A man's mind, left free, has no use for his help. But there is one
way whereby he can get its help when he desires it.

Y.M. What is that way?

O.M. When your mind is racing along from subject to subject and
strikes an inspiring one, open your mouth and begin talking upon that
matter--or--take your pen and use that. It will interest your mind and
concentrate it, and it will pursue the subject with satisfaction. It
will take full charge, and furnish the words itself.

Y.M. But don't I tell it what to say?

O.M. There are certainly occasions when you haven't time. The words leap
out before you know what is coming.

Y.M. For instance?

O.M. Well, take a "flash of wit"--repartee. Flash is the right word.
It is out instantly. There is no time to arrange the words. There is no
thinking, no reflecting. Where there is a wit-mechanism it is automatic
in its action and needs no help. Where the wit-mechanism is lacking, no
amount of study and reflection can manufacture the product.

Y.M. You really think a man originates nothing, creates nothing.

The Thinking-Process

O.M. I do. Men perceive, and their brain-machines automatically combine
the things perceived. That is all.

Y.M. The steam-engine?

O.M. It takes fifty men a hundred years to invent it. One meaning of
invent is discover. I use the word in that sense. Little by little they
discover and apply the multitude of details that go to make the perfect
engine. Watt noticed that confined steam was strong enough to lift the
lid of the teapot. He didn't create the idea, he merely discovered the
fact; the cat had noticed it a hundred times. From the teapot he evolved
the cylinder--from the displaced lid he evolved the piston-rod. To
attach something to the piston-rod to be moved by it, was a simple
matter--crank and wheel. And so there was a working engine. (1)

One by one, improvements were discovered by men who used their eyes,
not their creating powers--for they hadn't any--and now, after a hundred
years the patient contributions of fifty or a hundred observers stand
compacted in the wonderful machine which drives the ocean liner.

Y.M. A Shakespearean play?

O.M. The process is the same. The first actor was a savage. He
reproduced in his theatrical war-dances, scalp-dances, and so on,
incidents which he had seen in real life. A more advanced civilization
produced more incidents, more episodes; the actor and the story-teller
borrowed them. And so the dram