ACCURATE THINKING 689Infinite intelligence, by this example, may be likened to the one
who develops the sensitized plate after a picture has been recorded
on it, thus bringing the picture into physical reality.
COMMENTARY
The concept of what Hill refers to here as the "plate" is the same concept as roll
film, which was invented in the late 1800s by George Eastman, founder of Kodak
Eastman, and used then primarily by the amateur photographer. But perhaps Hill
was more familiar with professional photography studios, where plates were used.
In the foreword by George M. C. Fisher, former chairman and CEO of the
Eastman Kodak Company, to George Eastman: A Biography by Elizabeth Brayer,
the man whom Fisher describes is an excellent example of much that Hill espouses:
"Like Alexander Graham Bell, Eastman tinkered his way to a universally
welcome invention. Like Henry Ford, he put his name on his company. Like
Thomas Edison, he shaped his products to world markets hungry for their startling
benefits .... We see the young Eastman staying awake around the clock for
five days straight-week after week-to get his fledgling dry photographic plate
business off the ground. We see him personally mixing 450 batches of emulsion
only to fail to fix a quality problem, then sailing off to Europe to find its source. II
Like many of the successful men whom Hill cites as examples and who had
little formal education, George Eastman dropped out of school when he was
thirteen. But according to Fischer he had tenacity, "sticktoitiveness, II and he
used his wits. Eastman was obviously an accurate thinker. In fact, it seems that
he employed all of Hill's principles, with the possible exception of a pleasing
personality (depending on which reports you choose to believe).The camera makes a perfect allegory for the process of creative
thought. First comes the selection of the object to be exposed before
the camera. This represents one's Definite Chief Aim in life. Then
comes the actual operation of recording a clear outline of that pur-
pose, through the lens of autosuggestion, on the sensitized plate of