Chase, Chance, and Creativity

by James H Austin

  Many persons, physicians and chemists in particular, have become fascinated by the magic in the word, serendipity, and have come under the spell of its alluring connotations. Most have done so without ever having read the original tale about the three princes, for it is elusive and not easily found in the library. To any generation, the story of the princes' meanderings is instructive, and it is not without its spicy Arabian Nights moments. But for our present purposes, the English translation of Armeno's Peregrinaggio' can certainly be shortened, and I have done so in Appendix A.

  Let us pick up the trail of serendipity when Horace Walpole read, at some unspecified time, Chevalier de Mailly's French adaptation of Armeno's Pe regrinaggio , Who was Walpole? He was a small frail lad born into a distinguished family. His father, Sir Robert, was Prime Minister of England under George II. Young Horace was educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he became a friend of the poet Thomas Gray.' At the age of twenty-two, he and Gray set out on a grand tour of Europe. Walpole spent much of his trip from 1739 to 1741 immersed in the lively social and cultural whirl of Florence. There he stayed at the home of Horace Mann, British Minister to the Court of Tuscany. The two soon became fast friends and thereafter carried on a life-long correspondence that has been carefully preserved.'

  Figure 11

  Outline of the history of SERENDIPITY

  More than a social chronicle of eighteenth-century England, Walpole's letters to Mann and others form a self-portrait unique in the history of English letters. It is largely through his correspondence that the legacy of Walpole's wit and worldliness has gathered momentum over the past two centuries. Perhaps nowhere is this more finely distilled than in the term serendipity-the happy word he coined and passed down to posterity. For in literature no more intriguing example is to be found of the way chance interacts with creativity than in the way this one word, serendipity, weaves together the threads of the life and times of its inventor (figure 11). A piece of art, interestingly, figures prominently in the story.

  Growing up in a politician's home, Walpole was steeped in the political history of Europe, and was continually exposed to paintings of many famous historical persons. When he was in Florence, still a young bachelor, he became enamored of one portrait in particular.` It was of Bianca Capello (1548-87), a sixteenth-century courtesan who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany by marrying Francesco de Medici. Her life soon ended on a tragic note, for she died within eleven hours of her husband, both presumably of an overwhelming infection. But because of the tarnished reputation of the Medici court, it was widely believed that they were both poisoned.

  Some fourteen years after Walpole first saw the portrait of Bianca, Mann purchased it and sent it (minus the original frame) to his old friend in England. Walpole needed a new frame, and he also had to find a coat of arms of the Capello family to decorate the frame appropriately. Luckily, he happened to find the coat of arms in an old book. He then sat down with his goose-quill pen to write a thank-you letter to Mann acknowledging the receipt of the painting. Included are the following key passages:

  Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1754

  "Her Serene Highness the Great Duchess Bianca Capello is arrived safe at a palace lately taken for her in Arlington Street: she has been much visited by the quality and gentry, and pleases universally by the graces of her person and comeliness of her deportment" ... this is the least that the newspapers would say of the charming Bianca ... The head is painted equal to Titian, and though done, I suppose, after the clock had struck five and thirty, yet she retains a great share of beauty. I have bespoken a frame for her, with the grand ducal coronet at top, her story on a label at bottom, which Gray is to compose in Latin as short and expressive as Tacitus (one is lucky when one can bespeak and have executed such an inscription!) the Medici arms on one side, and the Capello's on the other. I must tell you a critical discovery of mine a propos: in an old book of Venetian arms, there are two coats of Capello, who from their name bear a hat, on one of them is added a flower-de-lute on a blue ball, which I am persuaded was given to the family by the Great Duke, in consideration of this alliance; the Medicis you know bore such a badge at the top of their own arms; this discovery I made by a talisman, which Mr. Chute calls the sortes Walpolianae, by which I find everything I want a point nomme wherever I dip for it. This discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right-now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table.?

  It isn't easy to understand serendipity from this original source, but let us try to decipher his meaning. What was going on inside Walpole's mind when he created the word? It is noteworthy that he invented it in the visual context of a painting-one, moreover, that he was especially fond of. It is also interesting that he started his letter to Mann by using the word "Serene" to describe the lady of the portrait. We may also observe that throughout Walpole's writings words such as "posterity" and "futurity" flowed from his pen with ease. So, the beginning of the word-serene-and its ending-ity-were there somewhere in his brain, waiting to be linked together.

  He then goes on to note that he was "lucky" to be able to enlist the aid of someone like his old poet friend, Thomas Gray, to compose an inscription for the portrait. Next, he says that he just happened to discover the Capello coat of arms for the frame in an old book. He adds that his good friend, John Chute, uses the term, "Walpole's luck" (sortes Walpolianae) to describe his penchant for finding everything he wants in the nick of time (n point nomtnc). Walpole describes this gift as a talisman, a charm bringing apparently magical or miraculous effects. Musing on the subject of luck, his associations led him, happily, to the story he once read about the lucky Three Princes of Serendip. Starting with serene, then Serendip, there remained but one short playful link to the new term, serendipity.

  The first example Walpole gives of the princes' experience (with a camel, not a mule) leaves much to be desired. It emphasizes only that one needs sagacity to discern the real meaning of the observation that grass differs in height on the two sides of a trail. (The meaning is more clear in the condensed plot in the appendix.)

  Walpole's second illustration is somewhat better, but it too requires historical explanation. It should, however, interest psychologists and psychiatrists, because it extends the scope of sagacity well beyond that of the length of grass to include a discerning sensitivity to the nuances of interpersonal relationships. Walpole is referring to Lord Shaftesbury (Anthony Cooper), who was invited over for dinner one night at the home of Lord Chancellor Clarendon (Edward Hyde, 1609-74). At the dinner table, Shaftesbury was keen enough to observe that his host's daughter, Anne Hyde, was now treated by her mother with unusual respect. From this, he shrewdly concluded that Anne Hyde had recently married the Duke of York." This would mean that Anne, as a potential Queen of England, indeed had a new and higher social standing. In fact, Anne's new husband, the Duke of York, did later succeed to the throne of England, Scotland, and Ireland as James II (1685-88). Walpole's letter to Mann did anticipate that it might be easier to understand what serendipity meant by analyzing how the word was derived ("the derivation") rather than "by the definition." But this may require of us a more detailed dig into the deeper layers of
historical events than many non-archeologists may be comfortable with.

  In his later writings, Walpole even anticipated the title of this book, for he elaborated on the roles that chase and chance play in creative invention. To anyone curious about the many origins of discovery, it is fascinating to see how clearly he appreciated that accidental discoveries occur, not only when the alchemist pursues gold, but also when man searches for immortality. This, his second say on the subject of serendipity, will interest chemists in particular:

  Nor is there any harm in starting new game to invention; many excellent discoveries have been made by men who were a la chasse of something very different. I am not quite sure that the art of making gold and of living forever have been yet found out-yet to how many noble discoveries has the pursuit of those nostrums given birth! Poor Chemistry, had she not had such glorious objects in view.'

  What did Walpole mean by serendipity? We might begin with what he excluded from the definition. His own facility, finding what he was looking for, what he wanted, was not serendipity. Instead, he regarded serendipity as a quality-a gift for discovering things, by accident or sagacity, while hunting for something else. In today's loose parlance, many persons water down serendipity to mean the good luck that comes by accident-a result, not an ability. We have tended to lose sight of the element of sagacity, by which term Walpole originally wished to stress that some distinctive personal receptivity is involved. The archaic meaning of sagacity is acuteness of smell, if we need further testimony of the word's initial sensory connotation.

  And we have also slighted another obvious fact about the Princes of Serendip. When we look carefully into the tale itself, we see that it illustrates another important principle underlying the processes of discovery: these young men were not simply dallying their lives away in luxury in Sri Lanka on some convenient palace couch. They were out on the move, exploring, traveling widely when they encountered their accidental good fortune. Kettering, as we shall soon see, would have approved.

  To sum up, serendipity is the facility for encountering unexpected good luck, as the result of accident and sagacity, as can occur in the course of more generalized, relatively unfocused exploratory behaviors, even meanderings. But chance has a fourth element in it and the principles underlying all its elements bear closer scrutiny.

  15

  The Kettering, Pasteur, and Disraeli Principles

  Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.

  Charles Kettering

  Chance favors only the prepared mind. (Dans les champs de l'observation, le hazard ne favorise que les esprits prepares.)

  Louis Pasteur

  We make our fortunes, and we call them fate.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  In the past, the role that sudden flashes of insight play in the process of discovery has perhaps been overemphasized. Much, also, has been said about the need for plodding, one-pointed, methodical, diligent work both before and after these creative moments. No investigation in part I proceeded without the aid of these old reliables, and we would never discount them in the slightest. But let us now present the additional case for chance. What is chance?

  Dictionaries define chance as something fortuitous that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention. La cheance, in Old French, is derived from the Old Latin, caderc, to fall, implying that it is in the nature of things to fall, settle out, or happen by themselves.

  Chance is unintentional, it is capricious, but we needn't conclude that chance is immune from human interventions. However, one must be careful not to read any unconsciously purposeful intent into "interventions." All such interactions of the kinds under discussion in part II are to be viewed as accidental, unwilled, inadvertent and un- forseeable. Indeed, chance plays several distinct roles when humans react creatively with one another and with their environment. I use the word "roles" in the plural, because we can observe chance arriving in four major forms and for four different reasons. The principles involved affect everyone. Nothing mysterious or mystical is to be read into their operations.

  The four kinds of chance each have a different kind of motor exploratory activity and a different kind of sensory receptivity. The varieties of chance also involve distinctive personality traits and differ in the way one particular individual influences them. I have summarized these various aspects of chance at the end of this chapter in table 1.

  In Chance I, the good luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part. No particular personality trait is in operation. If, for example, you are sitting playing bridge at a table of four, it's "in the cards" for you to receive a hand of thirteen spades, but statisticians tell us it will occur on an average only once in 635 billion deals (635,013,559,600).' You will ultimately draw this lucky hand, but it may involve a rather longer wait than most have time for.

  In Chance II, something else has been added that is implicit in the old tale of the Three Princes. Motion. Years ago, when I was rushing around in the laboratory working on sulfatides, someone admonished me by asking, "Why all the busyness? One must distinguish between motion and progress."

  Yes, at some point this distinction must be made. But it cannot always be made first. And it is not always made consciously. True, waste motion should be avoided. But, if the researcher did not move until he was certain of progress he would accomplish very little. There's no "standing pat" in research; the posture of creativity is forward-leaning. A certain basal level of action "stirs up the pot," brings in random ideas that will collide and stick together in fresh combinations, lets chance operate. Motion yields a network of new experiences which, like a sieve, filters best when in constant up-and-down, side-to-side movement. Consistent centrifugal types of motion are what distinguish Chance II; its premise is that unluck runs out if you keep stirring up things so that random elements can combine, by virtue of your and their inherent affinities.

  An element of the chase can be involved in Chance II, but action is still your primary goal, not forseeable results. The action can be an illdefined meandering, or a restless driving, but it depends on your basic need to release energy, not on your conscious intellect. If later on, you harness the energy toward a visible secondary intellectual goal, the goal must be one impossible of success without the basic persistent drive that moves you forward. Of course, if you move around in more likely areas, Chance II may enter in to influence your results more fruitfully. For example, if orchids were your only goal, you wouldn't want to go out tramping around for them in the harsh desert. (That would be too chancy.)

  So Chance 11 springs from your energetic, generalized motor activities, and, with the above qualification, the freer they are, the better. It involves the kind of luck Kettering, the automotive engineer, had in mind when he said, in effect, "keep on going, and you'll stumble on something." When someone, anyone, does swing into motion and keeps on going, he or she will increase the number of collisions between events. If you link a few events together, you can then exploit some of them, but many others, of course, you cannot. Still, we return to the basic fact that in medical research, as in Kettering's engineering research, if you're not already in motion, you probably won't stumble on something. Press on. Something will turn up, as indeed it turned up for the three princes after they set out on their travels. We may term this kinetic principle the Kettering Principle. It deserves special emphasis.

  In the two foregoing examples, a unique role of the individual person was either lacking or minimal. True, the mantle of chance can fall indiscriminately on anyone, but sometimes it seems almost to bear the personal name tag of the recipient.

  Now, as we move on to Chance 111, we see blind luck, but it tiptoes in softly, dressed in camouflage. Chance presents only a faint clue, the potential opportunity exists, but it will be overlooked except by that one person uniquely equipped to observe it
, visualize it conceptually, and fully grasp its significance. Chance III involves a special receptivity, discernment, and intuitive grasp of significance unique to one particular recipient. Louis Pasteur characterized it for all time when he said: "Chance favors only the prepared mind."

  Pasteur himself had it in full measure. But the classical example of his principle occurred in 1928, when Sir Alexander Fleming's mind instantly fused at least five elements into a conceptually unified nexus. He was at his work bench in the laboratory, made an observation, and his mental sequences then went something like this: (1) I see that a mold has fallen by accident into my culture dish; (2) the staphylococcal colonies residing near it failed to grow; (3) therefore, the mold must have secreted something that killed the bacteria; (4) this reminds me of a similar experience I had once before; (5) maybe this new "something" from the mold could be used to kill staphylococci that cause human infections.

  Actually, Fleming's mind was exceptionally well prepared.' Some nine years earlier, while suffering from a cold, his own nasal drippings had found their way onto a culture dish. He noted that the bacteria around this mucous were killed, and astutely followed up the lead. His experiments then led him to discover the bactericidal enzyme, lysozyme, present in nasal mucus and tears. Lysozyme itself proved inappropriate for medical use, but think of how receptive Fleming's mind was to the penicillin mold when it later happened on the scene!

  It is appropriate that we recall Pasteur's name in the same context as Fleming's discovery, because back in 1877, Pasteur and Joubert made a similar observation that airborne microorganisms could inhibit anthrax bacilli.' They fully grasped the therapeutic significance of their finding but had neither the time nor the technology to pursue it further.