On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:04:27 -0800, engr wrote to 43 Folders:
>
> What I love about this group is the old fashion thinking process going
> on (in the best sence of the phrase). These are similar issues as
> Ernest Dimnet in " The Art of Thinking" delt with in early 1900's. His
> book is out of print but available at Amazon - used. During the late
> 19th centry and early 20th century there were a number of writers and
> thinkers that delved into organizing their thinking and actions in an
> age that only had paper and pencile.
Here's a Dimnet quote lifted from the "Just Thinking" weblog,
http://justthinking.typepad.com/nordenson/2004/10/a_journal_of_on.html
Ernst Dimnet, author of The Art of Thinking (1930) wrote, "A diary, a
few old letters, a few sheets containing thoughts or meditations, may
keep up the connection between us today and our better selves of the
past. I was deeply impressed as a youth by the advice of a spiritual
writer to read one's own spiritual notes preferably to even famous
works. All saints seem to have done so. The moment we realize that any
thought, ours or borrowed, is pregnant enough not to be wasted, or
original enough not to be likely to come back again, we must fix it on
paper. Our manuscripts should mirror our reading, our meditations, our
ideals, and our approach to it in our lives. Anybody who has early
taken the habit to record himself in that way knows that the loss of
his papers would also mean a loss to his thinking possibilities."
Thanks to inter-library loan in SE Michigan (http://www.mile.coop) I
got a 1928 volume from a local university library. The little googling I did was that the book was a best-seller in the 1930s.
