Nothing is permanent except change. Life resembles a great kaleidoscope before which Time is ever shifting, changing and rearranging both the stage setting and the players. New friends are constantly replacing the old. Everything is in a state of flux. In every heart is the seed of both rascality and justice. Every human being is both a criminal and a saint, depending upon the expediency of the moment as to which will assert itself. Honesty and dishonesty are largely matters of individual viewpoint. The weak and the strong, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the well-informed are exchanging places continuously.
Know YOURSELF and you know the entire human race. There is but one real achievement, and that is the ability to THINK ACCURATELY. We move with the procession, or behind it, but we cannot stand still.
NOTHING is permanent except change! In the picture above you see proof that the law of evolution is working out improvements in the methods methods of travel. Remember, as you study this picture, that all these changes took place first in the minds of men.
At the extreme left you see the first crude method of transportation. Man was not satisfied with this slow process. Those two little words "not satisfied," have been the starting point of all advancement. Think of them as you read this article.
Next, in the picture, you see the history of transportation step by step, as man's brain began to expand. It was a long step forward when man discovered how to hitch a bullock to a wagon and thereby escape the toil of pulling the load. That was practical utility. But, when the stage-coach was ushered into use that was both utility and style. Still man was "not satisfied" and this dissatisfaction created the crude locomotive that you see in the picture.
Now all these methods of travel have been discarded except in certain uncivilized (or uncommercialized) parts of the world. The man drawing the cart, the bullock drawing the cart, the stage-coach and the crude locomotive all belong to ages that have passed.
At the right you see the transportation methods of the present. Compare them with those of the past and you may have a fair idea of the enormous expansion that has taken place in the brain and mind of man. Man now moves about more rapidly than in the past. From the first type of locomotive there has been evolved a powerful machine capable of hauling a hundred cars of freight, compared with the one small light car that could be drawn with the original. Automobiles that travel at the speed of seventy-five miles an hour are now as common as were the two-wheel carts in ages past. Moreover, they are within the means of all who want them.
And still man's mind was "not satisfied." Travel on the earth was too slow. Turning his eyes upward he watched the birds soaring high in the elements and became "DETERMINED" to excel them. Study, also, the word "determined," for whatever man becomes determined to do man does! Within the brief period of fifteen years man has mastered the air and now travels in the airplane at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
Not only has man made the air carry him at amazingly rapid speed, but he has harnessed the ether and made it carry his words all the way around the earth in the fractional part of a second.
· · · · · · · ·
We have been describing the PAST and the PRESENT!
At the bottom of the picture we may see the next step forward that man will take in methods of travel; a machine that will fly in the air, run on the ground and swim in the water, at the discretion of man.
The purpose of this essay and the picture at the top of the page is to provide food for THOUGHT!
Any influence that causes one to think causes one, also, to grow stronger mentally. Mind stimulants are essential for growth. From the days of the man-drawn cart to the present days of air mastery the only progress that any man has made has been the result of some influence that stimulated his mind to greater than normal action.
The two great major influences that cause the mind of man to grow are the urge of necessity and the urge of desire to create. Some minds develop only after they have undergone failure and defeat and other forms of punishment which arouse them to greater action. Other minds wither away and die under punishment, but grow to unbelievable heights when provided with the opportunity to use their imaginative forces in a creative way.
Study the picture of the evolution of transportation and you will observe one outstanding fact worth remembering, namely, that the whole story has been one of development and advancement that grew out of necessity. The entire period described in the picture as "THE PAST" was one wherein the urge was that of necessity.
In the period described in the picture above as "THE PRESENT" the urge has been a combination of both necessity and the desire to create. The period described as "THE FUTURE" will be one in which the strong desire to create will be the sole urge that will drive man's mind on and on to heights as yet undreamed of.
It is a long distance from the days of the man-drawn cart to the present, when man has harnessed the lightning of the clouds and made it turn machinery that will perform as much service in a minute as ten thousand men could perform in a day. But, if the distance has been long the development of man's mind has been correspondingly great, and that development has been sufficient to eventually do the work of the world with machines operated by Nature's forces and not by man's muscles.
The evolutionary changes in the methods of transportation have created other problems for man's mind to solve. The automobile drove man to build better roads and more of them. The automobile and the speedy locomotive, combined, have created dangerous crossings which claim thousands of lives annually. Man's mind must now respond to the urge of "necessity" and meet this emergency.
Keep this essay and remember this prophecy:
Within five years every railroad crossing in the country will be amply protected against automobile accidents, and, the automobile, itself, will manipulate the system that will do the protecting; a system that will be fool-proof and effective; a system that will work whether the driver of the automobile is asleep or awake, drunk or sober.
Come, now, for a brief glimpse at the machinery of the imagination of man, as it works under the stimulant of desire to create.
Some imaginative man; perhaps some fellow who never did anything else of note and who will never do anything worth while again; will create a system of railroad crossing protection that will be operated by the weight of the passing automobile. Within the required distance from the crossing a platform similar to the platform of a large freight scale will cover an entire section of the roadway. As soon as an automobile mounts this platform the weight of the machine will lower a gate, ring a gong and flash a red light in front of the motorist. The gate will rise in one minute, allowing the motorist to pass over the track, thus forcing him to "stop, look and listen."
If you have a highly imaginative mind YOU may be the one who will create this system and collect the royalties from its sale.
To be practical the imaginative mind should be al. ways on the alert for ways and means of diverting waste motion and power into useful channels. Most automobiles are far too heavy in comparison with the load they carry. This weight can be utilized by making it provide the motorist with railroad crossing protection.
Remember, the purpose of this essay is to give you merely the seed of suggestion; not the finished product of an invention ready to set up and render service. The value to you, of this suggestion, lies in the possibility of THOUGHT that you may devote to it, thereby developing and expanding your own mind.
Study yourself and find out to which of the two great major urges to action your mind responds most naturally - the urge of necessity or the desire to create. If you have children, study them and determine to which of these two motives they respond most naturally. Millions of children have had their imagination dwarfed and retarded by parents who removed as much as possible of the urge of necessity. By "making it easy" for your child you may be depriving the world of a genius. Bear in mind the fact that most of the progress that man has made came as the result of bitter, biting NECESSITY!
· · · · · · · ·
You need no proof that methods of transportation have undergone a continuous process of evolution. So marked has the change been that the old one-lung type of automobile now provokes a laugh wherever it is found on the street.
The law of evolution is always and everywhere at work, changing, tearing down and rebuilding every material element on this earth and throughout the universe. Towns, cities and communities are undergoing constant change. Go back to the place where you lived twenty years ago and you will recognize neither the place nor the people. New faces will have made their appearance. The old faces will have changed. New buildings will have taken the place of the old. Everything will appear differently because everything will be different.
The human mind is also undergoing constant change. If this were not true we would never grow beyond the child-mind age. Every seven years the mind of a normal person becomes noticeably developed and expanded. It is during these periodical changes of the mind that bad habits may be left off and better habits cultivated. Fortunate for the human being that his mind is undergoing a continuous process of orderly change.
The mind that is driven by the urge of necessity, or out of love to create, develops more rapidly than does the mind that is never stimulated to greater action than that which is necessary for existence.
The imaginative faculty of the human mind is the greatest piece of machinery ever created. Out of it has come every man-made machine and every manmade object.
Back of the great industries and railroads and banking houses and commercial enterprises is the all-powerful force of IMAGINATION!
Force your mind to THINK! Proceed by combining old ideas into new plans. Every great invention and every outstanding business or industrial achievement that you can name is, in final analysis, but the application of a combination of plans and ideas that have been used before, in some other manner.
"Back of the beating hammer
By which the steel is wrought, Back of the workshop's clamor
The seeker may find the Thought; The thought that is ever Master
Of iron and steam and steel, That rises above disaster
And tramples it under heel.
"The drudge may fret and tinker
Or labor with lusty blows, But back of him stands the Thinker,
The clear-eyed man who knows; For into each plow or saber,
Each piece and part and whole, Must go the brains of labor,
Which gives the work a soul.
"Back of the motor's humming,
Back of the bells that ring, Back of the hammer's drumming,
Back of the cranes that swing, There is the Eye which scans them,
Watching through stress and strain, There is the Mind which plans them –
Back of the brawn, the Brain.
"Might of the roaring boiler,
Force of the engine's thrust, Strength of the sweating toiler,
Greatly in these we trust; But back of them stands the schemer,
The Thinker who drives things through, Back of the job - the Dreamer
Who's making the dream come true."
Six months or a year from now come back and read this essay again and you will observe how much more you will get from it than you did at first reading. TIME gives the law of evolution a chance to expand your mind so it can see and understand more.
I HAVE YET TO FIND THE FIRST MAN WHO AMOUNTED TO VERY MUCH WHO HAD NOT THE HABIT OF DOING MORE COURAGE TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS OWN MISTAKES WITHOUT BEING ACCUSED.
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