354 CREATIVE SCIENCE 



abrupt crystallization of some such possibility, like the almost ex- 

 ]3losive freezing of a supercooled lake, breaks into consciousness with 

 the typical Gestalt sensations of sudden release, perfect complete- 

 ness, and absolute certainty. The sense of certainty may of course 

 prove unjustified. Initiated by hard work of preparation, intuition 

 must be followed by hard work of confirmation— as noted by Kekule 

 in concluding the account of his own "Eureka experience." 



Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, then perhaps we shall find the 

 truth. . . . But let us beware of publishing our dreams till they have 

 been tested by the waking understanding. 



Lorenz considers the insight achieved in a "Eureka experience" 

 distinctly superior to anything that conscious reasoning can produce, 

 because 



. . . intuition, like other highly difi^erentiated types of Gestalt per- 

 ception, is able to draw into simultaneous consideration a far greater 

 number of premises than any of our conscious conclusions. 



Lorenz may well be right, but I have seen no demonstration that 

 subliminal thought is capable of any feats inaccessible to fully fo- 

 cused thinking. If I look at one of Josef Albers' figures on the frontis- 

 piece of this book I can see but one pattern. Blinking, or letting my 

 eyes slide in and out of focus, I suddenly see a wholly different pat- 

 tern. But I can achieve the same end through the deliberate effort to 

 reconstruct, or "see differently," certain sections of the figure which 

 seem to me awkwardnesses in the first pattern. By the sustained effort 

 of scientific genius apparently definitive categories can be broken up, 

 apparently inseparable logical ties can be ruptured, hidden assump- 

 tions can be dredged up to view, a new pattern can be systematically 

 created from pieces of the old. But, equally, subconscious thought 

 may succeed where fully focused thought has not yet prevailed. In 

 either case the ultimate achievement is often the same— and such as to 

 make utterly unrecapturable the original innovator's experience of in- 

 sight. For as Koestler points out— in his analysis of the work of Archi- 

 medes that furnishes the (possibly apocryphal) prototype of all 

 "Eureka" experiences— that insight links forever after what had ever 

 before been separate. 



The immense difficulty, the creative originality of this matchmaking 

 is not apparent in the smooth syllogistic schema. The schema gives 



