PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
engaged in a like occupation. This is the incomplete stage—all right so far as it goes, and often useful to the extent of supplying raw materials for higher efforts, but insufficient in itself—proper for purposes of recreation, but useless if it extends no further.
Leaving our primitive dreamer, we ask you now to contemplate the primitive man who “imagines for a purpose,” who “imagines to a definite end”—see how different is this picture from that just contemplated.
Our primitive man with the dawning Constructive Imagination perceived the inadequacy of his natural physical equipment employed in his work of selfpreservation, offense and defense, protection of his family, and in his striving for comfort and wellbeing. By means of such “imagining” this class of primitive man raised the race from its position of physical weakness and comparative helplessness, to its present position of dominance over the entire world of living things. What nature had denied man in physical weapons, he supplied to himself through the exercise of his Constructive Imagination. Constructive Imagination raised Man from his original lowly place in the world of living things to his present eminence and rank. By means of its power, Man has attained heights which would have seemed far beyond him to one observing him in his original state.
Man, in his original or aboriginal state, might well have been regarded by a visitor from a higher world as a most unpromising candidate for survival in the struggle for existence—let alone for the position of mastery and rulership over the other living creatures contemporaneous with himself. He was a much weaker animal than most of the others; he was less fleet of foot, and less agile in his movements; he was less well equipped with tooth and claw. The great sabretoothed tigers, the huge reptiles, and the other powerful and ferocious animals of his environment, were far better adapted for the struggle for existence than was this poor, puny, weak creature called Man. It would have required a courageous imagination to pick Man as the probable winner in the struggle for existence, and the victor in the process of the survival of the fittest.
But this weak creature—this puny and insignificant animal—possessed the latent power of Constructive Imagination by which he was enabled to overcome his natural obstacles. By means of this mental power he was enabled to invent and to employ the implements, tools, and weapons with which he waged a defensive and offensive warfare against the fierce creatures of his environment; and to create the material contrivances with which he was able to overcome the handicaps of his environment with which Nature at first might have seemed deliberately to have burdened him. By means of this latent power he proved himself to be the “fittest” to survive, and the true victor in the struggle for existence.
Man lacked the strong teeth and claws of the carnivorous animals—but he created artificial claws and teeth, imitating those which Nature had so freely bestowed upon the lower animals, by making from the hard flint the spears, axes and knives, specimens of which we now find buried in the earth. By creating strong clubs from the limbs and branches of trees, he equaled and even surpassed the strikingweapons of the great beasts. By creating bowsandarrows, he managed to overcome the handicaps of space, and was able to touch his enemies while himself beyond their reach. He took a hint from the caves and dens of the beasts, and improved upon them for his own occupancy. He took a hint from the birds, and improved upon their elevated nests by building for himself safe refuges in the cliffs and the high trees, reaching these by ladders of his own construction. He “imagined” the plan of rolling great rocks before the entrances of his caves and dens; and he afterward
“imagined” the protecting doors of wood, and windows—and later, chimneys.
He “imagined” the idea of hurling stones at his enemies by means of slings, great bows and primitive catapults, and of rolling large boulders down the mountain sides upon his enemies below. He “imagined” the idea of improving upon the floating log—in turn creating rafts, flatboats, hollowedout logs; he “imagined” the idea of the directing and propelling poles, paddles and oars. He observed the rolling log, and from it he “imagined” the solid clumsy wheel—then the lighter, spoked wheel—and was thus enabled to move heavy objects over long distances with comparative ease.
He “imagined” the pulley and the lever, and learned to apply them. He “imagined” implements with which to mash his food, and grind his grain. He “imagined” the primitive hoe, and the crude irrigation or draining ditch. He “imagined” the idea of using the skins of animals as clothing for himself, to protect him against the weather. He “imagined” the idea of employing portions of trees for tentbuilding. He adapted common natural things, and converted them into uncommon artificial appliances for his comfort and welfare. And, finally, oh, wonder of wonders! he “imagined” the art and science of making and using fire!
And ever since, Man has continued to “imagine” things—ways of overcoming natural obstacles and handicaps, ways of converting natural things to his own use, comfort, and happiness. He “imagined” all of these things, little by little—and created them in material, objective form, following the outlines of his mental subjective form. And he still continues to “imagine” things—greater things, larger things, more complex things. He will always continue to so “imagine” things—for that is his characteristic quality, his Constructive Imagination, which distinguishes him from the lower animals. Those of the race who were successful constructive “imaginers”—either as individuals or as tribes or peoples—survived in the struggle, while the failures were crowded to the wall, or “went under.” The “fittest” constructive imaginers survived, and passed on to their descendants their knowledge, and transmitted to them their mental tendencies. Thus Man has evolved into the “imagining” animal—the creating creature.
Those individuals, or peoples of the race; who failed to keep up with the procession of the constructive “imaginers,” if not actually crowded out and destroyed in the struggle, survived only to become the parasites or the slaves of the conquerors. The slave races have always possessed less developed powers of Constructive Imagination than have their masters—when slaves develop Constructive Imagination, they cease to remain slaves. When the germ of Constructive Imagination begins to work in the minds of a subject people, that people is on the way to freedom—history may be read in the light of this fact. The physical might of the masters in the end surrenders to the mental might of the onetime slaves. The cunning of the fox has often overthrown the physical strength of the lion.
The struggle for existence is still underway. The survival of the fittest is a fact of modern human existence, as well as of the past history of the race—and of the world in general. But now, more than ever, Constructive Imagination is the great element of the struggle—the great standard of the fitness to survive, succeed and accomplish. The people, the race, the nation, and the individual possessing the greatest degree of development and application of continuous and persistent Constructive Imagination will be found to be the “fittest” to survive, all else being equal—will prove to be the ultimate winner in the struggle for existence. If Man is ever succeeded by the Superman, as some have predicted, it will be found that the Superman is possessed of superior powers of Constructive Imagination, and of a greater faculty of exercising and applying them. Such is the Law of Evolution—of Progress—of Life.
This then is the second picture. Look upon the first picture, and then upon the one just presented to you. In the first you will see the figure of the primitive man who “just sat and thought; and sometimes just sat”—the “thinking” being merely “day dreaming” and Passive Imagination. In the second you will see the picture of the Real Thinker—so well depicted in Rodin’s magnificent figure of “The Thinker”; but his “thinking” is not “just thinking”—it is thinking for a purpose, and toward an end—it is Constructive Imagination directed toward a definite end and aim, and firmly held there until the right image is created; the image then being transmuted into material form.
“The Thinker” of Rodin’s figure is using his Imagination just as he has learned to use his Attention and his Will—deliberately, purposively, to a definite aim and end, and in a particular direction. He and his modern counterparts are evolving Creators. They are constructing, contriving, inventing, designing, planning, projecting—building in the mind that which afterward will be built in physical form. They are the Dreamers whose dreams shall