highly educated merchant who was born in Vienna. He was master of German. Spanish, French, Greek and Latin. His visual imagination was remarkable. He no sooner thought of persons or things than, in his imagination, they stood before him with all the clearness, sharpness and accuracy of the real object. He could add difficult columns of figures by seeing them solely in his imagination.
To depend almost entirely upon one form of imagination is often a handicap. One of the masters knew this and, in teaching art, had his pupils not only draw from memory to cultivate their visual imagination, but also had them follow the outlines of objects by moving their pencils around in the air to force them to cultivate their muscular imagination.
A curious application of this is cited by a foreign observer, whose quarters were visited by some North American Indians. The drawings in magazines which they saw there struck their fancy, and one of them, who wished to make a similar drawing on returning to his wigwam, followed the outline of the drawing with the point of his knife, so he could carve it better on his return home.
There are some inventors whose muscular imagination is so defective that they are unable to construct the machines they invent. They have to make drawings of them or describe them to someone with a good muscular imagination who builds the models.
It is visual imagination which is the greatest help for invention. Some wonderful mechanics are poor inventors because they have cultivated their muscular rather than visual imagination. The following tests may help you not only to cultivate your imagination but also to develop it:
Where is the strong part of your imagination? Grade yourself from 0 to 3 on each question as follows:
0, if you are unable to imagine it at all;
1, if you can imagine it only faintly;
2, if your imagination of it is fairly strong;
3, if it is as vivid as though it were actually present.
Visual imagination:
Try to imagine the west side of the house you are now living in.
How is your imagination of a mixed bouquet of carnations and roses?
