The Creative Process in the Individual | Page 2

the triumph of principle over precedent, of the
working out of an idea to its logical conclusions in spite of the
accumulated testimony of all past experience to the contrary; and with
such a notable example before us can we say that it is futile to enquire
whether by the same method we may not unlock still more important
secrets and gain some knowledge of the unseen causes which are at the
back of external and visible conditions, and then by bringing these
unseen causes into a better order make practical working realities of
possibilities which at present seem but fantastic dreams? It is at least
worth while taking a preliminary canter over the course, and this is all
that this little volume professes to attempt; yet this may be sufficient to
show the lay of the ground.
Now the first thing in any investigation is to have some idea of what
you are looking for--to have at least some notion of the general
direction in which to go--just as you would not go up a tree to find fish
though you would for birds' eggs. Well, the general direction in which
we all want to go is that of getting more out of Life than we have ever
got out of it--we want to be more alive in ourselves and to get all sorts
of improved conditions in our environment. However happily any of us
may be circumstanced we can all conceive something still better, or at
any rate we should like to make our present good permanent; and since
we shall find as our studies advance that the prospect of increasing
possibilities keeps opening out more and more widely before us, we
may say that what we are in search of is the secret of getting more out

of Life in a continually progressive degree. This means that what we
are looking for is something personal, and that it is to be obtained by
producing conditions which do not yet exist; in other words it is
nothing less than the exercise of a certain creative power in the sphere
of our own particular world. So, then, what we want is to introduce our
own Personal Factor into the realm of unseen causes. This is a big thing,
and if it is possible at all it must be by some sequence of cause and
effect, and this sequence it is our object to discover. The law of Cause
and Effect is one we can never get away from, but by carefully
following it up we may find that it will lead us further than we had
anticipated.
Now, the first thing to observe is that if we can succeed in finding out
such a sequence of cause and effect as the one we are in search of,
somebody else may find out the same creative secret also; and then, by
the hypothesis of the case, we should both be armed with an infallible
power, and if we wanted to employ this power against each other we
should be landed in the "impasse" of a conflict between two powers
each of which was irresistible. Consequently it follows that the first
principle of this power must be Harmony. It cannot be antagonizing
itself from different centers--in other words its operation in a
simultaneous order at every point is the first necessity of its being.
What we are in search of, then, is a sequence of cause and effect so
universal in its nature as to include harmoniously all possible variations
of individual expression. This primary necessity of the Law for which
we are seeking should be carefully borne in mind, for it is obvious that
any sequence which transgresses this primary essential must be
contrary to the very nature of the Law itself, and consequently cannot
be conducting us to the exercise of true creative power.
What we are seeking, therefore, is to discover how to arrange things in
such an order as to set in motion a train of causation that will
harmonize our own conditions without antagonizing the exercise of a
like power by others. This therefore means that all individual exercise
of this power is the particular application of a universal power which
itself operates creatively on its own account independently of these
individual applications; and the harmony between the various

individual applications is brought about by all the individuals bringing
their own particular action into line with this independent creative
action of the original power. It is in fact another application of Euclid's
axiom that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another; so that though I may not know for what purpose some one
may be using this creative power in Pekin, I do know that if he and I
both realize its