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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 linage 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
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prejudice to the practice of abstract thought in symbols, is one
of the many pressing desiderata in the yet unformed science of
education.
This consideration of the faculty of, and culture of, the
Imagination, may appropriately be concluded by the following
quotation from Prof. Halleck, which shows the danger of
misuse and abuse of this important faculty. The aforesaid wellknown
authority says: From its very nature, the imagination
is peculiarly liable to abuse. The common practices of daydreaming
or castle-building are both morally and physically