It is an old saying that "Order is Heaven's First Law", and like many other old sayings, it contains a much deeper philosophy than appears immediately on the surface. Getting things into a better order is the great secret of progress, and ¹we are now able to fly through the air, not because the laws of Nature have altered, but because we have learnt to arrange things in the right order to produce this result - the things ²themselves had existed from the beginning of the world, but what was wanting was the introduction of a Personal Factor which, by an intelligent perception of the possibilities contained in the laws of Nature, should be able to bring into working reality ideas which previous generations would have laughed at as the absurd fancies of an unbalanced mind. (...)
    Now the first thing in any investigation is to have some idea of what you are looking for, just as you would not go up a tree to find fish, though you would for birds' eggs.
TROWARD, T. (1915), The creative process in the individual. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. pp 1-2.