Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.

Baum frames imagination as a primary engine of human progress rather than a frivolous escape. By linking “civilization” to the imaginative leap out of the “dark ages,” he argues that advances in knowledge and social development begin as acts of mental projection—envisioning possibilities not yet proven. His examples (Columbus and Franklin) treat exploration and scientific inquiry as guided by speculative daring: the willingness to picture an unseen continent or an unseen force and then pursue evidence. The quote also implicitly defends fantasy and creative literature—Baum’s own métier—by claiming that the same faculty that invents stories also underwrites discovery, invention, and cultural transformation.