Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.—Bacon.

Any attempt to formulate a science or art of thinking would not be complete with-out at least some dis-cus-sion of writ-ing. Indeed writing is so closely bound up with thinking that I have been compelled to refer to it several times in the discussion of thought and reading.

I have already spoken of writing as an aid to con-cen-tration. I was wont to depreciate it on account of its slowness. But this is practically its only fault. Thoughts come to us when writing which we get in no other way. One is often surprised, when reading some-thing one has written at a previous time, at some of the remarks made. We seem to have tem-por-arily grown wiser than ourselves.

But the great advantage of writing is that it preserves thought. What printing has done for human-i-ty in preserving the knowledge of the ages, writing will do for the individual in preserving his own reflections.

When some thought has occurred to us we believe at the time we are thinking it that it is ours forever. We cannot conceive that it shall ever be forgotten. Perish that belief! I have sometimes had an idea occur to me (really!), and have believed it ab-so-lute-ly new, at least so far as I was con-cerned. But on looking over things writ-ten before, I have found that I had had almost iden-ti-cal-ly the same thought at another time. Not only did I forget the idea; I did not even recognize it at its second appearance. To be sure, in these cases the thoughts came a second time. But thoughts are seldom so obliging.

Therefore when an idea occurs or when you have solved a problem, even a problem suggested by a book, you should immediately put the idea or solution in writing. You may of course wait until the end of the day. But the safest way of capturing an idea is to write it the minute after it flashes through your brain, or it may be lost forever. It was with this in mind that in the chapter on reading I advised immediately writing not only ideas but problems which occurred to one. The discovery of a new problem is just as important and necessary for in-tel-lec-tual advance as the solution of an old one. If we do not write our problems we are apt to forget they exist; we put ourselves in danger of assuming without question some proposition which is not true.

To facilitate the writing of your thoughts and meditations I suggest a notebook kept specially for that purpose. In addition to this you should always carry about with you some blank paper and a pencil, so as to be ever ready to jot down anything. To write an idea does not of course imply that you cannot later reject it, or change it, or develop it further.

The elusiveness of thoughts is most strikingly brought out when writing them down. When we are writing a long sentence we have in mind the exact words with which we are going to finish it. But our attention is called for the moment to the physical act of writing, and presto!—the words are gone; we are compelled to end our sentence in a different way. I have mentioned the advantages of shorthand and typewriting for keeping pace with thought. I need merely repeat my advice to use these acquirements if you have them. Thoughts, I must repeat, are fleeting. No device for trapping them should be despised.

Not least among the advantages of a notebook in which to write thoughts is the permanent historical record it gives. Every thought we write should be dated, day, month and year, like a letter. When we come to read over ideas jotted down from time to time in this manner, we shall see before us an in-tel-lec-tual autobiography. We shall see how our recent thoughts compare with those written sometime ago. We shall see just what our opinions were at certain times, and how they have changed. And we shall see whether our mental progress has been marked, or whether we have been standing still.

It may be considered absurd to suggest that every thought you write in your note-book be put in the best style you can command. We are wont to differentiate “style” and “matter.” It is doubtful whether this distinction is quite valid. It is doubtful whether we know just what we mean when we make it. Indeed Arnold Bennett goes so far as to say:

“Style cannot be distinguished from matter. When a writer conceives an idea he conceives it in the form of words. That form of words constitutes his style, and it is absolutely governed by the idea. The idea can only exist in words, it can only exist in one form of words. You cannot say exactly the same thing in two different ways. Slightly alter the expression, and you slightly alter the idea. Surely it is obvious that the expression cannot be altered without altering the thing expressed! The writer, having conceived and expressed an idea, may, and probably will, ‘polish it up.’ But what does he polish up? To say that he polishes up his style is merely to say that he polishes up his idea, that he has discovered faults and imperfections in his idea, and is perfecting it. The idea exists in proportion as it is expressed; it exists when it is expressed, and not before. It expresses itself. A clear idea is expressed clearly and a vague idea vaguely.”21

Mr. Bennett, I suspect, is a victim of ex-ag-ger-a-tion. But this much is true: Thought and style are mutually dependent to a far greater degree than is generally supposed. Not only will an im-prove-ment in a thought improve its wording; an im-prove-ment in word-ing will im-prove the thought.

Now as to the application of this. I have referred to the occurrence in reading of “inarticulate” objections. The sole reason these are inarticulate is because the objection is too vague even to find expression. In a case like this we should word our objection the best we can, no matter how ridiculous or indefensible it at first sounds. But we should word it in as many ways as possible; we should say it in all different sorts of ways; we should write it in every different kind of way. Gradually our objection will become definite, clear, forceful. In short, we shall not only have improved our way of stating our thought; we shall have improved the thought itself. To study clearness of statement or acquisition of vocabulary is to study means of improving thought. Your notebook should not be used solely for the entry of “thoughts” as such, but any striking way of wording a thought which occurs to you should likewise be immediately written.

But while there is some truth in Arnold Bennett’s statement that the wording is the thought, from another point of view its very opposite is true. The wording is never the thought. Strictly speaking, “thought” is something which can exist only in the mind. It can never be transferred to paper. What then is it that we write? If words and sentences are not thought, what are they? If they are not thought how is it possible to transfer thought through the medium of writing?

The fact is that words, though they are not thought, are the associates of thought. You hear the word “horse.” Very likely the visual image of a horse arises in mind. This image, idea, notion, “concept,” will depend on your experience of par-tic-u-lar horses. It will never be a logical abstract of these. It will never be a horse without color, par-tic-u-lar size, sex or breed, as is sometimes thought. It may however have different elements in it from different horses you have seen. It may be the image of just one par-tic-u-lar horse you remember. But no such thing as a general concept exists in the mind. We have a par-tic-u-lar image which stands for all horses. The name of course is general. It—or its definition—may be called the logical concept. But the name itself is not used in thought. It is an arbitrary symbol which serves merely to arouse a par-tic-u-lar image associated with it, and this image is dealt with as if general. This image we shall call the concept. It is the working concept: the psy-cho-log-i-cal as opposed to the logical concept.

As your concept of a horse will ............