South Seas.
There,
according to ancient mariners, in spots where the charts showed only deep blue
sea-there would suddenly appear a lovely atoll above the surface of the waters.
An air of magic hung about it.
And
so it is, I thought, with Ideas. They appear just as suddenly above the surface
of the mind; and with that same air of magic and unaccountability.
But
the scientist knows that the South Sea, atoll is the work of countless, unseen
coral builders, working below the surface of the sea.
And
so I asked myself: "Is an idea, too, like this? Is it only the final result
of a long series of unseen idea-building processes which go on beneath the
surface of the conscious mind?
"If
so, can these processes be identified, so that they can consciously be followed
and utilized? In short, can a formula or technique be developed in answer to the
question: How do you get ideas?"
What
I now propose to you is the result of a long-time pondering of these questions;
and of close observation of the work of idea-producing men with whom I have had
associations.
This
has brought me to the conclusion that the production of ideas is just as
definite a process as the production of Fords; that the production of ideas,
too, runs on an assembly line; that in this production the mind follows an
operative technique which can be learned and controlled; and that its effective
use is just as much a matter of practice in the technique as is the effective
use of any tool.
If
you ask me why I am willing to give away the valuable formula of this discovery
I will confide to you that experience has taught me two things about it:
First,
the formula is so simple to state that few who hear it really believe in it.
Second,
while simple to state, it actually requires the hardest kind of intellectual
work to follow, so that not all who accept it use it.
Thus
I broadcast this formula with no real fear of glutting the market in which I
make my living.
Now,
we all know men of whom we have said: "He never had an idea in his
life."
That
saying brings us face to face with the first real question about this subject.
Even assuming that there may be a technique for producing ideas, is everybody
capable of using it? Or is there, in addition, some special ability for
producing ideas which, after all, you must be born with-like a color sense or
tone sense, or card sense?
One
answer to that question is suggested in the work Mind and Society, by the great
Italian sociologist, Pareto.
Pareto
thought that all the world could be divided into two main types of people. These
types he called, in the French in which he wrote, the speculator and the rentier.
In
this classification speculator is a term used somewhat in the sense of our word
"speculative." The speculator is the speculative type of person. And
the distinguishing characteristic of this type, according to Pareto, is that he
is constantly preoccupied with the possibilities of new combinations.
Please
hold that italicized definition in mind, because we shall return to it later.
Note particularly that word pre-occupied, with its brooding quality.
Pareto
includes among the persons of this speculative type not only the business
enterprisers-those who deal with financial and business schemes-but those
engaged with inventions of every sort, and with what he calls "political
and diplomatic reconstructions."
In
short, the type includes all those persons in any field who (like our President
Roosevelt) can not let well enough alone, and who speculate on how to change it.
The
term used by Pareto to describe the other type, the rentier, is translated into
English as the stockholder-though he sounds more like the bag holder to me. Such
people, he says, are the routine, steady-going, unimaginative, conserving
people, whom the speculator manipulates.
Whatever
we may think of the adequacy of this theory of Pareto's as an entire explanation
of social groups, I think we all recognize that these two types of human beings
do exist. Whether they were born that way, or whether their environment and
training made them that way, is beside the point. They are.
This
being the case I suppose it must be true that there are large numbers of people
whom no technique for producing ideas will ever help.
But
it seems to me that the important point for our purpose is that the Speculators,
or reconstructors of this world, are a very large group. Theirs at least is the
inherent capacity to produce ideas, and it is by no means such a rare capacity.
And so, while perhaps not all God's chilluns got wings, enough have for each of
us to hope that we may be among those that have.
At
any rate, I propose to assume that if a man (or woman) is at all fascinated by
advertising it is probably because he is among the reconstructors of this world.
Therefore he has some creative powers; and these powers, like others, may be
increased by making a deliberate effort to do so, and by mastering a technique
for their better use.
Assuming,
then, that we have some natural capacity for the creation of ideas, we come to
the practical question: "What are the means of developing its"
In
learning any art the important things to learn are, first, Principles; and
second, Method. This is true of the art of producing ideas.
Particular
bits of knowledge are nothing, because they are made up of what Dr. Robert
Hutchins once called rapidly aging facts. Principles and method are everything.
Thus
in advertising we may know the names of types, how much engravings cost, what
the rates and closing dates are in a thousand publications; we may know enough
grammar and rhetoric to confound a schoolteacher; and enough names of television
artists to hold our own at a broadcaster's cocktail party: we may know all these
things and still not be an advertising man, because we have no understanding of
the principles and fundamental methods by which advertising works.
On
the other hand, we may know none of these things but have insight into
advertising principles and method, so that by employing technicians to help us
we may produce advertising results. Thus we sometimes see a manufacturer or
merchant who is a better advertising man than his advertising agent or manager.
So with the art of producing ideas. What is most valuable to know is not where
to look for a particular idea, but how to train the mind in the method by which
all ideas are produced; and how to grasp the principles which are at the source
of all ideas.
With
regard to the general principles which underlie the production of ideas, it
seems to me that there are two which are important.
The
first of these has already been touched upon in the quotation from Pareto :
namely, that an idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old
elements.
This
is, perhaps, the most important fact in connection with the production of ideas.
However, I want to leave the elaboration of it until we come to a discussion of
method. Then we can see the
importance
of this fact more clearly, through the application of it.
The
second important principle involved is that the capacity to bring old elements
into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships.
Here,
I suspect, is where minds differ to the greatest degree when it comes to the
production of ideas. To some minds each fact is a separate bit of knowledge. To
others it is a link in a chain of knowledge. It has relationships
andsimilarities. It is not so much a fact as it is an illustration of a general
law applying to a whole series of facts.
An
illustration of this might be taken from a relationship between advertising and
psychiatry. At first blush it might be hoped that there is no relationship! But
the psychiatrists have discovered the profound influence which words have in the
lives of their patients--words as symbols of emotional experiences.
And
now Dr. Harold Lasswell has carried over these word-symbol studies of the
psychiatrists to the field of political action, and shown how word-symbols are
used with the same emotional force in propaganda.
To
a mind which is quick to see relationships several ideas will occur, fruitful
for advertising, about this use of words as symbols. Is this, then, why the
change of one word in a headline can make as much as 50 per cent difference in
advertising response? Can words, studied as emotional symbols, yield better
advertising education than words studied as parts of rhetoric? What is the one
word-symbol which will best arouse the emotion with which I wish this particular
advertisement to be charged? And so on.
The
point is, of course, that when relationships of this kind are seen they lead to
the extraction of a general principle. This general principle, when grasped,
suggests the key to a new application, a new combination, and the result is an
idea.
Consequently
the habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts
becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas. Now this habit of
mind can undoubtedly be cultivated. I venture to suggest that, for the
advertising man, one of the best ways to cultivate it is by study in the social
sciences. A book like Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, or Riesman's The
Lonely Crowd, therefore becomes a better book about advertising than most books
about advertising.
With
these two general principles in mind-the principle that an idea is a new
combination, and the principle that the ability to make new combinations is
heightened by an ability to see relationships-with these in mind let us now look
at the actual method or procedure by which ideas are produced.
As
I said before, what I am now about to contend is that in the production of ideas
the mind follows a method which is just as definite as the method by which, say,
Fords are produced.
In
other words, that there is a technique for the use of the mind for this purpose;
that whenever an idea is produced this technique is followed, consciously or
unconsciously; and that this technique can consciously be cultivated, and the
ability of the mind to produce ideas thereby increased.
This
technique of the mind follows five steps. I am sure that you will all recognize
them individually. But the important thing is to recognize their relationship,
and to grasp the fact that the mind follows these five steps in definite
orderthat by no possibility can one of them be taken before the preceding one is
completed, if an idea is to be produced.
The
first of these steps is for the mind to gather its raw material.
That,
I am sure, will strike you as a simple and obvious truth. Yet it is really
amazing to what degree this step is ignored in practice.
Gathering
raw material in a real way is not as simple as it sounds. It is such a terrible
chore that we are constantly trying to dodge it. The time that ought to be spent
in material gathering is spent in wool gathering. Instead of working
systematically at the job of gathering raw material we sit around hoping for
inspiration to strike us. When we do that we are trying to get the mind to take
the fourth step in the idea-producing process while we dodge the preceding
steps.
The
materials which must be gathered are of two kinds: they are specific and they
are general.
In
advertising, the specific materials are those relating to the product and the
people to whom you propose to sell it. We constantly talk about the importance
of having an intimate knowledge of the product and the consumer, but in fact we
seldom work at it.
This,
I suppose, is because a real knowledge of a product, and of people in relation
to it, is not easy to come by. Getting it is something like the process which
was recommended to De Maupassant as the way to learn to write. "Go out into
the streets of Paris," he was told by an older writer, "and pick out a
cab driver. He will look to you very much like every other cab driver. But study
him until you can describe him so that he is seen in your description to be an
individual, different from every other cab driver in the world."
This
is the real meaning of that trite talk about getting an intimate knowledge of a
product and its consumers. Most of us stop too soon in the process of getting
it. If the surface differences are not striking we assume that there are no
differences. But if we go deeply enough, or far enough, we nearly always find
that between every product and some consumers there is an individuality of
relationship which may lead to an idea.
Thus,
for example, I could cite you the advertising for a well-known soap. At first
there appeared nothing to say about it that had not been said for many soaps.
But
a study was made of the relation of soap to skin and hair-a study which resulted
in a fair-sized book on the subject. And out of this book came copy ideas for
five years of advertising; ideas which multiplied the sales of this soap by ten
in that period. This is what is meant by gathering specific materials.
Of
equal importance with the gathering of these specific materials is the
continuous process of gathering general materials.
Every
really good creative person in advertising whom I have ever known has always had
two noticeable characteristics. First, there was no subject under the sun in
which he could not easily get interested-from, say Egyptian burial customs to
Modern Art. Every facet of life had fascination for him. Second, he was an
extensive browser in all sorts of fields of information. For it is with the
advertising man as with the cow: no browsing, no milk.
Now
this gathering of general materials is important because this is where the
previously stated principle comes innamely, that an idea is nothing more nor
less than a new combination of elements. In advertising an idea results from a
new combination of specific knowledge about products and people with general
knowledge about life and events.
The
process is something like that which takes place in the kaleidoscope. The
kaleidoscope, as you know, is an instrument which designers sometimes use in
searching for new patterns. It has little pieces of colored glass in it, and
when these are viewed through a prism they reveal all sorts of geometrical
designs. Every turn of its crank shifts these bits of glass into a new
relationship and reveals a new pattern. The mathematical possibilities of such
new combinations in the kaleidoscope are enormous, and the greater the number of
pieces of glass in it the greater become the possibilities for new and striking
combinations.
So
it is with the production of ideas for advertising-or anything else. The
construction of an advertisement is the construction of a new pattern in this
kaleidoscopic world in which we live. The more of the elements of that world
which are stored away in that pattern-making machine, the mind, the more the
chances are increased for the production of new and striking combinations, or
ideas. Advertising students who get restless about the "practical"
value of general college subjects might consider this.
This,
then, is the first step in the technique of producing ideas: the gathering of
materials. Part of it, you will see, is a current job and part of it is a
life-long job. Before passing on to the next step there are two practical
suggestions I might make about this material-gathering process.
The
first is that if you have any sizable job of specific material gathering to do
it is useful to learn the card-index method of doing it.
This
is simply to get yourself a supply of those little 3 x 5 ruled white cards, and
use them to write down the items of specific information as you gather them. If
you do this, one item to a card, after a while you can begin to classify them by
sections of your subject. Eventually you will have a whole file box of them,
neatly classified.
The
advantage of this method is not merely in such things as bringing order into
your work, and disclosing gaps in your knowledge. It lies even more in the fact
that it keeps you from shirking the material-gathering job; and by forcing your
mind to go through the expression of your material in writing really prepares it
to perform its idea-producing processes. The second suggestion is that for
storing up certain kinds of general material some method of doing it like a
scrapbook or file is useful.
You
will remember the famous scrapbooks which appear throughout the Sherlock Holmes
stories, and how the master detective spent his spare time indexing and
cross-indexing the odd bits of material he gathered there. We run across an
enormous amount of fugitive material which can be grist to the idea-producer's
mill-newspaper clippings, publication articles, and original observations. Out
of such material it is possible to build a useful source book of ideas.
Once
I jotted in such a book the question: "Why does every man hope his first
child will be a boy?" Five years later it became the headline and idea for
one of the most successful advertisements I ever produced.
Now,
assuming that you have done a workmanlike job of gathering material that you
have really worked at the first step-what is the next part of the process that
the mind must go through? It is the process of masticating these materials, as
you would food that you are preparing for digestion.
This
part of the process is harder to describe in concrete terms because it goes on
entirely inside your head.
What
you do is to take the different bits of material which you have gathered and
feel them all over, as it were, with the tentacles of the mind. You take one
fact, turn it this way and that, look at it in different lights, and feel for
the meaning of it. You bring two facts together and see how they fit.
What
you are seeking now is the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come
together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle.
And
here a strange element comes in. This is that facts sometimes yield up their
meaning quicker when you do not scan them too directly, too literally. You
remember the winged messenger whose wings could only be seen when glanced at
obliquely? It is like that. In fact, it is almost like listening for the meaning
instead of looking for it. When creative people are in this stage of the process
they get their reputation for absent-mindedness.
As
you go through this part of the process two things will happen. First, little
tentative or partial ideas will come to you. Put these down on paper. Never mind
how crazy or incomplete they seem: get them down. These are foreshadowings of
the real idea that is to come, and expressing these in words forwards the
process. Here again the little 3 x 5 cards are useful.
The
second thing that will happen is that, by and by, you will get very tired of
trying to fit your puzzle together. Let me beg of you not to get tired too soon.
The mind, too, has a second wind. Go after at least this second layer of mental
energy in this process. Keep trying to get one or more partial thoughts onto
your little cards.
But
after a while you will reach the hopeless stage. Everything is a jumble in your
mind, with no clear insight anywhere. When you reach this point, if you have
first really persisted in efforts to fit your puzzle together, then the second
stage in the whole process is completed, and you are ready for the third one.
In
this third stage you make absolutely no effort of a direct nature. You drop the
whole subject, and put the problem out of your mind as completely as you can.
It
is important to realize that this is just as definite and just as necessary a
stage in the process as the two preceding ones. What you have to do at this
time, apparently, is to turn the problem over to your unconscious mind, and let
it work while you sleep.
There
is one thing you can do in this stage which will help both to put the problem
out of consciousness and to stimulate the unconscious, creative processes.
You
remember how Sherlock Holmes used to stop right in the middle of a case and drag
Watson off to a concert? That was a very irritating procedure to the practical
and literal-minded Watson. But Conan Doyle was a creator and knew the creative
processes.
So
when you reach this third stage in the production of an idea, drop the problem
completely, and turn to whatever stimulates your imagination and emotions.
Listen to music, go to the theatre or movies, read poetry or a detective story.
In
the first stage you have gathered your food. In the second you have masticated
it well. Now the digestive process is on. Let it alone-but stimulate the flow of
gastric juices. (end of second and beginning of third step) and the instant that
I woke in the morning (end of third step) saw before me, apparently projected on
the ceiling, the completely worked out process and equipment in operation."
(Fourth step.)
This
is the way ideas come: after you have stopped straining for them, and have
passed through a period of rest and relaxation from the search.
Thus
the story about Sir Isaac Newton and his discovery of the law of gravitation is
probably not the whole truth. You will remember that when a lady asked the
famous scientist how he came to make the discovery he is said to have replied,
"By constantly thinking about it."
It
was by constantly thinking about it that he made the discovery possible. But I
suspect that if we knew the full history of the case we should find that the
actual solution came while he was taking a walk in the country.
One
more stage you have to pass through to complete the idea-producing process: the
stage which might be called the cold, grey dawn of the morning after.
In
this stage you have to take your little newborn idea out into the world of
reality. And when you do you usually find that it is not quite the marvelous
child it seemed when you first gave birth to it.
It
requires a deal of patient working over to make most ideas fit the exact
conditions, or the practical exigencies, under which they must work. And here is
where many good ideas are lost. The idea man, like the inventor, is often not
patient enough or practical enough to go through with this adapting part of the
process. But it has to be done if you are to put ideas to work in a work-a-day
world.
Do
not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest at this stage.
Submit it to the criticism of the judicious.
When
you do, a surprising thing will happen. You will find that a good idea has, as
it were, self-expanding qualities. It stimulates those who see it to add to it.
Thus possibilities in it which you have overlooked will come to light.
This,
then, is the whole process or method by which ideas are produced
First,
the gathering of raw materialsboth the materials of your immediate problem and
the materials which come from a constant enrichment of your store of general
knowledge.
Second,
the working over of these materials in your mind.
Third,
the incubating stage, where you let something beside the conscious mind do the
work of synthesis.
Fourth,
the actual birth of the Ideathe "Eureka! I have it!" stage.
And
fifth, the final shaping and development of the idea to practical usefulness.
Let
me express my gratification at the number of letters which have come to me from
readers of the earlier editions. The most gratifying have come from people who
say "It works!"-that they have fol-
lowed
the prescription and gotten results. Many have been from other creative people,
entirely outside advertisingpoets, painters, engineers, scientists, and
even
one writer of legal briefs-who say I have described their own experience. This
supporting evidence will, I hope, encourage the beginner.
From
my own further experience in advertising, government, and public affairs I find
no essential points which I would modify in the idea-producing process. There is
one, however, on which I would put greater emphasis. This is as to the store of
general materials in the ideaproducer's reservoir. I beg leave to illustrate
this by a personal reference.
Some
years ago I established my home in New Mexico, and have been living there most
of each year since. As a result I became interested in a whole new range of
subjects, including Indian life, our Spanish history, native handicrafts,
folkways of primitive people, etc.
Out
of this grew some ideas about the possibilities of marketing some of the
products of that region, by mail. I started with one of them-hand-woven neckties
-wrote some advertisements about them, and copy-tested them. The result was a
very tidy and interesting business.
The
point is this: not only did the idea for starting the business come out of a
general knowledge of the Southwest and its people, but all of the particular
ideas for individual advertisements came from this source. If I had never gotten
interested in Indian lore, Spanish-American history, the Spanish language, the
handicraft philosophy, and so on, for their own sake, I would have had none of
the reservoir of material which I believe made this advertising effective.
I
have seen the truth of this principle a thousand times in practice. There are
some advertisements you just cannot write until you have lived long enough
until, say, you have lived through certain experiences as a spouse, a parent, a
business man, or what not. The cycle of the years does something to fill your
reservoir, unless you refuse to live spatially and emotionally.
But
you can also enormously expand your experience, vicariously. It was the author
of Sard Harker, I believe, who had never been to South America, yet wrote a
corking good adventure book about it. I am convinced, however, that you gather
this vicarious experience best, not when you are boning up on it for an
immediate purpose, but when you are pursuing it as an end in itself.
Of
course, if you consider that your education was finished when you left college,
and wouldn't be caught dead with a copy of, say, one of Jane Austen's novels
under your pillow, go no farther. In that case you will probably never know how
the landed gentry of nineteenth century England scorned people "in
trade," nor have any ideas about why the Hudson River Squire strain in this
country does the same. And that just possibly, some day, might keep you from
producing a really effective series of "snob appeal" advertisements
for the "carriage trade." Of course, this is a disappearing race, so
maybe it doesn't matter.
But
the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and
vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job. Make no mistake
about that.
Another
point to encourage you. No doubt you have seen people who seem to spark
ideas-good ideas-right off the "top of their heads," without ever
going through all this process which I have described.
Sometimes
you have only seen the "Eureka! I have it!" stage take place. But
sometimes you have also seen the fruits of long discipline in the practices here
advocated. This discipline produces a mind so well stocked, and so quick at
discerning relationships, as to be capable of such fast production.
Still
another point I might elaborate on a little is about words. We tend to forget
that words are, themselves, ideas. They might be called ideas in a state of
suspended animation. When the words are mastered the ideas tend to come alive
again.
Take
the word "semantics," for example. The chances are you will never use
it in an advertisement. But if you have it in your vocabulary you will have a
number of ideas about the use of words as symbols which will be of very
practical value indeed. (If you don't have it in your vocabulary, look up
Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action.)
Thus,
words being symbols of ideas, we can collect ideas by collecting words. The
fellow who said he tried reading the dictionary, but couldn't get the hang of
the story, simply missed the point: namely, that it is a collection of short
stories.
And,
finally, let me suggest a few other books which will expand your understanding
of this whole idea-producing process
The
Art of Thought by Graham Wallas. Published by Jonathan Cape, Ltd., London.
Science
and Method by H. Poincaré. Translation by F. Maitland. Published by Thos.
Nelson & Sons, London.
The
Art of Scientific Investigation by W.I.B. Beveridge. A Modern Library paperback
edition.
Designed
by
MERLE ARMITAGE