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Title: Essay on the Creative Imagination

Author: Th. Ribot

Translator: Albert Heyem Nachmen Baron

Release date: August 25, 2008 [eBook #26430]

Language: English

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CREATIVE IMAGINATION ***

Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in
this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of
this document.
The children's letters on page 108 have been
reproduced in this text as illustrations.

ESSAY
ON THE

CREATIVE IMAGINATION
BY

TH. RIBOT
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

BY

ALBERT H. N. BARON
FELLOW IN CLARK UNIVERSITY

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd.
1906
COPYRIGHT BY
The Open Court Publishing Co.
CHICAGO, U. S. A.
1906
All rights reserved.

To the Memory of My Teacher
and Friend,

Arthur Allin, Ph. D.,
professor of psychology and education,

university of colorado,

who first interested me in the problems of psychology,
this book is dedicated, with reverence
and gratitude, by

The Translator.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The name of Th. Ribot has been for many years well known in America,
and his works have gained wide popularity. The present translation of one
of his more recent works is an attempt to render available in English what
has been received as a classic exposition of a subject that is often discussed,
but rarely with any attempt to understand its true nature.
It is quite generally recognized that psychology has remained in the semi-
mythological, semi-scholastic period longer than most attempts at scientific
formulization. For a long time it has been the "spook science" per se, and
the imagination, now analyzed by M. Ribot in such a masterly manner, has
been one of the most persistent, apparently real, though very indefinite, of
psychological spooks. Whereas people have been accustomed to speak of
the imagination as an entity sui generis, as a lofty something found only in
long-haired, wild-eyed "geniuses," constituting indeed the center of a cult,
our author, Prometheus-like, has brought it down from the heavens, and has
clearly shown that imagination is a function of mind common to all men in
some degree, and that it is shown in as highly developed form in
commercial leaders and practical inventors as in the most bizarre of
romantic idealists. The only difference is that the manifestation is not the
same.
That this view is not entirely original with M. Ribot is not to his discredit—
indeed, he does not claim any originality. We find the view clearly
expressed elsewhere, certainly as early as Aristotle, that the greatest artist is
he who actually embodies his vision and will in permanent form, preferably
in social institutions. This idea is so clearly enunciated in the present
monograph, which the author modestly styles an essay, that when the end of
the book is reached but little remains of the great imagination-ghost, save
the one great mystery underlying all facts of mind.
That the present rendering falls far below the lucid French of the original,
the translator is well aware; he trusts, however, that the indulgent reader

will take into account the good intent as offsetting in part, at least, the
numerous shortcomings of this version.
I wish here to express my obligation to those friends who encouraged me in
the congenial task of translation.
A. H. N. B.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Contemporary psychology has studied the purely reproductive imagination
with great eagerness and success. The works on the different image-groups
—visual, auditory, tactile, motor—are known to everyone, and form a
collection of inquiries solidly based on subjective and objective
observation, on pathological facts and laboratory experiments. The study of
the creative or constructive imagination, on the other hand, has been almost
entirely neglected. It would be easy to show that the best, most complete,
and most recent treatises on psychology devote to it scarcely a page or two;
often, indeed, do not even mention it. A few articles, a few brief, scarce
monographs, make up the sum of the past twenty-five years' work on the
subject. The subject does not, however, at all deserve this indifferent or
contemptuous attitude. Its importance is unquestionable, and even though
the study of the creative imagination has hitherto remained almost
inaccessible to experimentation strictly so-called, there are yet other
objective processes that permit of our approaching it with some likelihood
of success, and of continuing the work of former psychologists, but with
methods better adapted to the requirements of contemporary thought.
The present work is offered to the reader as an essay or first attempt only. It
is not our intention here to undertake a complete monograph that would
require a thick volume, but only to seek the underlying conditions of the
creative imagination, showing that it has its beginning and principal source
in the natural tendency of images to become objectified (or, more simply, in
the motor elements inherent in the image), and then following it in its
development under its manifold forms, whatever they may be. For I cannot
but maintain that, at present, the psychology of the imagination is
concerned almost wholly with its part in esthetic creation and in the
sciences. We scarcely get beyond that; its other manifestations have been
occasionally mentioned—never investigated. Yet invention in the fine arts
and in the sciences is only a special case, and possibly not the principal one.
We hope to show that in practical life, in mechanical, military, industrial,
and commercial inventions, in religious, social, and political institutions,

the human mind has expended and made permanent as much imagination as
in all other fields.
The constructive imagination is a faculty that in the course of ages has
undergone a reduction—or at least, some profound changes. So, for reasons
indicated later on, the mythic activity has been taken in this work as the
central point of our topic, as the primitive and typical form out of which the
greater number of the others have arisen. The creative power is there shown
entirely unconfined, freed from all hindrance, careless of the possible and
the impossible; in a pure state, unadulterated by the opposing influence of
imitation, of ratiocination, of the knowledge of natural laws and their
uniformity.
In the first or analytical part, we shall try to resolve the constructive
imagination into its constitutive factors, and study each of them singly.
The second or genetic part will follow the imagination in its development as
a whole from the dimmest to the most complex forms.
Finally, the third or concrete part, will be no longer devoted to the
imagination, but to imaginative beings, to the principal types of imagination
that observation shows us.
May, 1900.

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
page
Translator's Preface v
Author's Preface vii
INTRODUCTION.
the motor nature of the constructive imagination.
Transition from the reproductive to the creative imagination.—Do all
representations contain motor elements?—Unusual effects produced
by images: vesication, stigmata; their conditions; their meaning for
our subject.—The imagination is, on the intellectual side, equivalent
to will. Proof: Identity of development; subjective, personal character
of both; teleologic character; analogy between the abortive forms of
the imagination and abulias. 3
FIRST PART.
analysis of the imagination.
CHAPTER I.
the intellectual factor.
Dissociation, preparatory work.—Dissociation in complete, incomplete
and schematic images.—Dissociation in series. Its principal causes:
internal or subjective, external or objective.—Association: its rôle
reduced to a single question, the formation of new combinations.—
The principal intellectual factor is thinking by analogy. Why it is an
almost inexhaustible source of creation. Its mechanism. Its processes
reducible to two, viz.: personification, transformation. 15
CHAPTER II.
the emotional factor.
The great importance of this element.—All forms of the creative 31
imagination imply affective elements. Proofs: All affective conditions
may influence the imagination. Proofs: Association of ideas on an
emotional basis; new combinations under ordinary and extraordinary
forms.—Association by contrast.—The motor element in tendencies.
—There is no creative instinct; invention has not a source, but

sources, and always arises from a need.—The work of the
imagination reduced to two great classes, themselves reducible to
special needs.—Reasons for the prejudice in favor of a creative
instinct.
CHAPTER III.
the unconscious factor.
Various views of the "inspired state." Its essential characteristics;
suddenness, impersonality.—Its relations to unconscious activity.—
Resemblances to hypermnesia, the initial state of alcoholic
intoxication and somnambulism on waking.—Disagreements
concerning the ultimate nature of unconsciousness: two hypotheses.—
The "inspired state" is not a cause, but an index.—Associations in
unconscious form.—Mediate or latent association: recent experiments
and discussions on this subject.—"Constellation" the result of a
summation of predominant tendencies. Its mechanism. 50
CHAPTER IV.
the organic conditions of the imagination.
Anatomical conditions: various hypotheses. Obscurity of the question.
Flechsig's theory.—Physiological conditions: are they cause, effect, or
accompaniment? Chief factor: change in cerebral and local
circulation.—Attempts at experimentation.—The oddities of
inventors brought under two heads: the explicable and inexplicable.
They are helpers of inspiration.—Is there any analogy between
physical and psychic creation? A philosophical hypothesis on the
subject.—Limitation of the question. Impossibility of an exact
answer. 65
CHAPTER V.
the principle of unity.
mportance of the unifying principle. It is a fixed idea or a fixed
emotion.—Their equivalence.—Distinction between the synthetic
principle and the ideal, which is the principle of unity in motion: the
ideal is a construction in images, merely outlined.—The principal
forms of the unifying principles: unstable, organic or middle, extreme
or semi-morbid.—Obsession of the inventor and the sick:
insufficiency of a purely psychological criterion. 79

SECOND PART.
the development of the imagination.
CHAPTER I.
imagination in animals.
Difficulties of the subject.—The degree of imagination in animals.—
Does creative synthesis exist in them? Affirmation and denials.—The
special form of animal imagination is motor, and shows itself through
play: its numerous varieties.—Why the animal imagination must be
above all motor: lack of intellectual development.—Comparison with
young children, in whom the motor system predominates: the rôles of
movements in infantile insanity. 93
CHAPTER II.
imagination in the child.
Division of its development into four principal periods.—Transition
from passive to creative imagination: perception and illusion.—
Animating everything: analysis of the elements constituting this
moment: the rôle of belief.—Creation in play: period of imitation,
attempts at invention.—Fanciful invention. 103
CHAPTER III.
primitive man and the creation of myths.
The golden age of the creative imagination.—Myths: hypotheses as to
the origin: the myth is the psycho-physical objectification of man in
the phenomena that he perceives. The rôle of imagination.—How
myths are formed. The moment of creation: two operations—
animating everything, qualifying everything. Romantic invention
lacking in peoples without imagination. The rôle of analogy and of
association through "constellation."—The evolution of myths:
ascension, acme, decline.—The explanatory myths undergo a radical
transformation: the work of depersonification of the myth. Survivals.
—The non-explanatory myths suffer a partial transformation:
Literature is a fallen and rationalized mythology.—Popular
imagination and legends: the legend is to the myth what illusion is to
hallucination.—Unconscious processes that the imagination employs
in order to create legends: fusion, idealization. 118
CHAPTER IV.
the higher forms of invention.

s a psychology of great inventors possible? Pathological and
physiological theories of genius.—General characters of great
inventors. Precocity: chronological order of the development of the
creative power. Psychological reasons for this order. Why the creator
commences by imitating.—Necessity or fatalism of vocation.—The
representative character of great creators. Discussion as to the origin
of this character—is it in the individual or in the environment?—
Mechanism of creation. Two principal processes—complete,
abridged. Their three phases; their resemblances and differences.—
The rôle of chance in invention: it supposes the meeting of two
factors—one internal, the other external.—Chance is an occasion for,
not an agent of, creation. 140
CHAPTER V.
law of the development of the imagination.
s the creative imagination, in its evolution, subject to any law?—It
passes through two stages separated by a critical phase.—Period of
autonomy; critical period; period of definite constitution. Two cases:
decay or transformation through logical form, through deviation.—
Subsidiary law of increasing complexity.—Historical verification. 167
THIRD PART.
the principal types of imagination.
preliminary.
The need of a concrete study.—The varieties of the creative imagination,
analogous to the varieties of character. 179
CHAPTER I.
the plastic imagination.
t makes use of clear images, well determined in space, and of
associations of objective relations.—Its external character.—
Inferiority of the affective element.—Its principal manifestations: in
the arts dealing with form; in poetry (transformation of sonorous into
visual images); in myths with clear outline; in mechanical invention.
—The dry and rational imagination its elements. 184
CHAPTER II.
the diffluent imagination.
t makes use of vague images linked according to the least rigorous 195
modes of association. Emotional abstractions; their nature.—Its

characteristic of inwardness.—Its principal manifestations: revery, the
romantic spirit, the chimerical spirit; myths and religious conceptions,
literature and the fine arts (the symbolists), the class of the marvelous
and fantastic.—Varieties of the diffluent imagination: first, numerical
imagination; its nature; two principal forms, cosmogonic and
scientific conceptions; second, musical imagination, the type of the
affective imagination. Its characteristics; it does not develop save
after an interval of time.—Natural transposition of events in
musicians.—Antagonism between true musical imagination and
plastic imagination. Inquiry and facts on the subject.—Two great
types of imagination.
CHAPTER III.
mystic imagination.
ts elements; its special characteristics.—Thinking symbolically.—
Nature of this symbolism.—The mystic changes concrete images into
symbolic images.—Their obscurity; whence it arises.—Extraordinary
abuse of analogy.—Mystic labor on letters, numbers, etc.—Nature
and extent of the belief accompanying this form of imagination: it is
unconditional and permanent.—The mystic conception of the world a
general symbolism.—Mystic imagination in religion and in
metaphysics. 221
CHAPTER IV.
the scientific imagination.
t is distinguishable into genera and species.—The need for monographs
that have not yet appeared.—The imagination in growing sciences—
belief is at its maximum; in the organized sciences—the negative rôle
of method.—The conjectural phase; proof of its importance.—
Abortive and dethroned hypotheses.—The imagination in the
processes of verification.—The metaphysician's imagination arises
from the same need as the scientist's.—Metaphysics is a rationalized
myth.—Three moments.—Imaginative and rationalist. 236
CHAPTER V.
the practical and mechanical imagination.
ndetermination of this imaginative form.—Inferior forms: the 256
industrious, the unstable, the eccentric. Why people of lively
imagination are changeable.—Superstitious beliefs. Origin of this
form of imagination—its mental mechanism and its elements.—The

higher form—mechanical imagination.—Man has expended at least
as much imagination there as in esthetic creation.—Why the contrary
view prevails.—Resemblances between these two forms of
imagination.—Identity of development. Detail observation—four
phases.—General characters. This form, at its best, supposes
inspiration; periods of preparation, of maturity, and of decline.—
Special characters: invention occurs in layers. Principal steps of its
development.—It depends strictly on physical conditions.—A phase
of pure imagination—mechanical romances. Examples.—Identical
nature of the imagination of the mechanic and that of the artist.
CHAPTER VI.
the commercial imagination.
ts internal and external conditions.—Two classes of creators—the
cautious, the daring.—The initial moment of invention.—The
importance of the intuitive mind.—Hypotheses in regard to its
psychologic nature.—Its development: the creation of increasingly
more simple processes of substitution.—Characters in common with
the forms of creation already studied.—Characters peculiar to it—the
combining imagination of the tactician; it is a form of war.—Creative
intoxication.—Exclusive use of schematic representations.—Remarks
on the various types of images.—The creators of great financial
systems.—Brief remarks on the military imagination. 281
CHAPTER VII.
the utopian imagination.
Successive appearances of ideal conceptions.—Creators in ethics and in
the social realm.—Chimerical forms. Social novelists.—Ch. Fourrier,
type of the great imaginer.—Practical invention—the collective ideal.
—Imaginative regression. 299
CONCLUSION.
I. The foundations of the creative imagination.
Why man is able to create: two principal conditions.—"Creative
spontaneity," which resolves itself into needs, tendencies, desires.—
Every imaginative creation has a motor origin.—The spontaneous
revival of images.—The creative imagination reduced to three forms:
outlined, fixed, objectified. Their peculiar characteristics. 313
II. The imaginative type.

A view of the imaginative life in all its stages.—Reduction to a
psychologic law.—Four stages characterized: 1, by the quantity of
images; 2, by their quantity and intensity; 3, by quantity, intensity and
duration; 4, by the complete and permanent systematization of the
imaginary life.—Summary. 320
APPENDICES.
observations and documents.
A. The various forms of inspiration. 335
B. On the nature of the unconscious factor. Two categories—static
unconscious, dynamic unconscious.—Theories as to the nature of the
unconscious.—Objections, criticisms. 338
C. Cosmic and human imagination. 346
D. Evidence in regard to musical imagination. 350
E. The imaginative type and association of ideas. 353

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
The Motor Nature of the Constructive Imagination

I

It has been often repeated that one of the principal conquests of
contemporary psychology is the fact that it has firmly established the place
and importance of movements; that it has especially through observation
and experiment shown the representation of a movement to be a movement
begun, a movement in the nascent state. Yet those who have most
strenuously insisted on this proposition have hardly gone beyond the realm
of the passive imagination; they have clung to facts of pure reproduction.
My aim is to extend their formula, and to show that it explains, in large
measure at least, the origin of the creative imagination.
Let us follow step by step the passage from reproduction pure and simple to
the creative stage, showing therein the persistence and preponderance of the
motor element in proportion as we rise from mere repetition to invention.
First of all, do all representations include motor elements? Yes, I say,
because every perception presupposes movements to some extent, and
representations are the remnants of past perceptions. Certain it is that,
without our examining the question in detail, this statement holds good for
the great majority of cases. So far as visual and tactile images are concerned
there is no possible doubt as to the importance of the motor elements that
enter into their composition. The eye is very poorly endowed with
movements for its office as a higher sense-organ; but if we take into
account its intimate connection with the vocal organs, so rich in capacity for
motor combinations, we note a kind of compensation. Smell and taste,
secondary in human psychology, rise to a very high rank indeed among
many animals, and the olfactory apparatus thus obtains with them a
complexity of movements proportionate to its importance, and one that at
times approaches that of sight. There yet remains the group of internal
sensations that might cause discussion. Setting aside the fact that the vague

impressions bound up with chemical changes within the tissues are scarcely
factors in representation, we find that the sensations resulting from changes
in respiration, circulation, and digestion are not lacking in motor elements.
The mere fact that, in some persons, vomiting, hiccoughs, micturition, etc.,
can be caused by perceptions of sight or of hearing proves that
representations of this character have a tendency to become translated into
acts.
Without emphasizing the matter we may, then, say that this thesis rests on a
weighty mass of facts; that the motor element of the image tends to cause it
to lose its purely "inner" character, to objectify it, to externalize it, to
project it outside of ourselves.
It should, however, be noted that what has just been said does not take us
beyond the reproductive imagination—beyond memory. All these revived
images are repetitions; but the creative imagination requires something new
—this is its peculiar and essential mark. In order to grasp the transition
from reproduction to production, from repetition to creation, it is necessary
to consider other, more rare, and more extraordinary facts, found only
among some favored beings. These facts, known for a long time,
surrounded with some mystery, and attributed in a vague manner "to the
power of the imagination," have been studied in our own day with much
more system and exactness. For our purpose we need to recall only a few of
them.
Many instances have been reported of tingling or of pains that may appear
in different parts of the body solely through the effect of the imagination.
Certain people can increase or inhibit the beating of their hearts at will, i.e.,
by means of an intense and persistent representation. The renowned
physiologist, E. F. Weber, possessed this power, and has described the
mechanism of the phenomenon. Still more remarkable are the cases of
vesication produced in hypnotized subjects by means of suggestion. Finally,
let us recall the persistent story of the stigmatized individuals, who, from
the thirteenth century down to our own day, have been quite numerous and
present some interesting varieties—some having only the mark of the
crucifix, others of the scourging, or of the crown of thorns.[1] Let us add the
profound changes of the organism, results of the suggestive therapeutics of
contemporaries; the wonderful effects of the "faith cure," i.e., the miracles

of all religions in all times and in all places; and this brief list will suffice to
recall certain creative activities of the human imagination that we have a
tendency to forget.
It is proper to add that the image acts not altogether in a positive manner.
Sometimes it has an inhibitory power. A vivid representation of a movement
arrested is the beginning of the stoppage of that movement; it may even end
in complete arrest of the movement. Such are the cases of "paralysis by
ideas" first described by Reynolds, and later by Charcot and his school
under the name of "psychic paralysis." The patient's inward conviction that
he cannot move a limb renders him powerless for any movement, and he
recovers his motor power only when the morbid representation has
disappeared.
These and similar facts suggest a few remarks.
First, that we have here creation in the strict sense of the word, though it be
limited to the organism. What appears is new. Though one may strictly
maintain that from our own experience we have a knowledge of
formication, rapid and slow beating of the heart, even though we may not
be able ordinarily to produce them at will, this position is absolutely
untenable when we consider cases of vesication, stigmata, and other alleged
miraculous phenomena: these are without precedent in the life of the
individual.
Second, in order that these unusual states may occur, there are required
additional elements in the producing mechanism. At bottom this mechanism
is very obscure. To invoke "the power of the imagination" is merely to
substitute a word where an explanation is needed. Fortunately, we do not
need to penetrate into the inmost part of this mystery. It is enough for us to
make sure of the facts, to prove that they have a representation as the
starting point, and to show that the representation by itself is not enough.
What more then is needed? Let us note first of all that these occurrences are
rare. It is not within the power of everybody to acquire stigmata or to
become cured of a paralysis pronounced incurable. This happens only to
those having an ardent faith, a strong desire that it shall come to pass. This
is an indispensable psychic condition. What is concerned in such a case is
not a single state, but a double one: an image followed by a particular

emotional state (desire, aversion, etc.). In other words, there are two
conditions: In the first are concerned the motor elements included in the
image, the remains of previous perceptions; in the second, there are
concerned the foregoing, plus affective states, tendencies that sum up the
individual's energy. It is the latter fact that explains their power.
To conclude: This group of facts shows us the existence, beyond images, of
another factor, instinctive or emotional in form, which we shall have to
study later and which will lead us to the ultimate source of the creative
imagination.
I fear that the distance between the facts here given and the creative
imagination proper will seem to the reader very great indeed. And why so?
First, because the creative activity here has as its only material the
organism, and is not separated from the creator. Then, too, because these
facts are extremely simple, and the creative imagination, in the ordinary
sense, is extremely complex; here there is one operating cause, a single
representation more or less complex, while in imaginative creation we have
several co-operating images with combinations, coördination, arrangement,
grouping. But it must not be forgotten that our present aim is simply to find
a transition stage[2] between reproduction and production; to show the
common origin of the two forms of imagination—the purely representative
faculty and the faculty of creating by means of the intermediation of
images;—and to show at the same time the work of separation, of severance
between the two.

II

Since the chief aim of this study is to prove that the basis of invention must
be sought in motor manifestations, I shall not hesitate to dwell on it, and I
take the subject up again under another, clearer, more precise, and more
psychological form, in putting the following question: Which one among
the various modes of mind-activity offers the closest analogy to the creative
imagination? I unhesitatingly answer, voluntary activity: Imagination, in the
intellectual order, is the equivalent of will in the realm of movements. Let
us justify this comparison by some proof.

1. Likeness of development in the two instances. Growth of voluntary
control is progressive, slow, crossed and checked. The individual has to
become master of his muscles and by their agency extend his sway over
other things. Reflexes, instinctive movements, and movements expressive
of emotion constitute the primary material of voluntary movements. The
will has no movements of its own as an inheritance: it must coördinate and
associate, since it separates in order to form new associations. It reigns by
right of conquest, not by right of birth. In like manner, the creative
imagination does not rise completely armed. Its raw materials are images,
which here correspond to muscular movements. It goes through a period of
trial. It always is, at the start (for reasons indicated later on), an imitation; it
attains its complex forms only through a process of growth.
2. But this first comparison does not go to the bottom of the matter; there
are yet deeper analogies. First, the completely subjective character of both
instances. The imagination is subjective, personal, anthropocentric; its
movement is from within outwards toward an objectification. The
understanding, i.e., the intellect in the restricted sense, has opposite
characteristics—it is objective, impersonal, receives from outside. For the
creative imagination the inner world is the regulator; there is a
preponderance of the inner over the outer. For the understanding, the
outside world is the regulator; there is a preponderance of the outer over the
inner. The world of my imagination is my world as opposed to the world of
my understanding, which is the world of all my fellow creatures. On the
other hand, as regards the will, we might repeat exactly, word for word,
what we have just said of the imagination. This is unnecessary. Back of
both, then, we have our true cause, whatever may be our opinion
concerning the ultimate nature of causation and of will.
3. Both imagination and will have a teleological character, and act only with
a view toward an end, being thus the opposite of the understanding, which,
as such, limits itself to proof. We are always wanting something, be it
worthless or important. We are always inventing for an end—whether in the
case of a Napoleon imagining a plan of campaign, or a cook making up a
new dish. In both instances there is now a simple end attained by immediate
means, now a complex and distant goal presupposing subordinate ends
which are means in relation to the final end. In both cases there is a vis a

tergo designated by the vague term "spontaneity," which we shall attempt to
make clear later, and a vis a fronte, an attracting movement.
4. Added to this analogy as regards their nature, there are other, secondary
likenesses between the abortive forms of the creative imagination and the
impotent forms of the will. In its normal and complete form will culminates
in an act; but with wavering characters and sufferers from abulia
deliberation never ends, or the resolution remains inert, incapable of
realization, of asserting itself in practice. The creative imagination also, in
its complete form, has a tendency to become objectified, to assert itself in a
work that shall exist not only for the creator but for everybody. On the
contrary, with dreamers pure and simple, the imagination remains a vaguely
sketched inner affair; it is not embodied in any esthetic or practical
invention. Revery is the equivalent of weak desires; dreamers are the
abulics of the creative imagination.
It is unnecessary to add that the similarity established here between the will
and the imagination is only partial and has as its aim only to bring to light
the rôle of the motor elements. Surely no one will confuse two aspects of
our psychic life that are so distinct, and it would be foolish to delay in order
to enumerate the differences. The characteristic of novelty should by itself
suffice, since it is the special and indispensable mark of invention, and for
volition is only accessory: The extraction of a tooth requires of the patient
as much effort the second time as the first, although it is no longer a
novelty.
After these preliminary remarks we must go on to the analysis of the
creative imagination, in order to understand its nature in so far as that is
accessible with our existing means. It is, indeed, a tertiary formation in
mental life, if we assume a primary layer (sensations and simple emotions),
and a secondary (images and their associations, certain elementary logical
operations, etc.). Being composite, it may be decomposed into its
constituent elements, which we shall study under these three headings, viz.,
the intellectual factor, the affective or emotional factor, and the unconscious
factor. But that is not enough; the analysis should be completed by a
synthesis. All imaginative creation, great or small, is organic, requires a
unifying principle: there is then also a synthetic factor, which it will be
necessary to determine.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] A. Maury, in his book L'Astronomie et la Magie, enumerates fifty cases.
[2] There are still others, as we shall see later on.

PART ONE
ANALYSIS OF THE IMAGINATION

CHAPTER I
THE INTELLECTUAL FACTOR.

I

Considered under its intellectual aspect, that is, in so far as it borrows its
elements from the understanding, the imagination presupposes two
fundamental operations—the one, negative and preparatory, dissociation;
the other, positive and constitutive, association.
Dissociation is the "abstraction" of the older psychologists, who well
understood its importance for the subject with which we are now
concerned. Nevertheless, the term "dissociation" seems to me preferable,
because it is more comprehensive. It designates a genus of which the other
is a species. It is a spontaneous operation and of a more radical nature than
the other. Abstraction, strictly so-called, acts only on isolated states of
consciousness; dissociation acts, further, on series of states of
consciousness, which it sorts out, breaks up, dissolves, and through this
preparatory work makes suitable for entering into new combinations.
Perception is a synthetic process, but dissociation (or abstraction) is already
present in embryo in perception, just because the latter is a complex state.
Everyone perceives after an individual fashion, according to his constitution
and the impression of the moment. A painter, a sportsman, a dealer, and an
uninterested spectator do not see a given horse in the same manner: the
qualities that interest one are unnoticed by another.[3]
The image being a simplification of sensory data, and its nature dependent
on that of previous perceptions, it is inevitable that the work of dissociation
should go on in it. But this is far too mild a statement. Observation and
experiment show us that in the majority of cases the process grows
wonderfully. In order to follow the progressive development of this
dissolution, we may roughly differentiate images into three categories—
complete, incomplete, and schematic—and study them in order.

The group of images here termed complete comprises first, objects
repeatedly presented in daily experience—my wife's face, my inkstand, the
sound of a church bell or of a neighboring clock, etc. In this class are also
included the images of things that we have perceived but a few times, but
which, for additional reasons, have remained clean-cut in our memory. Are
these images complete, in the strict sense of the word? They cannot be; and
the contrary belief is a delusion of consciousness that, however, disappears
when one confronts it with the reality. The mental image can contain all the
qualities of an object in even less degree than the perception; the image is
the result of selection, varying with every case. The painter Fromentin, who
was proud that he found after two or three years "an exact recollection" of
things he had barely noticed on a journey, makes elsewhere, however, the
following confession: "My memory of things, although very faithful, has
never the certainty admissible as documentary evidence. The weaker it
grows, the more is it changed in becoming the property of my memory and
the more valuable is it for the work that I intend for it. In proportion as the
exact form becomes altered, another form, partly real, partly imaginary,
which I believe preferable, takes its place." Note that the person speaking
thus is a painter endowed with an unusual visual memory; but recent
investigations have shown that among men generally the so-called complete
and exact images undergo change and warping. One sees the truth of this
statement when, after a lapse of some time, one is placed in the presence of
the original object, so that comparison between the real object and its image
becomes possible.[4] Let us note that in this group the image always
corresponds to certain individual objects; it is not the same with the other
two groups.
The group of incomplete images, according to the testimony of
consciousness itself, comes from two distinct sources—first, from
perceptions insufficiently or ill-fixed; and again, from impressions of like
objects which, when too often repeated, end by becoming confused. The
latter case has been well described by Taine. A man, says he, who, having
gone through an avenue of poplars wants to picture a poplar; or, having
looked into a poultry-yard, wishes to call up a picture of a hen, experiences
a difficulty—his different memories rise up. The experiment becomes a
cause of effacement; the images canceling one another decline to a state of
imperceptible tendencies which their likeness and unlikeness prevent from

predominating. Images become blunted by their collision just as do bodies
by friction.[5]
This group leads us to that of schematic images, or those entirely without
mark—the indefinite image of a rosebush, of a pin, of a cigarette, etc. This
is the greatest degree of impoverishment; the image, deprived little by little
of its own characteristics, is nothing more than a shadow. It has become that
transitional form between image and pure concept that we now term
"generic image," or one that at least resembles the latter.
The image, then, is subject to an unending process of change, of
suppression and addition, of dissociation and corrosion. This means that it
is not a dead thing; it is not at all like a photographic plate with which one
may reproduce copies indefinitely. Being dependent on the state of the
brain, the image undergoes change like all living substance,—it is subject to
gains and losses, especially losses. But each of the foregoing three classes
has its use for the inventor. They serve as material for different kinds of
imagination—in their concrete form, for the mechanic and the artist; in their
schematic form, for the scientist and for others.
Thus far we have seen only a part of the work of dissociation and, taking it
all in all, the smallest part. We have, seemingly, considered images as
isolated facts, as psychic atoms; but that is a purely theoretic position.
Images are not solitary in actual life; they form part of a chain, or rather of a
woof or net, since, by reason of their manifold relations they may radiate in
all directions, through all the senses. Dissociation, then, works also upon
series, cuts them up, mangles them, breaks them, and reduces them to ruins.
The ideal law of the recurrence of images is that known since Hamilton's
time under the name of "law of redintegration,"[6] which consists in the
passing from a part to the whole, each element tending to reproduce the
complete state, each member of a series the whole of that series. If this law
existed alone, invention would be forever forbidden to us; we could not
emerge from repetition; we should be condemned to monotony. But there is
an opposite power that frees us—it is dissociation.
It is very strange that, while psychologists have for so long a time studied
the laws of association, no one has investigated whether the inverse process,
dissociation, also has not laws of its own. We can not here attempt such a

task, which would be outside of our province; it will suffice to indicate in
passing two general conditions determining the association of series.
First, there are the internal or subjective causes. The revived image of a
face, a monument, a landscape, an occurrence, is, most often, only partial. It
depends on various conditions that revive the essential part and drop the
minor details, and this "essential" which survives dissociation depends on
subjective causes, the principal ones of which are at first practical,
utilitarian reasons. It is the tendency already mentioned to ignore what is of
no value, to exclude that from consciousness. Helmholtz has shown that in
the act of seeing, various details remain unnoticed because they are
immaterial in the concerns of life; and there are many other like instances.
Then, too, emotional reasons governing the attention orientate it exclusively
in one direction—these will be studied in the course of this work. Lastly,
there are logical or intellectual reasons, if we understand by this term the
law of mental inertia or the law of least resistance by means of which the
mind tends toward the simplification and lightening of its labor.
Secondly, there are external or objective causes which are variations in
experience. When two or more qualities or events are given as constantly
associated in experience we do not dissociate them. The uniformity of
nature's laws is the great opponent of dissociation. Many truths (for
example, the existence of the antipodes) are established with difficulty,
because it is necessary to break up closely knit associations. The oriental
king whom Sully mentions, who had never seen ice, refused to credit the
existence of solid water. A total impression, the elements of which had
never been given us separately in experience, would be unanalyzable. If all
cold objects were moist, and all moist objects cold; if all liquids were
transparent and all non-liquids opaque, we should find it difficult to
distinguish cold from moisture and liquidity from transparency. On his part,
James adds further that what has been associated sometimes with one thing
and sometimes with another tends to become dissociated from both. This
might be called a law of association by concomitant variations.[7]
In order to thoroughly comprehend the absolute necessity for dissociation,
let us note that total redintegration is per se a hindrance to creation.
Examples are given of people who can easily remember twenty or thirty
pages of a book, but if they want a particular passage they are unable to

pick it out—they must begin at the beginning and continue down to the
required place. Excessive ease of retention thus becomes a serious
inconvenience. Besides these rare cases, we know that ignorant people,
those intellectually limited, give the same invariable story of every
occurrence, in which all the parts—the important and the accessory, the
useful and the useless—are on a dead level. They omit no detail, they
cannot select. Minds of this kind are inapt at invention. In short, we may
say that there are two kinds of memory: one is completely systematized,
e.g., habits, routine, poetry or prose learned by heart, faultless musical
rendering, etc. The acquisition forms a compact whole and cannot enter into
new combinations. The other is not systematized; it is composed of small,
more or less coherent groups. This kind of memory is plastic and capable of
becoming combined in new ways.
We have enumerated the spontaneous, natural causes of association,
omitting the voluntary and artificial causes, which are but their imitations.
As a result of these various causes, images are taken to pieces, shattered,
broken up, but made all the readier as materials for the inventor. This is a
process analogous to that which, in geologic time, produces new strata
through the wearing away of old rocks.

II

Association is one of the big questions of psychology; but as it does not
especially concern our subject, it will be discussed in strict proportion to its
use here. Nothing is easier than limiting ourselves. Our task is reducible to a
very clear and very brief question: What are the forms of association that
give rise to new combinations and under what influences do they arise? All
other forms of association, those that are only repetitions, should be
eliminated. Consequently, this subject can not be treated in one single
effort; it must be studied, in turn, in its relations to our three factors—
intellectual, emotional, unconscious.

It is generally admitted that the expression "association of ideas" is faulty.[8]
It is not comprehensive enough, association being active also in psychic
states other than ideas. It seems indicative rather of mere juxtaposition,
whereas associated states modify one another by the very fact of their being

connected. But, as it has been confirmed by long usage, it would be difficult
to eliminate the phrase.
On the other hand, psychologists are not at all agreed as regards the
determination of the principal laws or forms of association. Without taking
sides in the debate, I adopt the most generally accepted classification, the
one most suitable for our subject—the one that reduces everything to the
two fundamental laws of contiguity and resemblance. In recent years
various attempts have been made to reduce these two laws to one, some
reducing resemblance to contiguity; others, contiguity to resemblance.
Putting aside the ground of this discussion, which seems to me very useless,
and which perhaps is due to excessive zeal for unity, we must nevertheless
recognize that this discussion is not without interest for the study of the
creative imagination, because it has well shown that each of the two
fundamental laws has a characteristic mechanism.
Association by contiguity (or continuity), which Wundt calls external, is
simple and homogeneous. It reproduces the order and connection of things;
it reduces itself to habits contracted by our nervous system.
Is association by resemblance, which Wundt calls internal, strictly speaking,
an elementary law? Many doubt it. Without entering into the long and
frequently confused discussions to which this subject has given rise, we
may sum up their results as follows: In so-called association by
resemblance it is necessary to distinguish three moments—(a) That of the
presentation; a state A is given in perception or association-by-contiguity,
and forms the starting point. (b) That of the work of assimilation; A is
recognized as more or less like a state a previously experienced. (c) As a
consequence of the coëxistence of A and a in consciousness, they can later
be recalled reciprocally, although the two original occurrences A and a have
previously never existed together, and sometimes, indeed, may not possibly
have existed together. It is evident that the crucial moment is the second,
and that it consists of an act of active assimilation. Thus James maintains
that "it is a relation that the mind perceives after the fact, just as it may
perceive the relations of superiority, of distance, of causality, of container
and content, of substance and accident, or of contrast between an object,
and some second object which the associative machinery calls up."[9]

Association by resemblance presupposes a joint labor of association and
dissociation—it is an active form. Consequently it is the principal source of
the material of the creative imagination, as the sequel of this work will
sufficiently show.
After this rather long but necessary preface, we come to the intellectual
factor rightly so termed, which we have been little by little approaching.
The essential, fundamental element of the creative imagination in the
intellectual sphere is the capacity of thinking by analogy; that is, by partial
and often accidental resemblance. By analogy we mean an imperfect kind
of resemblance: like is a genus of which analogue is a species.
Let us examine in some detail the mechanism of this mode of thought in
order that we may understand how analogy is, by its very nature, an almost
inexhaustible instrument of creation.
1. Analogy may be based solely on the number of attributes compared. Let
a b c d e f and r s t u d v be two beings or objects, each letter representing
symbolically one of the constitutive attributes. It is evident that the analogy
between the two is very weak, since there is only one common element, d.
If the number of the elements common to both increases, the analogy will
grow in the same proportion. But the agreement represented above is not
infrequent among minds unused to a somewhat severe discipline. A child
sees in the moon and stars a mother surrounded by her daughters. The
aborigines of Australia called a book "mussel," merely because it opens and
shuts like the valves of a shellfish.[10]
2. Analogy may have for its basis the quality or value of the compound
attributes. It rests on a variable element, which oscillates from the essential
to the accidental, from the reality to the appearance. To the layman, the
likeness between cetacians and fishes are great; to the scientist, slight. Here,
again, numerous agreements are possible, provided one take no account
either of their solidity or their frailty.
3. Lastly, in minds without power, there occurs a semi-unconscious
operation that we may call a transfer through the omission of the middle
term. There is analogy between a b c d e and g h a i f through the common
letter a; between g h a i f and x y f z q through the common letter f; and
finally an analogy becomes established between a b c d e and x y f z q for

no other reason than that of their common analogy with g h a i f. In the
realm of the affective states, transfers of this sort are not at all rare.
Analogy, an unstable process, undulating and multiform, gives rise to the
most unforeseen and novel groupings. Through its pliability, which is
almost unlimited, it produces in equal measure absurd comparisons and
very original inventions.
After these remarks on the mechanism of thinking by analogy, let us glance
at the processes it employs in its creative work. The problem is, apparently,
inextricable. Analogies are so numerous, so various, so arbitrary, that we
may despair of finding any regularity whatever in creative work. Despite
this it seems, however, reducible to two principal types or processes, which
are personification, and transformation or metamorphosis.
Personification is the earlier process. It is radical, always identical with
itself, but transitory. It goes out from ourselves toward other things. It
consists in attributing life to everything, in supposing in everything that
shows signs of life—and even in inanimate objects—desires, passions, and
acts of will analogous to ours, acting like ourselves in view of definite ends.
This state of mind is incomprehensible to an adult civilized man; but it must
be admitted, since there are facts without number that show its existence.
We do not need to cite them—they are too well known. They fill the works
of ethnologists, of travelers in savage lands, of books of mythology.
Besides, all of us, at the commencement of our lives, during our earliest
childhood, have passed through this inevitable stage of universal animism.
Works on child-psychology abound in observations that leave no possible
room for doubt on this point. The child endows everything with life, and he
does so the more in proportion as he is more imaginative. But this stage,
which among civilized people lasts only a brief period, remains in the
primitive man a permanent disposition and one that is always active. This
process of personification is the perennial fount whence have gushed the
greater number of myths, an enormous mass of superstitions, and a large
number of esthetic productions. To sum up in a word, all things that have
been invented ex analogia hominis.
Transformation or metamorphosis is a general, permanent process under
many forms, proceeding not from the thinking subject towards objects, but

from one object to another, from one thing to another. It consists of a
transfer through partial resemblance. This operation rests on two
fundamental bases—depending at one time on vague resemblances (a cloud
becomes a mountain, or a mountain a fantastic animal; the sound of the
wind a plaintive cry, etc.), or again, on a resemblance with a predominating
emotional element: A perception provokes a feeling, and becomes the mark,
sign, or plastic form thereof (the lion represents courage; the cat, artifice;
the cypress, sorrow; and so on). All this, doubtless, is erroneous or
arbitrary; but the function of the imagination is to invent, not to perceive.
All know that this process creates metaphors, allegories, symbols; it should
not, however, be believed on that account that it remains restricted to the
realm of art or of the development of language. We meet it every moment in
practical life, in mechanical, industrial, commercial, and scientific
invention, and we shall, later, give a large number of examples in support of
this statement.
Let us note, briefly, that analogy, as an imperfect form of resemblance—as
was said above, if we assume among the objects compared a totality of
likenesses and differences in varying proportions—necessarily allows all
degrees. At one end of the scale, the comparison is made between valueless
or exaggerated likenesses. At the other end, analogy is restricted to exact
resemblance; it approaches cognition, strictly so called; for example, in
mechanical and scientific invention. Hence it is not at all surprising that the
imagination is often a substitute for, and as Goethe expressed it, "a
forerunner of," reason. Between the creative imagination and rational
investigation there is a community of nature—both presuppose the ability
of seizing upon likenesses. On the other hand, the predominance of the
exact process establishes from the outset a difference between "thinkers"
and imaginative dreamers ("visionaries").[11]

FOOTNOTES:
[3] Cf. the well-known aphorism, "Apperception ist alles." (Tr.)
[4] See especially J. Philippe, "La déformation et les transformations des
images" in Revue Philosophique, May and November, 1897. Although these
investigations had in view only visual representations, it is not at all doubtful
that the results hold good for others, especially those of hearing (voice, song,
harmony).

[5] On Intelligence, Vol. I, Bk. ii, Chap. 2.
[6] In his recent history of the theories of the imagination, La psicologia dell'
immaginazione, nella storia filosofia (Rome, 1898) Ambrosi shows that this law
is found already formulated in the Psychologia Empirica of Christian Wolff [d.
1754]: "Perceptio præterita integra recurrit cujus præsens continet partem."
[7] Sully, Human Mind, I, p. 365; James, Psychology, I, p. 502.
[8] For a good criticism of the term, consult Titchener, Outlines of Psychology
(New York, 1896), p. 190.
[9] For the discussions on the reduction to a unity, a detailed bibliography will
be found in Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologie (Stuttgart, 1896), p. 490. On the
comparison of the two laws, James, op. cit., I, 590; Sully, op. cit., I, 331 ff;
Höffding, Psychologie, 213 ff. (Eng. ed. Outlines of Psychology, pp. 152 ff.).
[10] Note here a characteristically naïve working of the primitive intellect in
explaining the unknown in terms of the known. Cf. Part II, Chap. iii, below. (Tr.)
[11] It is yet, and will probably long remain, an open question whether we can
draw any clear distinction between the two kinds of mind here discussed. The
author is careful to base his distinction on the "predominance" of the "rational"
or of the "imaginative" process. So-called "thinkers," who do nothing, can not,
certainly, be ranked with the persons of great intellectual attainment through
whose efforts the progress of the world is made; on the other hand, the author
seeks to make results or accomplishments the crucial test of true imagination
(see Introduction).
As regards the relative value or rank of the two bents of mind there has ever
been, and probably forever will be, great difference of opinion. Even in this
intensely "practical" age there is an undercurrent of feeling that the narrowly
"practical" individual is not the final ideal, and the innermost conviction of many
is the same as that of the poet who declares that "a dreamer lives forever, but a
thinker dies in a day." (Tr.)

CHAPTER II
THE EMOTIONAL FACTOR.

The influence of emotional states on the working of the imagination is a
matter of current observation. But it has been studied chiefly by moralists,
who most often have criticised or condemned it as an endless cause of
mistakes. The point of view of the psychologist is altogether different. He
does not need at all to investigate whether emotions and passions give rise
to mental phantoms—which is an indisputable fact—but why and how they
arise. For, the emotional factor yields in importance to no other; it is the
ferment without which no creation is possible. Let us study it in its principal
forms, although we may not be able at this moment to exhaust the topic.

I

It is necessary to show at the outset that the influence of the emotional life
is unlimited, that it penetrates the entire field of invention with no
restriction whatever; that this is not a gratuitous assertion, but is, on the
contrary, strictly justified by facts, and that we are right in maintaining the
following two propositions:
1. All forms of the creative imagination imply elements of feeling.
This statement has been challenged by authoritative psychologists, who
hold that "emotion is added to imagination in its esthetic aspect, not in its
mechanical and intellectual form." This is an error of fact resulting from the
confusion, or from the imperfect analysis, of two distinct cases. In the case
of non-esthetic creation, the rôle of the emotional life is simple; in esthetic
creation, the rôle of emotional element is double.
Let us consider invention, first, in its most general form. The emotional
element is the primal, original factor; for all invention presupposes a want,
a craving, a tendency, an unsatisfied impulse, often even a state of gestation
full of discomfort. Moreover, it is concomitant, that is, under its form of

pleasure or of pain, of hope, of spite, of anger, etc., it accompanies all the
phases or turns of creation. The creator may, haphazard, go through the
most diverse forms of exaltation and depression; may feel in turn the
dejection of repulse and the joy of success; finally the satisfaction of being
freed from a heavy burden. I challenge anyone to produce a solitary
example of invention wrought out in abstracto, and free from any factors of
feeling. Human nature does not allow such a miracle.
Now, let us take up the special case of esthetic creation, and of forms
approaching thereto. Here again we find the original emotional element as
at first motor, then attached to various aspects of creation, as an
accompaniment. But, in addition, affective states become material for the
creative activity. It is a well-known fact, almost a rule, that the poet, the
novelist, the dramatist, and the musician—often, indeed, even the sculptor
and the painter—experience the thoughts and feeling of their characters,
become identified with them. There are, then, in this second instance, two
currents of feeling—the one, constituting emotion as material for art, the
other, drawing out creative activity and developing along with it.
The difference between the two cases that we have distinguished consists in
this and nothing more than this. The existence of an emotion-content
belonging to esthetic production changes in no way the psychologic
mechanism of invention generally. Its absence in other forms of imagination
does not at all prevent the necessary existence of affective elements
everywhere and always.
2. All emotional dispositions whatever may influence the creative
imagination.
Here, again, I find opponents, notably Oelzelt-Newin, in his short and
substantial monograph on the imagination.[12] Adopting the twofold
division of emotions as sthenic and asthenic, or exciting and depressing, he
attributes to the first the exclusive privilege of influencing creative activity;
but though the author limits his study exclusively to the esthetic
imagination, his thesis, even understood thus, is untenable. The facts
contradict it completely, and it is easy to demonstrate that all forms of
emotion, without exception, act as leaven for imagination.

No one will deny that fear is the type of asthenic manifestations. Yet is it
not the mother of phantoms, of numberless superstitions, of altogether
irrational and chimerical religious practices?
Anger, in its exalted, violent form, is rather an agent of destruction, which
seems to contradict my thesis; but let us pass over the storm, which is
always of short duration, and we find in its place milder intellectualized
forms, which are various modifications of primitive fury, passing from the
acute to the chronic state: envy, jealousy, enmity, premeditated vengeance,
and so forth. Are not these dispositions of the mind fertile in artifices,
stratagems, inventions of all kinds? To keep even to esthetic creation, is it
necessary to recall the saying facit indignatio versum?
It is not necessary to demonstrate the fecundity of joy. As for love, everyone
knows that its work consists of creating an imaginary being, which is
substituted for the beloved object; then, when the passion has vanished, the
disenchanted lover finds himself face to face with the bare reality.
Sorrow rightly belongs in the category of depressing emotions, and yet, it
has as great influence on invention as any other emotion. Do we not know
that melancholy and even profound sorrow has furnished poets, musicians,
painters, and sculptors with their most beautiful inspirations? Is there not an
art frankly and deliberately pessimistic? And this influence is not at all
limited to esthetic creation. Dare we hold that hypochondria and insanity
following upon the delirium of persecution are devoid of imagination?
Their morbid character is, on the contrary, the well whence strange
inventions incessantly bubble.
Lastly, that complex emotion termed "self-feeling," which reduces itself
finally to the pleasure of asserting our power and of feeling its expansion,
or to the pitiable feeling of our shackled, enfeebled power, leads us directly
to the motor elements that are the fundamental conditions of invention.
Above all, in this personal feeling, there is the satisfaction of being a causal
factor, i.e., a creator, and every creator has a consciousness of his
superiority over non-creators. However petty his invention, it confers upon
him a superiority over those who have invented nothing. Although we have
been surfeited with the repeated statement that the characteristic mark of
esthetic creation is "being disinterested," it must be recognized, as Groos

has so truly remarked,[13] that the artist does not create out of the simple
pleasure of creating, but in order that he may behold a mastery over other
minds.[14] Production is the natural extension of "self-feeling," and the
accompanying pleasure is the pleasure of conquest.
Thus, on condition that we extend "imagination" to its full sense, without
limiting it unduly to esthetics, there is, among the many forms of the
emotional life, not one that may not stimulate invention. It remains to see
this emotional factor at work,—to note how it can give rise to new
combinations; and this brings us to the association of ideas.

II

We have said above that the ideal and theoretic law of the recurrence of
images is that of "total redintegration," as e.g., recalling all the incidents of
a long voyage in chronological order, with neither additions nor omissions.
But this formula expresses what ought to be, not what actually occurs. It
supposes man reduced to a state of pure intelligence, and sheltered from all
disturbing influences. It suits the completely systematized forms of
memory, hardened into routine and habit; but, outside of these cases, it
remains an abstract concept.
To this law of ideal value, there is opposed the real and practical law that
actually obtains in the revival of images. It is rightly styled the "law of
interest" or the affective law, and may be stated thus: In every past event the
interesting parts alone revive, or with more intensity than the others.
"Interesting" here means what affects us in some way under a pleasing or
painful form. Let us note that the importance of this fact has been pointed
out not by the associationists (a fact especially worth remembering) but by
less systematic writers, strangers to that school,—Coleridge, Shadworth
Hodgson, and before them, Schopenhauer. William James calls it the
"ordinary or mixed association."[15] The "law of interest" doubtless is less
exact than the intellectual laws of contiguity and resemblance.
Nevertheless, it seems to penetrate all the more in later reasoning. If,
indeed, in the problem of association we distinguish these three things—
facts, laws, causes—the practical law brings us near to causes.

Whatever the truth may be in this matter, the emotional factor brings about
new combinations by several processes.
There are the ordinary, simple cases, with a natural, emotional foundation,
depending on momentary dispositions. They exist because of the fact that
representations that have been accompanied by the same emotional state
tend later to become associated: the emotional resemblance reunites and
links disparate images. This differs from association by contiguity, which is
a repetition of experience, and from association by resemblance in the
intellectual sense. The states of consciousness become combined, not
because they have been previously given together, not because we perceive
the agreement of resemblance between them, but because they have a
common emotional note. Joy, sorrow, love, hatred, admiration, ennui, pride,
fatigue, etc., may become a center of attraction that groups images or events
having otherwise no rational relations between them, but having the same
emotional stamp,—joyous, melancholy, erotic, etc. This form of association
is very frequent in dreams and reveries, i.e., in a state of mind in which the
imagination enjoys complete freedom and works haphazard. We easily see
that this influence, active or latent, of the emotional factor, must cause
entirely unexpected grouping to arise, and offers an almost unlimited field
for novel combinations, the number of images having a common emotional
factor being very great.
There are unusual and remarkable cases with an exceptional emotional
base. Of such is "colored hearing." We know that several hypotheses have
been offered in regard to the origin of this phenomenon. Embryologically, it
would seem to be the result of an incomplete separation between the sense
of sight and that of hearing, and the survival, it is said, from a distant period
of humanity, when this state must have been the rule; anatomically, the
result of supposed anastamoses between the cerebral centers for visual and
auditory sensations; physiologically, the result of nervous irradiation;
psychologically, the result of association. This latter hypothesis seems to
account for the greater number of instances, if not for all; but, as Flournoy
has observed, it is a matter of "affective" imagination. Two sensations
absolutely unlike (for instance, the color blue and the sound i) may
resemble one another through the equal retentive quality that they possess
in the organism of some favored individuals, and this emotional factor
becomes a bond of association. Observe that this hypothesis explains also

the much more unusual cases of "colored" smell, taste, and pain; that is, an
abnormal association between given colors and tastes, smells, or pains.
Although we meet them only as exceptional cases, these modes of
association are susceptible to analysis, and seem clear, almost self-evident,
if we compare them with other, subtle, refined, barely perceptible cases, the
origin of which is a subject for supposition, for guessing rather than for
clear comprehension. It is, moreover, a sort of imagination belonging to
very few people: certain artists and some eccentric or unbalanced minds,
scarcely ever found outside the esthetic or practical life. I wish to speak of
the forms of invention that permit only fantastic conceptions, of a
strangeness pushed to the extreme (Hoffman, Poe, Baudelaire, Goya,
Wiertz, etc.), or surprising, extraordinary thoughts, known of no other men
(the symbolists and decadents that flourish at the present time in various
countries of Europe and America, who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they
are preparing the esthetics of the future). It must be here admitted that there
exists an altogether special manner of feeling, dependent on temperament at
first, which many cultivate and refine as though it were a precious rarity.
There lies the true source of their invention. Doubtless, to assert this
pertinently, it would be necessary to establish the direct relations between
their physical and psychical constitution and that of their work; to note even
the particular states at the moment of the creative act. To me at least, it
seems evident that the novelty, the strangeness of combinations, through its
deep subjective character, indicates an emotional rather than an intellectual
origin. Let us merely add that these abnormal manifestations of the creative
imagination belong to the province of pathology rather than to that of
psychology.
Association by contrast is, from its very nature, vague, arbitrary,
indeterminate. It rests, in truth, on an essentially subjective and fleeting
conception, that of contrariety, which it is almost impossible to delimit
scientifically; for, most often, contraries exist only by and for us. We know
that this form of association is not primary and irreducible. It is brought
down by some to contiguity, by most others to resemblance. These two
views do not seem to me irreconcilable. In association by contrast we may
distinguish two layers,—the one, superficial, consists of contiguity: all of us
have in memory associated couples, such as large-small, rich-poor, high-
low, right-left, etc., which result from repetition and habit; the other, deep,

is resemblance; contrast exists only where a common measure between two
terms is possible. As Wundt remarks, a wedding may be compared to a
burial (the union and separation of a couple), but not to a toothache. There
is contrast between two colors, contrast between sounds, but not between a
sound and a color, at least in that there may not be a common basis to which
we may relate them, as in the previously given instances of "colored"
sound. In association by contrast, there are conscious elements opposed to
one another, and below, an unconscious element, resemblance,—not clearly
and logically perceived, but felt—that evokes and relates the conscious
elements.
Whether this explanation be right or not, let us remark that association by
contrast could not be left out, because its mechanism, full of unforeseen
possibilities, lends itself easily to novel relations. Otherwise, I do not at all
claim that it is entirely dependent upon the emotional factor. But, as
Höffding observes,[16] the special property of the emotional life is moving
among contraries; it is altogether determined by the great opposition
between pleasure and pain. Thus, the effects of contrasts are much stronger
than in the realm of sensation. This form of association predominates in
esthetic and mythic creation, that is to say, in creation of the free fancy; it
becomes dimmed in the precise forms of practical, mechanical, and
scientific invention.

III

Hitherto we have considered the emotional factor under a single aspect only
—the purely emotional—that which is manifested in consciousness under
an agreeable or disagreeable or mixed form. But thoughts, feelings, and
emotions include elements that are deeper—motor, i.e., impulsive or
inhibitory—which we may neglect the less since it is in movements that we
seek the origin of the creative imagination. This motor element is what
current speech and often even psychological treatises designate under the
terms "creative instinct," "inventive instinct;" what we express in another
form when we say that creators are guided by instinct and "are pushed like
animals toward the accomplishment of certain acts."
If I mistake not, this indicates that the "creative instinct" exists in all men to
some extent—feeble in some, perceptible in others, brilliant in the great

inventors.
For I do not hesitate to maintain that the creative instinct, taken in this strict
meaning, compared to animal instinct, is a mere figure of speech, an
"entity" regarded as a reality, an abstraction. There are needs, appetites,
tendencies, desires, common to all men, which, in a given individual at a
given moment can result in a creative act; but there is no special psychic
manifestation that may be the "creative instinct." What, indeed, could it be?
Every instinct has its own particular end:—hunger, thirst, sex, the specific
instincts of the bee, ant, beaver, consist of a group of movements adapted
for a determinate end that is always the same. Now, what would be a
creative instinct in general which, by hypothesis, could produce in turn an
opera, a machine, a metaphysical theory, a system of finance, a plan of
military campaign, and so forth? It is a pure fancy. Inventive genius has not
a source, but sources.
Let us consider from our present viewpoint the human duality, the homo
duplex:
Suppose man reduced to a state of pure intelligence, that is, capable of
perceiving, remembering, associating, dissociating, reasoning, and nothing
else. All creative activity is then impossible, because there is nothing to
solicit it.
Suppose, again, man reduced to organic manifestations; he is then no more
than a bundle of wants, appetites, instincts,—that is, of motor activities,
blind forces that, lacking a sufficient cerebral organ, will produce nothing.
The coöperation of both these factors is indispensable: without the first,
nothing begins; without the second, nothing results. I hold that it is in needs
that we must seek for the primary cause of all inventions; it is evident that
the motor element alone is insufficient. If the needs are strong, energetic,
they may determine a production, or, if the intellectual factor is insufficient,
may spoil it. Many want to make discoveries but discover nothing. A want
so common as hunger or thirst suggests to one some ingenious method of
satisfying it; another remains entirely destitute.
In short, in order that a creative act occur, there is required, first, a need;
then, that it arouse a combination of images; and lastly, that it objectify and

realize itself in an appropriate form.
We shall try later (in the Conclusion) to answer the question, Why is one
imaginative? In passing, let us put the opposite question, Why is one not
imaginative? One may possess in the mind an inexhaustible treasure of facts
and images and yet produce nothing: great travelers, for example, who have
seen and heard much, and who draw from their experiences only a few
colorless anecdotes; men who were partakers in great political events or
military movements, who leave behind only a few dry and chilly memoirs;
prodigies of reading, living encyclopedias, who remain crushed under the
load of their erudition. On the other hand, there are people who easily move
and act, but are limited, lacking images and ideas. Their intellectual poverty
condemns them to unproductiveness; nevertheless, being nearer than the
others to the imaginative type, they bring forth childish or chimerical
productions. So that we may answer the question asked above: The non-
imaginative person is such from lack of materials or through the absence of
resourcefulness.
Without contenting ourselves with these theoretical remarks, let us rapidly
show that it is thus that these things actually happen. All the work of the
creative imagination may be classed under two great heads—esthetic
inventions and practical inventions; on the one hand, what man has brought
to pass in the domain of art, and on the other hand, all else. Though this
division may appear strange, and unjustifiable, it has reason for its being, as
we shall see hereafter.
Let us consider first the class of non-esthetic creations. Very different in
nature, all the products of this group coincide at one point:—they are of
practical utility, they are born of a vital need, of one of the conditions of
man's existence. There are first the inventions "practical" in the narrow
sense—all that pertains to food, clothing, defense, housing, etc. Every one
of these special needs has stimulated inventions adapted to a special end.
Inventions in the social and political order answer to the conditions of
collective existence; they arise from the necessity of maintaining the
coherence of the social aggregate and of defending it against inimical
groups. The work of the imagination whence have arisen the myths,
religious conceptions, and the first attempts at a scientific explanation may
seem at first disinterested and foreign to practical life. This is an erroneous

supposition. Man, face to face with the higher powers of nature, the mystery
of which he does not penetrate, has a need of acting upon it; he tries to
conciliate them, even to turn them to his service by magic rites and
operations. His curiosity is not at all theoretic; he does not aim to know for
the sake of knowing, but in order to act upon the outside world and to draw
profit therefrom. To the numerous questions that necessity puts to him his
imagination alone responds, because his reason is shifting and his scientific
knowledge nil. Here, then, invention again results from urgent needs.
Indeed, in the course of the nineteenth century and on account of growing
civilization all these creations reach a second moment when their origin is
hidden. Most of our mechanical, industrial and commercial inventions are
not stimulated by the immediate necessity of living, by an urgent need; it is
not a question of existence but of better existence. The same holds true of
social and political inventions which arise from the increasing complexity
and the new requirements of the aggregates forming great states. Lastly, it is
certain that primitive curiosity has partially lost its utilitarian character in
order to become, in some men at least, the taste for pure research—
theoretical, speculative, disinterested. But all this in no way affects our
thesis, for it is a well-known elementary psychological law that upon
primitive wants are grafted acquired wants fully as imperative. The
primitive need is modified, metamorphosed, adapted; there remains of it,
nonetheless, the fundamental activity toward creation.
Let us now consider the class of esthetic creations. According to the
generally accepted theory which is too well known for me to stop to explain
it, art has its beginning in a superfluous, bounding activity, useless as
regards the preservation of the individual, which is shown first in the form
of play. Then, through transformation and complication, play becomes
primitive art, dancing, music, and poetry at the same time, closely united in
an apparently indissoluble unity. Although the theory of the absolute
inutility of art has met some strong criticism, let us accept it for the present.
Aside from the true or false character of inutility, the psychological
mechanism remains the same here as in the preceding cases; we shall only
say that in place of a vital need it is a need of luxury acting, but it acts only
because it is in man.

Nevertheless, the inutility of play is far from proven biologically. Groos, in
his two excellent works on the subject,[17] has maintained with much power
the opposite view. According to him the theory of Schiller and Spencer,
based on the expenditure of superfluous activity and the opposite theory of
Lazarus, who reduces play to a relaxation—that is, a recuperation of
strength—are but partial explanations. Play has a positive use. In man there
exist a great number of instincts that are not yet developed at birth. An
incomplete being, he must have education of his capacities, and this is
obtained through play, which is the exercise of the natural tendencies of
human activities. In man and in the higher animals plays are a preparation, a
prelude to the active functions of life. There is no instinct of play in general,
but there are special instincts that are manifested under the forms of play. If
we admit this explanation, which does not lack potency, the work of the
esthetic imagination itself would be reduced to a biological necessity, and
there would be no reason for making a separate category of it. Whichever
view we may adopt, it still remains established that any invention is
reducible, directly or indirectly, to a particular, determinate need, and that to
allow man a special instinct, the definite specific character of which should
be stimulation to creative activity, is a fantastic notion.
Whence, then, comes this persistent and in some respects seductive idea
that creation is an instinctive result? Because a happy invention has
characteristics that evidently relate it to instinctive activity in the strict
sense of the word. First, precocity, of which we shall later give numerous
examples, and which resembles the innateness of instinct. Again,
orientation in a single direction: the inventor is, so to speak, polarized; he is
the slave of music, of mechanics, of mathematics; often inapt at everything
outside his own particular sphere. We know the witticism of Madame du
Deffant on Vaucanson, who was so awkward, so insignificant when he
ventured outside of mechanics. "One should say that this man had
manufactured himself." Finally, the ease with which invention often (not
always) manifests itself makes it resemble the work of a pre-established
mechanism.
But these and similar characteristics may be lacking. They are necessary for
instinct, not for invention. There are great creators who have been neither
precocious nor confined in a narrow field, and who have given birth to their
inventions painfully, laboriously. Between the mechanism of instinct and

that of imaginative creation there are frequently great analogies but not
identity of nature. Every tendency of our organization, useful or hurtful,
may become the beginning of a creative act. Every invention arises from a
particular need of human nature, acting within its own sphere and for its
own special end.
If now it should be asked why the creative imagination directs itself
preferably in one line rather than in another—toward poetry or physics,
trade or mechanics, geometry or painting, strategy or music, etc.—we have
nothing in answer. It is a result of the individual organization, the secret of
which we do not possess. In ordinary life we meet people visibly borne
along toward love or good cheer, toward ambition, riches or good works;
we say that they are "so built," that such is their character. At bottom the
two questions are identical, and current psychology is not in a position to
solve them.

FOOTNOTES:
[12] Ueber Phantasievorstellungen, Graz, 1889, p. 48.
[13] Die Spiele der Thiere, Jena, 1896. The subject has been very well treated by
this author, pp. 294-301.
[14] The "disinterested" view is found widely advocated or hinted at in
literature. Cf. Goethe's "Der Sänger" (Tr.).
[15] Psychology, I, 571 ff.
[16] Höffding, Psychologie, p. 219; Eng. trans., p. 161.
[17] Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, 1896, and Die Spiele der Menschen, 1899
(Eng. trans., Appletons, New York, 1898, 1901).

CHAPTER III
THE UNCONSCIOUS FACTOR

I

By this term I designate principally, not exclusively, what ordinary speech
calls "inspiration." In spite of its mysterious and semi-mythological
appearance, the term indicates a positive fact, one that is ill-understood in a
deep sense, like all that is near the roots of creation. This concept has its
history, and if it is permissible to apply a very general formula to a
particular case we may say that it has developed according to the law of the
three states assumed by the positivists.
In the beginning, inspiration is literally ascribed to the gods—among the
Greeks to Apollo and the Muses, and in like manner under various
polytheistic religions. Later, the gods become supernatural spirits, angels,
saints, etc. In one way or another it is always regarded as external and
superior to man. In the beginnings of all inventions—agriculture,
navigation, medicine, commerce, legislation, fine arts—there is a belief in
revelation; the human mind considers itself incapable of having discovered
all that. Creation has arisen, we do not know how, in a total ignorance of the
processes.
Later on these higher beings become empty formulas, mere survivals; there
remain only the poets to invoke their aid, through the force of tradition,
without believing in them. But side by side with these formal survivals
there remains a mysterious ground which is translated by vague expressions
and metaphors, such as "enthusiasm," "poetic frenzy," "possession by a
spirit," "being overcome," "having the devil inside one," "the spirit whispers
as it lists," etc. Here we have come out of the supernatural without,
however, attempting a positive (i.e., a scientific) explanation.
Lastly, in the third stage, we try to sound this unknown. Psychology sees in
it a special manifestation of the mind, a particular, semi-conscious, semi-

unconscious state which we must now study.
At first sight, and considered in its negative aspect, inspiration presents a
very definite character. It does not depend on the individual will. As in the
case of sleep or digestion, we may try to call it forth, encourage it, maintain
it; but not always with success. Inventors, great and small, never cease to
complain over the periods of unproductiveness which they undergo in spite
of themselves. The wiser among them watch for the moment; the others
attempt to fight against their evil fate and to create despite nature.
Considered in its positive aspect, inspiration has two essential marks—
suddenness and impersonality.
(a) It makes a sudden eruption into consciousness, but one presupposing a
latent, frequently long, labor. It has its analogues among other well-known
psychic states; for example, a passion that is forgotten, which, after a long
period of incubation, reveals itself through an act; or, better, a sudden
resolve after endless deliberation which did not seem able to come to a
head. Again, there may be absence of effort and of appearance of
preparation. Beethoven would strike haphazard the keys of a piano or
would listen to the songs of birds. "With Chopin," says George Sand,
"creation was spontaneous, miraculous; he wrought without foreseeing. It
would come complete, sudden, sublime." One might pile up like facts in
abundance. Sometimes, indeed, inspiration bursts forth in deep sleep and
awakens the sleeper, and lest we may suppose this suddenness to be
especially characteristic of artists we see it in all forms of invention. "You
feel a little electric shock striking you in the head, seizing your heart at the
same time—that is the moment of genius" (Buffon). "In the course of my
life I have had some happy thoughts," says Du Bois Reymond, "and I have
often noted that they would come to me involuntarily, and when I was not
thinking of the subject." Claude Bernard has voiced the same thought more
than once.
(b) Impersonality is a deeper character than the preceding. It reveals a
power superior to the conscious individual, strange to him although acting
through him: a state which many inventors have expressed in the words, "I
counted for nothing in that." The best means of recognizing it would be to
write down some observations taken from the inspired individuals

themselves. We do not lack them, and some have the virtue of good
observation.[18] But that would lead us too far afield. Let us only remark
that this unconscious impulse acts variously according to the individual.
Some submit to it painfully, striving against it just like the ancient
pythoness at the time of giving her oracle. Others, especially in religious
inspiration, submit themselves entirely with pleasure or else sustain it
passively. Still others of a more analytic turn have noted the concentration
of all their faculties and capacities on a single point. But whatever
characteristics it takes on, remaining impersonal at bottom and unable to
appear in a fully conscious individual, we must admit, unless we wish to
give it a supernatural origin, that inspiration is derived from the
unconscious activity of the mind. In order to make sure of its nature it
would then be necessary to make sure first of the nature of the unconscious,
which is one of the enigmas of psychology.
I put aside all the discussions on the subject as tiresome and useless for our
present aim. Indeed, they reduce themselves to these two principal
propositions: for some the unconscious is a purely physiological activity, a
"cerebration"; for others it is a gradual diminution of consciousness which
exists without being bound to me—i.e., to the principal consciousness. Both
these are full of difficulties and present almost insurmountable objections.
[19]

Let us take the "unconscious" as a fact and let us limit ourselves to clearing
it up, relating inspiration to mental states that have been judged worthy of
explaining it.
1. Hypermnesia, or exaltation of memory, in spite of what has been said
about it, teaches us nothing in regard to the nature of inspiration or of
invention in general. It is produced in hypnotism, mania, the excited period
of "circular insanity," at the beginning of general paralysis, and especially
under the form known as "the gift of tongues" in religious epidemics. We
find, it is true, some observations (among others one by Regis of an
illiterate newspaper vender composing pieces of poetry of his own),
indicating that a heightened memory sometimes accompanies a certain
tendency toward invention. But hypermnesia, pure and simple, consists of
an extraordinary flood of memories totally lacking that essential mark of
creation—new combinations. It even appears that in the two instances there

is rather an antagonism since heightened memory comes near to the ideal
law of total redintegration, which is, as we know, a hindrance to invention.
They are alike only with respect to the great mass of separable materials,
but where the principle of unity is wanting there can be no creation.
2. Inspiration has often been likened to the state of excitement preceding
intoxication. It is a well-known fact that many inventors have sought it in
wine, alcoholic liquors, toxic substances like hashish, opium, ether, etc. It is
unnecessary to mention names. The abundance of ideas, the rapidity of their
flow, the eccentric spurts and caprices, novel ideas, strengthening of the
vital and emotional tone, that brief state of bounding fancy of which
novelists have given such good descriptions, make evident to the least
observing that under the influence of intoxication the imagination works to
a much greater extent than ordinarily. Yet how pale that is compared to the
action of the intellectual poisons above mentioned, especially hashish. The
"artificial paradise" of DeQuincy, Moreau de Tours, Théophile Gautier,
Baudelaire and others have made known to all an enormous expansion of
the imagination launched into a giddy course without limits of time and
space.
Strictly, these are facts representing only a stimulated, artificial, temporary
inspiration. They do not take us into its true nature; at the most they may
teach us concerning some of their physiological conditions. It is not even an
inspiration in the strict sense, but rather a beginning, an embryo, an outline,
analogous to the creations produced in dreams which are found very
incoherent when we awake. One of the essential conditions of creation, a
principal element—the directing principle that organizes and unifies—is
lacking. Under the influence of alcoholic drinks and of poisonous
intoxicants attention and will always fall into exhaustion.
3. With greater reason it has been sought to explain inspiration by
comparison with certain forms of somnambulism, and it has been said that
"it is only the lowest degree of the latter state, somnambulism in a waking
state. In inspiration it is as though a strange personality were speaking to
the author; in somnambulism it is the stranger himself who talks or holds
the pen, who speaks or writes—in a word, does the work."[20] It would thus
be the modified form of a state that is the culmination of subconscious
activity and a state of double personality. As this last explanatory

expression is wonderfully abused, and is called upon to serve in all
conditions, preciseness is indispensable.
The inspired individual is like an awakened dreamer—he lives in his dream.
(Of this we might cite seemingly authentic examples: Shelly, Alfieri, etc.)
Psychologically, this means that there is in him a double inversion of the
normal state.
To begin with, consciousness monopolized by the number and intensity of
its images is closed to the influences of the outside world, or else receives
them only to make them enter the web of its dream. The internal life
annihilates the external, which is just the opposite of ordinary life.
Further, the unconscious or subconscious activity passes to the first plane,
plays the first part, while preserving its impersonal character.
This much allowed, if we would go further, we are thrown into increasing
difficulties. The existence of an unconscious working is beyond doubt; facts
in profusion could be given in support of this obscure elaboration which
enters consciousness only when all is done. But what is the nature of this
work? Is it purely physiological? Is it psychological? We come to two
opposing theses. Theoretically, we may say that everything goes on in the
realm of the unconscious just as in consciousness, only without a message
to me; that in clear consciousness the work may be followed up step by
step, while in unconsciousness it proceeds likewise, but unknown to us. It is
evident that all this is purely hypothetical.
Inspiration resembles a cipher dispatch which the unconscious activity
transmits to the conscious process, which translates it. Must we admit that
in the deep levels of the unconscious there are formed only fragmentary
combinations and that they reach complete systematization only in clear
consciousness, or, rather, is the creative labor identical in both cases? It is
difficult to decide. It seems to be accepted that genius, or at least richness,
in invention depends on the subliminal imagination,[21] not on the other,
which is superficial in nature and soon exhausted. The one is spontaneous,
true; the other, artificial, feigned. "Inspiration" signifies unconscious
imagination, and is only a special case of it. Conscious imagination is a
kind of perfected state.

To sum up, inspiration is the result of an underhand process existing in men,
in some to a very great degree. The nature of this work being unknown, we
can conclude nothing as to the ultimate nature of inspiration. On the other
hand, we may in a positive manner fix the value of the phenomenon in
invention, all the more as we are inclined to over-value it. We should,
indeed, note that inspiration is not a cause but an effect—more exactly, a
moment, a crisis, a critical stage; it is an index. It marks either the end of an
unconscious elaboration which may have been very short or very long, or
else the beginning of a conscious elaboration which will be very short or
very long (this is seen especially in cases of creation suggested by chance).
On the one hand, it never has an absolute beginning; on the other hand, it
never delivers a finished work; the history of inventions sufficiently proves
this. Furthermore, one may pass beyond it; many creations long in
preparation seem without a crisis, strictly so called; such as Newton's law of
attraction, Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper," and the "Mona Lisa." Finally,
many have felt themselves really inspired without producing anything of
value.[22]

II

What has been said up to this point does not exhaust the study of the
unconscious factor as a source of new combinations. Its rôle can be studied
under a simpler and more limited form. For this purpose we need to return
for the last time to association of ideas. The final reason for association
(outside of contiguity, in part at least) must be sought in the temperament,
character, individuality of the subject, often even in the moment; that is, in a
passing influence, hardly perceptible because it is unconscious or
subconscious. These momentary dispositions in latent form can excite novel
relations in two ways—through mediate association and through a special
mode of grouping which has recently received the name "constellation."
1. Mediate association has been well known since the time of Hamilton,
who was the first to determine its nature and to give a personal example that
has become classic. Loch Lomond recalled to him the Prussian system of
education because, when visiting the lake, he had met a Prussian officer
who conversed with him on the subject. His general formula is this: A
recalls C, although there is between them neither contiguity nor

resemblance, but because a middle term, B, which does not enter
consciousness, serves as a transition between A and C. This mode of
association seemed universally accepted when, latterly, it has been attacked
by Münsterberg and others. People have had recourse to experimentation,
which has given results only in slight agreement.[23] For my own part, I
count myself among those contemporaries who admit mediate association,
and they are the greater number. Scripture, who has made a special study of
the subject, and who has been able to note all the intermediate conditions
between almost clear consciousness and the unconscious, considers the
existence of mediate association as proven. In order to pronounce as an
illusion a fact that is met with so often in daily experience, and one that has
been studied by so many excellent observers, there is required more than
experimental investigations (the conditions of which are often artificial and
unnatural), some of which, moreover, conclude for the affirmative.
This form of association is produced, like the others, now by contiguity,
now by resemblance. The example given by Hamilton belongs to the first
type. In the experiments by Scripture are found some of the second type—
e.g., a red light recalled, through the vague memory of a flash of strontium
light, a scene of an opera.
It is clear that by its very nature mediate association can give rise to novel
combinations. Contiguity itself, which is usually only repetition, becomes
the source of unforeseen relations, thanks to the elimination of the middle
term. Nothing, moreover, proves that there may not sometimes be several
latent intermediate terms. It is possible that A should call up D through the
medium of b and c, which remain below the threshold of consciousness. It
seems even impossible not to admit this in the hypothesis of the
subconscious, where we see only the two end links of the chain, without
being able to allow a break of continuity between them.
2. In his determination of the regulating causes of association of ideas,
Ziehen designates one of these under the name of "constellation," which has
been adopted by some writers. This may be enunciated thus: The recall of
an image, or of a group of images, is in some cases the result of a sum of
predominant tendencies.

An idea may become the starting point of a host of associations. The word
"Rome" can call up a hundred. Why is one called up rather than another,
and at such a moment rather than at another? There are some associations
based on contiguity and on resemblance which one may foresee, but how
about the rest? Here is an idea A; it is the center of a network; it can radiate
in all directions—B, C, D, E, F, etc. Why does it call up now B, later F?
It is because every image is comparable to a force, which may pass from the
latent to the active condition, and in this process may be reinforced or
checked by other images. There are simultaneous and inhibitory tendencies.
B is in a state of tension and C is not; or it may be that D exerts an arresting
influence on C. Consequently C cannot prevail. But an hour later conditions
have changed and victory rests with C. This phenomenon rests on a
physiological basis: the existence of several currents diffusing themselves
through the brain and the possibility of receiving simultaneous excitations.
[24]

A few examples will make plainer this phenomenon of reinforcement, in
consequence of which an association prevails. Wahle reports that the Gothic
Hôtel de Ville, near his house, had never suggested to him the idea of the
Doges' Palace at Venice, in spite of certain architectural likenesses, until a
certain day when this idea broke upon him with much clearness. He then
recalled that two hours before he had observed a lady wearing a beautiful
brooch in the form of a gondola. Sully rightly remarks that it is much easier
to recall the words of a foreign language when we return from the country
where it is spoken than when we have lived a long time in our own, because
the tendency toward recollection is reinforced by the recent experience of
the words heard, spoken, read, and a whole array of latent dispositions that
work in the same direction.
In my opinion we would find the finest examples of "constellation,"
regarded as a creative element, in studying the formation and development
of myths. Everywhere and always man has had for material scarcely
anything save natural phenomena—the sky, land, water, stars, storms, wind,
seasons, life, death, etc. On each of these themes he builds thousands of
explanatory stories, which vary from the grandly imposing to the laughably
childish. Every myth is the work of a human group which has worked
according to the tendencies of its special genius under the influence of

various stages of intellectual culture. No process is richer in resources, of
freer turn, or more apt to give what every inventor promises—the novel and
unexpected.
To sum up: The initial element, external or internal, excites associations that
one cannot always foresee, because of the numerous orientations possible;
an analogous case to that which occurs in the realm of the will when there
are present reasons for and against, acting and not acting, one direction or
another, now or later—when the final resolution cannot be predicted, and
often depends on imperceptible causes.
In conclusion, I anticipate a possible question: "Does the unconscious factor
differ in nature from the two others (intellectual and emotional)?" The
answer depends on the hypothesis that one holds as to the nature of the
unconscious itself. According to one view it would be especially
physiological, consequently different; according to another, the difference
can exist only in the processes: unconscious elaboration is reducible to
intellectual or emotional processes the preparatory work of which is
slighted, and which enters consciousness ready made. Consequently, the
unconscious factor would be a special form of the other two rather than a
distinct element in invention.

FOOTNOTES:
[18] Several of them will be found in Appendix A at the end of this work.
[19] On this subject see Appendix B.
[20] Dr. Chabaneix, Le subconscient sur les artistes, les savants, et les écrivains,
Paris, 1897, p. 87.
[21] The recent case, studied with so much ability by M. Flournoy in his book,
"Des Indes à la planète Mars" (1900), is an example of the subliminal creative
imagination, and of the work it is capable of doing by itself.
[22] We shall return to this point in another part of this work. See Part II, chapter
iv.
[23] Thus Howe (American Journal of Psychology, vi, 239 ff.), has published
some investigations in the negative. One series of 557 experiments gave him
eight apparently mediate associations; after examination, he reduced them to a
single one, which seemed to him doubtful. Another series of 961 experiments
gives 72 cases, for which he offers an explanation other than mediate

association. On the other hand, Aschaffenburg admits them to the extent of four
per cent.; the association-time is longer than for average associations
(Psychologische Arbeiten, I and II). Consult especially Scripture, The New
Psychology, chapter xiii, with experiments in support of his conclusion.
[24] Ziehen, Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, 4th edition, 1898, pp.
164, 174. Also, Sully, Human Mind, I, 343.

CHAPTER IV
THE ORGANIC CONDITIONS OF THE IMAGINATION

Whatever opinion we may hold concerning the nature of the unconscious,
since that form of activity is related more than any other to the
physiological conditions of the mental life, the present time is suitable for
an exposition of the hypotheses that it is permissible to express concerning
the organic bases of the imagination. What we may regard as positive, or
even as probable, is very little.

I

First, the anatomical conditions. Is there a "seat" of the imagination? Such
is the form of the question asked for the last twenty years. In that period of
extreme and closely bounded localization men strained themselves to bind
down every psychic manifestation to a strictly determined point of the
brain. Today the problem presents itself no longer in this simple way. As at
present we incline toward scattered localization, functional rather than
properly anatomical, and as we often understand by "center" the synergic
action of several centers differently grouped according to the individual
case, our question becomes equivalent to: "Are there certain portions of the
brain having an exclusive or preponderating part in the working of the
creative imagination?" Even in this form the question is hardly acceptable.
Indeed, the imagination is not a primary and relatively simple function like
that of visual, auditory and other sensations. We have seen that it is a state
of tertiary formation and very complex. There is required, then, (1) that the
elements constituting imagination be determined in a rigorous manner, but
the foregoing analysis makes no pretense of being definitive; (2) that each
of these constitutive elements may be strictly related to its anatomic
conditions. It is evident that we are far from possessing the secret of such a
mechanism.

An attempt has been made to put the question in a more precise and limited
form by studying the brains of men distinguished in different lines. But this
method, in avoiding the difficulty, answers our question indirectly only.
Most often great inventors possess qualities besides imagination
indispensable for success (Napoleon, James Watt, etc.). How draw a
dividing line so as to assign to the imagination only its rightful share? In
addition, the anatomical determination is beset with difficulties.
A method flourishing very greatly about the middle of the nineteenth
century consisted of weighing carefully a large number of brains and
drawing various conclusions as to intellectual superiority or inferiority from
a comparison of the weights. We find on this point numerous documents in
the special works published during the period mentioned. But this method
of weights has given rise to so many surprises and difficulties in the way of
explanation that it has been quite necessary to give it up, since we see in it
only another element of the problem.
Nowadays we attribute the greatest importance to the morphology of the
brain, to its histological structure, the marked development of certain
regions, the determination not only of centers but of connections and
associations between centers. On this last point contemporary anatomists
have given themselves up to eager researches, and, although the cerebral
architecture is not conceived by all in the same way, it is proper for
psychology to note that all with their "centers" or "associational system" try
to translate into their own language the complex conditions of mental life.
Since we must choose from among these various anatomical views let us
accept that of Flechsig, one of the most renowned and one having also the
advantage of putting directly the problem of the organic conditions of the
imagination.
We know that Flechsig relies on the embryological method—that is, on the
development—in the order of time, of nerves and centers. For him there
exist on the one hand sensitive regions (sensory-motor), occupying about a
third of the cortical surface; on the other hand, association-centers,
occupying the remaining part.
So far as the sensory centers are concerned, development occurs in the
following order: Organic sensations (middle of cerebral cortex), smell (base

of the brain and part of the frontal lobes), sight (occipital lobe), hearing
(first temporal). Whence it results that in a definite part of the brain the
body comes to proper consciousness of its impulses, wants, appetites, pains,
movements, etc., and that this part develops first—"knowledge of the body
precedes that of the outside world."
In what concerns the associational centers, Flechsig supposes three regions:
The great posterior center (parieto-occipito-temporal); another, much
smaller, anterior or frontal; and a middle center, the smallest of all (the
Island of Reil). Comparative anatomy proves that the associational centers
are more important than those of sensation. Among the lower mammals
they develop as we go up the scale: "That which makes the psychic man
may be said to be the centers of association that he possesses." In the new-
born child the sensitive centers are isolated, and, in the absence of
connections between them, the unity of the self cannot be manifested; there
is a plurality of consciousness.
This much admitted, let us return to our special question, which Flechsig
asks in these words: "On what does genius rest? Is it based on a special
structure in the brain, or rather on special irritability? that is, according to
our present notions, on chemical factors? We may hold the first opinion
with all possible force. Genius is always united to a special structure, to a
particular organization of the brain." All parts of this organ do not have the
same value. It has been long admitted that the frontal part may serve as a
measure of intellectual capacity; but we must allow, contrariwise, that there
are other regions, "principally a center located under the protuberance at the
top of the head, which is very much developed in all men of genius whose
brains have been studied down to our day. In Beethoven, and probably also
in Bach, the enormous development of this part of the brain is striking. In
great scientists like Gauss the centers of the posterior region of the brain
and those of the frontal region are strongly developed. The scientific genius
thus shows proportions of brain-structure other than the artistic genius."[25]
There would then be, according to our author, a preponderance of the
frontal and parietal regions—the former obtain especially among artists; the
latter among scientists. Already, twenty years before Flechsig, Rüdinger had
noted the extraordinary development of the parietal convolutions in eminent
men after a study of eighteen brains. All the convolutions and fissures were

so developed, said he, that the parieto-occipital region had an altogether
peculiar character.
By way of summary we must bear in mind that, as regards anatomical
conditions, even when depending on the best of sources, we can at present
give only fragmentary, incomplete, hypothetical views.
Let us now go on to the physiology.

II

We might have rightly asked whether the physiological states existing along
with the working of the creative imagination are the cause, effect, or merely
the accompaniment of this activity. Probably all the three conditions are met
with. First, concomitance is an accomplished fact, and we may consider it
as an organic manifestation parallel to that of the mind. Again, the
employment of artificial means to excite and maintain the effervescence of
the imagination assigns a causal or antecedent position to the physiologic
conditions. Lastly, the psychic activity may be initial and productive of
changes in the organism, or, if these already exist, may augment and
prolong them.
The most instructive instances are those indicated by very clear
manifestations and profound modifications of the bodily condition. Such
are the moments of inspiration or simply those of warmth from work which
arise in the form of sudden impulses.
The general fact of most importance consists of changes in the blood
circulation. Increase of intellectual activity means an increase of work in
the cortical cells, dependent on a congested, sometimes a temporarily
anæmic state. Hyperæmia seems rather the rule, but we also know that
slight anæmia increases cortical excitability. "Weak, contracted pulse; pale,
chilly skin; overheated head; brilliant, sunken, roving eyes," such is the
classic, frequently quoted description of the physiological state during
creative labor. There are numerous inventors who, of their own accord, have
noted these changes—irregular pulse, in the case of Lagrange; congestion
of the head, in Beethoven, who made use of cold douches to relieve it, etc.
This elevation of the vital tone, this nervous tension, translates itself also

into motor form through movements analogous to reflexes, without special
end, mechanically repeated and always the same in the same man—e.g.,
movement of the feet, hands, fingers; whittling the table or the arms of a
chair (as in the case of Napoleon when he was elaborating a plan of
campaign), etc. It is a safety-valve for the excessive flow of nervous
impulse, and it is admitted that this method of expenditure is not useless for
preserving the understanding in all its clearness. In a word, increase of the
cerebral circulation is the formula covering the majority of observations on
this subject.
Does experimentation, strictly so called, teach us anything on this point?
Numerous and well-known physiological researches, especially those of
Mosso, show that all intellectual, and, most of all, emotional, work,
produces cerebral congestion; that the brain-volume increases, and the
volume of the peripheral organs diminishes. But that tells us nothing
particularly about the imagination, which is but a special case under the
rule. Latterly, indeed, it has been proposed to study inventors by an
objective method through the examination of their several circulatory,
respiratory, digestive apparatus; their general and special sensibility; the
modes of their memory and forms of association, their intellectual
processes, etc. But up to this time no conclusion has been drawn from these
individual descriptions that would allow any generalization. Besides, has an
experiment, in the strict sense of the word, ever been made at the
"psychological moment"? I know of none. Would it be possible? Let us
admit that by some happy chance the experimenter, using all his means of
investigation, can have the subject under his hand at the exact moment of
inspiration—of the sudden, fertile, brief creative impulse—would not the
experiment itself be a disturbing cause, so that the result would be ipso
facto vitiated, or at least unconvincing?
There still remains a mass of facts deserving summary notice—the oddities
of inventors. Were we to collect only those that may be regarded as
authentic we could make a thick volume. Despite their anecdotal character
these evidences do not seem to be unworthy of some regard.
It is impossible to enter here upon an enumeration that would be endless.
After having collected for my own information a large number of these

strange peculiarities, it seems to me that they are reducible to two
categories:
(1) Those inexplicable freaks dependent on the individual constitution, and
more often probably also on experiences in life the memory of which has
been lost. Schiller, for example, kept rotten apples in his work desk.
(2) The others, more numerous, are easy to explain. They are physiological
means consciously or unconsciously chosen to aid creative work; they are
auxiliary helpers of the imagination.
The most frequent method consists of artificially increasing the flow of
blood to the brain. Rousseau would think bare-headed in full sunshine;
Bossuet would work in a cold room with his head wrapped in furs; others
would immerse their feet in ice-cold water (Grétry, Schiller). Very
numerous are those who think "horizontally"—that is, lying stretched out
and often flattened under their blankets (Milton, Descartes, Leibniz,
Rossini, etc.)

Some require motor excitation; they work only when walking,[26] or else
prepare for work by physical exercise (Mozart). For variety's sake, let us
note those who must have the noise of the streets, crowds, talk, festivities,
in order to invent. For others there must be external pomp and a personal
part in the scene (Machiavelli, Buffon). Guido Reni would paint only when
dressed in magnificent style, his pupils crowded about him and attending to
his wants in respectful silence.
On the opposite side are those requiring retirement, silence, contemplation,
even shadowy darkness, like Lamennais. In this class we find especially
scientists and thinkers—Tycho-Brahé, who for twenty-one years scarcely
left his observatory; Leibniz, who could remain for three days almost
motionless in an armchair.
But most methods are too artificial or too strong not to become quickly
noxious. Every one knows what they are—abuse of wine, alcoholic liquors,
narcotics, tobacco, coffee, etc., prolonged periods of wakefulness, less for
increasing the time for work than to cause a state of hyperesthesia and a
morbid sensibility (Goncourt).

Summing up: The organic bases of the creative imagination, if there are any
specially its own, remain to be determined. For in all that has been said we
have been concerned only with some conditions of the general working of
the mind—assimilation as well as invention. The eccentricities of inventors
studied carefully and in a detailed manner would finally, perhaps, be most
instructive material, because it would allow us to penetrate into their inmost
individuality. Thus, the physiology of the imagination quickly becomes
pathology. I shall not dwell on this, having purposely eliminated the morbid
side of our subject. It will, however, be necessary to return thereto, touching
upon it in another part of this essay.

III

There remains a problem, so obscure and enigmatic that I scarcely venture
to approach it, in the analogy that most languages—the spontaneous
expression of a common thought—establish between physiologic and
psychic creation. Is it only a superficial likeness, a hasty judgment, a
metaphor, or does it rest on some positive basis? Generally, the various
manifestations of mental activity have as their precursor an unconscious
form from which they arise. The sensitiveness belonging to living
substance, known by the names heliotropism, chemotropism, etc., is like a
sketch of sensation and of the reactions following it; organic memory is the
basis and the obliterated form of conscious memory. Reflexes introduce
voluntary activity; appetitions and hidden tendencies are the forerunners of
effective psychology. Instinct, on several sides, is like an unconscious and
specific trial of reason. Has the creative power of the human mind also
analogous antecedents, a physiological equivalent?
One metaphysician, Froschammer, who has elevated the creative
imagination to the rank of primary world-principle, asserts this positively.
For him there is an objective or cosmic imagination working in nature,
producing the innumerable varieties of vegetable and animal forms;
transformed into subjective imagination it becomes in the human brain the
source of a new form of creation. "The very same principle causes the
living forms to appear—a sort of objective image—and the subjective
images, a kind of living form."[27] However ingenious and attractive this

philosophical theory may be, it is evidently of no positive value for
psychology.
Let us stick to experience. Physiology teaches that generation is a
"prolonged nutrition," a surplus, as we see so plainly in the lower forms of
agamous generation (budding, division). The creative imagination likewise
presupposes a superabundance of psychic life that might otherwise spend
itself in another way. Generation in the physical order is a spontaneous,
natural tendency, although it may be stimulated, successfully or otherwise,
by artificial means. We can say as much of the other. This list of
resemblances it would be easy to prolong. But all this is insufficient for the
establishment of a thorough identity between the two cases and the solution
of the question.
It is possible to limit it, to put it into more precise language. Is there a
connection between the development of the generative function and that of
the imagination? Even in this form the question scarcely permits any but
vague answers. In favor of a connection we may allege:
(1) The well-known influence of puberty on the imagination of both sexes,
expressing itself in day-dreams, in aspirations toward an unattainable ideal,
[28]
in the genius for invention that love bestows upon the least favored. Let
us recall also the mental troubles, the psychoses designated by the name
hebephrenia. With adolescence coincides the first flowering of the fancy
which, having emerged from its swaddling-clothes of childhood, is not yet
sophisticated and rationalized.
It is not a matter of indifference for the general thesis of the present work to
note that this development of the imagination depends wholly on the first
effervescence of the emotional life. That "influence of the feelings on the
imagination" and of "the imagination on the feelings" of which the
moralists and the older psychologists speak so often is a vague formula for
expressing this fact—that the motor element included in the images is
reinforced.
(2) Per contra, the weakening of the generative power and of the
constructive imagination coincide in old age, which is, in a word, a decay of
nutrition, a progressive atrophy. It is proper not to omit the influence of
castration. According to the theory of Brown-Séquard, it produces an

abatement of the nutritive functions through the suppression of an internal
stimulus; and, although its relations to the imagination have not been
especially studied, it is not rash to admit that it is an arresting cause.
However, the foregoing merely establishes, between the functions
compared, a concomitance in the general course of their evolution and in
their critical periods; it is insufficient for a conclusion. There would be
needed clear, authentic and sufficiently numerous observations proving that
individuals bereft of imagination of the creative type have acquired it
suddenly through the sole fact of their sexual influences, and, inversely, that
brilliant imaginations have faded under the contrary conditions. We find
some of these evidences in Cabanis,[29] Moreau de Tours and various
alienists; they would seem to be in favor of the affirmative, but some seem
to me not sure enough, others not explicit enough. Despite my
investigations on this point, and inquiry of competent persons, I do not
venture to draw a definite conclusion. I leave the question open; it will
perhaps tempt another more fortunate investigator.

FOOTNOTES:
[25] Flechsig, Gehirn und Seele, 1896.
[26] Is it possible that this would explain the fact of Aristotle lecturing to his
pupils while walking about, thus giving the name "peripatetic" to his school and
system? (Tr.)
[27] Die Phantasie als Grundprincip der Weltprocesses, München, 1877. For
other details on the subject, see Appendix C.
[28] A passage from Chateaubriand (cited by Paulhan, Rev. Philos., March,
1898, p. 237) is a typical description of the situation: "The warmth of my
(adolescent) imagination, my shyness, and solitude, caused me, instead of
casting myself on something without, to fall back upon myself. Wanting a real
object, I evoked through the power of my desires, a phantom, which thenceforth
never left me; I made a woman, composed of all the women that I had already
seen. That charming idea followed me everywhere, though invisible; I conversed
with her as with a real being; she would change according to my frenzy.
Pygmalion was less enamored of his statue."
[29] Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, édition Peisse, pp. 248-249, an
anecdote that he relates after Buffon. Analogous, but less clear, facts may also be
found in Moreau de Tours' Psychologie morbide.

CHAPTER V
THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY

The psychological nature of the imagination would be very imperfectly
known were we limited to the foregoing analytical study. Indeed, all
creation whatever, great or small, shows an organic character; it implies a
unifying, synthetic principle. Every one of the three factors—intellectual,
emotional, unconscious—works not as an isolated fact on its own account;
they have no worth save through their union, and no signification save
through their common bearing. This principle of unity, which all invention
demands and requires, is at one time intellectual in nature, i.e., as a fixed
idea; at another time emotional, i.e., as a fixed emotion or passion. These
terms—fixed idea, fixed emotion—are somewhat absolute and require
restrictions and reservations, which will be made in what follows.
The distinction between the two is not at all absolute. Every fixed idea is
supported and maintained by a need, a tendency, a desire; i.e., by an
affective element. For it is idle fancy to believe in the persistence of an idea
which, by hypothesis, would be a purely intellectual state, cold and dry. The
principle of unity in this form naturally predominates in certain kinds of
creation: in the practical imagination wherein the end is clear, where images
are direct substitutes for things, where invention is subjected to strict
conditions under penalty of visible and palpable check; in the scientific and
metaphysical imagination, which works with concepts and is subject to the
laws of rational logic.
Every fixed emotion should realize itself in an idea or image that gives it
body and systematizes it, without which it remains diffuse; and all affective
states can take on this permanent form which makes a unified principle of
them. The simple emotions (fear, love, joy, sorrow, etc.), the complex or
derived emotions (religious, esthetic, intellectual ideas) may equally
monopolize consciousness in their own interests.

We thus see that these two terms—fixed idea, fixed emotion—are almost
equivalent, for they both imply inseparable elements, and serve only to
indicate the preponderance of one or the other element.
This principle of unity, center of attraction and support of all the working of
the creative imagination—that is, a subjective principle tending to become
objectified—is the ideal. In the complete sense of the word—not restrained
merely to esthetic creation or made synonymous with perfection as in ethics
—the ideal is a construction in images that should become a reality. If we
liken imaginative creation to physiological generation, the ideal is the ovum
awaiting fertilization in order to begin its development.
We could, to be more exact, make a distinction between the synthetic
principle and the ideal conception which is a higher form of it. The fixation
of an end and the discovery of appropriate means are the necessary and
sufficient conditions for all invention. A creation, whatever it be, that looks
only to present success, can satisfy itself with a unifying principle that
renders it viable and organized, but we can look higher than the merely
necessary and sufficient.
The ideal is the principle of unity in motion in its historic evolution; like all
development, it advances or recedes according to the times. Nothing is less
justified than the conception of a fixed archetype (an undisguised survival
of the Platonic Ideas), illuminating the inventor, who reproduces it as best
he can. The ideal is a nonentity; it arises in the inventor and through him; its
life is a becoming.
Psychologically, it is a construction in images belonging to the merely
sketched or outlined type.[30] It results from a double activity, negative and
positive, or dissociation and association, the first cause and origin of which
is found in a will that it shall be so; it is the motor tendency of images in the
nascent state engendering the ideal. The inventor cuts out, suppresses, sifts,
according to his temperament, character, taste, prejudices, sympathies and
antipathies—in short, his interest. In this separation, already studied, let us
note one important particular. "We know nothing of the complex psychic
production that may simply be the sum of component elements and in
which they would remain with their own characters, with no modification.
The nature of the components disappears in order to give birth to a novel

phenomenon that has its own and particular features. The construction of
the ideal is not a mere grouping of past experiences; in its totality it has its
own individual characteristics, among which we no more see the composing
lines than we see the components, oxygen and hydrogen, in water. In no
scientific or artistic production, says Wundt, does the whole appear as made
up of its parts, like a mosaic."[31] In other words, it is a case of mental
chemistry. The exactness of this expression, which is due, I believe, to J.
Stuart Mill, has been questioned. Still it answers to positive facts; for
example, in perception, to the phenomena of contrast and their analogues;
juxtaposition or rapid succession of two different colors, two different
sounds, of tactile, olfactory, gustatory impressions different in quality,
produces a particular state of consciousness, similar to a combination.
Harmony or discord does not, indeed, exist in each separate sound, but only
in the relations and sequence of sounds—it is a tertium quid. We have
heretofore, in the discussion of association of ideas, very frequently
represented the states of consciousness as fixed elements that approach one
another, cohere, separate, come together anew, but always unalterable, like
atoms. It is not so at all. Consciousness, says Titchener, resembles a fresco
in which the transition between colors is made through all kinds of
intermediate stages of light and shade.... The idea of a pen or of an inkwell
is not a stable thing clearly pictured like the pen or inkwell itself. More than
any one else, William James has insisted on this point in his theory of
"fringes" of states of consciousness. Outside of the given instances we
could find many others among the various manifestations of the mental life.
It is not, then, at all chimerical to assume in psychology an equivalent of
chemical combination. In a complex state there is, in addition to the
component elements, the result of their reciprocal influences, of their
varying relations. Too often we forget this resultant.
At bottom the ideal is an individual concept. If objection is offered that an
ideal common to a large mass of men is a fact of common experience (e.g.,
idealists and realists in the fine arts, and even more so religious, moral,
social and political concepts, etc.), the answer is easy: There are families of
minds. They have a common ideal because, in certain matters, they have the
same way of feeling and thinking. It is not a transcendental idea that unites
them; but this result occurs because from their common aspirations the

collective ideal becomes disengaged; it is, in scholastic terminology, a
universale post rem.
The ideal conception is the first moment of the creative act, which is not yet
battling with the conditions of the actual. It is only the internal vision of an
individual mind that has not yet been projected externally with a form and
body. We know how the passage from the internal to the external life has
given rise among inventors to deceptions and complaints. Such was the
imaginative construction that could not, unchanged, enter into its mould and
become a reality.

Let us now examine the various forms of this coagulating[32] principle in
advancing from the lowest to the highest, from the unity vaguely
anticipated to the absolute and tyrannical masterful unity. Following a
method that seems to me best adapted for these ill-explained questions I
shall single out only the principal forms, which I have reduced to three—the
unstable, the organic or middle, and the extreme or semi-morbid unity.
(1) The unstable form has its starting point directly and immediately in the
reproductive imagination without creation. It assembles its elements
somewhat by chance and stitches together the bits of our life; it ends only in
beginnings, in attempts. The unity-principle is a momentary disposition,
vacillating and changing without cessation according to the external
impressions or modifications of our vital conditions and of our humor. By
way of example let us recall the state of the day-dreamer building castles in
the air; the delirious constructions of the insane, the inventions of the child
following all the fluctuations of chance, of its caprice; the half-coherent
dreams that seem to the dreamer to contain a creative germ. In consequence
of the extreme frailty of the synthetic principle the creative imagination
does not succeed in accomplishing its task and remains in a condition
intermediate between simple association of ideas and creation proper.
(2) The organic or middle form may be given as the type of the unifying
power. Ultimately it reduces itself to attention and presupposes nothing
more, because, thanks to the process of "localization," which is the essential
mark of attention, it makes itself a center of attraction, grouping about the
leading idea the images, associations, judgments, tendencies and voluntary
efforts. "Inspiration," the poet Grillparzer used to say, "is a concentration of

all the forces and capacities upon a single point which, for the time being,
should represent the world rather than enclose it. The reinforcement of the
state of the mind comes from the fact that its several powers, instead of
spreading themselves over the whole world, are contained within the
bounds of a single object, touch one another, reciprocally help and reinforce
each other."[33] What the poet here maintains as regards esthetics only is
applicable to all the organic forms of creation—that is to those ruled by an
immanent logic, and, like them, resembling works of Nature.
In order to leave no doubt as to the identity of attention and imaginative
synthesis, and in order to show that it is normally the true unifying
principle, we offer the following remarks:
Attention is at times spontaneous, natural, without effort, simply dependent
on the interest that a thing excites in us—lasting as long as it holds us in
subjection, then ceasing entirely. Again, it is voluntary, artificial, an
imitation of the other, precarious and intermittent, maintained with effort—
in a word, laborious. The same is true of the imagination. The moment of
inspiration is ruled by a perfect and spontaneous unity; its impersonality
approaches that of the forces of Nature. Then appears the personal moment,
the detailed working and long, painful, intermittent resumptions, the
miserable turns of which so many inventors have described. The analogy
between the two cases seems to me incontestable.
Next let us note that psychologists always adduce the same examples when
they wish to illustrate on the one hand, the processes of the persistent,
tenacious attention, and, on the other hand, the developmental labor without
which creative work does not come to pass: "Genius is only long patience,"
the saying of Newton; "always thinking of it," and like expressions of
d'Alembert, Helmholtz and others, because in the one case as in the other
the fundamental condition is the existence of a fixed, ever-active idea,
notwithstanding its relaxations and its incessant disappearances into the
unconscious with return to consciousness.
(3) The extreme form, which from its nature is semi-morbid, becomes in its
highest degree plainly pathological; the unifying principle changes to a
condition of obsession.

The normal state of our mind is a plurality of states of consciousness
(polyideism). Through association there is a radiation in every direction. In
this totality of coexisting images no one long occupies first place; it is
driven away by others, which are displaced in turn by still others emerging
from the penumbra. On the contrary, in attention (relative monoideism) a
single image retains first place for a long time and tends to have the same
importance again. Finally, in a condition of obsession (absolute
monoideism) the fixed idea defies all rivalry and rules despotically. Many
inventors have suffered painfully this tyranny and have vainly struggled to
break it. The fixed idea, once settled, does not permit anything to dislodge it
save for the moment and with much pain. Even then it is displaced only
apparently, for it persists in the unconscious life where it has thrust its deep
roots.
At this stage the unifying principle, although it can act as a stimulus for
creation, is no longer normal. Consequently, a natural question arises:
Wherein is there a difference between the obsession of the inventor and the
obsession of the insane, who most generally destroys in place of creating?
The nature of fixed ideas has greatly occupied contemporary alienists. For
other reasons and in their own way they, too, have been led to divide
obsession into two classes, the intellectual and emotional, according as the
idea or the affective state predominates. Then they have been led to ask:
Which of these two elements is the primitive one? For some it is the idea.
For others, and it seems that these are the more numerous, the affective
state is in general the primary fact; the obsession always rests on a basis of
morbid emotion and in a retention of impressions.[34]
But whatever opinion we may hold on this point, the difficulty of
establishing a dividing line between the two forms of obsession above
mentioned remains the same. Are there characters peculiar to each one?
It has been said: "The physiologically fixed idea is normally longed for,
often sought, in all cases accepted, and it does not break the unity of the
self." It does not impose itself fatally on consciousness; the individual
knows the value thereof, knows where it leads him, and adapts his conduct
to its requirements. For example, Christopher Columbus.

The pathological fixed idea is "parasitic," automatic, discordant, irresistible.
Obsession is only a special case of psychic disintegration, a kind of
doubling of consciousness. The individual becomes a person "possessed,"
whose self has been confiscated for the sake of the fixed idea, and whose
submission to his situation is wrought with pain.
In spite of this parallel the distinguishing criterion between the two is very
vague, because from the sane to the delirious idea the transitions are very
numerous. We are obliged to recognize "that with certain workers—who are
rather taken up with the elaboration of their work, and not masters directing
it, quitting it, and resuming it at their pleasure—an artistic, scientific, or
mechanical conception succeeds in haunting the mind, imposing itself upon
it even to the extent of causing suffering." In reality, pure psychology is
unable to discover a positive difference between obsession leading to
creative work and the other forms, because in both cases the mental
mechanism is, at bottom, the same. The criterion must be sought elsewhere.
For that we must go out of the internal world and proceed objectively. We
must judge the fixed idea not in itself but by its effects. What does it
produce in the practical, esthetic, scientific, moral, social, religious field? It
is of value according to its fruits. If objection be made to this change of
front we may, in order to stick to a strictly psychological point of view, state
that it is certain that as soon as it passes beyond a middle point, which it is
difficult to determine, the fixed idea profoundly troubles the mechanism of
the mind. In imaginative persons this is not rare, which partly explains why
the pathological theory of genius (of which we shall speak later) has been
able to rally so many to its support and to allege so many facts in its favor.

FOOTNOTES:
[30] For the distinction between this form of imagination and the two others
(fixed, objectified), I refer the reader to the Conclusion of this work, where the
subject will be treated in detail.
[31] Colozza, L'immaginazione nella Scienza, Rome, 1900, pp. 111 ff.
[32] This unifying, organizing, creative principle is so active in certain minds
that, placed face to face with any work whatever—novel, picture, monument,
scientific or philosophic theory, financial or political institution—while
believing that they are merely considering it, they spontaneously remake it. This
characteristic of their psychology distinguishes them from mere critics.

[33] Oelzelt-Newin, op. cit., p. 49.
[34] Pitres et Régis, Séméiologie des obsessions et des idées fixes, 1878. Séglas,
Leçons cliniques sur les maladies mentales, 1895. Raymond et Janet, Névroses
et idées fixes, 1898.

SECOND PART
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IMAGINATION.

CHAPTER I
IMAGINATION IN ANIMALS

Up to this point the imagination has been treated analytically only. This
process alone would give us but a very imperfect idea of its essentially
concrete and lively nature were we to stop here. So this part continues the
subject in another shape. I shall attempt to follow the imagination in its
ascending development from the lowest to the most complex forms, from
the animal to the human infant, to primitive man, thence to the highest
modes of invention. It will thus be exhibited in the inexhaustible variety of
its manifestations which the abstract and simplifying process of analysis
does not permit us to suspect.

I

I shall not dwell at length on the imagination of animals, not only because
the question is much involved but also because it is hardly liable to a
positive solution. Even eliminating mere anecdotes and doubtful
observations, there is no lack of verified and authentic material, but it still
remains to interpret them. As soon as we begin to conjecture we know how
difficult it is to divest ourselves of all anthropomorphism.
The question has been formulated, even if not treated, with much system by
Romanes in his Mental Evolution in Animals.[35] Taking "imagination" in its
broadest sense, he recognizes four stages:
1. Provoked revival of images. For example, the sight of an orange reminds
one of its taste. This is a low form of memory, resting on association by
contiguity. It is met with very far down in the animal scale, and the author
furnishes abundant proof of it.
2. Spontaneous revival. An object present calls up an absent object. This is a
higher form of memory, frequent in ants, bees, wasps, etc., which fact
explains the mistrustful sagacity of wild animals. At night, the distant

baying of a hound stops the fox in his course, because all the dangers he has
undergone are represented in his mind.
These two stages do not go beyond memory pure and simple, i.e.,
reproductive imagination. The other two constitute the higher imagination.
3. The capacity of associating absent images, without suggestion derived
from without, through an internal working of the mind. It is the lower and
primitive form of the creative imagination, which may be called a passive
synthesis. In order to establish its existence, Romanes reminds us that
dreams have been proven in dogs, horses, and a large number of birds; that
certain animals, especially in anger, seem to be subject to delusions and
pursued by phantoms; and lastly, that in some there is produced a condition
resembling nostalgia, expressing itself in a violent desire to return to former
haunts, or in a wasting away resulting from the absence of accustomed
persons and things. All these facts, especially the latter, can hardly be
explained without a vivid recollection of the images of previous life.
4. The highest stage consists of intentionally reuniting images in order to
make novel combinations from them. This may be called an active
synthesis, and is the true creative imagination. Is this sometimes found in
the animal kingdom? Romanes very clearly replies, no; and not without
offering a plausible reason. For creation, says he, there must first be
capacity for abstraction, and, without speech, abstraction is very weak. One
of the conditions for creative imagination is thus wanting in the higher
animals.
We here come to one of those critical moments, so frequent in animal
psychology, when one asks, Is this character exclusively human, or is it
found in embryo in lower forms? Thus it has been possible to support a
theory opposing that of Romanes. Certain animals, says Oelzelt-Newin,
fulfill all the conditions necessary for creative imagination—subtle senses,
good memory, and appropriate emotional states.[36] This assertion is
perhaps true, but it is purely dialectic. It is equivalent to saying that the
thing is possible; it does not establish it as a fact. Besides, is it very certain
that all the conditions for creative imagination are present here, since we
have just shown that there is lack of abstraction? The author, who
voluntarily limits his study to birds and the construction of their nests,

maintains, against Wallace and others, that nest-building requires "the
mysterious synthesis of representations." We might with equal reason bring
the instances of other building animals (bees, wasps, white ants, the
common ants, beavers, etc.). It is not unreasonable to attribute to them an
anticipated representation of their architecture. Shall we say that it is
"instinctive," consequently unconscious? At least, may we not group under
this head, changes and adaptations to new conditions which these animals
succeed in applying to the typical plans of their construction? Observations
and even systematic experiments (like those of Huber, Forel, et al.) show
that, reduced to the alternative of the impossibility of building or the
modification of their habits, certain animals modify them. Judging from
this, how refuse them invention altogether? This contradicts in no way the
very just reservation of Romanes. It is sufficient to remark that abstraction
or dissociation has stages, that the simplest are accessible to the animal
intelligence. If, in the absence of words, the logic of concepts is forbidden
it, there yet remains the logic of images,[37] which is sufficient for slight
innovations. In a word, animals can invent according to the extent that they
can dissociate.
In our opinion, if we may with any truthfulness attribute a creative power to
animals, we must seek it elsewhere. Generally speaking, we attribute only a
mediocre importance to a manifestation that might very well be the proper
form of animal fancy. It is purely motor, and expresses itself through the
various kinds of play.
Although play may be as old as mankind, its psychology dates only from
the nineteenth century. We have already seen that there are three theories
concerning its nature—it is "expenditure of superfluous activity," "a
mending, restoring of strength, a recuperation," "an apprenticeship, a
preliminary exercise for the active functions of life and for the development
of our natural gifts."[38] The last position, due to Groos, does not rule out
the other two; it holds the first valid for the young, the second for adults;
but it comprehends both in a more general explanation.
Let us leave this doctrinal question in order to call attention to the variety
and richness of form of play in the animal world. In this respect the
aforementioned book of Groos is a rich mine of evidence to which I would
refer the reader. I limit myself to summing up his classification. He

distinguishes nine classes of play, viz.: (1) Those that are at bottom
experimental, consisting of trials at hazard without immediate end, often
giving the animal a certain knowledge of the properties of the external
world. This is the introduction to an experimental physics, optics, and
mechanics for the brood of animals. (2) Movements or changes of place
executed of their own accord—a very general fact as is proven by the
incessant movements of butterflies, flies, birds, and even fishes, which
often appear to play in the water rather than to seek prey; the mad running
of horses, dogs, etc., in free space. (3) Mimicry of hunting, i.e., playing
with a living or dead prey: the dog and cat following moving objects, a ball,
feather, etc. (4) Mimic battles, teasing and fighting without anger. (5)
Architectural art, revealing itself especially in the building of nests: certain
birds ornament them with shining objects (stones, bits of glass), by a kind
of anticipation of the esthetic feeling. (6) Doll-play is universal in mankind,
whether civilized or savage. Groos believes he has found its equivalent in
certain animals. (7) Imitation through pleasure, so familiar in monkeys
(grimaces); singing-birds which counterfeit the voices of a large number of
beasts. (8) Curiosity, which is the only mental play one meets in animals—
the dog watching, from a wall or window, what is going on in the street. (9)
Love-plays, "which differ from the others in that they are not mere
exercises, but have in view a real object." They have been well-known since
Darwin's time, he attributing to them an esthetic value which has been
denied by Wallace, Tylor, Lloyd Morgan, Wallaschek, and Groos.
Let us recapitulate in thought the immense quantity of motor expressions
included in these nine categories and let us note that they have the
following characters in common: They are grouped in combinations that are
often new and unforeseen; they are not a repetition of daily life, acts
necessary for self-preservation. At one time the movements are combined
simultaneously (exhibition of beautiful colors), again (and most often)
successively (amorous parades, fights, flight, dancing, emission of noises,
sounds or songs); but, under one form or another, there is creation,
invention. Here, the imagination acts in its purely motor character; it
consists of a small number of images that become translated into actions,
and serve as a center for their grouping; perhaps even the image itself is
hardly conscious, so that all is limited to a spontaneous production and a
collection of motor phenomena.

It will doubtless be said that this form of imagination belongs to a very
shallow, poor psychology. It cannot be otherwise. It is necessary that
imaginative production be found reduced to its simplest expression in
animals, and the motor form must be its special characteristic mark. It
cannot have any others for the following reasons: incapacity for the work
that necessarily precedes abstraction or dissociation, breaking into bits the
data of experience, making them raw material for the future construction;
lack of images, and especially fewness of possible combinations of images.
This last point is proven alike from the data of animal psychology and of
comparative anatomy. We know that the nervous elements in the brain
serving as connections between sensory regions—whether one conceive of
them as centers (Flechsig), or as bundles of commisural fibers (Meynert,
Wernicke)—are hardly outlined in the lower mammalia and attain only a
mediocre development in the higher forms.
By way of corroboration of the foregoing, let us compare the higher animals
with young children: this comparison is not based on a few far-fetched
analogies, but in a thorough resemblance in nature. Man, during the first
years of his life, has a brain but slightly differentiated, especially as regards
connections, a very poor supply of images, a very weak capacity for
abstraction. His intellectual development is much inferior to that of reflex,
instinctive, impulsive, and imitative movements. In consequence of this
predominance of the motor system, the simple and imperfect images, in
children as in animals, tend to be immediately changed into movements.
Even most of their inventions in play are greatly inferior to those
enumerated above under nine distinct heads.
A serious argument in favor of the prevalence of imagination of the motor
type in the child is furnished by the principal part taken by movements in
infantile insanity: a remark made by many alienists. The first stage of this
madness, they say, is found in the convulsions that are not merely a physical
ailment, but "a muscular delirium." The disturbance of the automatic and
instinctive functions of the child is so often associated with muscular
disturbances that at this age the mental disorders correspond to the motor
ganglionic centers situated below those parts that later assume the labor of
analysis and of imagination. The disturbances are in the primary centers of
organization and according to the symptoms lack those analytic or
constructive qualities, those ideal forms, that we find in adult insanity. If we

descend to the lowest stage of human life—to the baby—we see that
insanity consists almost entirely of the activity of a muscular group acting
on external objects. The insane baby bites, kicks, and these symptoms are
the external measure of the degree of its madness.[39] Has not chorea itself
been called a muscular insanity?
Doubtless, there likewise exists in the child a sensorial madness (illusions,
hallucinations); but by reason of its feeble intellectual development the
delirium causes a disorder of movements rather than of images; its insane
imagination is above all a motor insanity.
To hold that the creative imagination belonging to animals consists of new
combinations of movements is certainly an hypothesis. Nevertheless, I do
not believe that it is merely a mental form without foundation, if we take
into account the foregoing facts. I consider it rather as a point in favor of
the motor theory of invention. It is a singular instance in which the original
form of creation is shown bare. If we wanted to discover it, it would be
necessary to seek it where it is reduced to the greatest simplicity—in the
animal world.

FOOTNOTES:
[35] Chapter X.
[36] Op. cit., Appendix.
[37] For a more detailed study of this subject, the reader is referred to the
author's Evolution of General Ideas (English trans., Open Court Publishing Co.,
Chicago), chapter I, section I.
[38] A rather extended study of the subject by H. A. Carr will be found in the
Investigations of the Department of Psychology and Education of the University
of Colorado, vol. I, Number 2, 1902. The late Professor Arthur Allin devoted
much time to the investigation of play. See his brief article entitled "Play" in the
University of Colorado Studies, vol. I, 1902, pp. 58-73. (Tr.)
[39] Hack Tuke, "Insanity of Children," in Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine.

CHAPTER II
THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN THE CHILD

At what age, in what form, under what conditions does the creative
imagination make its appearance? It is impossible to answer this question,
which, moreover, has no justification. For the creative imagination develops
little by little out of pure reproduction by an evolutionary process, not by
sudden eruption. Nevertheless, its evolution is very slow on account of
causes both organic and psychological.
We could not dwell long on the organic causes without falling into tiresome
repetitions. The new-born infant is a spinal being, with an unformed
diffluent brain, composed largely of water. Reflex life itself is not complete
in him, and the cortico-motor system only hinted at; the sensory centers are
undifferentiated, the associational systems remain isolated for a long time
after birth. We have given above Flechsig's observation on this point.
The psychological causes reduce themselves to the necessity for a
consolidation of the primary and secondary operations of the mind, without
which the creative imagination cannot take form. To be precise, we might
distinguish, as does Baldwin, four epochs in the mental development of the
child: (1) affective (rudimentary sensory processes, pleasures and pains,
simple motor adaptations); (2) and (3) objective, in which the author
establishes two grades, (a) appearance of special senses, of memory,
instincts primarily defensive, and imitation; (b) complex memory,
complicated movements, offensive activities, rudimentary will; (4)
subjective or final (conscious thought, constitutive will, ideal emotions). If
we accept this scheme as approximately correct, the moment of imagination
must be assigned to the third period (the second stage of the objective
epoch) which fulfills all the sufficient and necessary conditions for its
origination and for its rise above pure reproduction.
Whatever the propitious age may be, the study of the child-imagination is
not without difficulties. In order to enter into the child-mind, we must

become like a child; as it is, we are limited to an interpretation of it in terms
of the adult, with much false interpretation possible, agreeing too much or
too little with the facts. Furthermore, the children studied live and grow up
in a civilized environment. The result is that the development of their
imagination is rarely unhampered and complete; for as soon as their fancy
passes the middle level, the rationalizing education of parents and teachers
is eager to master and control it. In truth it gives its full measure and reveals
itself in the fulness of growth only among primitive peoples. With us it is
checked in its flight by an antagonistic power, which treats it as a harbinger
of insanity. Finally, children are not equally well-suited for this study; we
must make a distinction between the imaginative and non-imaginative, and
the latter should be eliminated.
When we have thus chosen suitable subjects, observation shows from the
start sufficiently distinct varieties, different orientations of the imagination
depending on intellectual causes, such as the predominance of visual or
acoustic or tactile-motor images making for mechanical invention; or
dependent on emotional causes, that is, of character, according as the latter
is timid, joyous, exuberant, retired, healthy, sickly, etc.
If we now attempt to follow the development of the child-imagination, we
may distinguish four principal stages, without assigning them, otherwise, a
rigorous chronological order.
1. The first stage consists of the passage from passive to creative
imagination. Its history would be long were we to include all the hybrid
forms that are made up partly of memories, partly of new groupings, being
at the same time repetition and construction. Even in the adult, they are very
frequent. I know a person who is always afraid of being smothered, and for
this reason urgently asks that in his coffin his shirt be not tight at the neck:
this odd prepossession of the mind belongs neither to memory nor to
imagination. This particular case illustrates in a very clear form the nature
of the first flights of the mind attempting to exercise its imaginative powers.
Without enumerating other facts of this kind, it is more desirable to follow
the imagination's development, limiting ourselves to two forms of the
psychic life—perception and illusion. The necessary presence of the image
in these two forms has been so often proven by contemporary psychology
that a few words to recall this to mind will be sufficient.

There seems to be a radical difference between perception, which seizes
reality, and imagination. Nevertheless, it is generally admitted that in order
to rise above sensation to perception, there must be a synthesis of images.
To put it more simply, two elements are required—one, coming from
without, the physiological stimulus acting on the nerves and the sensory
centers, which becomes translated in consciousness through the vague state
that goes by the name "sensation"; the other, coming from within, adds to
the sensations present appropriate images, remnants of former experiences.
So that perception requires an apprenticeship; we must feel, then
imperfectly perceive, in order to finally perceive well. The sensory datum is
only a fraction of the total fact; and in the operation we call "perceiving,"
that is, apprehending an object directly, a part only of the object is
represented.
This, however, does not go beyond reproductive imagination. The decisive
step is taken in illusion. We know that illusion has as a basis and support a
modification of the external senses which are metamorphosed, amplified by
an immediate construction of the mind: a branch of a tree becomes a
serpent, a distant noise seems the music of an orchestra. Illusion has as
broad a field as perception, since there is no perception but may undergo
this erroneous transformation, and it is produced by the same mechanism,
but with interchange of the two terms. In perception, the chief element is
the sensory, and the representative element is secondary; in illusion, we
have just the opposite condition: what one takes as perceived is merely
imagined—the imagination assumes the principal rôle. Illusion is the type
of the transitional forms, of the mixed cases, that consist of constructions
made up of memories, without being, in the strict sense, creations.
2. The creative imagination asserts itself with its peculiar characteristics
only in the second stage, in the form of animism or the attributing of life to
everything. This turn of the mind is already known to us, though mentioned
only incidentally. As the state of the child's mind at that period resembles
that which in primitive man creates myths, we shall return to it in the next
chapter. Works on psychology abound in facts demonstrating that this
primitive tendency to attribute life and even personality to everything is a
necessary phase that the mind must undergo—long or short in duration, rich
or poor in inventions, according to the level of the child's imagination. His
attitude towards his dolls is the common example of this state, and also the

best example, because it is universal, being found in all countries without
exception, among all races of men. It is needless to pile up facts on an
uncontroverted point.[40] Two will suffice; I choose them on account of their
extravagance, which shows that at this particular moment animism, in
certain minds, can dare anything. "One little fellow, aged one year eight
months, conceived a special fondness for the letter W, addressing it thus:
'Dear old boy W.' Another little boy well on in his fourth year, when tracing
a letter L, happened to slip, so that the horizontal limb formed an angle,
thus:

He instantly saw the resemblance to the sedentary human form, and said:
'Oh, he's sitting down.' Similarly, when he made an F turn the wrong way
and then put the correct form to the left, thus,

he exclaimed, 'They're talking together!'" One of Sully's correspondents
says: "I had the habit of attributing intelligence not only to all living
creatures ... but even to stones and manufactured articles. I used to feel how
dull it must be for the pebbles in the causeway to lie still and only see what
was round about. When I walked out with a basket for putting flowers in, I
used sometimes to pick up a pebble or two and carry them out to have a
change."
Let us stop a moment in order to try to determine the nature of this strange
mental state, all the more as we shall meet it again in primitive man, and
since it presents the creative imagination at its beginning.
a. The first element is a fixed idea, or rather, an image, or group of images,
that takes possession of consciousness to the exclusion of everything else:
—it is the analogue of the state of suggestion in the hypnotized subject,

with this sole difference—that the suggestion does not come from without,
from another, but from the child itself—it is auto-suggestion. The stick that
the child holds between his legs becomes for him an imaginary steed. The
poverty of his mental development makes all the easier this contraction of
the field of his consciousness, which assures the supremacy of the image.
b. This has as its basis a reality that it includes. This is an important detail to
note, because this reality, however tiny, gives objectivity to the imaginary
creation and incorporates it with the external world. The mechanism is like
that which produces illusion, but with a stable character excluding
correction. The child transforms a bit of wood or paper into another self,
because he perceives only the phantom he has created; that is, the images,
not the material exciting them, haunt his brain.
c. Lastly, this creative power investing the image with all its attributes of
real existence is derived from a fundamental fact—the state of belief, i.e.,
adherence of the mind founded on purely subjective conditions. It does not
come within my province to treat incidentally such a large question.
Neglected by the older physiology, whose faculty-method inclined it toward
this omission, belief or faith has recently become the object of numerous
studies.[41] I necessarily limit myself to remarking that but for this psychic
state, the nature of the imagination is totally incomprehensible. The
peculiarity of the imagination is the production of a reality of human origin,
and it succeeds therein only because of the faith accompanying the image.
Representation and belief are not completely separated; it is the nature of
the image to appear at first as a real object. This psychological truth, though
proven through observation, has made itself acceptable only with great
difficulty. It has had to struggle on the one hand against the prejudices of
common-sense for which imagination is synonymous with sham and vain
appearance and opposed to the real as non-being to being; on the other
hand, against a doctrine of the logicians who maintain that the idea is at first
merely conceived with no affirmation of existence or non-existence
(apprehensio simplex). This position, legitimate in logic, which is an
abstract science, is altogether unacceptable in psychology, a concrete
science. The psychological viewpoint giving the true nature of the image
has prevailed little by little. Spinoza already asserts "that representations
considered by themselves contain no errors," and he "denies that it is

possible to perceive [represent] without affirming." More explicitly, Hume
assigns belief to our subjective dispositions: Belief does not depend on the
nature of the idea, but on the manner in which we conceive it. Existence is
not a quality added to it by us; it is founded on habit and is irresistible. The
difference between fiction and belief consists of a feeling added to the latter
but not to the former. Dugald Stewart treats the question purely as a
psychologist following the experimental method. He enumerates very many
facts whence he concludes that imagination is always accompanied by an
act of belief, but for which fact the more vivid the image, the less one
would believe it; but just the contrary happens—the strong representation
commands persuasion like sensation itself. Finally, Taine treats the subject
methodically, by studying the nature of the image and its primitive
character of hallucination.[42] At present, I think, there is no psychologist
who does not regard as proven that the image, when it enters consciousness,
has two moments. During the first, it is objective, appearing as a full and
complete reality; during the second, which is definitive, it is deprived of its
objectivity, reduced to a completely internal event, through the effect of
other states of consciousness which oppose and finally annihilate its
objective character. There is an affirmation, then negation; impulse, then
inhibition.
Faith, being only a mode of existence, an attitude of the mind, owes its
creative and vivifying power to general dispositions of our constitution.
Besides the intellectual element which is its content, its material—the thing
affirmed or denied—there are tendencies and other affective factors (desire,
fear, love, etc.) giving the image its intensity, and assuring it success in the
struggle against other states of consciousness. There are active faculties that
we sometimes designate by the name "will," understanding by the term, as
James says, not only deliberate volition, but all the factors of belief (hope,
fear, passions, prejudices, sectarian feeling, and so forth),[43] and this has
justly given rise to the truthful saying that the test of belief is action.[44]
This explains how in love, religion, in the moral life, in politics, and
elsewhere, belief can withstand the logical assaults of the rationalizing
intelligence—its power is found everywhere. It lasts as long as the mind
waits and consents; but, as soon as these affective and active dispositions
disappear in life's experience, faith falls with them, leaving in its place a
formless content, an empty and dead representation.

After this, is it necessary to remark that belief depends peculiarly on the
motor elements of our organization and not on the intellectual? As there is
no imagination without belief, nor belief without imagination, we return by
another route to the thesis supported in the first part of this essay, that
creative activity depends on the motor nature of images.
Insofar as concerns the special case of the child, the first of the two
moments (the affirming) that the image undergoes in consciousness is all in
all for him, the second (the rectifying) is nothing: there is hypertrophy of
one, atrophy of the other. For the adult the contrary is true—in many cases,
indeed, in consequence of experience and habit, the first moment, wherein
the image should be affirmed as a reality, is only virtual, is literally
atrophied. We must, however, remark that this applies only partially to the
ignorant and even less to the savage.
We might, nevertheless, ask ourselves if the child's belief in his phantoms is
complete, entire, absolute, unreserved. Is the stick that he bestrides
perfectly identified with a horse? Was Sully's child, that showed its doll a
series of engravings to choose from, completely deceived? It seems that we
must rather admit an intermittence, an alteration between affirmation and
negation. On the one hand, the skeptical attitude of those who laugh at it
displeases the child, who is like a devout believer whose faith is being
broken down. On the other hand, doubt must indeed arise in him from time
to time, for without this, rectification could never occur—one belief
opposes the other or drives it away. This second work proceeds little by
little, but then, under this form, imagination retreats.
3. The third stage is that of play, which, in chronological order, coincides
with the one just preceding. As a form of creation it is already known to us,
but in passing from animals to children, it grows in complexity and
becomes intellectualized. It is no longer a simple combination of images.
Play serves two ends—for experimenting: as such it is an introduction to
knowledge, gives certain vague notions concerning the nature of things; for
creating: this is its principal function.
The human child, like the animal, expends itself in movements, forms
associations new to it, simulates defence, flight, attack; but the child soon
passes beyond this lower stage, in order to construct by means of images

(ideally). He begins by imitating: this is a physiological necessity, reasons
for which we shall give later (see chapter iv. infra). He constructs houses,
boats, gives himself up to large plans; but he imitates most in his own
person and acts, making himself in turn soldier, sailor, robber, merchant,
coachman, etc.
To the period of imitation succeed more serious attempts—he acts with a
"spirit of mastery," he is possessed by his idea which he tends to realize.
The personal character of creation is shown in that he is really interested
only in a work that emanates from himself and of which he feels himself the
cause. B. Perez relates that he wanted to give a lesson to his nephew, aged
three and a half years, whose inventions seemed to him very poor. Perez
scratched in the sand a trench resembling a river, planted little branches on
both banks, and had water flow through it; put a bridge across, and
launched boats. At each new act the child would remain cool, his
admiration would always have to be waited for. Out of patience, he
remarked shortly that "this isn't at all entertaining." The author adds: "I
believed it useless to persist, and I trampled under foot, laughing at myself,
my awkward attempt at a childish construction."[45] "I had already read it in
many a book, but this time I had learned from experience that the free
initiative of children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make
for them. In addition, this experience and others like it have taught me that
their creative force is much weaker than has been said."
4. At the fourth stage appears romantic invention, which requires a more
refined culture, being a purely internal, wholly imaginative (i.e., cast in
images) creation. It begins at about three or four years of age. We know the
taste of imaginative children for stories and legends, which they have
repeated to them until surfeited: in this respect they resemble semi-civilized
people, who listen greedily to rhapsodies for hours at a time, experiencing
all the emotions appropriate to the incidents of the tale. This is the prelude
to creation, a semi-passive, semi-active state, an apprentice period, which
will permit them to create in their own turn. Thus the first attempts are
made with reminiscences, and imitated rather than created.
Of this we find numerous examples in the special works. A child of three
and a half saw a lame man going along a road, and exclaimed: "Look at that
poor ole man, mamma, he has dot [got] a bad leg." Then the romance

begins: He was on a high horse; he fell on a rock, struck his poor leg; he
will have to get some powder to heal it, etc. Sometimes the invention is less
realistic. A child of three often longed to live like a fish in the water, or like
a star in the sky. Another, aged five years nine months, having found a
hollow rock, invented a fairy story: the hole was a beautiful hall inhabited
by brilliant mysterious personages, etc.[46]
This form of imagination is not as common as the others. It belongs to those
whom nature has well endowed. It forecasts a development of mind above
the average. It may even be the sign of an inborn vocation and indicate in
what direction the creative activity will be orientated.
Let us briefly recall the creative rôle of the imagination in language,
through the intervening of a factor already studied—thinking by analogy, an
abundant source of often picturesque metaphors. A child called the cork of a
bottle "door;" a small coin was called by a little American a "baby dollar;"
another, seeing the dew on the grass, said, "The grass is crying."
The extension of the meaning of words has been studied by Taine, Darwin,
Preyer, and others. They have shown that its psychological mechanism
depends sometimes on the perception of resemblance, again on association
by contiguity, processes that appear and intermingle in an unforeseen
manner. Thus, a child applies the word "mambro" at first to his nurse, then
to a sewing machine that she uses, then by analogy to an organ that he sees
on the street adorned with a monkey, then to his toys representing animals.
[47]
We have elsewhere given more similar cases, where we perceive the
fundamental difference between thought by imagery and rational thought.
To conclude: At this period the imagination is the master-faculty and the
highest form of intellectual development. It works in two directions, one
principal—it creates plays, invents romances, and extends language; the
other secondary—it contains a germ of thought and ventures a fanciful
explanation of the world which can not yet be conceived according to
abstract notions and laws.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] One will find a large number of examples in Sully's work, Studies of
Childhood, Chapter ii, entitled "The Age of Imagination." Most of the
observations given in the present chapter have been borrowed from this author.
[41] Apropos of this subject compare especially the recent studies by William
James, Varieties of Religious Experience. (Tr.)
[42] Spinoza, Ethics, II, 49, Scholium; Hume, Human Understanding, Part III,
Section VII ff.; Dugald Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind,
Vol. I, Ch. III; Taine, On Intelligence, Part II.
[43] James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays, p. 10.
[44] Payot, De la croyance, 139 ff.
[45] B. Perez, Les trois premières années de l'enfant, p. 323.
[46] Sully, op. cit., pp. 59-61. Compayré, L'évolution intellectuelle et morale de
l'enfant, p. 145.
(Some time ago the writer was riding on a train, when the engine, for some
reason or other, began to slow up, jerking, puffing, almost groaning, until it
finally came to a full stop. The groaning continued. A little girl of about three
called to her mother, "Too-too sick, too-too sick," and when finally the train
started on again, the child was overjoyed that "too-too" was well again. (Tr.))
[47] Sully, op. cit., p. 164.

CHAPTER III
PRIMITIVE MAN AND THE CREATION OF MYTHS

We come now to a unique period in the history of the development of the
imagination—its golden age. In primitive man, still confined in savagery or
just starting toward civilization, it reaches its full bloom in the creation of
myths; and we are rightly astonished that psychologists, obstinately
attached to esthetics, have neglected such an important form of activity, one
so rich in information concerning the creative imagination. Where, indeed,
find more favorable conditions for knowing it?
Man, prior to civilization, is a purely imaginative being; that is, the
imagination marks the summit of his intellectual development. He does not
go beyond this stage, but it is no longer an enigma as in animals, nor a
transitory phase as in the civilized child who rapidly advances to the age of
reason; it is a fixed state, permanent and lasting throughout life.[48] It is
there revealed to us in its entire spontaneity: it has free rein; it can create
without imitation or tradition; it is not imprisoned in any conventional form;
it is sovereign. As primitive man has knowledge neither of nature nor of its
laws, he does not hesitate to embody the most senseless imaginings flitting
through his brain. The world is not, for him, a totality of phenomena subject
to laws, and nothing limits or hinders him.
This working of the pure imagination, left to itself and unadulterated by the
intrusion and tyranny of rational elements, becomes translated into one
form—the creation of myths; an anonymous, unconscious work, which, as
long as its rule lasts, is sufficient in every way, comprehends everything—
religion, poetry, history, science, philosophy, law.
Myths have the advantage of being the incarnation of pure imagination,
and, moreover, they permit psychologists to study them objectively. Thanks
to the labors of the nineteenth century, they offer an almost inexhaustible
content. While past ages forgot, misunderstood, disfigured, and often
despised myths as aberrations of the human mind, as unworthy of an hour's

attention, it is no longer necessary in our time to show their interest and
importance, even for psychology, which, however, has not as yet drawn all
the benefit possible from them.
But before commencing the psychological study of the genesis and
formation of myths considered as an objective emanation of the creative
imagination, we must briefly summarize the hypotheses at present offered
for their origin. We find two principal ones—the one, etymological,
genealogical, or linguistic; the other, ethno-psychological, or
anthropological.[49]
The first, whose principal though not sole champion is Max Müller, holds
that myths are the result of a disease of language—words become things,
"nomina numina." This transformation is the effect of two principal
linguistic causes—(a) Polynomy; several words for one thing. Thus the sun
is designated by more than twenty names in the Vedas; Apollo, Phaethon,
Hercules are three personifications of the sun; Varouna (night) and Yama
(death) express at first the same conception, and have become two distinct
deities. In short, every word tends to become an entity having its attributes
and its legends. (b) Homonomy, a single word for several things. The same
adjective, "shining," refers to the sun, a fountain, spring, etc. This is another
source of confusion. Let us also add metaphors taken literally, plays upon
words, wrong construction, etc.
The opponents of this doctrine maintain that in the formation of myths,
words represent scarcely five per cent. Whatever may be the worth of this
assertion, the purely philological explanation remains without value for
psychology: it is neither true nor false—it does not solve the question; it
merely avoids it. The word is only an occasion, a vehicle; without the
working of the mind exciting it, nothing would change. Moreover, Max
Müller himself has recently recognized this.[50]
The anthropological theory, much more general than the foregoing,
penetrates further to psychological origins—it leads us to the first advances
of the human mind. It regards the myth not as an accident of primitive life,
but as a natural function, a mode of activity proper to man during a certain
period of his development. Later, the mythic creations seem absurd, often
immoral, because they are survivals of a distant epoch, cherished and

consecrated through tradition, habits, and respect for antiquity. According to
the definition that seems to me best adapted for psychology, the myth is
"the psychological objectification of man in all the phenomena that he can
perceive."[51] It is a humanization of nature according to processes peculiar
to the imagination.
Are these two views irreconcilable? It does not seem so to me, provided we
accept the first as only a partial explanation. In any event, both schools
agree on one point important for us—that the material for myths is
furnished by the observation of natural phenomena, including the great
events of human life: birth, sickness, death, etc. This is the objective factor.
The creation of myths has its explanation in the nature of human
imagination—this is the subjective factor. We can not deny that most works
on mythology have a very decided tendency to give the greater importance
to the first factor; in which respect they need a little psychology. The
periodic returns of the dawn, the sun, the moon and stars, winds and storms,
have their effect also, we may suppose, on monkeys, elephants, and other
animals supposedly the most intelligent. Have they inspired myths? Just the
opposite: "the surprising monotony of the ideas that the various races have
made final causes of phenomena, of the origin and destiny of man, whence
it results that the numberless myths are reduced to a very small number of
types,"[52] shows that it is the human imagination that takes the principal
part and that it is on the whole perhaps not so rich as we are pleased to say
—that it is even very poor, compared to the fecundity of nature.
Let us now study the psychology of this creative activity, reducing it to
these two questions: How are myths formed? What line does their evolution
follow?

I

The psychology of the origin of the myth, of the work that causes its rise,
may theoretically, and for the sake of facilitating analysis, be regarded as
two principal moments—that of creation proper, and that of romantic
invention.
a. The moment of creation presupposes two inseparable operations which,
however, we have to describe separately. The first consists of attributing life

to all things, the second of assigning qualities to all things.
Animating everything, that is attributing life and action to everything,
representing everything to one's self as living and acting—even mountains,
rocks, and other objects (seemingly) incapable of movement. Of this inborn
and irresistible tendency there are so many facts in proof that an
enumeration is needless: it is the rule. The evidence gathered by
ethnologists, mythologists, and travelers fills large volumes. This state of
mind does not particularly belong to long-past ages. It is still in existence, it
is contemporary, and if we would see it with our own eyes it is not at all
necessary to plunge into virgin countries, for there are frequent reversions
even in civilized lands. On the whole, says Tylor, it must be regarded as
conceded that to the lower races of humanity the sun and stars, the trees and
rivers, the winds and clouds, become animated creatures living like men
and beasts, fulfilling their special function in creation—or rather that what
the human eye can reach is only the instrument or the matter of which some
gigantic being, like a man, hidden behind the visible things, makes use. The
grounds on which such ideas are based cannot be regarded as less than a
poetic fancy or an ill-understood metaphor; they depend on a vast
philosophy of nature, certainly rude and primitive, but coherent and serious.
The second operation of the mind, inseparable, as we have said, from the
first, attributes to these imaginary beings various qualities, but all important
to man. They are good or bad, useful or hurtful, weak or powerful, kind or
cruel. One remains stupefied before the swarming of these numberless genii
whom no natural phenomenon, no act of life, no form of sickness escapes,
and these beliefs remain unbroken even among the tribes that are in contact
with old civilizations.[53] Primitive man lives and moves among the
ceaseless phantoms of his own imagination.[54]
Lastly, the psychological mechanism of the creative moment is very simple.
It depends on a single factor previously studied—thinking by analogy. It is
a matter first of all—and this is important—of conceiving beings analogous
to ourselves, cast in our mould, cut after our pattern; that is, feeling and
acting; then qualifying them and determining them according to the
attributes of our own nature. But the logic of images, very different from
that of reason, concludes an objective resemblance; it regards as alike, what
seem alike; it attributes to an internal linking of images, the validity of an

objective connection between things. Whence arises the discord between
the imagined world and the world of reality. "Analogies that for us are only
fancies were for the man of past ages real" (Tylor).
b. In the genesis of myths, the second moment is that of fanciful invention.
Entities take form; they have a history and adventures: they become the
stuff for a romance. People of poor and dry imagination do not reach the
second period. Thus, the religion of the Romans peopled the universe with
an innumerable quantity of genii. No object, no act, no detail, but had its
own presiding genius. There was one for germinating grain, for sprouting
grain, for grain in flower, for blighted grain; for the door, its hinges, its
lock, etc. There was a myriad of misty, formless entities. This is animism
arrested at its first stage; abstraction has killed imagination.
Who created those legends and tales of adventure constituting the subject-
matter of mythology? Probably inspired individuals, priests or prophets.
They came perhaps from dreams, hallucinations, insane attacks—they are
derived from several sources. Whatever their origin, they are the work of
imaginative minds par excellence (we shall study them later) who,
confronted with any event whatever, must, because of their nature, construct
a romance.
Besides analogy, this imaginative creation has as its principal source the
associational form already described under the name "constellation." We
know that it is based on the fact that, in certain cases, the arousing of an
image-group is the result of a tendency prevailing at a given instant over
several that are possible. This operation has already been expounded
theoretically with individual examples in support.[55] But in order to gauge
its importance, we must see it act in large masses. Myths allow us to do this.
Ordinarily they have been studied in their historical development according
to their geographical distribution or ethnic character. If we proceed
otherwise, if we consider only their content—i.e., the very few themes upon
which the human imagination has labored, such as celestial phenomena,
terrestrial disturbances, floods, the origin of the universe, of man, etc.—we
are surprised at the wonderful richness of variety. What diversity in the
solar myths, or those of creation, of fire, of water! These variations are due
to multiple causes, which have orientated the imagination now in one
direction, now in another. Let us mention the principal ones: Racial

characteristics—whether the imagination is clear or mobile, poor or
exuberant; the manner of living—totally savage, or on a level of
civilization; the physical environment—external nature cannot be reflected
in the brain of a Hindoo in the same way as in that of a Scandinavian; and
lastly, that assemblage of considerable and unexpected causes grouped
under the term "chance."
The variable combinations of these different factors, with the predominance
of one or the other, explain the multiplicity of the imaginative conceptions
of the world, in contrast to the unity and simplicity of scientific
conceptions.

II

The form of imagination now occupying our attention by reason of its non-
individual, anonymous, collective character, attains a long development that
we may follow in its successive phases of ascent, climax, and decline. To
begin with, is it necessarily inherent in the human mind? Are there races or
groups of men totally devoid of myths? which is a slightly different
question from that usually asked, "Are there tribes totally devoid of
religious thoughts?" Although it is very doubtful that there are such now, it
is probable that there were in the beginning, when man had scarcely left the
brute level—at least if we agree with Vignoli[56] that we already find in the
higher animals embryonic forms of animism.
In any event, mythic creation appears early. We can infer this from the signs
of puerility of certain legends. Savages who could not know themselves—
the Iroquois, the Australian aborigines, the natives of the Andaman Islands
—believed that the earth was at first sterile and dry, all the water having
been swallowed by a gigantic frog or toad which was compelled, by queer
stratagems, to regurgitate it. These are little children's imaginings. Among
the Hindoos the same myth takes the form of an alluring epic—the dragon
watching over the celestial waters, of which he has taken possession, is
wounded by Indra after a heroic battle, and restores them to the earth.
Cosmogonies, Lang remarks, furnish a good example of the development of
myths; it is possible to mark out stages and rounds according to the degree
of culture and intelligence. The natives of Oceania believe that the world

was created and organized by spiders, grasshoppers, and various birds.
More advanced peoples regard powerful animals as gods in disguise (such
are certain Mexican divinities). Later, all trace of animal worship
disappears, and the character of the myth is purely anthropomorphic.[57]
Kühn, in a special work, has shown how the successive stages of social
evolution express themselves in the successive stages of mythology—myths
of cannibals, of hunters, of herders, land-tillers, sailors. Speaking of pure
savagery, Max Müller[58] admits at least two periods—pan-Aryan and Indo-
Iranian—prior to the Vedic period. In the course of this slow evolution the
work of the imagination passes little by little from infancy, becomes more
and more complex, subtle and refined.
In the Aryan race, the Vedic epoch, despite its sacerdotal ritualism, is
considered as the period par excellence of mythic efflorescence. "The
myth," says Taine, "is not here (in the Vedas) a disguise, but an expression;
no language is more true and more supple: it permits a glimpse of, or rather
causes us to discern, the forms of mist, the movements of the air, change of
seasons, all the accidents of sky, fire, storm: external nature has never found
a mode of thought so graceful and flexible for reflecting itself thereby in all
the inexhaustible variety of her appearances. However changeable nature
may be, the imagination is equally so."[59] It animates everything—not only
fire in general, Agni, but also the seven forms of flame, the wood that lights
it, the ten fingers of the sacrificing priest, the prayer itself, and even the
railing surrounding the altar. This is one example among many others. The
partisans of the linguistic theory have been able to maintain that at this
moment every word is a myth, because every word is a name designating a
quality or an act, transformed by the imagination into substance. Max
Müller has translated a page of Hesiod, substituting the analytic, abstract,
rational language of our time for the image-making names. Immediately, all
the mythical material vanishes. Thus, "Selene kisses the sleeping
Endymion" becomes the dry formula, "It is night." The most skilled
linguists often declare themselves unable to change the pliant tongue of the
imaginative age into our algebraic idioms.[60] Thought by imagery cannot
remain itself and at the same time take on a rational dress.
The mental state that marks the zenith of the free development of the
imagination, is at present met with only in mystics and in some poets.

Language has, however, preserved numerous vestiges of it in current
expressions, the mythic signification of which has been lost—the sun rises,
the sea is treacherous, the wind is mad, the earth is thirsty, etc.
To this triumphant period there succeeds among the races that have made
progress in evolution, i.e., that have been able to rise above the age of
(pure) imagination, the period of waning, of regression, of decline. In order
to understand it and perceive the how and why of it, let us first note that
myths are reducible to two great categories:
a. The explicative myths, arising from utility, from the necessity of
knowing. These undergo a radical transformation.
b. The non-explicative myths, resulting from a need of luxury, from a pure
desire to create: these undergo only a partial transformation.
Let us follow them in the accomplishment of their destinies.
a. The myths of the first class, answering the various needs of knowing in
order afterwards to act, are much the more numerous.... Is primitive man by
nature curious? The question has been variously answered; thus, Tylor says
yes; Spencer, no.[61] The affirmative and negative answers are not, perhaps,
irreconcilable, if we take account of the differences in races. Taking it
generally, it is hard to believe that he is not curious—he holds his life at that
price. He is in the presence of the universe just as we are when confronted
with an unknown animal or fruit. Is it useful or hurtful? He has all the more
need for a conception of the world since he feels himself dependent on
everything. While our subordination as regards nature is limited by the
knowledge of her laws, he is on account of his animism in a position similar
to ours before an assembly of persons whom we have to approach or avoid,
conciliate or yield to. It is necessary that he be practically curious—that is
indispensable for his preservation. There has been alleged the indifference
of primitive man to the complicated engines of civilization (a steamboat, a
watch, etc.). This shows, not lack of curiosity, but absence of intelligence or
interest for what he does not consider immediately useful for his needs.
His conception of the world is a product of the imagination, because no
other is possible for him. The problem is imperatively set, he solves it as
best he can; the myth is a response to a host of theoretical and practical

needs. For him, the imaginative explanation takes the place of the rational
explanation which is yet unborn, and which for great reasons can not arise
—first, because the poverty of his experience, limited to a small circle,
engenders a multitude of erroneous associations, which remain unbroken in
the absence of other experiences to contradict and shatter them; secondly,
because of the extreme weakness of his logic and especially of his
conception of causality, which most often reduces itself to a post hoc, ergo
propter hoc. Whence we have the thorough subjectivity of his interpretation
of the world.[62] In short, primitive man makes without exception or
reserve, and in terms of images, what science makes provisionally, with
reserves, and by means of concepts—namely, hypotheses.
Thus, the explicative myths are as we see, an epitome of a practical
philosophy, proportioned to the requirements of the man of the earliest, or
slightly-cultured ages. Then comes the period of critical transformation: a
slow, progressive substitution of a rational conception of the world for the
imaginative conception. It results from a work of depersonification of the
myth, which little by little loses its subjective, anthropomorphic character in
order to become all the more objective, without ever succeeding therein
completely.
This transformation occurs thanks to two principal supports: methodical and
prolonged observation of phenomena, which suggests the objective notion
of stability and law, opposed to the caprices of animism (example: the work
of the ancient astronomers of the Orient); the growing power of reflection
and of logical rigor, at least in well-endowed races.
It does not concern the subject in hand to trace here the fortunes of the old
battle whereby the imagination, assailed by a rival power, loses little by
little its position and preponderance in the interpretation of the world. A few
remarks will suffice.
To begin with, the myth is transformed into philosophic speculation, but
without total disappearance, as is seen in the mystic speculations of the
Pythagoreans, in the cosmology of Empedocles, ruled by two human-like
antitheses, Love and Hate. Even to Thales, an observing, positive spirit that
calculates eclipses, the world is full of daemons, remains of primitive

animism.[63] In Plato, even leaving out his theory of Ideas, the employment
of myth is not merely a playful mannerism, but a real survival.
This work of elimination, begun by the philosophers, is more firmly
established in the first attempts of pure science (the Alexandrian
mathematicians; naturalists like Aristotle; certain Greek physicians).
Nevertheless, we know how imaginary concepts remained alive in physics,
chemistry, biology, down to the sixteenth century; we know the bitter
struggle that the two following centuries witnessed against occult qualities
and loose methods. Even in our day, Stallo has been able to propose to write
a treatise "On Myth in Science." Without speaking at this time of the
hypotheses admitted as such and on account of their usefulness, there yet
remain in the sciences many latent signs of primitive anthropomorphism. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century people believed in several
"properties of matter" that we now regard as merely modes of energy. But
this latter notion, an expression of permanence underneath the various
manifestations of nature, is for science only an abstract, symbolical
formula: if we attempt to embody it, to make it concrete and representable,
then, whether we will or no, it resolves itself into the feeling of muscular
effort, that is, takes on a human character. To produce no other examples,
we see that so far as concerns the last term of this slow regression, the
imagination is not yet completely annulled, although it may have had to
recede incessantly before a more solid and better armed rival.
b. In addition to the explanatory myths, there are those having no claim to
be in this class, although they have perhaps been originally suggested by
some phenomenon of animate or inanimate nature. They are much less
numerous than the others, since they do not answer multiple necessities of
life. Such are the epic or heroic stories, popular tales, romances (which are
found as early as ancient Egypt): it is the first appearance of that form of
esthetic activity destined later to become literature. Here, the mythic
activity suffers only a superficial metamorphosis—the essence is not
changed. Literature is mythology transformed and adapted to the variable
conditions of civilization. If this statement appear doubtful or disrespectful,
we should note the following.
Historically, from myths wherein there figure at first only divine
personages, there arise the epics of the Hindoos, Greeks, Scandinavians,

etc., in which the gods and heroes are confounded, live in the same world,
on a level. Little by little the divine character is rubbed out; the myth
approaches the ordinary conditions of human life, until it becomes the
romantic novel, and finally the realistic story.
Psychologically, the imaginative work that has at first created the gods and
superior beings before whom man bows because he has unconsciously
produced them, becomes more and more humanized as it becomes
conscious; but it cannot cease being a projection of the feelings, ideas, and
nature of man into the fictitious beings upon whom the belief of their
creator and of his hearers confers an illusory and fleeting existence. The
gods have become puppets whose master man feels himself, and whom he
treats as he likes. Throughout the manifold techniques, esthetics,
documentary collections, reproductions of the social life, the creative
activity of the earliest time remains at bottom unchanged. Literature is a
decadent and rationalized mythology.

III

Does the mythic activity of ancient times still exist among civilized
peoples, unmodified as in literary creation, but in its pure form, as a non-
individual, collective, anonymous, unconscious, work? Yes; as the popular
imagination, when creating legends. In passing from natural phenomena to
historic events and persons, the constructive imagination takes a slightly
different position which we may characterize thus: legend is to myth what
illusion is to hallucination.
The psychological mechanism is the same in both cases. Illusion and legend
are partial imaginations, hallucination and myth are total imaginations.
Illusion may vary in all shades between exact perception and hallucination;
legend can run all the way from exact history to pure myth. The difference
between illusion and hallucination is sometimes imperceptible; the same is
sometimes true of legend and myth. Sensory illusion is produced by an
addition of images changing perception; legend is also produced by an
addition of images changing the historic personage or event. The only
difference, then, is in the material used; in one case, a datum of sense, a
natural phenomenon; in the other, a fact of history, a human event.

The psychological genesis of legends being thus established in general,
what, according to the facts, are the unconscious processes that the
imagination employs for creating them? We may distinguish two principal
ones.
The first process is a fusion or combination. The myth precedes the fact; the
historical personage or event enters into the mould of a pre-existing myth.
"It is necessary that the mythic form be fashioned before one may pour into
it, in a more or less fluid state, the historic metal." Imagination had created
a solar mythology long before it could be incarnated by the Greeks in
Hercules and his exploits. "There was historically a Roland, perhaps even
an Arthur, but the greater part of the great deeds that the poetry of the
Middle Ages attributes to them had been accomplished long before by
mythological heroes whose very names had been forgotten."[64] At one time
the man is completely hidden by the myth and becomes absolutely
legendary; again, he assumes only an aureole that transfigures him. This is
exactly what occurs in the simpler phenomenon of sensory illusion: now the
real (the perception) is swamped by the images, is transformed, and the
objective element reduced to almost nothing; at another time, the objective
element remains master, but with numerous deformations.
The second process is idealization, which can act conjointly with the other.
Popular imagination incarnates in a real man its ideal of heroism, of loyalty,
of love, of piety, or of cowardice, cruelty, wickedness, and other
abnormalities. The process is more complex. It presupposes in addition to
mythic creation a labor of abstraction, through which a dominating
characteristic of the historic personage is chosen and everything else is
suppressed, cast into oblivion: the ideal becomes a center of attraction about
which is formed the legend, the romantic tale. Compare the Alexander, the
Charlemagne, the Cid of the Middle Age traditions to the character of
history.
Even much nearer to us, this process of extreme simplification—which the
law of mental inertia or of least effort is sufficient to explain—always
persists: Lucretia Borgia remains the type of debauchery, Henry IV of good
fellowship, etc. The protests of historians and the documentary evidence
that they produce avail nothing: the work of the imagination resists
everything.

To conclude: We have just passed over a period of mental evolution
wherein the creative imagination reigns exclusively, explains everything, is
sufficient for everything. It has been said that the imagination is "a
temporary derangement." It seems so to us, although it is often an effort
toward wisdom, i.e., toward the comprehension of things. It would be more
correct to say, with Tylor, that it represents a state intermediate between that
of a man of our time, prosaic and well-to-do, and that of a furious madman,
or of a man in the delirium of fever.

FOOTNOTES:
[48] Primitive man has been defined as "he for whom sensuous data and images
surpass in importance rational concepts." From this standpoint, many
contemporary poets, novelists, and artists would be primitive. The mental state
of the human individual is not enough for such a determination; we must also
take account of the (comparative) simplicity of the social environment.
[49] Let us mention the euhemeristic theory of Herbert Spencer, taken up
recently by Grant Allen (The Evolution of the Idea of God, 1897), who brings
down all religious and mythic concepts from a single origin—the worship of the
dead.
[50] "When I tried to briefly characterize mythology in its inner nature, I called
it a disease of language rather than a disease of thought. The expression was
strange but intentionally so, meant to arouse attention and to provoke opposition.
For me, language and thought are inseparable." Nouvelles études de Mythologie,
p. 51.
[51] Vignoli, Mito e Scienza, p. 27.
[52] Marillier, Preface to the French translation of Andrew Lang's Myth, Ritual,
and Religion.
[53] On this point consult a work very rich in information, W. Crooke's book,
Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India, 1897.
[54] "The Indian traversing the Montaña never feels himself alone. Legions of
beings accompany him. All of the nature to whom he owes his soul speaks to
him through the noise of the wind, in the roaring of the waterfall. The insect like
the bird—everything, even to the bending twig wet with dew—for him has
language, distinct personality. The forest is alive in its depths, has caprices,
periods of anger; it avoids the thicket under the tread of the huntsman, or again
presses him more closely, drags him into infected swamps, into closed bogs,
where miserable goblins exhaust all their witchcraft upon him, drink his blood
by attaching their lips to the wounds made by briers. The Indian knows all that;
he knows those dread genii by name." Monnier, Des Andes au Para, p. 300.
[55] See Part I, Chapter IV.

[56] Op. cit., pp. 23-24.
[57] Lang, op. cit., I, 162, and passim.
[58] Max Müller, op cit., p. 12.
[59] Nouveaux Essais, p. 320.
[60] See Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, I, p. 234, a passage from the Rig-
Veda, with four very different translations by Max Müller, Wilson, Benfrey, and
Langlois.
[61] On curiosity as the beginning of knowledge, compare the position held by
Plato. (Tr.)
[62] On this general subject consult the interesting though somewhat general
article by Professor John Dewey, "The Interpretation of the Savage Mind," in the
Psychological Review, May, 1903. The author justly criticises the current
description of savages in negative terms, and contends that there is general
misunderstanding of the true nature of the savage and of his activities. (Tr.)
[63] It is now well accepted that Thales cannot be regarded as propounding a
materialistic theory when he declares that everything is derived from water; for
with him, "water" stands not merely for the substance that we call chemically
"H2O," but for the "spirit that is in water" as well—the water-spirit is the
Grundprincip. (Tr.)
[64] Max Müller, op. cit., 39, 47-48, 59-60.

CHAPTER IV
THE HIGHER FORMS OF INVENTION

We now pass from primitive to civilized man, from collective to individual
creation, the characters of which it remains for us to study as we find them
in great inventors who exhibit them on a large scale. Fortunately, we may
dismiss the treatment of the oft-discussed, never-solved problem of the
psychological nature of genius. As we have already noted, there enter into
its composition factors other than the creative imagination, although the
latter is not the least among them. Besides, great men being exceptions,
anomalies, or as the current expression has it, "spontaneous variations," we
may ask in limine whether their psychology is explicable by means of
simple formulæ, as with the average man, or whether even monographs
teach us no more concerning their nature than general theories that are
never applicable to all cases. Taking genius, then, as synonymous with great
inventor, accepting it de facto historically and psychologically, our task is
limited to the attempt to separate characters that seem, from observation
and experiment, to belong to it as peculiarly its own.
Putting aside vague dissertations and dithyrambics in favor of theories with
a scientific tendency as to the nature of genius, we meet first the one
attributing to it a pathological origin. Hinted at in antiquity (Aristotle,
Seneca, etc.), suggested in the oft-expressed comparison between
inspiration and insanity, it has reached, as we know—through timid,
reserved, and partial statements (Lélut)—its complete expression in the
famous formula of Moreau de Tours, "Genius is a neurosis."
Neuropathy was for him the exaggeration of vital properties and
consequently the most favorable condition for the hatching of works of
genius. Later, Lombroso, in a book teeming with doubtful or manifestly
false evidence, finding his predecessor's theory too vague, attempts to give
it more precision by substituting for neurosis in general a specific neurosis
—larvated epilepsy. Alienists, far from eagerly accepting this view, have set
themselves to combat it and to maintain that Lombroso has compromised

everything in wanting to make the term too precise. There are several
possible hypotheses, they say: either the neuropathic state is the direct,
immediate cause of which the higher faculties of genius are effects; or, the
intellectual superiority, through the excessive labor and excitation it
involves, causes neuropathic disturbances; or, there is no relation of cause
and effect between genius and neurosis, but mere coëxistence, since there
are found very mediocre neuropaths, and men above the average without a
neurotic blemish; or, the two states—the one psychic, the other
physiological—are both effects, resulting from organic conditions that
produce according to circumstances genius, insanity, and divers nervous
troubles. Every one of these hypotheses can allege facts in its favor. We
must, however, recognize that in most men of genius are found so many
peculiarities, physical eccentricities and disorders of all kinds that the
pathologic theory retains much probability.
There remain for consideration the sane geniuses who, despite many efforts
and subtleties, have not yet been successfully brought under the foregoing
formula, and who have made possible the enunciation of another theory.
Recently, Nordau, rejecting the theory of his master Lombroso, has
maintained that it is just as reasonable to say that "genius is a neurosis" as
that "athleticism is a cardiopathy" because many athletes are affected with
heart disease. For him, "the essential elements of genius are judgment and
will." Following this definition, he establishes the following hierarchy of
men of genius: At the highest rung of the ladder are those in whom
judgment and will are equally powerful; men of action who make world-
history (Alexander, Cromwell, Napoleon)—these are masters of men. On
the second level are found the geniuses of judgment, with no hyper-
development of will—these are masters of matter (Pasteur, Helmholtz,
Röntgen). On the third step are geniuses of judgment without energetic will
—thinkers and philosophers. What then shall we do with the emotional
geniuses—the poets and artists? Theirs is not genius in the strict sense,
"because it creates nothing new and exercises no influence on phenomena."
Without discussing the value of this classification, without examining
whether it is even possible,—since there is no common measure between
Alexander, Pasteur, Shakespeare, and Spinoza,—and whether, on the other
hand, common opinion is not right in putting on the same level the great
creators, whoever they be, solely because they are far above the average,

this remark is absolutely necessary: In the definition above cited the
creative faculty par excellence—imagination—necessary to all inventors, is
entirely left out.
We can, however, derive some benefit from this arbitrary division. Although
it is impossible to admit that "emotional geniuses" create nothing new and
have no influence on society, they do form a special group. Creative work
requires of them a nervous excitability and a predominance of affective
states that rapidly become morbid. In this way they have provided the
pathological theory with most of its facts. It would perhaps be necessary to
recognize distinctions between the various forms of invention. They require
very different organic and psychic conditions in order that some may profit
by morbid dispositions that are far from useful to others. This point should
deserve a special study never made hitherto.

I

We shall reduce to three the characters ordinarily met in most great
inventors. No one of them is without exception.
1. Precocity, which is reducible to innateness. The natural bent becomes
manifest as soon as circumstances allow—it is the sign of the true vocation.
The story is the same in all cases: at one moment the flash occurs; but this
is not as frequent as is supposed. False vocations abound. If we deduct
those attracted through imitation, environmental influence, exhortations and
advice, chance, the attraction of immediate gain, aversion to a career
imposed from without which they shun and adoption of an opposite one,
will there remain many natural and irresistible vocations?

We have seen above that[65] the passage from reproductive to constructive
imagination takes place toward the end of the third year. According to some
authors, this initial period should be followed by a depression about the
fifth year; thenceforward the upward progress is continuous. But the
creative faculty, from its nature and content, develops in a very clear,
chronological order. Music, plastic arts, poetry, mechanical invention,
scientific imagination—such is the usual order of appearance.

In music, with the exception of a few child-prodigies, we hardly find
personal creation before the age of twelve or thirteen. As examples of
precocity may be cited: Mozart, at the age of three; Mendelssohn, five;
Haydn, four; Handel, twelve; Weber, twelve; Schubert, eleven; Cherubini,
thirteen; and many others. Those late in developing—Beethoven, Wagner,
etc.—are fewer by far.[66]
In the plastic arts, vocation and creative aptitude are shown perceptibly
later, on the average about the fourteenth year: Giotto, at ten; Van Dyck,
ten; Raphael, eight; Guerchin, eight; Greuze, eight; Michaelangelo, thirteen;
Albrecht Dürer, fifteen; Bernini, twelve; Rubens and Jordaens being also
precocious.
In poetry we find no work having any individual character before sixteen.
Chatterton died at that age, perhaps the only example of so young a poet
leaving any reputation. Schiller and Byron also began at sixteen. Besides
this, we know that the talent for versification, at least as imitation, is very
early in developing.
In mechanical arts children have early a remarkable capacity for
understanding and imitating. At nine, Poncelet bought a watch that was out
of order in order to study it, then took it apart and put it together correctly.
Arago tells that at the same age Fresnel was called by his comrades a "man
of genius," because he had determined by correct experiments "the length
and caliber of children's elder-wood toy cannon giving the longest range;
also, which green or dry woods used in the manufacture of bows have most
strength and lasting power." In general, the average of mechanical invention
is later, and scarcely comes earlier than that of scientific discovery.
The form of abstract imagination requisite for invention in the sciences has
no great personal value before the twentieth year: there are a goodly
number, however, who have given proof of it before that age—Pascal,
Newton, Leibniz, Gauss, Auguste Comte, etc. Almost all are
mathematicians.
These chronological variations result not from chance, but from
psychological conditions necessary for the development of each form of
imagination. We know that the acquisition of musical sounds is prior to
speech: many children can repeat a scale correctly before they are able to

talk. On the other hand, as dissolution follows evolution in inverse order,[67]
aphasic patients lacking the most common words, can nevertheless sing.
Sound-images are thus organized before all others, and the creative power
when acting in this direction finds very early material for its use. For the
plastic arts a longer apprenticeship is necessary for the education of the
senses and movements. To acquire manual dexterity one must become
skilled in observing form, combinations of lines and colors, and apt at
reproducing them. Poetry and first attempts at novel-writing presuppose
some experience of the passions of human life and a certain reflection of
which the child is incapable. Invention in the mechanic arts, as in the plastic
arts, requires the education of the senses and movements; and, further,
calculation, rational combination of means, rigorous adaptation to practical
necessities. Lastly, scientific imagination is nothing without a high
development of the capacity for abstraction, which is a matter of slow
growth. Mathematicians are the most precocious because their material is
the most simple; they have no need, as in the case of the experimental
sciences, of an extended knowledge of facts, which is acquired only with
time.
At this period of its development the imagination is in large part imitation.
We must explain this paradox. The creator begins by imitating: this is such
a well-known fact that it is needless to give proof of it, and it is subject to
few exceptions. The most original mind is, at first, consciously or
unconsciously somebody's disciple. It is necessarily so. Nature gives only
one thing, "the creative instinct;" that is, the need of producing in a
determined line. This internal factor alone is insufficient. Aside from the
fact that the imagination at first has at its disposal only a very limited
material, it lacks technique, the processes indispensable for realizing itself.
As long as the creator has not found the suitable form into which to cast his
creation he must indeed borrow it from another; his ideas must suffer the
necessity of a provisional shelter. This explains how it is that later the
inventor, reaching full consciousness of himself, in order to complete
mastery of his methods, often breaks with his models, and burns what he at
first adorned.

II

A second character consists of the necessity, the fatality of creation. Great
inventors feel that they have a task to accomplish; they feel that they are
charged with a mission. On this point we have a large number of
testimonials and avowals. In the darkest days of his life Beethoven, haunted
by the thought of suicide, wrote, "Art alone has kept me back. It seemed to
me that I could not leave the world before producing all that I felt within
me." Ordinarily, inventors are apt in only one line; even when they have a
certain versatility, they remain bound to their own peculiar manner—they
have their mark—like Michaelangelo; or, if they attempt to change it, if
they try to be unfaithful as respects their vocation, they fall much below
themselves.
This characteristic of irresistible impulsion which makes the genius create
not because he wants to, but because he must do it, has often been likened
to instinct. This very widespread view has been examined before (Part I,
Chapter ii).
We have seen that there is no creative instinct in general, but particular
tendencies, orientated in a definite direction, which in most respects
resemble instinct. It is contrary to experience and logic to admit that the
creative genius follows any path whatever at his choice—a proposition that
Weismann, in his horror of inheritance of acquired characters (which are a
kind of innateness) is not afraid to support. That is true only of the man of
talent, a matter of education and circumstances. The distinction between
these two orders of creators—the great and the ordinary—has been made
too often to need repetition, although it is proper to recognize that it is not
always easy in practice, that there are names that cause us to hesitate, which
we class somewhat at hazard. Yet genius remains, as Schopenhauer used to
say, monstrum per excessum; excessive development in one direction.
Hypertrophy of a special aptitude often makes genius fall, as far as the
others are concerned, below the average level. Even those exceptional men
who have given proof of multiple aptitudes, such as Vinci, Michaelangelo,
Goethe, etc., always have a predominating tendency which, in common
opinion, sums them up.

III

A third characteristic is the clearly defined individuality of the great creator.
He is the man of his work; he has done this or that: that is his mark. He is
"representative." There is no other opinion as to this; what is a subject of
discussion is the origin, not the nature of this individuality. The Darwinian
theory as to the all-powerful action of environment has led to the question
whether the representative character of great inventors comes from
themselves, and from them alone, or must not rather be sought in the
unconscious influence of the race and epoch of which they are at a given
instant only brighter sparks. This debate goes beyond the bounds of our
subject. To decide whether social changes are due mostly to the
accumulated influences of some individuals and their initiative, or to the
environment, to circumstances, to hereditary transmission, is not a problem
for psychology to solve. We can not, however, totally avoid this discussion,
for it touches the very springs of creation.
Is the inventive genius the highest degree of personality or a synthesis of
masses?—the result of himself or of others?—the expression of an
individual activity or of a collective activity? In short, should we look for
his representative character within him or without? Both these alternatives
have authoritative supporters.
For Schopenhauer, Carlyle (Hero-worship), Nietzsche, et al., the great man
is an autonomous product, a being without a peer, a demigod,
"Uebermensch." He can be explained neither by heredity, nor by
environment.
For others (Taine, Spencer, Grant, Allen, et al.), the important factor is seen
in the race and external conditions. Goethe held that a whole family line is
summarized some day in a single one of its members, and a whole people in
one or several men. For him, Louis XIV and Voltaire are respectively the
French king and writer par excellence. "The alleged great men," says
Tolstoi, "are only the labels of history, they give their names to events."[68]
Each party explains the same facts according to its own principle and in its
own peculiar way. The great historic epochs are rich in great men (the
Greek republics of the fourth century B. C., the Roman Republic, the
Renaissance, French Revolution, etc.). Why? Because, say some, periods
put into ferment by the deep working of the masses make this blossoming

possible. Because, say the others, this flowering modifies profoundly the
social and intellectual condition of the masses and raises their level. For the
former the ferment is deep down; for the latter it is on top.
Without presuming to solve this vexed question, I lean toward the view of
individualism pure and simple. It seems to me very difficult to admit that
the great creator is only the result of his environment. Since this influence
acts on many others, it is very necessary that, in great men, there should be
in addition a personal factor. Besides, in opposition to the exclusively
environmental theory we may bring the well-known fact that most
innovators and inventors at first arouse opposition. We know the invariable
sentence on everything novel—it is "false" or "bad;" then it is adopted with
the statement that it had been known for a long time. In the hypothesis of
collective invention, it seems that the mass of people should applaud
inventors, recognizing itself in them, seeing its confused thought take form
and body: but most often the contrary happens. The misoneism of crowds
seems to me one of the strongest arguments in favor of the individual
character of invention.
We can doubtless distinguish two cases—in the first, the creator sums up
and clearly translates the aspirations of his milieu; in the second, he is in
opposition to it because he goes beyond it. How many innovators have been
disappointed because they came before their time! But this distinction does
not reach to the bottom of the question, and is not at all sufficient as an
answer.
Let us leave this problem, which, on account of its complexity, we can
hardly solve through peremptory reasoning, and let us try to examine
objectively the relation between creation and environment in order that we
may see to what extent the creative imagination, without losing its
individual character—which is impossible—depends on the intellectual and
social surrounding.

If, with the American psychologists,[69] we term the disposition for
innovating a "spontaneous variation"—a Darwinian term explaining
nothing, but convenient—we may enunciate the following law:
The tendency toward spontaneous variation (invention) is always in inverse
ratio to the simplicity of the environment.

The savage environment is in its nature very simple, consequently
homogeneous. The lower races show a much smaller degree of
differentiation than the higher; in them, as Jastrow says, physical and
psychic maturity is more precocious, and as the period just before the adult
age is the plastic period per se, this diminishes the chances of a departure
from the common type. Thus comparison between whites and blacks,
between primitive and civilized peoples, shows that, for equal populations,
there is an enormous disproportion as to the number of innovators.
The barbarian environment is much more complex and heterogeneous: it
contains all the rudiments of civilized life. Consequently, it favors more
individual variations and is richer in superior men. But these variations are
rarely produced outside of a very restricted field—political, military,
religious. So it seems impossible to agree with Joly[70] that neither primitive
nor barbarian peoples produce superior minds, "unless," as he says, "by this
name we mean those that simply surpass their congeners." But is there a
criterion other than that? I see none. Greatness is altogether a relative idea;
and would not our great creators seem, to beings better endowed than we,
very small?
The civilized environment, requiring division of labor and consequently a
constantly growing complexity of heterogeneous elements, is an open door
for all vocations. Doubtless, the social spirit always retains something of
that tendency toward stagnation that is the rule in lower social orders; it is
more favorable to tradition than to innovation. But the inevitable necessity
of a warm competition between individuals and peoples is a natural antidote
for that natural inertia; it favors useful variations. Moreover, civilization
means evolution; consequently the conditions under which the imagination
is active change with the times. Let us suppose, Weismann justly says, that
in the Samoan Islands there were born a child having the singular and
extraordinary genius of Mozart. What could he accomplish? At the most,
extend the gamut of three or four tones to seven, and create a few more
complex melodies; but he would be as unable to compose symphonies as
Archimedes would have been to invent an electric dynamo. How many
creators have been wrecked because the conditions necessary for their
inventions were lacking? Roger Bacon foresaw several of our great
discoveries; Cardan, the differential calculus; Van Helmont, chemistry; and
it has been possible to write a book on the forerunners of Darwin.[71] We

talk so much of the free flight of imagination, of the all-comprehensive
power of the creator, that we forget the sociological conditions—not to
mention others—on which they are every moment dependent. In this
respect, no invention is personal in the strict sense; there always remains in
it a little of that anonymous collaboration the highest expression of which,
as we have seen, is the mythic activity.
By way of summary, and whatever be the causes, we may say that there is a
universal tendency in all living matter toward variation, whether we
consider vegetables, animals, or the physical and mental man. The need of
innovating is only a special case, rare in the lower races, frequent in the
higher. This tendency toward variation is fundamental or superficial: As
fundamental, it corresponds to genius, and survives through processes
analogous to natural selection, i.e., by its own power. As superficial, it
corresponds to talent, survives and prospers chiefly through the help of
circumstances and environment. Here, the orientation comes from without,
not from within. According as the spirit of the time inclines rather to poetry
or painting, or music, or scientific research, or industry, or military art,
minds of the second order are dragged into the current—showing that a
goodly part of their power is in the aptness, not for invention, but for
imitation.

IV

The determination of the characters belonging to the inventive genius has
necessitated some seemingly irrelevant remarks on the action of the
environment. Let us return to invention, strictly so-called.
For inventing there is always required a natural aptitude, sometimes, a
happy chance.
The natural disposition should be accepted as a fact. Why does a man
create? Because he is capable of forming new combinations of ideas.
However naïve this answer may be, there is no other. The only thing
possible, is the determination of the conditions necessary and sufficient for
producing novel combinations: this has been done in the first part of this
book, and there is no occasion for going over it again. But there is another

aspect in creative work to be considered—its psychological mechanism, and
the form of its development.
Every normal person creates little or much. He may, in his ignorance, invent
what has been already done a thousand times. Even if this is not a creation
as regards the species, it is none the less such for the individual. It is wrong
to say, as has been said, that an invention "is a new and important idea."
Novelty only is essential—that is the psychological mark: importance and
utility are accessory, merely social marks. Invention is thus unduly limited
when we attribute it to great inventors only. At this moment, however, we
are concerned only with these, and in them the mechanism of invention is
easier to study.
We have already seen how false is the theory that holds that there is always
a sudden stroke of inspiration, followed by a period of rapid or slow
execution. On the contrary, observation reveals many processes that
apparently differ less in the content of invention than according to
individual temperament. I distinguish two general processes of which the
rest are variations. In all creation, great or small, there is a directing idea, an
"ideal"—understanding the word not in its transcendental sense, but merely
as synonymous with end or goal—or more simply, a problem to solve. The
locus of the idea, of the given problem, is not the same in the two processes.
In the one I term "complete" the ideal is at the beginning: in the "abridged"
it is in the middle. There are also other differences which the following
tables will make more clear:

First Process (complete).
1st phase 2nd phase 3d phase
IDEA (commencement) INVENTION, VERIFICATION,
Special incubation or or
of more or less DISCOVERY APPLICATION
duration (end)

The idea excites attention and takes a fixed character. The period of
brooding begins. For Newton it lasted seventeen years, and at the time of
definitely establishing his discovery by calculation he was so overcome
with emotion that he had to assign to another the task of completing it. The

mathematician Hamilton tells us that his method of quaternians burst upon
him one day, completely finished, while he was near a bridge in Dublin. "In
that moment I had the result of fifteen years' labor." Darwin gathers
material during his voyages, spends a long time observing plants and
animals, then through the chance reading of Malthus' book, hits upon and
formulates his theory. In literary and artistic creation similar examples are
frequent.[72]
The second phase is only an instant, but essential—the moment of
discovery, when the creator exclaims his "Eureka!"[73] With it, the work is
virtually or really ended.

Second Process (abridged).
1st phase 2nd phase 3rd phase
General preparation IDEA (commencement) CONSTRUCTIVE
(unconscious) INSPIRATION and
ERUPTION DEVELOPING
period.

This is the process in intuitive minds. Such seems to have been the case of
Mozart, Poe, etc. Without attempting what would be a tedious enumeration
of examples, we may say that this form of creation comprises two classes—
those coming to maturity through an internal impulse, a sudden stroke of
inspiration, and those who are suddenly illumined by chance. The two
processes differ superficially rather than essentially. Let us briefly compare
them.
With some, the first phase is long and fully conscious; in others it seems
negligible, equal to zero—there is nothing of it because there exists a
natural or acquired tendency toward equilibrium. "For a long time," says
Schumann, "I had the habit of racking my brain, and now I scarcely need to
scratch my forehead. Everything runs naturally."[74]
The second phase is almost the same in both cases: it is only an instant, but
it is essential—it is the moment of imaginative synthesis.
Lastly, the third phase is very short for some, because the main labor is
already done, and there remains only the finishing touch or the verification.
It is long for others, because they must pass from the perceived idea to
complete realization, and because the preparatory work is faulty; so that for
these the second creative process is shortened in appearance only.
Such seem to me the two principal forms of the mechanism of creation.
These are genera; they include species and varieties that a patient and
minute study of the processes peculiar to various inventors would reveal to
us. We must bear in mind that this work makes no claim of being a
monograph on invention, but merely a sketch.[75]

The two processes above described seem to correspond on the whole to the
oft-made distinction between the intuitive or spontaneous, and the
combining or reflective imagination.
The intuitive, essentially synthetic form, is found principally in the purely
imaginative types, children and savages. The mind proceeds from the whole
to details. The generative idea resembles those concepts which, in the
sciences, are of wide range because they condense a generalization rich in
consequences. The subject is at first comprehended as a whole;
development is organic, and we may compare it to the embryological
process that causes a living being to arise from the fertilized ovum,
analogous to an immanent logic. As a type of this creative form there has
often been given a letter wherein Mozart explains his mode of conception.
Recently (and that is why I do not reprint it here) it has been suspected of
being apocryphal. I regret this—it was worthy of being authentic.
According to Goethe, Shakespeare's Hamlet could have been created only
through an intuitive process, etc.
The combining, discursive imagination proceeds from details to the
vaguely-perceived unity. It starts from a fragment that serves as a matrix,
and becomes completed little by little. An adventure, an anecdote, a scene, a
rapid glance, a detail, suggests a literary or artistic creation; but the organic
form does not appear in a trice. In science, Kepler furnishes a good example
of this combining imagination. It is known that he devoted a part of his life
trying strange hypotheses, until the day when, having discovered the
elliptical orbit of Mars, all his former work took shape and became an
organized system. Did we want to make use once more of an embryological
comparison, it would be necessary to look for it in the strange conceptions
of ancient cosmogonies: they believed that from an earthly slime arose parts
of bodies and separate organs which through a mysterious attraction and
happy chance ended by sticking together, and forming living bodies.[76]
It is an accepted view that of these two modes, one, the abridged or intuitive
process, is superior to the other. I confess to having held this prejudice. On
examination, I find it doubtful, even false. There is a difference, not any
"higher" and "lower."

First of all, both these forms of creation are necessary. The intuitive process
can suffice for an invention of short duration: a rhyme, a story, a profile, a
motif, an ornamental stroke, a little mechanical contrivance, etc. But as soon
as the work requires time and development the discursive process becomes
absolutely necessary: with many inventors one easily perceives the change
from one form to the other. We have seen that in the case of Chopin,
"creation was spontaneous, miraculous," coming complete and sudden. But
George Sand adds: "The crisis over, then commenced the most heartrending
labor at which I have ever been present," and she pictures him to us
agonized, for days and weeks, running after the bits of lost inspiration.
Goethe, likewise, in a letter to Humboldt regarding his Faust, which
occupied him for sixty years, full of interruptions and gaps: "The difficulty
has been to get through strength of will what is really to be gotten only by a
spontaneous act of nature." Zola, according to his biographer, Toulouse,
"imagines a novel, always starting out with a general idea that dominates
the work; then, from induction to induction, he draws out of it the
characters and all the story."
To sum up: Pure intuition and pure combination are exceptional; ordinarily,
it is a mixed process in which one of the two elements prevails and permits
its qualification. If we note, in addition, that it would be easy to group under
these two headings names of the first rank, we shall conclude that the
difference is altogether in the mechanism, not in the nature of creation, and
is consequently accessory; and that this difference is reducible to natural
dispositions, which we may contrast as follows:

Ready-witted minds, Logically-developing
excelling in conception, minds, excelling in
making the whole almost elaboration.
out of one piece.
Work primarily unconscious.Patience the preponderating
rôle.
Work primarily conscious.
Actions quick. Actions slow.

V

"Were we to raise monuments to inventors in the arts and sciences, there
would be fewer statues to men than to children, animals, and especially
fortune." In this wise expressed himself one of the sage thinkers of the
eighteenth century, Turgot. The importance of the last factor has been much
exaggerated. Chance may be taken in two senses—one general, the other
narrow.
(1) In its broad meaning, chance depends on entirely internal, purely
psychic circumstances. We know that one of the best conditions for
inventing is abundance of material, accumulated experience, knowledge—
which augment the chances of original association of ideas. It has even been
possible to maintain that the nature of memory implies the capacity of
creating in a special direction. The revelations of inventors or of their
biographers leave no doubt as to the necessity of a large number of
sketches, trials, preliminary drawings, no matter whether it is a matter of
industry, commerce, a machine, a poem, an opera, a picture, a building, a
plan of campaign, etc. "Genius for discovery," says Jevons, depends on the
number of notions and chance thoughts coming to the inventor's mind. To
be fertile in hypotheses—that is the first requirement for finding something
new. The inventor's brain must be full of forms, of melodies, of mechanical
agents, of commercial combinations, of figures, etc., according to the nature
of his work. "But it is very rare that the ideas we find are exactly those we
were seeking. In order to find, we must think along other lines."[77] Nothing
is more true.
So much for chance within: it is indisputable, whatever may have been said
of it, but it depends finally on individuality—from it arises the non-
anticipated synthesis of ideas. The abundance of memory-ideas, we know,
is not a sufficient condition for creation; it is not even a necessary
condition. It has been remarked that a relative ignorance is sometimes
useful for invention: it favors assurance. There are inventions, especially
scientific and industrial, that could not have been made had the inventors
been arrested by the ruling and presumably invincible dogmas. The inventor
was all the more free the more he was unaware of them. Then, as it was

quite necessary to bow before the accomplished fact, theory was broadened
to include the new discovery and explain it.
(2) Chance, in the narrow sense, is a fortunate occurrence stimulating
invention: but to attribute to it the greater part, is a partial, erroneous view.
Here, what we call chance, is the meeting and convergence of two factors—
one internal (individual genius), the other, external (the fortuitous
occurrence).
It is impossible to determine all that invention owes to chance in this sense.
In primitive humanity its influence must have been enormous: the use of
fire, the manufacture of weapons, of utensils, the casting of metals: all that
came about through accidents as simple as, for example, a tree falling
across a stream suggesting the first idea of a bridge.
In historic times—and to keep merely to the modern period—the collection
of authentic facts would fill a large volume. Who does not know of
Newton's apple, Galileo's lamp, Galvani's frog? Huygens declared that,
were it not for an unforeseen combination of circumstances, the invention
of the telescope would require "a superhuman genius;" it is known that we
owe it to children who were playing with pieces of glass in an optician's
shop. Schönbein discovered ozone, thanks to the phosphorous odor of air
traversed by electric sparks. The discoveries of Grimaldi and of Fresnel in
regard to interferences, those of Faraday, of Arago, of Foucault, of
Fraunhofer, of Kirchoff, and of hundreds of others owed something to
"fortune." It is said that the sight of a crab suggested to Watt the idea of an
ingenious machine. To chance, also, many poets, novelists, dramatists, and
artists have owed the best part of their inspirations: literature and the arts
abound in fictitious characters whose real originals are known.
So much for the external, fortuitous factor; its rôle is clear. That of the
internal factor is less so. It is not at all apparent to the ordinary mind,
escaping the unreflecting. Yet it is extremely important. The same fortuitous
event passes by millions of men without exciting anything. How many of
Pisa's inhabitants had seen the lamp of their cathedral before Galileo! He
does not necessarily find who wants to find. The happy chance comes only
to those worthy of it. In order to profit thereby, one must first possess the
spirit of observation, wide-awake attention, that isolates and fixates the

accident; then, if it is a matter of scientific or practical inventions, the
penetration that seizes upon relations and finds unforeseen resemblances; if
it concerns esthetic productions, the imagination that constructs, organizes,
gives life.
Without repeating an evident truism, although it is often misunderstood, we
ought to end by remarking that chance is an occasion for, not an agent of,
creation.

FOOTNOTES:
[65] See above, Chapter II.
[66] Some of these and the following figures are borrowed from Oelzelt-Newin,
op. cit., pp. 70 ff.
[67] Compare the well-known theory of Dr. Hughlings-Jackson. (Tr.)
[68] For an elaborate and interesting discussion of this subject, see Tolstoi's
Physiology of War. As showing the later trend of thought on this general theme,
see the excellent summary by Professor Seligman, The Economic Interpretation
of History. (Tr.)
[69] William James, The Will to Believe and other Essays, pp. 218 ff.; Jastrow,
Psych. Rev., May, 1898, p. 307; J. Royce, ibid., March, 1898; Baldwin, Social
and Ethical Interpretations, etc.
[70] Joly, Psychologie des grands hommes.
[71] Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin.
[72] Such, according to Binet and Passy, seem to be the cases of the Goncourts,
Pailleron, etc. See "Psychologie des auteurs dramatiques," in L'année
psychologique, I, 96.
[73] Compare the striking instance of this moment as given by Froebel, in his
Autobiography, in connection with his idea of the Kindergarten. (Tr.)
[74] Quoted by Arréat, Mémoire et Imagination, p. 118. (Paris, F. Alcan.)
[75] Paulhan ("De l'invention," Rev. Philos., December, 1898, pp. 590 ff.)
distinguishes three kinds of development in invention: (1) Spontaneous or
reasoned—the directing idea persists to the end; (2) transformation, which
comprises several contradictory evolutions succeeding and replacing one another
in consequence of impressions and feelings; (3) deviation, which is a composite
of the two preceding forms.
[76] Cf. the well-known doctrine of Empedocles. (Tr.)

[77] P. Souriau, Théorie de l'invention, pp. 6-7.

CHAPTER V
LAW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IMAGINATION

Is imagination, so often called "a capricious faculty," subject to some law?
The question thus asked is too simple, and we must make it more precise.
As the direct cause of invention, great or small, the imagination acts
without assignable determination; in this sense it is what is known as
"spontaneity"—a vague term, which we have attempted to make clear. Its
appearance is irreducible to any law; it results from the often fortuitous
convergence of various factors previously studied.
Leaving aside the moment of origin, does the inventive power, considered
in its individual and specific development, seem to follow any law, or, if
this term appear too ambitious, does it present, in the course of its
evolution, any perceptible regularity? Observation separates out an
empirical law; that is, extracts directly an abridged formula that is only a
condensation of facts. We may enunciate it thus: The creative imagination
in its complete development passes through two periods separated by a
critical phase: a period of autonomy or efflorescence, a critical moment, a
period of definitive constitution presenting several aspects.
This formula, being only a summary of experience, should be justified and
explained by the latter. For this purpose we can borrow facts from two
distinct sources: (a) individual development, which is the safest, clearest,
and easiest to observe; (b) the development of the species, or historical
development, according to the accepted principle that phylogenesis and
ontogenesis follow the same general line.

I

First Period. We are already acquainted with it: it is the imaginative age. In
normal man, it begins at about the age of three, and embraces infancy,
adolescence, youth: sometimes a longer, sometimes a shorter period. Play,

romantic invention, mythic and fantastic conceptions of the world sum it up
first; after that, in most, imagination is dependent on the influence of the
passions, and especially sexual love. For a long time it remains without any
rational element.
Nevertheless, little by little, the latter wins a place. Reflection—including
under the term the working of the intelligence—begins very late, grows
slowly, and the proportion as it asserts itself, gains an influence over the
imaginative activity and tends to reduce it. This growing antagonism is
represented in the following figure.
The curve IM is that of the imagination during this first period. It rises at
first very slowly, then attains a rapid ascent and keeps at a height that marks
its greatest attainment in this earliest form. The dotted line RX represents
the rational development that begins later, advances much more slowly, but
progressively, and reaches at X the level of the imaginative curve. The two
intellectual forms are present like two rivals. The position MX on the
ordinate marks the beginning of the second period.

Second Period. This is a critical period of indeterminate length, in any case,
always much briefer than the other two. This critical moment can be
characterized only by its causes and results. Its causes are, in the
physiological sphere, the formation of an organism and a fully developed
brain; in the psychologic order, the antagonism between the pure
subjectivity of the imagination and the objectivity of ratiocinative
processes; in other words, between mental instability and stability. As for
the results, they appear only in the third period, the resultant of this obscure,
metamorphic stage.

Third Period. It is definite: in some way or another and in some degree the
imagination has become rationalized, but this change is not reducible to a
single formula.
(1) The creative imagination falls, as is indicated in the figure, where the
imagination curve MN´ descends rapidly toward the line of abcissas
without ever reaching it. This is the most general case; only truly
imaginative minds are exceptions. One falls little by little into the prose of
practical life—such is the downfall of love which is treated as a phantom,
the burial of the dreams of youth, etc. This is a regression, not an end; for
the creative imagination disappears completely in no man; it only becomes
accessory.
(2) It keeps up but becomes transformed; it adapts itself to the conditions of
rational thought; it is no longer pure imagination, but becomes a mixed
form—the fact is indicated in the diagram by the union of the two lines,
MN, the imagination, and XO, the rational. This is the case with truly
imaginative beings, in whom inventive power long remains young and
fresh.
This period of preservation, of definitive constitution with rational
transformation, presents several varieties. First, and simplest,
transformation into logical form. The creative power manifested in the first
stage remains true to itself, and always follows the same trend. Such are the
precocious inventors, those whose vocation appeared early and never
changed direction. Invention loses its childish or juvenile character in
becoming virile; there are no other changes. Compare Schiller's Robbers,
written in his teens, with his Wallenstein, dating from his fortieth year; or
the vague sketches of the adolescent James Watt with his inventions as a
man.
Another case is the metamorphosis or deviation of creative power. We know
what numbers of men who have left a great name in science, politics,
mechanical or industrial invention started out with mediocre efforts in
music, painting, and especially poetry, the drama, and fiction. The
imaginative impulse did not discover its true direction at the outset; it
imitated while trying to invent. What has been said above concerning the
chronological development of the imagination would be tiresome repetition.

The need of creating followed from the first the line of least resistance,
where it found certain materials ready to hand. But in order to arrive to full
consciousness of itself it needed more time, more knowledge, more
accumulated experience.
We might here ask whether the contrary case is also met with; i.e., where
the imagination, in this third period, would return to the inclinations of the
first period. This regressive metamorphosis—for I cannot style it otherwise
—is rare but not without examples. Ordinarily the creative imagination,
when it has passed its adult stage, becomes attenuated by slow atrophy
without undergoing serious change of form. Nevertheless, I am able to cite
the case of a well-known scholar who began with a taste for art, especially
plastic art, went over rapidly to literature, devoted his life to biologic
studies, in which he gained a very deserved reputation; then, in turn,
became totally disgusted with scientific research, came back to literature
and finally to the arts, which have entirely monopolized him.
Finally—for there are very many forms—in some the imagination, though
strong, scarcely passes beyond the first stage, always retains its youthful,
almost childish form, hardly modified by a minimum of rationality. Let us
note that it is not a question here of the characteristic ingenuousness of
some inventors, which has caused them to be called "grown-up children,"
but of the candor and inherent simplicity of the imagination itself. This
exceptional form is hardly reconcilable except with esthetic creation. Let us
add the mystic imagination. It could furnish examples, less in its religious
conceptions, which are without control, than in its reveries of a scientific
turn. Contemporary mystics have invented adaptations of the world that
take us back to the mythology of early times. This prolonged childhood of
the imagination, which is, in a word, an anomaly, produces curiosities rather
than lasting works.
At this third period in the development of the imagination appears a second,
subsidiary law, that of increasing complexity; it follows a progressive line
from the simple to the complex. Indeed, it is not, strictly speaking, a law of
the imagination but of the rational development exerting an influence on it
by a counter-action. It is a law of the mind that knows, not of one that
imagines.

It is needless to show that theoretical and practical intelligence develops as
an increasing complex. But from the time that the mind distinguishes
clearly between the possible and the impossible, between the fancied and
the real—which is a capacity wanting in primitive man—as soon as man
has formed rational habits and has undergone experience the impress of
which is ineffaceable, the creative imagination is subject, nolens volens, to
new conditions; it is no longer absolute mistress of itself, it has lost the
assurance of its infancy, and is under the rules of logical thought, which
draws it along in its train. Aside from the exceptions given above—and
even they are partial exceptions only—creative power depends on the
ability to understand, which imposes upon it its form and developmental
law. In literature and in the arts comparison between the simplicity of
primitive creations and the complexity of advanced civilizations has
become commonplace. In the practical, technical, scientific and social
worlds the higher up we go the more we have to know in order to create,
and in default of this condition we merely repeat when we think we are
inventing.

II

Historically considered, in the species, the development of the imagination
follows the same line of progress as in the individual. We will not repeat it;
it would be mere reiteration in a vaguer form of what we have just said. A
few brief notes will suffice.
Vico—whose name deserves to be mentioned here because he was the first
to see the good that we can get from myths for the study of the imagination
—divided the course of humanity into three successive ages: divine or
theocratic, heroic or fabulous, human or historic, after which the cycle
begins over again. Although this too hypothetic conception is now
forgotten, it is sufficient for our purposes. What, indeed, are those first two
stages that have everywhere and always been the harbingers and preparers
of civilization, if not the triumphant period of the imagination? It has
produced myths, religions, legends, epics and martial narratives, and
imposing monuments erected in honor of gods and heroes. Many nations
whose evolution has been incomplete have not gone beyond this stage.

Let us now consider this question under a more definite, more limited,
better known form—the history of intellectual development in Europe since
the fall of the Roman Empire. It shows very distinctly our three periods.
No one will question the preponderance of the imagination during the
middle Ages: intensity of religious feeling, ceaselessly repeated epidemics
of superstition; the institution of chivalry, with all its accessories; heroic
poetry, chivalric romances; courts of love, efflorescence of Gothic art, the
beginning of modern music, etc. On the other hand, the quantity of
imagination applied during this epoch to practical, industrial, commercial
invention is very small. Their scientific culture, buried in Latin jargon, is
made up partly of antique traditions, partly of fancies; what the ten
centuries added to positive science is almost nil. Our figure, with its two
curves, one imaginative, the other rational, thus applies just as well to
historical development as to individual development during this first period.
No more will anyone question that the Renaissance is a critical moment, a
transition period, and a transformation analogous to that which we have
noted in the individual, when there rises, opposed to imagination, a rival
power.
Finally, it will be admitted without dissent that during the modern period
social imagination has become partly decayed, partly rationalized, under the
influence of two principal factors—one scientific, the other economic. On
the one hand the development of science, on the other hand the great
maritime discoveries, by stimulating industrial and commercial inventions,
have given the imagination a new field of activity. There have arisen points
of attraction that have drawn it into other paths, have imposed upon it other
forms of creation that have often been neglected or misunderstood and that
we shall study in the Third Part.

THIRD PART
THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF IMAGINATION

PRELIMINARY
After having studied the creative imagination in its constitutive elements
and in its development we purpose, in this last part, describing its principal
forms. This will be neither analytic nor genetic but concrete. The reader
need not fear wearisome repetition; our subject is sufficiently complex to
permit a third treatment without reiteration.
The expression "creative imagination," like all general terms, is an
abbreviation and an abstraction. There is no "imagination in general," but
only men who imagine, and who do so in different ways; the reality is in
them. The diversities in creation, however numerous, should be reducible to
types that are varieties of imagination, and the determination of these
varieties is analogous to that of character as related to will. Indeed, when
we have settled upon the physiological and psychological conditions of
voluntary activity we have only done a work in general psychology. Men
being variously constituted, their modes of action bear the stamp of their
individuality; in each one there is a personal factor that, whatever its
ultimate nature, puts its mark on the will and makes it energetic or weak,
rapid or slow, stable or unstable, continuous or intermittent. The same is
true of the creative imagination. We cannot know it completely without a
study of its varieties, without a special psychology, toward which the
following chapters are an attempt.
How are we to determine these varieties? Many will be inclined to think
that the method is indicated in advance. Have not psychologists
distinguished, according as one or another of image-groups preponderates,
visual, auditory, motor and mixed types? Is not the way clear and is it not
well enough to go in this direction? However natural this solution may
appear, it is illusory and can lead to naught. It rests on the equivocal use of
the word "imagination," which at one time means mere reproduction of
images, and at another time creative activity, and which, consequently,
keeps up the erroneous notion that in the creative imagination images, the
raw materials, are the essential part. The materials, no doubt, are not a
negligible element, but by themselves they cannot reveal to us the species

and varieties that have their origin in an anterior and superior tendency of
mind. We shall see in the sequel that the very nature of constructive
imagination may express itself indifferently in sounds, words, colors, lines,
and even numbers. The method that should allege to settle the various
orientations of creative activity according to the nature of images would no
more go to the bottom of the matter than would a classification of
architecture according to the materials employed (as rock, brick, iron,
wood, etc.) with no regard for differences of style.
This method aside, since the determination must be made according to the
individuality of the architect, what method shall we follow? The matter is
even more perplexing than the study of character. Although various authors
have treated the latter subject (we have attempted it elsewhere), no one of
the proposed classifications has been universally accepted. Nevertheless,
despite their differences, they coincide in several points, because these have
the advantage of resting on a common basis—the large manifestations of
human nature, feeling, doing, thinking. In our subject I find nothing like
this and I seek in vain for a point of support. Classifications are made
according to the essential dominating attributes; but, as regards the varieties
of the creative imagination, what are they?
We may, indeed, as was said above, distinguish two great classes—the
intuitive and the combining. From another point of view we may
distinguish invention of free range (esthetic, religious, mystic) from
invention more or less restricted (mechanical, scientific, commercial,
military, political, social). But these two divisions are too general, leading
to nothing. A true classification should be in touch with facts, and this one
soars too high.
Leaving, then, to others, more skilled or more fortunate, the task of a
rational and systematic determination, if it be possible, we shall try merely
to distinguish and describe the principal forms, such as experience gives
them to us, emphasizing those that have been neglected or misinterpreted.
What follows is thus neither a classification nor even a complete
enumeration.
We shall study at first two general forms of the creative imagination—the
plastic and the diffluent—and later, special forms, determined by their

content and subject.

Wundt, in a little-noticed passage of his Physiological Psychology, has
undertaken to determine the composition of the "principal forms of talent,"
which he reduces to four:
The first element is imagination. It may be intuitive, "that is, conferring on
representations a clearness of sense-perception," or combining; "then it
operates on multiple combinations of images." A very marked development
in both directions at the same time is uncommon; the author assigns reasons
for this.
The second element is understanding (Verstand). It may be inductive—i.e.,
inclining toward the collection of facts in order to draw generalizations
from them—or deductive, taking general concepts and laws to trace their
consequences.
If the intuitive imagination is joined to the inductive spirit we have the
talent for observation of the naturalist, the psychologist, the pedagogue, the
man of affairs.
If the intuitive imagination is combined with the deductive spirit we have
the analytical talent of the systematic naturalist, of the geometrician. In
Linnaeus and Cuvier the intuitive element predominates; in Gauss, the
analytical element.
The combining imagination joined to the inductive spirit constitutes "the
talent for invention strictly so-called," in industry, in the technique of
science; it gives the artist and the poet the power of composing their works.
The combining imagination plus the deductive spirit gives the speculative
talent of the mathematician and philosopher; deduction predominates in the
former, imagination in the latter.[78]

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Wundt, Physiologische Psychologie, 4th German edition, Vol. II, pp. 490-
95.

CHAPTER I
THE PLASTIC IMAGINATION

I

By "plastic imagination" I understand that which has for its special
characters clearness and precision of form; more explicitly those forms
whose materials are clear images (whatever be their nature), approaching
perception, giving the impression of reality; in which, too, there
predominate associations with objective relations, determinable with
precision. The plastic mark, therefore, is in the images, and in the modes of
association of images. In somewhat rough terms, requiring modifications
which the reader himself can make, it is the imagination that materializes.
Between perception—a very complex synthesis of qualities, attributes and
relations—and conception—which is only the consciousness of a quality,
quantity, or relation, often of only a single word accompanied by vague
outlines and a latent, potential knowledge; between concrete and abstract,
the image occupies an intermediate position and can run from one pole to
another, now full of reality, now almost as poor and pale as a concept. The
representation here styled plastic descends towards its point of origin; it is
an external imagination, arising from sensation rather than from feeling and
needing to become objective.
Thus its general characters are easy of determination. First and foremost, it
makes use of visual images; then of motor images; lastly, in practical
invention, of tactile images. In a word, the three groups of images present to
a great extent the character of externality and objectivity. The clearness of
form of these three groups proceeds from their origin, because they arise
from sensation well determined in space—sight, movement, touch. Plastic
imagination depends most on spatial conditions. We shall see that its
opposite, diffluent imagination, is that which depends least upon that factor,
or is most free from it. Among these naturally objective elements the plastic

imagination chooses the most objective, which fact gives its creations an air
of reality and life.
The second characteristic is inferiority of the affective element; it appears
only intermittently and is entirely blotted out before sensory impression.
This form of the creative imagination, coming especially from sensation,
aims especially at sensation. Thus it is rather superficial, greatly devoid of
that internal mark that comes from feeling.
But if it chance that both sensory and affective elements are equal in power;
if there is at the same time intense vision adequate to reality, and profound
emotion, violent shock, then there arise extraordinary imaginative
personages, like Shakespeare, Carlyle, Michelet. It is needless to describe
this form of imagination, excellent pen-pictures of which have been given
by the critics;[79] let us merely note that its psychology reduces itself to an
alternately ascending and descending movement between the two limiting
points of perception and idea. The ascending process assigns to inanimate
objects life, desires and feelings. Thus Michelet: "The great streams of the
Netherlands, tired with their very long course, perish as though from
weariness in the unfeeling ocean."[80] Elsewhere, the great folio begets the
octavo, "which becomes the parent of the small volume, of booklets, of
ephemeral pamphlets, invisible spirits flying in the night, creating under the
very eyes of tyrants the circulation of liberty." The descending process
materializes abstractions, gives them body, makes them flesh and bone; the
Middle Ages become "a poor child, torn from the bowels of Christianity,
born amidst tears, grown up in prayer and revery, in anguish of heart, dying
without achieving anything." In this dazzle of images there is a momentary
return to primitive animism.

II

In order to more fully understand the plastic imagination, let us take up its
principal manifestations.
1. First, the arts dealing with form, where its necessity is evident. The
sculptor, painter, architect, must have visual and tactile-motor images; it is
the material in which their creations are wrapped up. Even leaving out the
striking acts requiring such a sure and tenacious external vision (portraits

executed from memory, exact remembrance of faces at the end of twenty
years, as in the case of Gavarni, etc.[81]), and limiting ourselves merely to
the usual, the plastic arts demand an observant imagination. For the
majority of men the concrete image of a face, a form, a color, usually
remains vague and fleeting; "red, blue, black, white, tree, animal, head,
mouth, arm, etc., are scarcely more than words, symbols expressing a rough
synthesis. For the painter, on the other hand, images have a very high
precision of details, and what he sees beneath the words or in real objects
are analyzed facts, positive elements of perception and movement."[82]
The rôle of tactile-motor images is not insignificant. There has often been
cited the instance of sculptors who, becoming blind, have nevertheless been
able to fashion busts of close resemblance to the original. This is memory of
touch and of the muscular sense, entirely equivalent to the visual memory
of the portrait painters mentioned above. Practical knowledge of design and
modeling—i.e., of contour and relief—though resulting from natural or
acquired disposition, depends on cerebral conditions, the development of
definite sensory-motor regions and their connections; and on psychological
conditions—the acquisition and organization of appropriate images. "We
learn to paint and carve," wrote a contemporary painter, "as we do sewing,
embroidery, sawing, filing and turning." In short, like all manual labor
requiring associated and combined acts.
2. Another form of plastic imagination uses words as means for evoking
vivid and clear impressions of sight, touch, movement; it is the poetic or
literary form. Of it we find in Victor Hugo a finished type. As all know, we
need only open his works at hazard to find a stream of glittering images.
But what is their nature? His recent biographers, guided by contemporary
psychology, have well shown that they always paint scenes or movements.
It is unnecessary to give proofs. Some facts have a broader range and throw
light upon his psychology. Thus we are told that "he never dictates or
rhymes from memory and composes only in writing, for he believes that
writing has its own features, and he wants to see the words. Théophile
Gautier, who knows and understands him so well, says: 'I also believe that
in the sentence we need most of all an ocular rhythm. A book is made to be
read, not to be spoken aloud.'" It is added that "Victor Hugo never spoke his

verses but wrote them out and would often illustrate them on the margin, as
if he needed to fixate the image in order to find the appropriate word."[83]
After visual representations come those of movement: the steeple pierces
the horizon, the mountain rends the cloud, the mountain raises himself and
looks about, "the cold caverns open their mouths drowsily," the wind lashes
the rock into tears with the waterfall, the thorn is an enraged plant, and so
on indefinitely.
A more curious fact is the transposition of sonorous sensations or images of
sound, and like them without form or figure, into visual and motor images:
"The ruffles of sound that the fifer cuts out; the flute goes up to alto like a
frail capital on a column." This thoroughly plastic imagination remains
identical with itself while reducing everything spontaneously,
unconsciously, to spatial terms.
In literature this altogether foreign mode of creative activity has found its
most complete expression among the Parnassiens and their congeners,
whose creed is summed up in the formula, faultless form and
impassiveness. Théophile Gautier claims that "a poet, no matter what may
be said of him, is a workman; it is not necessary that he have more
intelligence than a laborer and have knowledge of a state other than his
own, without which he does badly. I regard as perfectly absurd the mania
that people have of hoisting them (the poets) up onto an ideal pedestal;
nothing is less ideal than a poet. For him words have in themselves and
outside the meaning they express, their own beauty and value, just like
precious stones not yet cut and mounted in bracelets, necklaces and rings;
they charm the understanding that looks at them and takes them from the
finger to the little pile where they are put aside for future use." If this
statement, whether sincere or not, is taken literally, I see no longer any
difference, save as regards the materials employed, between the imagination
of poets and the imagination active in the mechanical arts. For the
usefulness of the one and the "uselessness" of the other is a characteristic
foreign to invention itself.
3. In the teeming mass of myths and religious conceptions that the
nineteenth century has gathered with so much care we could establish
various classifications—according to race, content, intellectual level; and,

in a more artificial manner but one suitable for our subject, according to the
degree of precision or fluidity.
Neglecting intermediate forms, we may, indeed, divide them into two
groups; some are clear in outline, are consistent, relatively logical,
resembling a definite historical relation; others are vague, multiform,
incoherent, contradictory; their characters change into one another, the tales
are mixed and are imperceptible in the whole.
The former types are the work of the plastic imagination. Such are, if we
eliminate oriental influences, most of the myths belonging to Greece when,
on emerging from the earliest period, they attained their definite
constitution. It has been held that the plastic character of these religious
conceptions is an effect of esthetic development: statues, bas-reliefs, poetry,
and even painting, have made definite the attributes of the gods and their
history. Without denying this influence we must nevertheless understand
that it is only auxiliary. To those who would challenge this opinion let us
recall that the Hindoos have had gigantic poems, have covered their temples
with numberless sculptures, and yet their fluid mythology is the opposite of
the Greek. Among the peoples who have incarnated their divinities in no
statue, in no human or animal form, we find the Germans and the Celts. But
the mythology of the former is clear, well kept within large lines; that of the
latter is fleeting and inconsistent—the despair of scholars.[84]
It is, then, certain that myths of the plastic kind are the fruits of an innate
quality of mind, of a mode of feeling and of translating, at a given moment
in its history, the preponderating characters of a race; in short, of a form of
imagination and ultimately of a special cerebral structure.
4. The most complete manifestation of the plastic imagination is met with in
mechanical invention and what is allied thereto, in consequence of the need
of very exact representations of qualities and relations. But this is a
specialized form, and, as its importance has been too often misunderstood,
it deserves a separate study. (See Chapter V, infra.)

III

Such are the principal traits of this type of imagination: clearness of outline,
both of the whole and of the details. It is not identical with the form called
realistic—it is more comprehensive; it is a genus of which "realism" is a
species. Moreover, the latter expression being reserved by custom for
esthetic creation, I purposely digress in order to dwell on this point: that the
esthetic imagination has no essential character belonging exclusively to it,
and that it differs from other forms (scientific, mechanical, etc.) only in its
materials and in its end, not in its primary nature.
On the whole, the plastic imagination could be summed up in the
expression, clearness in complexity. It always preserves the mark of its
original source—i.e., in the creator and those disposed to enjoy and
understand him it tends to approach the clearness of perception.
Would it be improper to consider as a variety of the genus a mode of
representation that could be expressed as clearness in simplicity? It is the
dry and rational imagination. Without depreciating it we may say that it is
rather a condition of imaginative poverty. We hold with Fouillée that the
average Frenchman furnishes a good example of it. "The Frenchman," says
he, "does not usually have a very strong imagination. His internal vision has
neither the hallucinative intensity nor the exuberant fancy of the German
and Anglo-Saxon mind; it is an intellectual and distant view rather than a
sensitive resurrection or an immediate contact with, and possession of, the
things themselves. Inclined to deduce and construct, our intellect excels less
in representing to itself real things than in discovering relations between
possible or necessary things. In other words, it is a logical and combining
imagination that takes pleasure in what has been termed the abstract view of
life. The Chateaubriands, Hugos, Flauberts, Zolas, are exceptional with us.
We reason more than we imagine."[85]
Its psychological constitution is reducible to two elements: slightly concrete
images, schemas approaching general ideas; for their association, relations
predominantly rational, more the products of the logic of the intellect than
of the logic of the feelings. It lacks the sudden, violent shock of emotion
that gives brilliancy to images, making them arise and grouping them in
unforeseen combinations. It is a form of invention and construction that is
more the work of reason than of imagination proper.

Consequently, is it not paradoxical to relate it to plastic imagination, as
species to genus? It would be idle to enter upon a discussion of the subject
here without attempting a classification; let us merely note the likenesses
and differences. Both are above all objective—the first, because it is
sensory; the other, because it is rational. Both make use of analogous modes
of association, dependent more on the nature of things than on the personal
impression of the subject. Opposition exists only on one point: the former is
made up of vivid images that approach perception; the latter is made up of
internal images bordering upon concepts. Rational imagination is plastic
imagination desiccated and simplified.

FOOTNOTES:
[79] Thus Taine says of Carlyle: "He cannot stick to simple expression; at every
step he drops into figures, gives body to every idea, must touch forms. We see
that he is possessed and haunted by glittering or saddening visions; in him every
thought is an explosion; a flood of seething passion reaches the boiling-point in
his brain, which overflows, and the torrent of images runs over the banks and
rushes with all its mud and all its splendor. He cannot reason, he must paint."
Despite the vigor of this sketch, the perusal of ten pages of Sartor Resartus or of
the French Revolution teaches more in regard to the nature of this imagination
than all the commentaries.
[80] For a point of view in criticism that has seemed correct to many on this
matter, compare the well-known chapter on the "Pathetic Fallacy" by Ruskin, in
his Modern Painters. (Tr.)
[81] Arréat (Psychologie du peintre, pp. 62 ff.) gives a large number of examples
of this.
[82] Ibid., p. 115.
[83] For further details on this point, consult Mabilleau, Victor Hugo, 2nd part,
chaps. II, III, IV.—Renouvier, in the book devoted to the poet, asserts that "on
account of his aptitude for representing to himself the details of a figure, order
and position in space, beyond any present sensation," Victor Hugo could have
become a mathematician of the highest order.
[84] As bearing out the position of the author, we may also call attention to the
fact that while the Hebrew race has had very slight development in the plastic
arts, yet its mythology has always taken a very definite form, even when dealing
with the vaguest and most abstract subjects. (Tr.)
[85] Fouillée, Psychologie du peuple français, p. 185.

CHAPTER II
THE DIFFLUENT IMAGINATION

I

The diffluent imagination is another general form, but one that is
completely opposed to the foregoing. It consists of vaguely-outlined,
indistinct images that are evoked and joined according to the least rigorous
modes of association. It presents, then, two things for our consideration—
the nature of the images and of their associations.
(1) It employs neither the clear-cut, concrete, reality-penetrated images of
the plastic imagination, nor the semi-schematic representations of the
rational imagination, but those midway in that ascending and descending
scale extending from perception to conception. This determination,
however, is insufficient, and we can make it more precise. Analysis, indeed,
discovers a certain class of ill-understood images, which I call emotional
abstractions, and which are the proper material for the diffluent
imagination. These images are reduced to certain qualities or attributes of
things, taking the place of the whole, and chosen from among the others for
various reasons, the origin of which is affective. We shall comprehend their
nature better through the following comparison:
Intellectual or rational abstraction results from the choice of a fundamental,
or at least principal, character, which becomes the substitute for all the rest
that is omitted. Thus, extension, resistance, or impenetrability, come to
represent, through simplification and abbreviation, what we call "matter."
Emotional abstraction, on the other hand, results from the permanent or
temporary predominance of an emotional state. Some aspect of a thing,
essential or not, comes into relief, solely because it is in direct relation to
the disposition of our sensibility, with no other preoccupation; a quality, an
attribute is spontaneously, arbitrarily selected because it impresses us at the
given instant—in the final analysis, because it somehow pleases or

displeases us. The images of this class have an "impressionist" mark. They
are abstractions in the strict sense—i.e., extracts from and simplifications of
the sensory data. They act less through a direct influence than by evoking,
suggesting, whispering; they permit a glance, a passing glimpse: we may
justly call them crepuscular or twilight ideas.
(2) As for the forms of association, the relations linking these images, they
do not depend so much on the order and connections of things as on the
changing dispositions of the mind. They have a very marked subjective
character. Some depend on the intellectual factor; the most usual are based
on chance, on distant and vacillating analogies—further down, even on
assonance and alliteration. Others depend on the affective factor and are
ruled by the disposition of the moment: association by contrast, especially
those alike in emotional basis, which have been previously studied. (First
Part, Chapter II.)
Thus the diffluent imagination is, trait for trait, the opposite of the plastic
imagination. It has a general character of inwardness because it arises less
from sensation than from feeling, often from a simple and fugitive
impression. Its creations have not the organic character of the other, lacking
a stable center of attraction; but they act by diffusion and inclusion.

II

By its very nature it is de jure, if not de facto, excluded from certain
territories—if it ventures therein it produces only abortions. This is true of
the practical sphere, which permits neither vague images nor approximate
constructions; and of the scientific world, where the imagination may be
used only to create a theory or invent processes of discovery (experiments,
schemes of reasoning). Even with these exceptions there is still left for it a
very wide range.
Let us rapidly pass over some very frequent, very well-known
manifestations of the diffluent imagination—those obliterated forms in
which it does not reach complete development and cannot give the full
measure of its power.

(1) Revery and related states. This is perhaps the purest specimen of the
kind, but it remains embryonic.
(2) The romantic turn of mind. This is seen in those who, confronted by any
event whatever or an unknown person, make up, spontaneously,
involuntarily, in spite of themselves, a story out of whole cloth. I shall later
give examples of it according to the written testimony of several people.[86]
In whatever concerns themselves or others they create an imagined world,
which they substitute for the real.
(3) The fantastic mind. Here we come away from the vague forms; the
diffluent imagination becomes substantial and asserts itself through its
permanence. At bottom this fantastic form is the romantic spirit tending
toward objectification. The invention, which was at first only a thoroughly
internal construction and recognized as such, aspires to become external, to
become realized, and when it ventures into a world other than its own, one
requiring the rigorous conditions of the practical imagination, it is wrecked,
or succeeds only through chance, and that very rarely. To this class belong
those inventors, known to everyone, who are fertile in methods of enriching
themselves or their country by means of agricultural, mining, industrial or
commercial enterprises; the makers of the utopias of finance, politics,
society, etc. It is a form of imagination unnaturally oriented toward the
practical.[87]
(4) The list increases with myths and religious conceptions; the imagination
in its diffuse form here finds itself on its own ground.
Depending on linguistics, it has recently been maintained that, among the
Aryans at least, the imagination created at first only momentary gods
(Augenblicksgötter).[88] Every time that primitive man, in the presence of a
phenomenon, experienced a perceptible emotion, he translated it by a name,
the manifestation of what was imagined the divine part in the emotion felt.
"Every religious emotion gives rise to a new name—i.e., a new divinity. But
the religious imagination is never identical with itself; though produced by
the same phenomenon, it translates itself, at two different moments, by two
different words." As a consequence, "during the early periods of the human
race, religious names must have been applied not to classes of beings or
events but to individual beings or events. Before worshipping the comet or

the fig-tree, men must have worshiped each one of the comets they beheld
crossing the sky, every one of the fig-trees that their eyes saw." Later, with
advancing capacity for generalization, these "instantaneous" divinities
would be condensed into more consistent gods. If this hypothesis, which
has aroused many criticisms, be sound—if this state were met with—it
would be the ideal type of imaginative instability in the religious order.
Nearer to us, authentic evidence shows that certain peoples, at given stages
of their history, have created such vague, fluid myths, that we cannot
succeed in delimiting them. Every god can change himself into another,
different, or even opposite, one. The Semitic religions might furnish
examples of this. There has been established the identity of Istar, Astarte,
Tanit, Baalath, Derketo, Mylitta, Aschera, and still others. But it is in the
early religion of the Hindoos that we perceive best this kaleidoscopic
process applied to divine beings. In the vedic hymns not only are the clouds
now serpents, now cows and later fortresses (the retreats of dark Asuras),
but we see Agni (fire) becoming Kama (desire or love), and Indra becoming
Varuna, and so on. "We cannot imagine," says Taine, "such a great
clearness. The myth here is not a disguise, but an expression; no language is
more true and more supple. It permits a glimpse of, or rather, it causes us to
discern the forms of clouds, movements of the air, changes of seasons, all
the happenings of sky, fire, storm: external nature has never met a mind so
impressionable and pliant in which to mirror itself in all the inexhaustible
variety of its appearances. However changeable nature may be, this
imagination corresponds to it. It has no fixed gods; they are changeable like
the things themselves; they blend one into another. Everyone of them is in
turn the supreme deity; no one of them is a distinct personality; everyone is
only a moment of nature, able, according to the apperception of the
moment, to include its neighbor or be included by it. In this fashion they
swarm and teem. Every moment of nature and every apperceptive moment
may furnish one of them."[89] Let us, indeed, note that, for the worshiper,
the god to whom he addresses himself and while he is praying, is always the
greatest and most powerful. The assignment of attributes passes suddenly
from one to the other, regardless of contradiction. In this versatility some
writers believe they have discovered a vague pantheistic conception.
Nothing is more questionable, fundamentally, than this interpretation. It is
more in harmony with the psychology of these naïve minds to assume

simply an extreme state of "impressionism," explicable by the logic of
feeling.
Thus, there is a complete antithesis between the imagination that has
created the clear-cut and definite polytheism of the Greeks and that whence
have issued those fluctuating divinities that allow the presentation of the
future doctrine of Mâya, of universal illusion—another more refined form
of the diffluent imagination. Finally, let us note that the Hellenic
imagination realized its gods through anthropomorphism—they are the
ideal forms of human attributes[90]—majesty, beauty, power, wisdom, etc.
The Hindoo imagination proceeds through symbolism: its divinities have
several heads, several arms, several legs, to symbolize limitless intelligence,
power, etc.; or better still, animal forms, as e.g., Ganesa, the god of wisdom,
with the head of the elephant, reputed the wisest of animals.
(5) It would be easy to show by the history of literature and the fine arts that
the vague forms have been preferred according to peoples, times, and
places. Let us limit ourselves to a single contemporary example that is
complete and systematically created—the art of the "symbolists." It is not
here a question of criticism, of praise, or even of appreciation, but merely of
a consideration of it as a psychological fact likely to instruct us in regard to
the nature of the diffluent imagination.
This form of art despises the clear and exact representation of the outer
world: it replaces it by a sort of music that aspires to express the changing
and fleeting inwardness of the human soul. It is the school of the subject
"who wants to know only mental states." To that end, it makes use of a
natural or artificial lack of precision: everything floats in a dream, men as
well as things, often without mark in time and space. Something happens,
one knows not where or when; it belongs to no country, is of no period in
time: it is the forest, the traveler, the city, the knight, the wood; less
frequently, even He, She, It. In short, all the vague and unstable characters
of the pure, content-less affective state. This process of "suggestion"
sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails.
The word is the sign par excellence. As, according to the symbolists, it
should give us emotions rather than representations, it is necessary that it
lose, partially, its intellectual function and undergo a new adaptation.

A principal process consists of employing usual words and changing their
ordinary acceptation, or rather, associating them in such a way that they
lose their precise meaning, and appear vague and mysterious: these are the
words "written in the depths." The writers do not name—they leave it for us
to infer. "They banish commonplaces through lack of precision, and leave
to things only the power of moving." A rose is not described by the
particular sensations that it causes, but by the general condition that it
excites.
Another method is the employment of new words or words that have fallen
into disuse. Ordinary words retain, in spite of everything, somewhat of their
customary meaning, associations and thoughts condensed in them through
long habit; words forgotten during four or five centuries escape this
condition—they are coins without fixed value.
Lastly, a still more radical method is the attempt to give to words an
exclusively emotional valuation. Unconsciously or as the result of reflection
some symbolists have come to this extreme trial, which the logic of events
imposed upon them. Ordinarily, thought expresses itself in words; feeling,
in gestures, cries, interjections, change of tone: it finds its complete and
classic expression in music. The symbolists want to transfer the rôle of
sound to words, to make of them the instrument for translating and
suggesting emotion through sound alone: words have to act not as signs but
as sounds: they are "musical notes in the service of an impassioned
psychology."
All this, indeed, concerns only imagination expressing itself in words; but
we know that the symbolic school has applied itself to the plastic arts, to
treat them in its own way. The difference, however, is in the vesture that the
esthetic ideal assumes. The pre-Raphaelites have attempted, by effacing
forms, outlines, semblances, colors, "to cause things to appear as mere
sources of emotion," in a word, to paint emotions.
To sum up—In this form of the diffluent imagination the emotional factor
exercises supreme authority.
May the type of imagination, the chief manifestations of which we have just
enumerated, be considered as identical with the idealistic imagination? This
question is similar to that asked in the preceding chapter, and permits the

same answer. In idealistic art, doubtless, the material element furnished in
perception (form, color, touch, effort) is minimized, subtilized, sublimated,
refined, so as to approach as nearly as possible to a purely internal state. By
the nature of its favorite images, by its preference for vague associations
and uncertain relations, it presents all the characteristics of diffluent
imagination; but the latter covers a much broader field: it is the genus of
which the other is a species. Thus, it would be erroneous to regard the
fantastic imagination as idealistic; it has no claim to the term: on the
contrary, it believes itself adapted for practical work and acts in that
direction.
In addition, it must be recognized that were we to make a complete review
of all the forms of esthetic creation, we should frequently be embarrassed to
classify them, because there are among them, as in the case of characters,
mixed or composite forms. Here, for example, are two kinds seemingly
belonging to the diffluent imagination which, however, do not permit it to
completely include them.
(a) The "wonder" class (fairy-tales, the Thousand and One Nights,
romances of chivalry, Ariosto's poem, etc.) is a survival of the mythic
epoch, when the imagination is given free play without control or check;
whereas, in the course of centuries, art—and especially literary creation—
becomes, as we have already said, a decadent and rationalized mythology.
This form of invention consists neither of idealizing the external world, nor
reproducing it with the minuteness of realism, but remaking the universe to
suit oneself, without taking into account natural laws, and despising the
impossible: it is a liberated realism. Often, in an environment of pure fancy,
where only caprice reigns, the characters appear clear, well-fashioned,
living. The "wonder" class belongs, then, to the vague as well as to the
plastic imagination; more or less to one or to the other, according to the
temperament of the creator.
(b) The fantastic class develops under the same conditions. Its chiefs
(Hoffmann, Poe, et al.) are classed by critics as realists. They are such by
virtue of their vision, intensified to hallucination, the precision in details,
the rigorous logic of characters and events: they rationalize the improbable.
[91]
On the other hand, the environment is strange, shrouded in mystery:
men and things move in an unreal atmosphere, where one feels rather than

perceives. It is thus proper to remark that this class easily glides into the
deeply sad, the horrible, terrifying, nightmare-producing, "satanic
literature;" Goya's paintings of robbers and thieves being garroted; Wiertz, a
genius bizarre to the point of extravagance, who paints only suicides or the
heads of guillotined criminals.
Religious conceptions could also furnish a fine lot of examples: Dante's
Inferno, the twenty-eight hells of Buddhism, which are perhaps the
masterpieces of this class, etc. But all this belongs to another division of our
subject, one that I have expressly eliminated from this essay—the pathology
of the creative imagination.

III

There yet remains for us to study two important varieties that I connect with
the diffluent imagination.
Numerical Imagination
Under this head I designate the imagination that takes pleasure in the
unlimited—in infinity of time and space—under the form of number. It
seems at first that these two terms—imagination and number—must be
mutually exclusive. Every number is precise, rigorously determined, since
we can always reduce it to a relation with unity; it owes nothing to fancy.
But the series of numbers is unlimited in two directions: starting from any
term in the series, we may go on ever increasingly or ever decreasingly. The
working of the mind gives rise to a possible infinity that is limitless: it thus
traces a route for the movement of the imagination. The number, or rather
the series of numbers, is less an object than a vehicle.
This form of imagination is produced in two principal ways—in religious
conceptions and cosmogonies, and in science.
(1) Numerical imagination has nowhere been more exuberant than among
the peoples of the Orient. They have played with number with magnificent
audacity and prodigality. Chaldean cosmogony relates that Oannes, the
Fish-god, devoted 259,200 years to the education of mankind, then came a
period of 432,000 years taken up with the reigns of mythical personages,
and at the end of these 691,000 years, the deluge renewed the face of the

earth. The Egyptians, also, were liberal with millions of years, and in the
face of the brief and limited chronology of the Greeks (another kind of
imagination) were wont to exclaim, "You, O Greeks, you are only
children!" But the Hindoos have done better than all that. They have
invented enormous units to serve as basis and content for their numerical
fancies: the Koti, equivalent to ten millions; the Kalpa (or the age of the
world between two destructions), 4,328,000,000 years. Each Kalpa is
merely one of 365 days of divine life: I leave to the reader, if he is so
inclined, the work of calculating this appalling number. The Djanas divide
time into two periods, one ascending, the other descending: each is of
fabulous duration, 2,000,000,000,000,000 oceans of years; each ocean
being itself equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000 years. "If there were a
lofty rock, sixteen miles in each dimension, and one touched it once in a
hundred years with a bit of the finest Benares linen, it would be reduced to
the size of a wango-stone before a fourth of one of these Kalpas had rolled
by." In the sacred books of Buddhism, poor, dry, colorless, as they
ordinarily are, imagination in its numerical forms is triumphant. The
Lalitavistara is full of nomenclatures and enumerations of fatiguing
monotony: Buddha is seated on a rock shaded by 100,000 parasols,
surrounded by minor gods forming an assemblage of 68,000 Kotis (i.e.,
680,000,000 persons), and—this surpasses all the rest—"he had
experienced many vicissitudes during 10,100,000,000 Kalpas." This makes
one dizzy.
(2) Numerical imagination in the sciences does not take on these delirious
forms; it has the advantage of resting on an objective basis: it is the
substitute of an unrepresentable reality. Scientific culture, which people
often accuse of stifling imagination, on the contrary opens to it a field much
vaster than esthetics. Astronomy delights in infinitudes of time and space: it
sees worlds arise, burn at first with the feeble light of a nebular mass, glow
like suns, become chilled, covered with spots, and then become condensed.
Geology follows the development of our earth through upheavals and
cataclysms: it foresees a distant future when our globe, deprived of the
atmospheric vapors that protect it, will perish of cold. The hypotheses of
physics and chemistry in regard to atoms and molecules are not less
reckless than the speculations of the Hindoo imagination. "Physicists have
determined the volume of a molecule, and referring to the numbers that they

give, we find that a cube, a millimeter each way (scarcely the volume of a
silkworm's egg), would contain a number of molecules at least equal to the
cube of 10,000,000—i.e., unity followed by twenty-one zeros. One scientist
has calculated that if one had to count them and could separate in thought a
million per second, it would take more than 250,000,000 years: the being
who commenced the task at the time that our solar system could have been
no more than a formless nebula, would not yet have reached the end."[92]
Biology, with its protoplasmic elements, its plastids, gemmules, hypotheses
on hereditary transmission by means of infinitesimal subdivisions; the
theory of evolution, which speaks off-hand of periods of a hundred
thousand years; and many other scientific theses that I omit, offer fine
material for the numerical imagination.
More than one scientist has even made use of this form of imagination for
the pleasure of developing a purely fanciful notion. Thus Von Baer,
supposing that we might perceive the portions of duration in another way,
imagines the changes that would result therefrom in our outlook on nature:
"Suppose we were able, within the length of a second, to note 10,000 events
distinctly, instead of barely 10, as now; if our life were then destined to hold
the same number of impressions, it might be 1,000 times as short. We
should live less than a month, and personally know nothing of the change of
seasons. If born in winter, we should believe in summer as we now believe
in the heats of the Carboniferous era. The motions of organic beings would
be so slow to our senses as to be inferred, not seen. The sun would stand
still in the sky, the moon be almost free from change, and so on. But now
reverse the hypothesis and suppose a being to get only one 1,000th part of
the sensations that we get in a given time, and consequently to live 1,000
times as long. Winters and summers will be to him like quarters of an hour.
Mushrooms and the swifter-growing plants will shoot into being so rapidly
as to appear instantaneous creations; annual shrubs will rise and fall from
the earth like restlessly boiling water springs; the motions of animals will
be as invisible as are to us the movements of bullets and cannonballs; the
sun will scour through the sky like a meteor, leaving a fiery trail behind
him, etc."[93]
The psychologic conditions of this variety of the creative imagination are,
then, these: Absence of limitation in time and space, whence the possibility
of an endless movement in all directions, and the possibility of filling either

with a myriad of dimly-perceived events. These events not being
susceptible of clear representation as to their nature and quantity, escaping
even a schematic representation, the imagination makes its constructions
with substitutes that are, in this case, numbers.

IV

Musical Imagination
Musical imagination deserves a separate monograph. As the task requires,
in addition to psychological capacity, a profound knowledge of musical
history and technique, it cannot be undertaken here. I purpose only one
thing, namely, to show that it has its own individual mark—that it is the
type of affective imagination.

I have elsewhere[94] attempted to prove that, contrary to the general opinion
of psychologists, there exists, in many men at least, an affective memory;
that is, a memory of emotions strictly so called, and not merely of the
intellectual conditions that caused and accompanied them. I hold that there
exists also a form of the creative imagination that is purely emotional—the
contents of which are wholly made up of states of mind, dispositions,
wants, aspirations, feelings, and emotions of all kinds, and that it is the
characteristic of the composer of genius, of the born musician.
The musician sees in the world what concerns him. "He carries in his head a
coherent system of tone-images, in which every element has its place and
value; he perceives delicate differences of sound, of timbre; he succeeds,
through exercise, in penetrating into their most varied combinations, and
the knowledge of harmonious relations is for him what design and the
knowledge of color are for the painter: intervals and harmony, rhythm and
tone-qualities are, as it were, standards to which he relates his present
perceptions and which he causes to enter into the marvelous constructions
of his fancy."[95]
These sound-elements and their combinations are the words of a special
language that is very clear for some, impenetrable for others. People have
spoken to a tiresome extent of the vagueness of musical expression; some
have been pleased to hold that every one may interpret it in his own way.

We must surely recognize that emotional language does not possess the
precision of intellectual language; but in music it is the same as in any other
idiom: there are those who do not understand at all; those who half
understand and consequently always give wrong renderings; and those who
understand well—and in this last category there are grades as varying as the
aptitude for perceiving the delicate and subtle shades of speech.[96]
The materials necessary for this form of imaginative construction are
gathered slowly. Many centuries passed between the early ages when man's
voice and the simple instruments imitating it translated simple emotions, to
the period when the efforts of antiquity and of the middle ages finally
furnished the musical imagination with the means of expressing itself
completely, and allowed complex and difficult constructions in sound. The
development of music—slow and belated as compared to the other arts—
has perhaps been due, in part at least, to the fact that the affective
imagination, its chief province (imitative, descriptive, picturesque music
being only an episode and accessory), being made up, contrary to sensorial
imagination, of tenuous, subtle, fugitive states, has been long in seeking its
methods of analysis and of expression. However it be, Bach and the
contrapuntists, by their treatment in an independent manner of the different
voices constituting harmony, have opened a new path. Henceforth melody
will be able to develop and give rise to the richest combinations. We shall
be able to associate various melodies, sing them at the same time, or in
alternation, assign them to various instruments, vary indefinitely the pitch
of singing and concerted voices. The boundless realm of musical
combinations is open; it has been worth while to take the trouble to invent.
Modern polyphony with its power of expressing at the same time different,
even opposing, feelings is a marvelous instrument for a form of imagination
which, alien to the forms clear-cut in space, moves only in time.
What furnishes us the best entrance into the psychology of this form of
imagination is the natural transposition operative in musicians. It consists in
this: An external or internal impression, any occurrence whatever, even a
metaphysical idea, undergoes change of a certain kind, which the following
examples will make better understood than any amount of commentary.
Beethoven said of Klopstock's Messiah, "always maestoso, written in D flat
major." In his fourth symphony he expressed musically the destiny of

Napoleon; in the ninth symphony he tries to give a proof of the existence of
God. By the side of a dead friend, in a room draped in black, he improvises
the adagio of the sonata in C sharp minor. The biographers of Mendelssohn
relate analogous instances of transposition under musical form. During a
storm that almost engulfed George Sand, Chopin, alone in the house, under
the influence of his agony, and half unconsciously, composed one of his
Préludes. The case of Schumann is perhaps the most curious of all: "From
the age of eight, he would amuse himself with sketching what might be
called musical portraits, drawing by means of various turns of song and
varied rhythms the shades of character, and even the physical peculiarities,
of his young comrades. He sometimes succeeded in making such striking
resemblances that all would recognize, with no further designation, the
figure indicated by the skillful fingers that genius was already guiding." He
said later: "I feel myself affected by all that goes on in the world—men,
politics, literature; I reflect on all that in my own way and it issues outwards
in the form of music. That is why many of my compositions are so hard to
understand: they relate to events of distant interest, though important; but
everything remarkable that is furnished me by the period I must express
musically." Let us recall again that Weber interpreted in one of the finest
scenes of his Freyschütz (the bullet-casting scene) "a landscape that he had
seen near the falls of Geroldsau, at the hour when the moon's rays cause the
basin in which the water rushes and boils to glisten like silver."[97] In short,
the events go into the composer's brain, mix there, and come out changed
into a musical structure.
The plastic imagination furnishes us a counter-proof: it transposes inversely.
The musical impression traverses the brain, sets it in turmoil, but comes out
transformed into visual images. We have already cited examples from
Victor Hugo (ch. I); Goethe, we know, had poor musical gifts. After having
the young Mendelssohn render an overture from Bach, he exclaimed, "How
pompous and grand that is! It seems to me like a procession of grand
personages, in gala attire, descending the steps of a gigantic staircase."
We might generalize the question and ask whether or no there exists a
natural antagonism between true musical imagination and plastic
imagination. An answer in the affirmative seems scarcely liable to be
challenged. I had undertaken an investigation which, at the outset, made for
a different goal. It happens that it answered clearly enough the question

propounded above: the conclusion has arisen of itself, unsought; which fact
saves me from any charge of a preconceived opinion.
The question asked orally of a large number of people was this: "Does
hearing or even remembering a bit of symphonic music excite visual images
in you and of what kind are they?" For self evident reasons dramatic music
was expressly excluded: the appearance of the theater, stage, and scenery
impose on the observer visual perceptions that have a tendency to be
repeated later in the form of memories.
The result of observation and of the collected answers are summed up as
follows:
Those who possess great musical culture and—this is by far more important
—taste or passion for music, generally have no visual images. If these arise,
it is only momentarily, and by chance. I give a few of the answers: "I see
absolutely nothing; I am occupied altogether with the pleasure of the music:
I live entirely in a world of sound. In accordance with my knowledge of
harmony, I analyze the harmonies but not for long. I follow the
development of the phrasing." "I see nothing: I am given up wholly to my
impressions. I believe that the chief effect of music is to heighten in
everyone the predominating feelings."
Those who possess little musical culture, and especially those having little
taste for music, have very clear visual representations. It must nevertheless
be admitted that it is very hard to investigate these people. Because of their
anti-musical natures, they avoid concerts, or at the most, resign themselves
to sit through an opera. However, since the nature and quality of the music
does not matter here, we may quote: "Hearing a Barbary organ in the street,
I picture the instrument to myself. I see the man turning the crank. If
military music sounds from afar, I see a regiment marching." An excellent
pianist plays for a friend Beethoven's sonata in C sharp minor, putting into
its execution all the pathos of which he is capable. The other sees in it "the
tumult and excitement of a fair." Here the musical rendering is
misinterpreted through misapprehension. I have several times noted this—
in people familiar with design or painting, music calls up pictures and
various scenes; one of these persons says that he is "besieged by visual
images." Here the hearing of music evidently acts as excitant.[98]

In a word, insofar as it is permissible in psychology to make use of general
formulas—and with the proviso that they apply to most, not to all cases—
we may say that during the working of the musical imagination the
appearance of visual images is the exception; that when this form of
imagination is weak, the appearance of images is the rule.
Furthermore, this result of observation is altogether in accord with logic.
There is an irreducible antithesis between affective imagination, the
characteristic of which is interiority, and visual imagination, basically
objective. Intellectual language—speech—is an arrangement of words that
stand for objects, qualities, relations, extracts of things: in order to be
understood they must call up in consciousness the corresponding images.
Emotional language—music—is an appropriate ordering of successive or
simultaneous sounds, of melodies and harmonies that are signs of affective
states: in order to be understood, they must call up in consciousness the
corresponding affective modifications. But, in the non-musically inclined,
the evocative power is small—sonorous combinations excite only
superficial and unstable internal states. The exterior excitation, that of the
sounds, follows the line of least resistance, and acting according to the
psychic nature of the individual, tends to arouse objective images, pictures,
visual representations, well or ill adapted.
To sum up: In contrast to sensorial imagination, which has its origin
without, affective imagination begins within. The stuff of its creation is
found in the mental states enumerated above, and in their innumerable
combinations, which it expresses and fixes in language peculiar to itself, of
which it has been able to make wonderful use. Taking it altogether, the only
great division possible between the different types of imagination is perhaps
reducible to this: To speak more exactly, there are exterior and interior
imaginations. These two chapters have given a sketch of them. There now
remains for us to study the less general forms of the creative power.

FOOTNOTES:
[86] See Appendix E.
[87] Let us cite merely the case of Balzac who, says one of his biographers, "was
always odd." He buys a property, in order to start a dairy there with "the best

cows in the world," from which he expects to receive a net income of 3,000
francs. In addition, high-grade vegetable gardens, same income; vineyard, with
Malaga plants, which should bring about 2,000 fr. He has the commune of
Sèvres deed over to him a walnut tree, worth annually 2,000 francs to him,
because all the townspeople dump their rubbish there. And so on, until at the end
of four years he sees himself obliged to sell his domain for 3,000 francs, after
spending on it thrice that sum.
[88] Usener, Götternamen, 1896.
[89] Nouveaux Essais de critique, p. 320.
[90] Or, as it has been expressed, "human qualities raised to their highest
power." (Tr.)
[91] The same statement holds good as regards the "Temptations of Saint
Anthony" and other analogous subjects that have often attracted painters.
[92] R. Dubois, Leçons de physiologie générale et comparée, p. 286.
[93] Von Baer, in James, Psychology, I, 639.
[94] Psychology of the Emotions, Part I, Chapter IX.
[95] Arréat, Mémoire et Imagination, p. 118.
[96] Mendelssohn wrote to an author who composed verses for his Lieder:
"Music is more definite than speech, and to want to explain it by means of words
is to make the meaning obscure. I do not think that words suffice for that end,
and were I persuaded to the contrary, I would not compose music. There are
people who accuse music of being ambiguous, who allege that words are always
understood: for me it is just the other way; words seem to me vague, ambiguous,
unintelligible, if we compare them to the true music that fills the soul with a
thousand things better than words. What the music that I like expresses to me
seems to me too definite, rather than too indefinite, for anyone to be able to
match words to it."
[97] Oelzelt-Newin, op. cit., pp. 22-23. For analogous facts from contemporary
musicians, see Paulhan, Rev. Phil., 1898, pp. 234-35.
[98] For the sake of brevity and clearness I do not give here the observations and
evidence. They will be found at the end of this work, as Appendix D.
Under the title "An experimental test of musical expressiveness," Gilman, in
American Journal of Psychology, vol. IV, No. 4, and vol. V, No. 1 (1892-3), has
studied from another point of view the effect of music on various listeners.
Eleven selections were given; I note that three or four at the most excited visual
images—ten (perhaps eleven), emotional states. More recently, the
Psychological Review (September, 1898, pp. 463 ff.) has published a personal
observation of Macdougal in which sight-images accompany the hearing of
music only exceptionally and under special conditions. The author characterizes
himself as a "poor visualizer;" he declares that music arouses in him only very
rarely visual representations; "even then they are fragmentary, consisting of
simple forms without bond between them, appearing on a dark background,

remaining visible for a moment or two, and soon disappearing." But, having
gone to the concert fatigued and jaded, he sees nothing during the first number:
the visions begin during the andante of the second, and accompany "in
profusion" the rendering of the third. (See Appendix D.) May we not assume that
the state of fatigue, by lowering the vital tone, which is the basis of the
emotional life, likewise diminishes the tendency of affective dispositions to arise
again under the form of memory? On the other hand, sensory images remain
without opposition and come to the front; at least, unless they are reënforced by
a state of semi-morbid excitation.

CHAPTER III.
THE MYSTIC IMAGINATION

Mystic imagination deserves a place of honor, as it is the most complete and
most daring of purely theoretic invention. Related to diffluent imagination,
especially in the latter's affective form, it has its own special characters,
which we shall try to separate out.
Mysticism rests essentially on two modes of mental life—feeling, which we
need not study; and imagination, which, in the present instance, represents
the intellectual factor. Whether the part of consciousness that this state of
mind requires and permits be imaginative in nature and nothing else it is
easy to find out. Indeed, the mystic considers the data of sense as vain
appearances, or at the most as signs revealing and frequently laying bare the
world of reality. He therefore finds no solid support in perception. On the
other hand, he scorns reasoned thought, looking upon it as a cripple, halting
half-way. He makes neither deductions nor inductions, and does not draw
conclusions after the method of scientific hypotheses. The conclusion, then,
is that he imagines, i.e., that he realizes a construction in images that is for
him knowledge of the world; and he never proceeds, and does not proceed
here, save ex analogia hominis.

I

The root of the mystic imagination consists of a tendency to incarnate the
ideal in the sensible, to discover a hidden "idea" in every material
phenomenon or occurrence, to suppose in things a supranatural principle
that reveals itself to whoever may penetrate to it. Its fundamental character,
from which the others are derived, is thus a way of thinking symbolically;
but the algebraist also thinks by means of symbols, yet is not on that
account a mystic. The nature of this symbolism must, then, be determined.
In doing so, let us note first of all that our images—understanding the word
"image" in its broadest sense—may be divided into two distinct groups:

(1) Concrete images, earliest to be received, being representations of
greatest power, residues of our perceptions, with which they have a direct
and immediate relation.
(2) Symbolic images, or signs, of secondary acquirement, being
representations of lesser power, having only indirect and mediate relations
with things.
Let us make the differences between the two clear by a few simple
examples.
Concrete images are: In the visual sphere, the recollection of faces,
monuments, landscapes, etc.; in the auditory sphere, the remembrance of
the sounds of the sea, wind, the human voice, a melody, etc.; in the motor
sphere, the tossings one feels when resting after having been at sea, the
illusions of those who have had limbs amputated, etc.
Symbolic images are: In the visual order, written words, ideographic signs,
etc.; in the auditory order, spoken words or verbal images; in the motor
order, significant gestures, and even better, the finger-language of deaf-
mutes.
Psychologically, these two groups are not identical in nature. Concrete
images result from a persistence of perceptions and draw from the latter all
their validity; symbolic images result from a mental synthesis, from an
association of perception and image, or of image and image. If they have
not the same origin, no more do they disappear in the same way, as is
proven by very numerous examples of aphasia.
The originality of mystic imagination is found in this fact: It transforms
concrete images into symbolic images, and uses them as such. It extends
this process even to perceptions, so that all manifestations of nature or of
human art take on a value as signs or symbols. We shall later find numerous
examples of this. Its mode of expression is necessarily synthetic. In itself,
and because of the materials that it makes use of, it differs from the
affective imagination previously described; it also differs from sensuous
imagination, which makes use of forms, movements, colors, as having a
value of their own; and from the imagination developing in the functions of
words, through an analytic process. It has thus a rather special mark.

Other characters are related to this one of symbolism, or else are derived
from it, viz.:
(1) An external character: the manner of writing and of speaking, the mode
of expression, whatever it is. "The dominant style among mystics," says von
Hartmann, "is metaphorical in the extreme—now flat and ordinary, more
often turgid and emphatic. Excess of imagination betrays itself there,
ordinarily, in the thought and in the form in which that is rendered.... A sign
of mysticism which it has been believed may often be taken as an essential
sign, is obscurity and unintelligibility of language. We find it in almost all
those who have written."[99] We might add that even in the plastic arts,
symbolists and "décadents" have attempted, as far as possible, methods that
merely indicate and suggest or hint instead of giving real, definite objects:
which fact makes them inaccessible to the greater number of people.
This characteristic of obscurity is due to two causes. First, mystical
imagination is guided by the logic of feeling, which is purely subjective,
full of leaps, jerks, and gaps. Again, it makes use of the language of images,
especially visual images—a language whose ideal is vagueness, just as the
ideal of verbal language is precision. All this can be summed up in a phrase
—the subjective character inherent in the symbol. While seeming to speak
like everyone else, the mystic uses a personal idiom: things becoming
symbols at the pleasure of his fancy, he does not use signs that have a fixed
and universally admitted value. It is not surprising if we do not understand
him.
(2) An extraordinary abuse of analogy and comparison in their various
forms (allegory, parable, etc.)—a natural consequence of a mode of
thinking that proceeds by means of symbols, not concepts. It has been said,
and rightly, that "the only force that makes the vast field of mysticism
fruitful is analogy."[100] Bossuet, a great opponent of mystics, had already
remarked: "One of the characteristics of these authors is the pushing of
allegories to the extreme limit." With warm imagination, having at their
disposal overexcited senses, they are lavish of changes of expressions and
figures, hoping thereby to explain the world's mysteries. We know to what
inventive labors the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, and other sacred books
have given rise. The distinction between literal and figurative sense, which

is boundlessly arbitrary, has given commentators a freedom to imagine
equal to that of the myth-creators.
All this is yet very reasonable; but the imagination left to itself stops at no
extravagance. After having strained the meaning of expressions, the
imaginative mind exercises itself on words and letters. Thus, the cabalists
would take the first or the last letters of the words composing a verse, and
would form with them a new word which was to reveal the hidden meaning.
Again, they would substitute for the letters composing words the numbers
that these letters represent in the Hebrew numerical system and form the
strangest combinations with them. In the Zohar, all the letters of the
alphabet come before God, each one begging to be chosen as the creative
element of the universe.
Let us also bring to mind numerical mysticism, different from numerical
imagination heretofore studied. Here, number is no longer the means that
mind employs in order to soar in time and space; it becomes a symbol and
material for fanciful construction. Hence arise those "sacred numbers"
teeming in the old oriental religions:—3, symbol of the trinity; 4, symbol of
the cosmic elements; 7, representing the moon and the planets, etc.[101]
Besides these fantastic meanings, there are more complicated inventions—
calculating, from the letters of one's name, the years of life of a sick person,
the auspices of a marriage, etc. The Pythagorean philosophy, as Zeller has
shown, is the systematic form of this mathematical mysticism, for which
numbers are not symbols of quantitative relations, but the very essence of
things.
This exaggerated symbolism, which makes the works of mystics so fragile,
and which permits the mind to feed only on glimpses, has nevertheless an
undeniable source of energy in its enchanting capacity to suggest. Without
doubt suggestion exists also in art, but much more weakly, for reasons that
we shall indicate.
(3) Another characteristic of mystic imagination is the nature and the great
degree of belief accompanying it. We already know[102] that when an image
enters consciousness, even in the form of a recollection, of a purely passive
reproduction, it appears at first, and for a moment, just as real as a percept.

Much more so, in the case of imaginative constructions. But this illusion
has degrees, and with mystics it attains its maximum.
In the scientific and practical world, the work of the imagination is
accompanied by only a conditional and provisional belief. The construction
in images must justify its existence, in the case of the scientist, by
explaining; and in the case of the man of affairs, by being embodied in an
invention that is useful and answers its purpose.
In the esthetic field, creation is accompanied by a momentary belief. Fancy,
remarks Groos, is necessarily joined to appearance. Its special character
does not consist merely in freedom in images; what distinguishes it from
association and from memory is this—that what is merely representative is
taken for the reality. The creative artist has a conscious illusion (bewusste
Selbsttäuschung): the esthetic pleasure is an oscillation between the
appearance and the reality.[103]
Mystic imagination presupposes an unconditioned and permanent belief.
Mystics are believers in the true sense—they have faith. This character is
peculiar to them, and has its origin in the intensity of the affective state that
excites and supports this form of invention. Intuition becomes an object of
knowledge only when clothed in images. There has been much dispute as to
the objective value of those symbolic forms that are the working material of
the mystic imagination. This contest does not concern us here; but we may
make the positive statement that the constructive imagination has never
obtained such a frequently hallucinatory form as in the mystics. Visions,
touch-illusions, external voices, inner and "wordless" voices, which we now
regard as psycho-motor hallucinations—all that we meet every moment in
their works, until they become commonplace. But as to the nature of these
psychic states there are only two solutions possible—one, naturalistic, that
we shall indicate; the other, supernatural, which most theologians hold, and
which regards these phenomena as valid and true revelation. In either case,
the mystic imagination seems to us naturally tending toward objectification.
It tends outwardly, by a spontaneous movement that places it on the same
level as reality. Whichever conclusion we adopt, no imaginative type has
the same great gift of energy and permanence in belief.

II

Mystic imagination, working along the lines peculiar to it, produces
cosmological, religious, and metaphysical constructions, a summary
exposition of which will help us understand its true nature.
(1) The all-embracing cosmological form is the conception of the world by
a purely imaginative being. It is rare, abnormal, and is nowadays met with
only in a few artists, dreamers, or morbidly esthetic persons, as a kind of
survival and temporary form. Thus, Victor Hugo sees in each letter of the
alphabet the pictured imitation of one of the objects essential to human
knowledge: "A is the head, the gable, the cross-beam, the arch, arx; D is the
back, dos; E is the basement, the console, etc., so that man's house and its
architecture, man's body and its structure, and then justice, music, the
church, war, harvesting, geometry, mountains, etc.—all that is comprised in
the alphabet through the mystic virtue of form."[104] Even more radical is
Gérard de Nerval (who, moreover, was frequently subject to hallucinations):
"At certain times everything takes on for me a new aspect—secret voices
come out of plant, tree, animals, from the humblest insects, to caution and
encourage me. Formless and lifeless objects have mysterious turns the
meaning of which I understand." To others, contemporaries, "the real world
is a fairy land."
The middle ages—a period of lively imagination and slight rational culture
—overflowed in this direction. "Many thought that on this earth everything
is a sign, a figure, and that the visible is worth nothing except insofar as it
covers up the invisible." Plants, animals—there is nothing that does not
become subject for interpretation; all the members of the body are
emblems; the head is Christ, the hairs are the saints, the legs are the
apostles, the eye is contemplation, etc. There are extant special books in
which all that is seriously explained. Who does not know the symbolism of
the cathedrals, and the vagaries to which it has given rise? The towers are
prayer, the columns the apostles, the stones and the mortar the assembly of
the faithful; the windows are the organs of sense, the buttresses and
abutments are the divine assistance; and so on to the minutest detail.
In our day of intense intellectual development, it is not given to many to
return sincerely to a mental condition that recalls that of the earliest times.
Even if we come near it, we still find a difference. Primitive man puts life,
consciousness, activity, into everything; symbolism does likewise, but it

does not believe in an autonomous, distinct, particular soul inherent in each
thing. The absence of abstraction and generalization, characteristic of
humanity in its early beginnings, when it peoples the world with myriads of
animate beings, has disappeared. Every source of activity revealed by
symbols appears as a fragmentary manifestation; it descends from a single
primary, personal or impersonal, spring. At the root of this imaginative
construction there is always either theism or pantheism.
(2) Mystical imagination has often and erroneously been identified with
religious imagination. Although it may be held that every religion, no
matter how dull and poor, presupposes a latent mysticism, because it
supposes an Unknown beyond the reach of sense, there are religions very
slightly mystical in fact—those of savages, strictly utilitarian; among
barbarians, the martial cults of the Germans and the Aztecs; among
civilized races, Rome and Greece.[105] However, even though the mystic
imagination is not confined to the bounds of religious thought, history
shows us that there it attains its completest expansion.
To be brief, and to keep strictly within our subject, let us note that in the
completely developed great religions there has arisen opposition between
the rationalists and the imaginative expounders, between the dogmatists and
the mystics. The former, rational architects, build by means of abstract
ideas, logical relations and methods, by deduction and induction; the others,
imaginative builders, care little for this learned magnificence—they excel in
vivid creations because the moving energy with them is in their feelings, "in
their hearts;" because they speak a language made up of concrete images,
and consequently their wholly symbolic speech is at the same time an
original construction. The mystic imagination is a transformation of the
mythic imagination, the myth changing into symbols. It cannot escape the
necessity of this. On the other hand, the affective states cannot longer
remain vague, diffuse, purely internal; they must become fixed in time and
space, and condensed into images forming a personality, legend, event, or
rite. Thus, Buddha represents the tendencies towards pity and resignation,
summing up the aspirations for final rest. On the other hand, abstract ideas,
pure concepts, being repugnant to the mystic's nature, it is also necessary
that they take on images through which they may be seen—e.g., the
relations between God and man, in the various forms of communion; the
idea of divine protection in incarnations, mediators, etc. But the images

made use of are not dry and colorless like words that by long use have lost
all direct representative value and are merely marks or tags. Being
symbolic, i.e., concrete, they are, as we have seen, direct substitutes for
reality, and they differ as much from words as sketching and drawing differ
from our alphabetical signs, which are, however, their derivatives or
abbreviations.
It must, however, be noted that if "the mystic fact is a naïve effort to
apprehend the absolute, a mode of symbolic, not dialectic, thinking, that
lives on symbols and finds in them the only fitting expression,"[106] it seems
that this imaginative phase has been to some minds only an internal form,
for they have attempted to go beyond it through ecstacy, aspiring to grasp
the ultimate principle as a pure unity, without image and without form,[107]
which metaphysical realism hopes to attain by other methods and by a
different route. However interesting they may be for psychology, these
attempts, luring one on further and further, by their seeming or real
elimination of every symbolic element, become foreign to our subject, and
we cannot consider them at greater length here.
(3) "History shows that philosophy has done nothing but transform ideas of
mystic production, substituting for the form of images and undemonstrated
statements the form of assertions of a rational system."[108] This declaration
of a metaphysician saves us from dwelling on the subject long.
When we seek the difference between religious and metaphysical or
philosophical symbolism, we find it in the nature of the constitutive
elements. Turned in the direction of religion, mystic symbolism
presupposes two principal elements—imagination and feeling; turned in a
metaphysical direction, it presupposes imagination and a very small rational
element. This substitution involves appreciable deviation from the primitive
type. The construction is of greater logical regularity. Besides, and this is
the important characteristic, the subject-matter—though still resembling
symbolic images—tends to become concepts: such are vivified abstractions,
allegorical beings, hereditary entities of spirits and of gods. In short,
metaphysical mysticism is a transition-form towards metaphysical
rationalism, although these two tendencies have always been inimical in the
history of philosophy, just as in the history of religion.

In this imaginative plan of the world we may recognize stages according to
the increasing weakness of the systems, depending on the number and
quality of the hypotheses. For example, the progression is apparent between
Plotinus and the frenzied creations of the Gnostics and the Cabalists. With
the latter, we come into a world of unbridled fancy which, in place of
human romances, invents cosmic romances. Here appear the allegorical
beings mentioned above, half concept, half symbol; the ten Sephiros of the
Cabala, immutable forms of being; the syzygies or couples of Gnosticism—
soul and reflection, depth and silence, reason and life, inspiration and truth,
etc.; the absolute manifesting itself by the unfolding of fifty-two attributes,
each unfolding comprising seven eons, corresponding to the 364 days of the
year, etc. It would be wearisome to follow these extravagant thoughts,
which, though the learned may treat them with some respect, have for the
psychologist only the interest of pathologic evidence. Moreover, this form
of mystic imagination presents too little that is new for us to speak of it
without repeating ourselves.
To conclude: The mystic imagination, in its alluring freedom, its variety,
and its richness, is second to no form, not even to esthetic invention, which,
according to common prejudice, is the type par excellence. Following the
most venturesome methods of analogy, it has constructed conceptions of the
world made up almost wholly of feelings and images—symbolic
architectures.

FOOTNOTES:
[99] Philosophy of the Unconscious, I, part 2, ch. IX.
[100] J. Darmesteter, in Récéjac, Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance
mystique, p. 124.
[101] In such notions may perhaps be best found the genesis of the present
superstitions in regard to "lucky" and "unlucky" numbers, like the number 13,
which have such persistence. (Tr.)
[102] See Part Two, chapter II.
[103] Groos, Die Spiele der Thiere, pp. 308-312.
[104] Mabilleau, op. cit., p. 132.
[105] If we leave out oriental influences and the Mysteries, which, according to
Aristotle, were not dogmatic teaching, but a show, an assemblage of symbols,

acting by evocation, or suggestion, following the special mode of mystic
imagination that we already know.
[106] Récéjac, op. cit., pp. 139 ff.
[107] One at once calls to mind Plotinus, whose highest philosophy is a kind of
indescribable ecstacy. (Tr.)
[108] Hartmann, op. cit., vol. I, part 2, chapter IX.

CHAPTER IV
THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION

It is quite generally recognized that imagination is indispensable in all
sciences; that without it we could only copy, repeat, imitate; that it is a
stimulus driving us onward and launching us into the unknown. If there
does exist a very widespread prejudice to the contrary—if many hold that
scientific culture throttles imagination—we must look for the explanation of
this view first, in the equivocation, pointed out several times, that makes the
essence of the creative imagination consist of images, which are here most
often replaced by abstractions or extracts of things—whence it results that
the created work does not have the living forms of religion, of art, or even
of mechanical invention; and then, in the rational requirements regulating
the development of the creative faculty—it may not wander at will. In either
case its end is determined, and in order to exist, i.e., in order to be accepted,
the invention must become subject to preëstablished rules.
This variety of imagination being, after the esthetic form, the one that
psychologists have best described, we may therefore be brief. A complete
study of the subject, however, remains yet to be made. Indeed, we may
remark that there is no "scientific imagination" in general, that its form
must vary according to the nature of the science, and that, consequently, it
really resolves itself into a certain number of genera and even of species.
Whence arises the need of monographs, each one of which should be the
work of a competent man.
No one will question that mathematicians have a way of thinking all their
own; but even this is too general. The arithmetician, the algebraist, and
more generally the analyst, in whom invention obtains in the most abstract
form of discontinuous functions—symbols and their relations—cannot
imagine like the geometrician. One may well speak of the ideal figures of
geometry—the empirical origin of which is no longer anywhere contested
—but we cannot escape from representing them as somehow in space. Does
anyone think that Monge, the creator of descriptive geometry, who by his

work has aided builders, architects, mechanics, stone cutters in their labors,
could have the same type of imagination as the mathematician who has
been given up all his life to the theory of number? Here, then, are at least
two well-marked varieties, to say nothing of mixed forms. The physicist's
imagination is necessarily more concrete; since he is incessantly obliged to
refer to the data of sense or to that totality of visual, tactile, motor, acoustic,
thermic, etc., representations that we term the "properties of matter." Our
eye, says Tyndall, cannot see sound waves contract and dilate, but we
construct them in thought—i.e., by means of visual images. The same
remarks are true of chemists. The founders of the atomic theory certainly
saw atoms, and pictured them in the mind's eye, and their arrangement in
compound bodies. The complexity of the imagination increases still more in
the geologist, the botanist, the zoologist; it approaches more and more, with
its increasing details, to the level of perception. The physician, in whom
science becomes also an art, has need of visual representations of the
exterior and interior, microscopic and macroscopic, of the various forms of
diseased conditions; auditory representations (auscultation); tactile
representations (touch, reverberation, etc.); and let us also add that we are
not speaking merely of diagnosis of diseases, which is a matter of
reproductive imagination, but of the discovery of a new pathologic "entity,"
proven and made certain from the symptoms. Lastly, if we do not hesitate to
give a very broad extension to the term "scientific," and apply it also to
invention in social matters, we shall see that the latter is still more exacting,
for one must represent to oneself not only the elements of the past and of
the present, but in addition construct a picture of the future according to
probable inductions and deductions.
It might be objected that the foregoing enumeration proves a great variety
in the content of creative imagination but not in the imagination itself, and
that nothing has proven that, under all these various aspects, there does not
exist a so-called scientific imagination, that always remains identical. This
position is untenable. For we have seen above[109] that there exists no
creative instinct in general, no one mere indeterminate "creative power," but
only wants that, in certain cases, excite novel combinations of images. The
nature of the separable materials, then, is a factor of the first importance; it
is determining, and indicates to the mind the direction in which it is turned,
and all treason in this regard is paid for by aborted construction, by painful

labor for some petty result. Invention, separated from what gives it body
and soul, is nothing but a pure abstraction.
The monographs called for above would, then, be a not unneeded work. It is
only from them collectively that the rôle of the imagination in the sciences
could be completely shown, and we might by abstraction separate out the
characters common to all varieties—the essential marks of this imaginative
type.
Mathematics aside, all the sciences dealing with facts—from astronomy to
sociology—suppose three moments, namely, observation, conjecture,
verification. The first depends on external and internal sense, the second on
the creative imagination, the third on rational operations, although the
imagination is not entirely barred from it. In order to study its influence on
scientific development, we shall study it (a) in the sciences in process of
formation; (b) in the established sciences; (c) in the processes of
verification.

II

It has often been said that the perfection of a science is measured by the
amount of mathematics it requires; we might say, conversely, that its lack of
completeness is measured by the amount of imagination that it includes. It
is a psychological necessity. Where the human mind cannot explain or
prove, there it invents; preferring a semblance of knowledge to its total
absence.[110] Imagination fulfills the function of a substitute; it furnishes a
subjective, conjectural solution in place of an objective, rational
explanation. This substitution has degrees:
(1) The sway of the imagination is almost complete in the pseudo-sciences
(alchemy, astrology, magic, occultism, etc.), which it would be more proper
to call embryonic sciences, for they were the beginnings of more exact
disciplines and their fancies have not been without use. In the history of
science, this is the golden age of the creative imagination, corresponding to
the myth-making period already studied.
(2) The semi-sciences, incompletely proved (certain portions of biology,
psychology, sociology, etc.), although they show a regression of

imaginative explanation repulsed by the hitherto absent or insufficient
experimentation, nevertheless abound in hypotheses, that succeed,
contradict, destroy one another. It is a commonplace truism that does not
need to be dwelt on—they furnish ad libitum examples of what has been
rightly termed scientific mythology.
Aside from the quantity of imagination expended, often without great
profit, there is another character to be noted—the nature of the belief that
accompanies imaginative creation. We have already seen repeatedly that the
intensity of the imaginary conception is in direct ratio to the accompanying
belief, or rather, that the two phenomena are really one—merely the two
aspects of one and the same state of consciousness. But faith—i.e., the
adherence of the mind to an undemonstrated assertion—is here at its
maximum.
There are in the sciences hypotheses that are not believed in, that are
preserved for their didactic usefulness, because they furnish a simple and
convenient method of explanation. Thus the "properties of matter" (heat,
electricity, magnetism, etc.), regarded by physicists as distinct qualities
even in the first half of the last century; the "two electric fluids;" cohesion,
affinity, etc., in chemistry—these are some of the convenient and admitted
expressions to which, however, we attach no explanatory value.
There is also to be mentioned the hypothesis held as an approximation of
reality—this is the truly scientific position. It is accompanied by a
provisional and ever-revocable belief. This is admitted, in principle at least,
by all scientists, and has been put into practice by many of them.
Lastly, there is the hypothesis regarded as the truth itself—one that is
accompanied by a complete, absolute, belief. But daily observation and
history show us that in the realm of embryonic and ill-proven sciences this
disposition is more flourishing than anywhere else. The less proof there is,
the more we believe. This attitude, however wrong from the standpoint of
the logician, seems to the psychologist natural. The mind clings tenaciously
to the hypothesis because the latter is its own creation, or, because in
adopting it, it seems to the mind that it should have itself discovered the
hypothesis, so much does the latter harmonize with its inner states. Let us
take the hypothesis of evolution, for example: we need not mention its high

philosophical bearing, and the immense influence that it exerts on almost all
forms of human thought. Nevertheless, it still remains an hypothesis; but for
many it is an indisputable and inviolable dogma, raised far above all
controversy. They accept it with the uncompromising fervor of believers: a
new proof of the underlying connection between imagination and belief—
they increase and decrease pari passu.

III

Should we assign as belonging solely to the imagination every invention or
discovery—in a word, whatever is new—in the well-organized sciences that
form a body of solid, constantly-broadening doctrine? It is a hard question.
That which raises scientific knowledge above popular knowledge is the use
of an experimental method and rigorous reasoning processes; but, is not
induction and deduction going from the known to the unknown? Without
desiring to depreciate the method and its value, it must nevertheless be
admitted that it is preventive, not inventive. It resembles, says Condillac,
the parapets of a bridge, which do not help the traveler to walk, but keep
him from falling over. It is of value especially as a habit of mind. People
have wisely discoursed on the "methods" of invention. There are none; but
for which fact we could manufacture inventors just as we make mechanics
and watchmakers. It is the imagination that invents, that provides the
rational faculties with their materials, with the position, and even the
solution of their problems. Reasoning is only a means for control and proof;
it transforms the work of the imagination into acceptable, logical results. If
one has not imagined beforehand, the logical method is aimless and useless,
for we cannot reason concerning the completely unknown. Even when a
problem seems to advance towards solution wholly through the reason, the
imagination ceaselessly intervenes in the form of a succession of groupings,
trials, guesses, and possibilities that it proposes. The function of method is
to determine its value, to accept or reject it.[111]
Let us show by a few examples that conjecture, the work of the combining
imagination, is at the root of the most diverse scientific inventions.[112]
Every mathematical invention is at first only an hypothesis that must be
demonstrated, i.e., must be brought under previously established general

principles: prior to the decisive moment of rational verification it is only a
thing imagined. "In a conversation concerning the place of imagination in
scientific work," says Liebig, "a great French mathematician expressed the
opinion to me that the greater part of mathematical truth is acquired not
through deduction, but through the imagination. He might have said 'all the
mathematical truths,' without being wrong." We know that Pascal
discovered the thirty-second proposition of Euclid all by himself. It is true
that it has been concluded, wrongly perhaps, that he had also discovered all
the earlier ones, the order followed by the Greek geometrician not being
necessary, and not excluding other arrangements. However it be, reasoning
alone was not enough for that discovery. "Many people," says Naville, "of
whom I am one, might have thought hard all their lives without finding out
the thirty-two propositions of Euclid." This fact alone shows clearly the
difference between invention and demonstration, imagination and reason.
In the sciences dealing with facts, all the best-established experimental
truths have passed through a conjectural stage. History permits no doubt on
this point. What makes it appear otherwise is the fact that for centuries there
has gradually come to be formed a body of solid belief, making a whole,
stored away in classic treatises from which we learn from childhood, and in
which they seem to be arranged of themselves. We are not told of the series
of checks and failures through which[113] they have passed. Innumerable are
the inventions that remained for a long time in a state of conjecture, matters
of pure imagination, because various circumstances did not permit them to
take shape, to be demonstrated and verified. Thus, in the thirteenth century,
Roger Bacon had a very clear idea of a construction on rails similar to our
railroads; of optical instruments that would permit, as does the telescope, to
see very far, and to discover the invisible. It is even claimed that he must
have foreseen the phenomena of interferences, the demonstration of which
had to be awaited ten centuries.
On the other hand, there are guesses that have met success without much
delay, but in which the imaginative phase—that of the invention preceding
all demonstration—is easy to locate. We know that Tycho-Brahé, lacking
inventive genius but rich in capacity for exact observation, met Kepler, an
adventurous spirit: together, the two made a complete scientist. We have
seen how Kepler, guided by a preconceived notion of the "harmony of the
spheres," after many trials and corrections, ended by discovering his laws.

Copernicus recognized expressly that his theory was suggested to him by an
hypothesis of Pythagoras—that of a revolution of the earth about a central
fire, assumed to be in a fixed position. Newton imagined his hypothesis of
gravitation from the year 1666 on, then abandoned it, the result of his
calculations disagreeing with observation; finally he took it up again after a
lapse of a few years, having obtained from Paris the new measure of the
terrestrial meridian that permitted him to prove his guess. In relating his
discoveries, Lavoisier is lavish in expressions that leave no doubt as to their
originally conjectural character. "He suspects that the air of the atmosphere
is not a simple thing, but is composed of two very different substances."
"He presumes that the permanent alkalies (potash, soda) and the earths
(lime, magnesia) should not be considered simple substances." And he adds:
"What I present here is at the most no more than a mere conjecture." We
have mentioned above the case of Darwin. Besides, the history of scientific
discoveries is full of facts of this sort.
The passage from the imaginative to the rational phase may be slow or
sudden. "For eight months," says Kepler, "I have seen a first glimmer; for
three months, daylight; for the last week I see the sunlight of the most
wonderful contemplation." On the other hand, Haüy drops a bit of
crystallized calcium spar, and, looking at one of the broken prisms, cries
out, "All is found!" and immediately verifies his quick intuition in regard to
the true nature of crystallization. We have already indicated[114] the
psychological reasons for these differences.
Underneath all the reasoning, inductions, deductions, calculations,
demonstrations, methods, and logical apparatus of every sort, there is
something animating them that is not understood, that is the work of that
complex operation—the constructive imagination.
To conclude: The hypothesis is a creation of the mind, invested with a
provisional reality that may, after verification, become permanent. False
hypotheses are characterized as imaginary, by which designation is meant
that they have not become freed from the first state. But for psychology
they are different neither in their origin nor in their nature from those
scientific hypotheses that, subjected to the power of reason or of
experiment, have come out victorious. Besides, in addition to abortive
hypotheses, there are dethroned ones. What theory was more clinging, more

fascinating in its applications, than that of phlogiston? Kant[115] praised it as
one of the greatest discoveries of the eighteenth century. The development
of the sciences is replete with these downfalls. They are psychological
regressions: the invention, considered for a time as adequate to reality,
decays, returns to the imaginative phase whence it seems to have emerged,
and remains pure imagination.

IV

Imagination is not absent from the third stage of scientific research, in
demonstration and experimentation, but here we must be brief, (1) because
it passes to a minor place, yielding its rank to other modes of investigation,
and (2) because this study would have to become doubly employed with the
practical and mechanical imagination, which will occupy our attention later.
The imagination is here only an auxiliary, a useful instrument, serving:
(1) In the sciences of reasoning, to discover ingenious methods of
demonstration, stratagems for avoiding or overcoming difficulties.
(2) In the experimental sciences for inventing methods of research or of
control—whence its analogy, above mentioned, to the practical imagination.
Furthermore, the reciprocal influence of these two forms of imagination is a
matter of common observation: a scientific discovery permits the invention
of new instruments; the invention of new instruments makes possible
experiments that are increasingly more complicated and delicate.
One remark further: This constructive imagination at the third stage is the
only one met with in many scientists. They lack genius for invention, but
discover details, additions, corrections, improvements. A recent author
distinguishes (a) those who have created the hypothesis, prepared the
experiments, and imagined the appropriate apparatus; (b) those who have
imagined the hypothesis and the experiment, but use means already
invented; and (c) those who, having found the hypothesis made and
demonstrated, have thought out a new method of verification.[116] The
scientific imagination becomes poorer as we follow it down this scale,
which, however, bears no relation to exactness of reasoning and firmness of
method.

Neglecting species and varieties, we may reduce the fundamental characters
of the scientific imagination to the following:
For its material, it has concepts, the degree of abstraction of which varies
with the nature of the science.
It employs only those associational forms that have an objective basis,
although its mission is to form new combinations, "the discoveries
consisting of the relation of ideas, capable of being united, which hitherto
have been isolated."[117] (Laplace.) All association with an affective basis is
strictly excluded.
It aims toward objectivity: in its conjectural construction it attempts to
reproduce the order and connection of things. Whence its natural affinity for
realistic art, which is midway between fiction and reality.
It is unifying, and so just the opposite of the esthetic imagination, which is
rather developmental. It puts forward the master idea (Claude Bernard's
idée directrice), a center of attraction and impulse that enlivens the entire
work. The principle of unity, without which no creation succeeds, is
nowhere more visible than in the scientific imagination. Even when
illusory, it is useful. Pasteur, scrupulous scientist that he was, did not
hesitate to say: "The experimenter's illusions are a part of his power: they
are the preconceived ideas serving as guides for him."

V

It does not seem to me wrong to regard the imagination of the
metaphysician as a variety of the scientific imagination. Both arise from
one and the same requirement. Several times before this we have
emphasized this point—that the various forms of imagination are not the
work of an alleged "creative instinct," but that each particular one has arisen
from a special need. The scientific imagination has for its prime motive the
need of partial knowledge or explanation; the metaphysical imagination has
for its prime motive the need of a total or complete explanation. The latter
is no longer an endeavor on a restricted group of phenomena, but a
conjecture as to the totality of things, as aspiration toward completely

unified knowledge, a need of final explanation that, for certain minds, is
just as imperious as any other need.
This necessity is expressed by the creation of a cosmic or human hypothesis
constructed after the type and methods of scientific hypotheses, but
radically subjective in its origin—only apparently objective. It is a
rationalized myth.
The three moments requisite for the constitution of a science are found here,
but in a modified form: reflection replaces observation, the choice of the
hypothesis becomes all-important, and its application to everything
corresponds to scientific proof.
(1) The first moment or preparatory stage, does not belong to our subject. It
requires, however, a word in passing. In all science, whether well or ill
established, firm or weak, we start from facts derived from observation or
experiment. Here, facts are replaced by general ideas. The terminus of every
science is, then, the starting-point of philosophical speculation:—
metaphysics begins where each separate science ends; and the limits of the
latter are theories, hypotheses. These hypotheses become working material
for metaphysics which, consequently, is an hypothesis built on hypotheses,
a conjecture grafted on conjecture, a work of imagination superimposed on
works of imagination. Its principal source, then, is imagination, to which
reflection applies itself.
Metaphysicians, indeed, hold that the object of their researches, far from
being symbolic and abstract, as in science, or fictitious and imaginary, as in
art, is the very essence of things,—absolute reality. Unfortunately, they have
never proven that it suffices to seek in order to find, and to wish in order to
get.
(2) The second stage is critical. It is concerned with finding the principle
that rules and explains everything. In the invention of his theory the
metaphysician gives his measure, and permits us to value his imaginative
power. But the hypothesis, which in science is always provisional and
revocable, is here the supreme reality, the fixed position, the inconcussum
quid.

The choice of the principle depends on several causes: The chief of these is
the creator's individuality. Every metaphysician has a point of view, a
personal way of contemplating and interpreting the totality of things, a
belief that tends to recruit adherents.
Secondary causes are: the influence of earlier systems, the sum of acquired
knowledge, the social milieu, the variable predominance of religions,
sciences, morality, esthetic culture.
Without troubling ourselves with classifications, otherwise very numerous,
into which we may group systems (idealism, materialism, monism, etc.) we
shall, for our purpose, divide metaphysicians into the imaginative and
rational, according as the imagination is superior to the reason or the reason
rules the imagination. The differences between these two types of mind,
already clearly shown in the choice of the hypothesis, are proven in its
development.
(3) The fundamental principle, indeed, must come out of its state of
involution and justify its universal validity by explaining everything. This is
the third moment, when the scientific process of verification is replaced by
a process of construction.
All imaginative metaphysics have a dynamic basis, e.g., the Platonic Ideas,
Leibniz' Monadology, the Nature-philosophy of Schelling, Schopenhauer's
Will, and Hartmann's Unconscious, the mystics, the systems that assume a
world-soul, etc. Semi-abstract, semi-poetic constructions, they are
permeated with imagination not only in the general conception, but also in
the numberless details of its application. Such are the "fulgurations" of
Leibniz, those very rich digressions of Schopenhauer, etc. They have the
fascination of a work of art as much as that of science, and this is no longer
questioned by metaphysicians themselves;[118] they are living things.
Rational metaphysics, on the other hand, have a chilly aspect, which brings
them nearer the abstract sciences. Such are most of the mechanical
conceptions, the Hegelian Dialectic, Spinoza's construction more
geometrico, the Summa of the Middle Ages. These are buildings of concepts
solidly cemented together with logical relations. But art is not wholly
absent; it is seen in the systematic concatenation, in the beautiful ordering,
in the symmetry of division, in the skill with which the generative principle

is constantly brought in, in showing it ever-present, explaining everything.
It has been possible to compare these systems with the architecture of the
Gothic cathedrals, in which the dominant idea is incessantly repeated in the
numberless details of the construction, and in the branching multiplicity of
ornamentation.
Further, whatever view we adopt as to its ultimate value, it must be
recognized that the imagination of the great metaphysicians, by the
originality and fearlessness of its conceptions, by its skill in perfecting all
parts of its work, is inferior to no other form. It is equal to the highest, if it
does not indeed surpass them.

FOOTNOTES:
[109] See Part I, chapter II.
[110] Cf. the Preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. "Our reason ... is always
troubled with questions which cannot be ignored, because they spring from the
very nature of reason, and which cannot be answered, because they transcend the
powers of human reason." (Tr.)
[111] In the rare Notes that he has left, James Watt writes that one afternoon he
had gone out for a stroll on the Green at Glasgow, and his thoughts were
absorbed with the experiments in which he was busied, trying to prevent the
cooling of the cylinder. The thought then came to him that steam, being an
elastic fluid, should expand and be precipitated in a space formerly void; and
having made a vacuum in a separate vessel and opened communication between
the steam of the cylinder and the vacant space, we see what should follow. Thus,
having imagined the masterpiece of his discovery, he enumerates the processes
that, employed in turn, allowed him to perfect it.
[112] For further information we refer to the Logique de l'hypothèse, by E.
Naville, from which are borrowed most of the facts here given.
[113] This much-criticised defect has been only partially overcome in our
methods of education through "object" lessons, and, if we may call them so,
evolutionary methods, showing to the child "wie es eigentlich gewesen." Cf. J.
Dewey, "The School and Society." (Tr.)
[114] See above, Part Two, chapter IV.
[115] Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason.
[116] Colozza, L'immaginazione nella Scienza (Paravia, 1900), pp. 89 ff. In this
author will be found abundant details respecting famous discoveries or
experiments—those of Galileo, Franklin, Grimaldi, etc.
[117] Here is an example in confirmation, taken from Duclaux's book on
Pasteur: Herschel established a relation between the crystalline structure of
quartz and the rotatory power of the substance; later on, Biot established it for
sugar, tartaric acid, etc.—i.e., for substances in solution, whence he concluded
that the rotatory power is due to the form of the molecule itself, not to the
arrangement of the molecules in relation to one another. Pasteur discovered a
relation between molecular dyssymmetry and hemiedry, and the study of
hemiedry in crystals led him logically to that of fermentation and spontaneous
generation.
[118] On this point cf. Fouillée, L'Avenir de la Metaphysique, pp. 79 ff.

CHAPTER V
THE PRACTICAL AND MECHANICAL IMAGINATION

The study of the practical imagination is not without difficulties. First of all,
it has not hitherto attracted psychologists, so that we enter the field at
random, and wander unguided in an unexplored region. But the principal
obstacle is in the lack of determination of this form of imagination, and in
the absence of boundary lines. Where does it begin, and where does it end?
Penetrating all our life even in its least details, it is likely to lead us astray
through the diversity, often insignificant, of its manifestations. To convince
ourselves of this fact, let us take a man regarded as least imaginative:—
subtract the moments when his consciousness is busied with perceptions,
memories, emotions, logical thought and action—all the rest of his mental
life must be put down to the credit of the imagination. Even thus limited,
this function is not a negligible quantity:—it includes the plans and
constructions for the future, and all the dreams of escaping from the
present; and there is no man but makes such. This had to be mentioned on
account of its very triteness, because it is often forgotten, and consequently
the field of the creative imagination is unduly restricted, being limited little
by little to exceptional cases.
It must, however, be recognized that these small facts teach us little.
Consequently, following our adopted procedure, dwelling longest on the
clearer and more evident cases in which the work of creating appears
distinctly, we shall rapidly pass over the lower forms of the practical
imagination, in order to dwell on the higher form—technical or mechanical
imagination.

I

If we take an ordinary imaginative person,—understanding by this
expression, one whom his nature singles out for no special invention—we
see that he excels in the small inventions, adapted for a moment, for a

detail, for the petty needs constantly arising in human life. It is a fruitful,
ingenious, industrious mind, one that knows how to "take hold of things."
The active, enterprising American, capable of passing from one occupation
to another according to circumstances, opportunity, or imagined profits,
furnishes a good example.
If we descend from this form of sane imagination toward the morbid forms,
we meet first the unstable—knights of industry, hunters of adventure,
inventors frequently of questionable means, people hungry for change,
always imagining what they haven't, trying in turn all professions,
becoming workmen, soldiers, sailors, merchants, etc., not from expediency,
but from natural instability.
Further down are found the acknowledged "freaks" at the brink of insanity,
who are but the extreme form of the unstable, and who, after having wasted
haphazard much useless imagination, end in an insane asylum or worse still.
Let us consider these three groups together. Let us eliminate the intellectual
and moral qualities characteristic of each group, which establish notable
differences between them, and let us consider only their inventive capacity
as applied to practical life. One character common to all is mobility—the
tendency to change. It is a matter of current observation that men of lively
imagination are changeable. Common opinion, which is also the opinion of
moralists and of most psychologists, attributes this mobility, this instability,
to the imagination. This, in my opinion, is just upside down. It is not
because they have an active imagination that they are changeable, but it is
because they are changeable that their imagination is active. We thus return
to the motor basis of all creative work. Each new or merely modified
disposition becomes a center of attraction and pull. Doubtless the inner
push is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. If there were not
within them a sufficient number of concrete, abstract, or semi-abstract
representations, susceptible of various combinations, nothing would
happen; but the origin of invention and of its frequent or constant changes
of direction lies in the emotional and motor constitution, not in the quantity
or quality of representations. I shall not dwell longer on a subject already
treated,[119] but it was proper to show, in passing, that common opinion
starts from an erroneous conception of the primary conditions of invention
—whether great or small, speculative or practical.

In the immense empire of the practical imagination, superstitious beliefs
form a goodly province.
What is superstition? By what positive signs do we recognize it? An exact
definition and a sure criterion are impossible. It is a flitting notion that
depends on the times, places, and nature of minds. Has it not often been
said that the religion of one is superstition to another, and vice versâ? This,
too, is only a single instance from among many others; for the common
opinion that restricts superstition within the bounds of religious faith is an
incomplete view. There are peculiar beliefs, foreign to every dogma and
every religious feeling, from which the most radical freethinker is not
exempt; for example, the superstitions of gamblers. Indeed, at the bottom of
all such beliefs, we always find the vague, semi-conscious notion of a
mysterious power—destiny, fate, chance.
Without taking the trouble to set arbitrary limits, let us take the facts as they
are, without possible question, i.e., imaginary creations, subjective fancies,
having reality only for those admitting them. Even a summary collection of
past and present superstitions would fill a library. Aside from those having a
frankly religious mark, others almost as numerous surround civil life, birth,
marriage, death, appearance and healing of diseases, dies fasti atque nefasti,
propitious or fateful words, auguries drawn from the meeting or acts of
certain animals. The list would be endless.[120]
All that can be attempted here is a determination of the principal condition
of that state of mind, the psychology of which is in the last analysis very
simple. We shall thus answer in an indirect and incomplete manner the
question of criterion.
First, since we hold that the origin of all imaginative creation is a need, a
desire, a tendency, where then is the origin of that inexhaustible fount of
fancies? In the instinct for individual preservation, orientated in the
direction of the future. Man seeks to divine future events, and by various
means to act on the order of things to modify it for his own advantage or to
appease his evil fate.
As for the mental mechanism that, set in motion by this desire, produces the
vain images of the superstitious, it implies:

(1) A deep idea of causality, reduced to a post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Herodotus says of the Egyptian priests: "They have discovered more
prodigies and presages than any other people, because, when some
extraordinary thing appears, they note it as well as all the events following
it, so that if a similar prodigy appears anew, they expect to see the same
events reproduced." It is the hypothesis of an indissoluble association
between two or more events, assumed without verification, without
criticism. This manner of thinking depends on the weakness of the logical
faculties or on the excessive influence of the feelings.
(2) The abuse of reasoning by analogy. This great artisan of the imagination
is satisfied with likenesses so vague and agreements so strange, that it dares
everything. Resemblance is no longer a quality of things imposed on the
mind, but an hypothesis of the mind imposed on things. Astrology groups
into "constellations" stars that are billions of miles apart, believes that it
discovers there an animal shape, human or any other, and deduces
therefrom alleged "influences." This star is reddish (Mars), sign of blood;
this other is of a pure, brilliant silvery light (Venus) or livid (Saturn), and
acts in a different way. We know what clever structures of conjectures and
prognoses have been built on these foundations. Need we mention the
Middle Age practice of charms, which even in our day still has adherents
among cultured people? The physicians of the time of Charles II, says Lang,
gave their patients "mummy powder" (pulverized mummies) because the
mummies, having lasted a long time, must prolong life.[121] Gold in solution
has been esteemed as a medicine—gold, being a perfect substance, should
produce perfect health. In order to get rid of a disease nothing is more
frequent among primitive men than to picture the sick person on wood or on
the ground, and to strike the injured part with an arrow or knife, in order to
annihilate the sickening principle.
(3) Finally, there is the magic influence ascribed to certain words. It is the
triumph of the theory of nomina numina; we need not return to it. But the
working of the mind on words, erecting them into entities, conferring life
and power on them—in a word, the activity that creates myths and is the
final basis of all constructive imagination—appears also here.[122]

II

Up to this point we have considered the practical imagination only in its
somewhat petty aspect in small inventions or as semi-morbid in
superstitious fancies. We now come to its higher form, mechanical
invention.
This subject has not been studied by psychologists. Not that they have
misunderstood its rôle, which is, after all, very evident; but they limit
themselves to speak of it cursorily, without emphasizing it.
In order to appreciate its importance, I see no other way than to put
ourselves face to face with the works that it has produced, to question the
history of discovery and useful arts, to profit by the disclosures of inventors
and their biographers.
Of a work of this kind, which would be very long because the materials are
scattered, we can give here only a rough sketch, merely to take therefrom
what is of interest for psychology and what teaches us in regard to the
characters peculiar to this type of imagination.
The erroneous view that opposes imagination to the useful, and claims that
they are mutually exclusive, is so widespread and so persistent, that we
shall seem to many to be expressing a paradox when we say that if we could
strike the balance of the imagination that man has spent and made
permanent in esthetic life on the one hand, and in technical and mechanical
invention on the other, the balance would be in favor of the latter. This
assertion, however, will not seem paradoxical to those who have considered
the question. Why, then, the view above mentioned? Why are people
inclined to believe that our present subject, if not entirely foreign to the
imagination, is only an impoverished form of it? I account for it by the
following reasons:
Esthetic imagination, when fully complete, is simply fixed, i.e., remains a
fictitious matter recognized as such. It has a frankly subjective, personal
character, arbitrary in its choice of means. A work of art—a poem, a novel,
a drama, an opera, a picture, a statue—might have been otherwise than it is.
It is possible to modify the general plan, to add or reduce an episode, to
change an ending. The novelist who in the course of his work changes his
characters; the dramatic author who, in deference to public sentiment,
substitutes a happy denoûement in place of a catastrophe, furnish naïve

testimony of this freedom of imagination. Moreover, artistic creation,
expressing itself in words, sounds, lines, forms, colors, is cast in a mould
that allows it only a feeble "material" reality.
The mechanical imagination is objective—it must be embodied, take on a
form that gives it a place side by side with products of nature. It is arbitrary
neither in its choice nor in its means; it is not a free creature having its end
in itself. In order to succeed, it is subjected to rigorous physical conditions,
to a determinism. It is at this cost that it becomes a reality, and as we
instinctively establish an antithesis between the imaginary and the real, it
seems that mechanical invention is outside the realm of the imagination.
Moreover, it requires the constant intervention of calculation, of reasoning,
and lastly, of a manual operation of supreme importance. We may say
without exaggerating that the success of many mechanical creations
depends on the skillful manipulation of materials. But this last moment,
because it is decisive, should not make us forget its antecedents, especially
the initial moment, which is, for psychology, similar to all other instances of
invention, when the idea arises, tending to become objective.
Otherwise, the differences here pointed out between the two forms of
imagination—esthetic and mechanical—are but relative. The former is not
independent of technical apprenticeship, often of long duration (e.g., in
music, sculpture, painting). As for the latter, we should not exaggerate its
determinism. Often the same end can be reached by different inventions—
by means differently imagined, through different mental constructions; and
it follows that, after all allowances are made, these differently realized
imaginations are equally useful.
The difference between the two types is found in the nature of the need or
desire stimulating the invention, and secondly in the nature of the materials
employed. Others have confounded two distinct things—liberty of
imagination, which belongs rather to esthetic creation, and quality and
power of imagination, which may be identical in both cases.
I have questioned certain inventors very skillful in mechanics, addressing
myself to those, preferably, whom I knew to be strangers to any
preconceived psychological theory. Their replies agree, and prove that the
birth and development of mechanical invention are very strictly like those

found in other forms of constructive imagination. As an example, I cite the
following statement of an engineer, which I render literally:
"The so-called creative imagination surely proceeds in very different ways,
according to temperament, aptitudes, and, in the same individual, following
the mental disposition, the milieu.
"We may, however, as far as regards mechanical inventions, distinguish four
sufficiently clear phases—the germ, incubation, flowering, and completion.
"By germ I mean the first idea coming to the mind to furnish a solution for
a problem that the whole of one's observations, studies, and researches has
put before one, or that, put by another, has struck one.
"Then comes incubation, often very long and painful, or, again, even
unconscious. Instinctively as well as voluntarily one brings to the solution
of the problem all the materials that the eyes and ears can gather.
"When this latent work is sufficiently complete, the idea suddenly bursts
forth, it may be at the end of a voluntary tension of mind, or on the occasion
of a chance remark, tearing the veil that hides the surmised image.
"But this image always appears simple and clear. In order to get the ideal
solution into practice, there is required a struggle against matter, and the
bringing to an issue is the most thankless part of the inventor's work.
"In order to give consistence and body to the idea caught sight of
enthusiastically in an aureole, one must have patience, a perseverance
through all trials. One must view on all sides the mechanical agencies that
should serve to set the image together, until the latter has attained the
simplicity that alone makes invention viable. In this work of bringing to a
head, the same spirit of invention and imagination must be constantly
drawn upon for the solution of all the details, and it is against this arduous
requirement that the great majority of inventors rebel again and again.
"This is then, I believe, how one may in a general way understand the
genesis of an invention. It follows from this that here, as almost
everywhere, the imagination acts through association of ideas.

"Thanks to a profound acquaintance with known mechanical methods, the
inventor succeeds, through association of ideas, in getting novel
combinations producing new effects, towards the realization of which his
mind has in advance been bent."
But for a slightly explored subject, the foregoing remarks are not enough. It
is necessary to determine more precisely the general and special characters
of this form of imagination.

1. General Characters

I term general characters those that the mechanical imagination possesses in
common with the best known, least questioned forms of the constructive
imagination. In order to be convinced that, so far as concerns these
characters it does not differ from the rest, let us take, for the sake of
comparison, esthetic imagination, since it is agreed, rightly or wrongly, that
this is the model par excellence. We shall see that the essential
psychological conditions coincide in the two instances.
The mechanical imagination thus has like the other its ideal, i.e., a
perfection conceived and put forward as capable, little by little, of being
realized. The idea is at first hidden; it is, to use our correspondent's phrase,
"the germ," the principle of unity, center of attraction, that suggests, excites,
and groups appropriate associations of images, in which it is enwrapped and
organized into a structure, an ensemble of means converging toward a
common end. It thus presupposes a dissociation of experience. The inventor
undoes, decomposes, breaks up in thought, or makes of experience a tool,
an instrument, a machine, an agency for building anew with the débris.
The practical imagination is no more foreign to inspiration than the esthetic
imagination. The history of useful inventions is full of men who suffered
privations, persecution, ruin; who fought to the bitter end against relatives
and friends—drawn by the need of creating, fascinated not by the hope of
future gain but by the idea of an imposed mission, of a destiny they had to
fulfill. What more have poets and artists done? The fixed and irresistible
idea has led more than one to a foreseen death, as in the discovery of
explosives, the first attempts at lightning conductors, aeronautics, and many
others. Thus, from a true intuition, primitive civilizations have put on a

level great poets and great inventors, erected into divinities or demi-gods
historical or legendary personages in whom the genius of discovery is
personified:—among the Hindoos, Vicavakarma; among the Greeks,
Hephaestos, Prometheus, Triptolemus, Daedalus and Icarus. The Chinese,
despite their dry imagination, have done the same; and we find the same
condition in Egypt, Assyria, and everywhere. Moreover, the practical and
mechanical arts have passed through a first period of no-change, during
which the artisan, subjected to fixed rules and an undisputed tradition,
considers himself an instrument of divine revelation.[123] Little by little he
has emerged from that theological age, to enter the humanistic age, when,
being fully conscious of being the author of his work, he labors freely,
changes and modifies according to his own inspiration.
Mechanical and industrial imagination, like esthetic imagination, has its
preparatory period, its zenith and decline: the periods of the precursors, of
the great inventors, and of mere perfectors. At first a venture is made, effort
is wasted with small result,—the man has come too early or lacks clear
vision; then a great imaginative mind arises, blossoms; after him the work
passes into the hands of dii minores, pupils or imitators, who add, abridge,
modify: such is the order. The many-times written history of the application
of steam, from the time of the eolipile of Hero of Alexandria to the heroic
period of Newcomen and Watt, and the improvements made since their
time, is one proof of the statement. Another example:—the machine for
measuring duration is at first a simple clepsydra; then there are added marks
indicating the subdivisions of time, then a water gauge causes a hand to
move around a dial, then two hands for the hours and minutes; then comes a
great moment—by the use of weights the clepsydra becomes a clock, at first
massive and cumbersome, later lightened, becoming capable, with Tycho-
Brahé, of marking seconds; and then another moment—Huyghens invents
the spiral spring to replace the weights, and the clock, simplified and
lightened, becomes the watch.

2. Special Characters

The special characteristics of the mechanical imagination being the marks
belonging to this type, we shall study them at greater length.

(I) There is first of all, at least in great inventors, an inborn quality,—that is,
a natural disposition,—that does not originate in experience and owes the
latter only its development. This quality is a bent in a practical, useful
direction; a tendency to act, not in the realm of dreams or human feeling,
not on individuals or social groups, not toward the attainment of theoretical
knowledge of nature, but to become master over natural forces, to transform
them and adapt them toward an end.
Every mechanical invention arises from a need: from the strict necessity for
individual preservation in the case of primitive man who wages war against
the powers of nature; from the desire for well-being and the necessity for
luxury in growing civilization; from the need of creating little engines,
imitating instruments and machines, in the child. In a word, every
particular invention, great or small, arises from a particular need; for, we
repeat again, there is no creative instinct in general. A man distinguished for
various inventions along practical lines, writes: "As far as my memory
allows, I can state that in my case conception always results from a material
or mental need.[124] It springs up suddenly. Thus, in 1887, a speech of
Bismarck made me so angry that I immediately thought of arming my
country with a repeating rifle. I had already made various applications to
the ministry of war, when I learned that the Lebel system had just been
adopted. My patriotism was fully satisfied, but I still have the design of the
gun that I invented." This communication mentions two or three other
inventions that arose under analogous circumstances, but have had a chance
of being adopted.
Among the requisite qualities I mention the natural and necessary
preëminence of certain groups of sensations or images (visual, tactile,
motor) that may be decisive in determining the direction of the inventor.
(II) Mechanical invention grows by successive stratifications and additions,
as in the sciences, but more completely. It is a fine verification of the
"subsidiary law of growing complexity" previously discussed.[125] If we
measure the distance traversed since the distant ages when man was naked
and unarmed before nature to the present time of the reign of machinery, we
are astonished at the amount of imagination produced and expended, often
uselessly lavished, and we ask ourselves how such a work could have been
misunderstood or so lightly appreciated. It does not pertain to our subject to

make even a summary table of this long development. The reader can
consult the special works which, unfortunately, are most often fragmentary
and lack a general view. So we should feel grateful to a historian of the
useful arts, L. Bourdeau, for having attempted to separate out the
philosophy of the subject, and for having fastened it down in the following
formulas:[126]
(a) The exploitation of the powers of nature is made according to their
degree of power.
(b) The extension of working instruments has followed a logical evolution
in the direction of growing complexity and perfection.
Man, according to the observations of M. Bourdeau, has applied his
creative activity to natural forces and has set them to work according to a
regular order, viz.:
(1) Human forces, the only ones available during the "state of nature" and
the savage state. Before all else, man created weapons: the most
circumscribed primitive races have invented engines for attack and defense
—of wood, bone, stone, as they were able. Then the weapon became a tool
by special adaptation:—the battle-club serves as a lever, the tomahawk as a
hammer, the flint ax as a hatchet, etc. In this manner there is gradually
formed an arsenal of instruments. "Inferior to most animals as regards
certain work that would have to be done with the aid of our organic
resources alone, we are superior to all as soon as we set our tools at work. If
the rodents with their sharp teeth cut wood better than we can, we do it still
better with the ax, the chisel, the saw. Some birds, with the help of a strong
beak, by repeated blows, penetrate the trunk of a tree: but the auger, the
gimlet, the wimble do the same work better and more quickly. The knife is
superior to the carnivore's teeth for tearing meat; the hoe better than the
mole's paw for digging earth, the trowel than the beaver's tail for beating
and spreading mortar. The oar permits us to rival the fish's fin; the sail, the
wing of the bird. The distaff and spindle allow our imitating the industry of
insect spinners; etc. Man thus reproduces and sums up in his technical
contrivances the scattered perfections of the animal world. He even
succeeds in surpassing them, because, in the form of tools, he uses
substances and combinations of effects that cannot figure as part of an

organism."[127] It is scarcely likely that most of these inventions arose from
a voluntary imitation of animals: but even supposing such an origin, there
would still remain a fine place for personal creative work. Man has
produced by conscious effort what life realizes by methods that escape us;
so that the creative imagination in man is a succedaneum of the generative
powers of nature.
(2) During the pastoral stage man brought animals under subjection and
discipline. An animal is a machine, ready-made, that needs only to be
trained to obedience; but this training has required and stimulated all sorts
of inventions, from the harness with which to equip it, to the chariots,
wagons, and roads with which and on which it moves.
(3) Later, the natural motors—air and water—have furnished new material
for human ingenuity, e.g., in navigation; wind- and water-mills, used at first
to grind grain, then for a multitude of uses—sawing, milling, lifting
hammers; etc.
(4) Lastly, much later, come products of an already mature civilization,
artificial motors, explosives,—powder and all its derivatives and substitutes
—steam, which has made such great progress.
If the reader please to represent to himself well the immense number of
facts that we have just indicated in a few lines; if he please to note that
every invention, great or small, before becoming a fixed and realized thing,
was at first an imagination, a mere contrivance of the brain, an assembly of
new combinations or new relations, he will be forced to admit that nowhere
—not excepting even esthetic production—has man imagined to such a
great extent.
One of the reasons—though not the only one—that supports the contrary
opinion is, that by the very law of their growing complexity, inventions are
grafted one on another. In all the useful arts improvements have been so
slow, and so gradually wrought, that each one of them passed unperceived,
without leaving its author the credit for its discovery. The immense majority
of inventions are anonymous—some great names alone survive. But,
whether individual or collective, imagination remains imagination. In order
that the plow, at first a simple piece of wood hardened by the fire and
pushed along with the human hand, should become what it is to-day,

through a long series of modifications described in the special works, who
knows how many imaginations have labored! In the same way, the
uncertain flame of a resinous branch guiding vaguely in the night leads us,
through a long series of inventions, to gas and electric lighting. All objects,
even the most ordinary and most common that now serve us in our
everyday-life, are condensed imagination.
(III) More than any other form, mechanical imagination depends strictly on
physical conditions. It cannot rest content with combining images, it
postulates material factors that impose themselves unyieldingly. Compared
to it, the scientific imagination has much more freedom in the building of
its hypotheses. In general, every great invention has been preceded by a
period of abortive attempts. History shows that the so-called "initial
moment" of a mechanical discovery, followed by its improvements, is the
moment ending a series of unsuccessful trials: we thus skip a phase of pure
imagination, of imaginative construction that has not been able to enter into
the mold of an appropriate determinism. There must have existed
innumerable inventions that we might term mechanical romances, which,
however, we cannot refer to because they have left us no trace, not being
born viable. Others are known as curiosities because they have blazed the
path. We know that Otto de Guericke made four fruitless attempts before
discovering his air-pump. The brothers Montgolfier were possessed with the
desire to make "imitation clouds," like those they saw moving over the
Alps. "In order to imitate nature," they at first enclosed water-vapor in a
light, stout case, which fell on cooling. Then they tried hydrogen; then the
production of a gas with electrical properties; and so on. Thus, after a
succession of hypotheses and failures, they finally succeeded. From the end
of the sixteenth century there was offered the possibility of communicating
at a distance by means of electricity. "In a work published in 1624 the
Jesuit, Father Leurechon, described an imaginary apparatus (by means of
which, he said, people could converse at a distance) for the aid of lovers
who, by the connection of their movements, would cause a needle to move
about a dial on which would be written the letters of the alphabet; and the
drawing accompanying the text is almost a picture of Breguet's telegraph."
But the author considered it impossible "in the absence of lovers having
such ability."[128]

Mechanical inventions that fail correspond to erroneous or unverified
scientific hypotheses. They do not emerge from the stage of pure
imagination, but they are instructive to the psychologist because they give
in bare form the initial work of the constructive imagination in the technical
field.
There still remain the requirements of reasoning, of calculation, of
adaptation to the properties of matter. But, we repeat, this determinism has
several possible forms—one can reach the same goal through different
means. Besides, these determining conditions are not lacking in any type of
imagination; there is only a difference as between lesser and greater. Every
imaginative construction from the moment that it is little more than a group
of fancies, a spectral image haunting a dreamer's brain, must take on a body,
submit to external conditions on which it depends, and which materialize it
somewhat. In this respect, architecture is an excellent example. It is classed
among the fine arts; but it is subject to so many limitations that its process
of invention strongly resembles technical and mechanical creations. Thus it
has been possible to say that "Architecture is the least personal of all the
arts." "Before being an art it is an industry in the sense that it has nearly
always a useful end that is imposed on it and rules its manifestations.
Whatever it builds—a temple, a theater, a palace—it must before all else
subordinate its work to the end assigned to it in advance. This is not all:—it
must take account of materials, climate, soil, location, habits—of all things
that may require much skill, tact, calculation, which, however, do not
interest art as such, and do not permit architecture to manifest its purely
esthetic qualities."[129]
Thus, at bottom, there is an identity of nature between the constructive
imagination of the mechanic and that of the artist: the difference is only in
the end, the means, and the conditions. The formula, Ars homo additus
naturae, has been too often restricted to esthetics—it should comprehend
everything artificial. Esthetes, doubtless, hold that their imagination has for
them a loftier quality—a disputed question that psychology need not
discuss; for it, the essential mechanism is the same in the two cases: a great
mechanic is a poet in his own way, because he makes instruments imitating
life. "Those constructions that at other times are the marvel of the ignorant
crowd deserve the admiration of the reflecting:—Something of the power
that has organized matter seems to have passed into combinations in which

nature is imitated or surpassed. Our machines, so varied in form and in
function, are the representatives of a new kingdom intermediate between
senseless and animate forms, having the passivity of the former and the
activity of the latter, and exploiting everything for our sake. They are
counterfeits of animate beings, capable of giving inert substances a regular
functioning. Their skeleton of iron, organs of steel, muscles of leather, soul
of fire, panting or smoking breath, rhythm of movement—sometimes even
the shrill or plaintive cries expressing effort or simulating pain:—all that
contributes to give them a fantastic likeness to life—a specter and dream of
inorganic life."[130]

FOOTNOTES:
[119] See above, Part One, chapter II.
[120] For a complete and recent study of the question, see A. Lehmann,
Aberglaube und Zauberei von den ältesten Zeiten bis in die Gegenwart, 1898.
[121] Lang, op. cit., I, 96. There will be found many other facts of this kind.
[122] If this book were not merely an essay, we should have had to study
language as an instrument of the practical life in its relations to the creative
imagination, especially the function of analogy, in the extension and
transformation of the meanings of words. Works on linguistics are full of
evidence on this point. One could do better still by attending exclusively to the
vernacular, to slang, which shows us creative force in action. "Slang," says one
philologist, "has the property of figuring, expressing, and picturing language....
With it, however low its origin, one could reconstruct a people or a society." Its
principal, not only, means, are metaphor and allegory. It lends itself equally to
methods that degrade or ennoble existing words, but with a very marked
preference for the worse or degrading meanings.
[123] Ample information on this point will be found in the work of Espinas, Les
Origines de la Technologie.
[124] The same correspondent, without my having asked him in regard to this,
gives me the following details: "When about seven years old I saw a locomotive,
its fire and smoke. My father's stove also made fire and smoke, but lacked
wheels. If, then, I told my father, we put wheels under the stove, it would move
like a locomotive. Later, when about thirteen, the sight of a steam threshing-
machine suggested to me the idea of making a horseless wagon. I began a
childish construction of one, which my father made me give up," etc. The
tendency toward mechanical invention shows itself very early in some children
—we gave examples of it before. Our inventor adds: "My imagination was
strongest at about the age of 25 to 35 (I am now 45 years old). After that time it
seems to me that the remainder of life is good only for producing less important

conceptions, forming a natural consequence of the principal conceptions born of
the period of youth."
[125] See above, Part Two, chapter V.
[126] L. Bourdeau, Les Forces de l'Industrie, Paris, 1884. This very substantial
work, abounding in facts, conceived after a systematic plan, has aided us much
in this study.
[127] Op. cit., pp. 45-46.
[128] Quoted by L. Bourdeau (op. cit., p. 354), who also mentions many other
attempts: an anonymous Scot in 1753, Lesage of Geneva, 1780, Lhomond
(France, 1787), Battencourt (Spain, 1787), Reiser, a German (1794), Salva
(Madrid, 1796). The insufficient study of dynamic electricity did not permit
them to succeed.
[129] E. Veron, L'Esthétique, p. 315.
[130] L. Bourdeau, op. cit., p. 233.

CHAPTER VI
THE COMMERCIAL IMAGINATION

Taking the word "commercial" in its broadest signification, I understand by
this expression all those forms of the constructive imagination that have for
their chief aim the production and distribution of wealth, all inventions
making for individual or collective enrichment. Even less studied than the
form preceding, this imaginative manifestation reveals as much ingenuity as
any other. The human mind is largely busied in that way. There are
inventors of all kinds—the great among these equal those whom general
opinion ranks as highest. Here, as elsewhere, the great body invent nothing,
live according to tradition, in routine and imitation.
Invention in the commercial or financial field is subject to various
conditions with which we are not concerned:
(1) External conditions:—Geographical, political, economic, social, etc.,
varying according to time, place, and people. Such is its external
determinism—human and social here in place of cosmic, physical, as in
mechanical invention.
(2) Internal, psychological conditions, most of which are foreign to the
primary and essential inventive act:—on one hand, foresight, calculation,
strength of reasoning;—in a word, capacity for reflection; on the other
hand, assurance, recklessness, soaring into the unknown—in a word, strong
capacity for action. Whence arise, if we leave out the mixed forms, two
principal types—the calculating, the venturesome. In the former the rational
element is first. They are cautious, calculating, selfish exploiters, with no
great moral or social preoccupations. In the latter, the active and emotional
element predominates. They have a broader sweep. Of this sort were the
merchant-sailors of Tyre, Carthage, and Greece; the merchant-travelers of
the Middle Ages, the mercantile and gain-hungry explorers of the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; later, in a changed form, the organizers

of great companies, the inventors of monopolies, American "trusts," etc.
These are the great imaginative minds.
Eliminating, then, from our subject, what is not the purely imaginative
element in order to study it alone, I see only two points for us to treat, if we
would avoid repetition—at the initial moment of invention, the intuitive act
that is its germ; during the period of development and organization, the
necessary and exclusive rôle of schematic images.

I

By "intuition" we generally understand a practical, immediate judgment that
goes straight to the goal. Tact, wisdom, scent, divination, are synonymous
or equivalent expressions. First let us note that intuition does not belong
exclusively to this part of our subject, for it is found in parvo throughout;
but in commercial invention it is preponderating on account of the necessity
of perceiving quickly and surely, and of grasping chances. "Genius for
business," someone has said, "consists in making exact hypotheses
regarding the fluctuations of values." To characterize the mental state is
easy, if it is a matter merely of giving examples; very difficult, if one
attempts to discover its mechanism.
The physician who in a trice diagnoses a disease, who, on a higher level,
groups symptoms in order to deduce a new disease from them, like
Duchenne de Boulogne; the politician who knows human nature, the
merchant who scents a good venture, etc., furnish examples of intuition. It
does not depend on the degree of culture;—not to mention women, whose
insight into practical matters is well known, there are ignorant people—
peasants, even savages—who, in their limited sphere, are the equals of fine
diplomats.
But all these facts teach us nothing concerning its psychological nature.
Intuition presupposes acquired experience of a special nature that gives the
judgment its validity and turns it in a particular direction. Nevertheless, this
accumulated knowledge of itself gives no evidence as to the future. Now,
every intuition is an anticipation of the future, resulting from only two
processes:—inductive or deductive reasoning, e.g., the chemist foreseeing a
reaction; imagination, i.e., a representative construction. Which is the chief

process here? Evidently the former, because it is not a matter of fancied
hypothesis, but of adaptation of former experience to a new case. Intuition
resembles logical operations much more than it does imaginative
combinations. We may liken it to unconscious reasoning, if we are not
afraid of the seeming contradiction of this expression which supposes a
logical operation without consciousness of the middle term. Although
questionable, it is perhaps to be preferred to other proposed explanations—
such as automatism, habit, "instinct," "nervous connections." Carpenter,
who as promoter of "unconscious cerebration," deserves to be consulted,
likens this state to reflection. In ending, he reprints a letter that John Stuart
Mill wrote to him on the subject, in which he says in substance that this
capacity is found in persons who have experience and lean toward practical
things, but attach little importance to theory.[131]
Every intuition, then, becomes concrete as a judgment, equivalent to a
conclusion. But what seems obscure and even mysterious in it is the fact
that, from among many possible solutions, it finds at the first shot the
proper one. In my opinion this difficulty arises largely from a partial
comprehension of the problem. By "intuition" people mean only cases in
which the divination is correct; they forget the other, far more numerous,
cases that are failures. The act by which one reaches a conclusion is a
special case of it. What constitutes the originality of the operation is not its
accuracy, but its rapidity—the latter is the essential character, the former
accessory.
Further, it must be acknowledged that the gift of seeing correctly is an
inborn quality, vouchsafed to one, denied to another:—people are born with
it, just as they are born right-or left-handed: experience does not give it—
only permits it to be put to use. As for knowing why the intuitive act now
succeeds and at another time fails, that is a question that comes down to the
natural distinction between accurate and erroneous minds, which we do not
need to examine here.
Without dwelling longer on this initial stage, let us return to the commercial
imagination, and follow it in its development.

II

The human race passed through a pre-commercial age. The Australians,
Fuegians, and their class seem to have had no idea whatever of exchange.
This primitive period, which was long, corresponds to the age of the horde
or large clan. Commercial invention, arising like the other forms from
needs,—simple and indispensable at first, artificial and superfluous later,—
could not arise in that dim period when the groups had almost their sole
relations with one another as war. Nothing called it to arise. But at a higher
stage the rudimentary form of commerce, exchange in kind or truck,
appeared early and almost everywhere. Then this long, cumbersome,
inconvenient method gave place to a more ingenious invention—the
employment of "standard values," beings or material objects serving as a
common measure for all the rest:—their choice varied with the time, place,
and people—e.g., certain shells, salt, cocoa-seeds, cloth, straw-matting,
cattle, slaves, etc.; but this innovation held all the remainder in the germ, for
it was the first attempt at substitution. But during the earliest period of
commercial evolution the chief effort at invention consisted of finding
increasingly more simple methods in the mechanism of exchange. Thus,
there succeeded to these disparate values, the precious metals, in the form
of powder and ingots, subject to theft and the inconveniences of weighing.
Then, money of fixed denomination, struck under the authority of a chief or
of a social group. Finally, gold and silver are replaced by the letter of credit,
the bank check, and the numerous forms of fiduciary money.[132]
Every one of these forward steps is due to inventors. I say inventors, in the
plural, because it is proven that every change in the means of exchange has
been imagined several times, in several ages—though in the same way—on
the surface of our earth.
Summing up—the inventive labor of this period is reduced to creating
increasingly more simple and more rapid methods of substitution in the
commercial mechanism.
The appearance of commerce on a large scale has depended on the state of
agriculture, industry, ways of communication, social and economic
conditions and political extension. It came into being toward the end of the
Roman Republic. After the interruption of the Middle Ages the activity is
taken up again by the Italian cities, the Hanseatic League, etc.; in the
fifteenth century with the great maritime discoveries; in the sixteenth

century by the Conquistadores, hungering for adventure and wealth; later
on, by the mixed expeditions, whose expenses are defrayed by merchants in
common, and which are often accompanied by armed bands that fight for
them; lastly comes the incorporation of great companies that have been
wittily dubbed "Conquistadores of the counting-house."
We now come to the moment when commercial invention attains its
complex form and must move great masses. Taken as a whole, its
psychological mechanism is the same as that of any other creative work. In
the first instance, the idea arises, from inspiration, from reflection, or by
chance. Then comes a period of fermenting during which the inventor
sketches his construction in images, represents to himself the material to be
worked upon, the grouping of stockholders, the making up of a capital, the
mechanism of buying and selling, etc. All this differs from the genesis of an
esthetic or mechanical work only in the end, or in the nature of the images.
In the second phase it is necessary to proceed to execution—a castle in the
air must be made a solid structure. Then appear a thousand obstructions in
the details that must be overcome. As everywhere else, minor inventions
become grafted on the principal invention; the author lets us see the poverty
or richness in resource of his mind. Finally, the work is triumphant, fails, or
is only half-successful.
Did it keep only to these general traits, commercial imagination would be
merely the reiteration, with slight changes, of forms already studied; but it
has characteristics all its own that must be distinguished.
(1) It is a combining or tactical imagination. Heretofore, we have met
nothing like it. This special mark is derived from the very nature of its
determinism, which is very different from that limiting the scientific or
mechanical imagination. Every commercial project, in order to emerge from
the internal, purely imaginative phase, and become a reality, requires
"coming to a head," very exact calculation of frequently numerous,
divergent, even contrary elements. The American dealer speculating in grain
is under the absolute necessity of being quickly and surely informed
regarding the agricultural situation in all countries of the world that are rich
in grain, that export or import; in regard to the probable chances of rain or
drouth; the tariff duties of the various countries, etc. Lacking that, he buys
and sells haphazard. Moreover, as he deals in enormous quantities, the least

error means great losses, the smallest profit on a unit is of account, and is
multiplied and increased into a noticeable gain.
Besides that initial intuition that shows opportune business and moments,
commercial imagination presupposes a well-studied, detailed campaign for
attack and defense, a rapid and reliable glance at every moment of
execution in order to incessantly modify this plan—it is a kind of war. All
this totality of special conditions results from a general condition,—namely,
competition, strife. We shall come back to this point at the end of the
chapter.
Let us follow to the end the working of this creative imagination. Like the
other forms, this kind of invention arises from a need, a desire—that of the
spreading of "self-feeling," of the expansion of the individual under the
form of enrichment. But this tendency, and with it the resulting imaginative
creation, can undergo changes.
It is a well-known law of the emotional life that what is at first sought as a
means may become an end and be desired for itself. A very sensual passion
may at length undergo a sort of idealization; people study a science at first
because it is useful, and later because of its fascination; and we may desire
money in order to spend it, and later in order to hoard it. Here it is the same:
the financial inventor is often possessed with a kind of intoxication—he no
longer labors for lucre, but for art; he becomes, in his own way, an author of
romance. His imagination, set at the beginning toward gain, now seeks only
its complete expansion, the assertion and eruption of its creative power, the
pleasure of inventing for invention's sake,[133] daring the extraordinary, the
unheard-of—it is the victory of pure construction. The natural equilibrium
between the three necessary elements of creation—mobility, combination of
images, calculation—is destroyed. The rational element gives way, is
obliterated, and the speculator is launched into adventure with the
possibility of a dazzling success or astounding catastrophe. But let us note
well that the primary and sole cause of this change is in the affective and
motor element, in an hypertrophy of the lust for power, in an unmeasured
and morbid want of expansion of self. Here, as everywhere, the source of
invention is the emotional nature of the inventor.

(2) A second special character of commercial imagination is the exclusive
employment of schematic representations. Although this process is also met
with in the sciences and especially in social inventions, the imaginative type
that we are now considering has the privilege of using them without
exception. This, then, is the proper moment for a description.
By "schematic images" I mean those that are, by their very nature,
intermediate between the concrete image and the pure concept, but
approach more nearly the concept. We have already pointed out very
different kinds of representations—concrete images, material pertaining to
plastic and mechanical imagination; the emotional abstractions of the
diffluent imagination; affective images, the type of which is found in
musicians; symbolic images, familiar in mystics. It may seem improper to
add another class to this list, but it is not a meaningless subtlety. Indeed,
there are no images in general that, according to the ordinary conception,
would be copies of reality. Even their separation into visual, auditory,
motor, etc., is not sufficient, because it distinguishes them only with regard
to their origin. There are other differences. We have seen that the image,
like everything living, undergoes corrosions, damages, twisting, and
transformation: whence it comes about that this remainder of former
impressions varies according to its composition, i.e., in simplicity,
complexity, grouping of its constitutive elements, etc., and takes on many
aspects. On the other hand, as the difference between the chief types of
creative imagination depends in part on the materials employed—on the
nature of the images that serve in mental building—a precise determination
of the nature of the images belonging to each type is not an idle operation.
In order to clearly explain what we mean by schematic images, let us
represent by a line, PC, the scale of images according to the degree of
complexity, from the percept, P, to the concept, C.
P——————X——G——S——C
As far as I am aware, this determination of all the degrees has never been
made. The work would be delicate; I do not regard it as impossible. I have
no intention to undertake it, even as I do not pretend that I have given above
the complete list of the various forms of images.

If, then, we consider the foregoing figure merely as a means of representing
the gradation to the eye, the image in moving, by hypothesis, from the
moment of perception, P, is less and less in contact with reality, becomes
simplified, impoverished, and loses some of its constitutive elements. At X
it crosses the middle threshold to approach nearer and nearer to the concept.
At G let us locate generic images, primitive forms of generalization, whose
nature and process of becoming are well-known;[134] we should place
farther along, at S, schematic images, which require a higher function of
mind. Indeed, the generic image results from a spontaneous fusion of like or
very analogous images—such as the vague representation of the oak, the
horse, the negro, etc.; it belongs to only one class of objects. The schematic
image results from a voluntary act; it is not limited to exact resemblances—
it rises into abstraction; so it is scarcely accompanied by a fleeting
representation of concrete objects—it is almost reduced to the word. At a
higher level, it is freed from all sensuous elements or pictures, and is
reduced, in the present instance, to the mere notion of value—it is not
different from a pure concept. While the artist and the mechanic build with
concrete images, the commercial imagination can act directly neither on
things nor on their immediate representations, because from the time that it
goes beyond the primitive age it requires a substitution of increasing
generality; materials become values that are in turn reducible to symbols.
Consequently, it proceeds as in the stating and solving of abstract problems
in which, after having substituted for things and their relations figures and
letters, calculation works with signs, and indirectly with things.
Aside from the first moment of invention, the finding of the idea—an
invariable psychological state—it must be recognized that in its
development and detailed construction the commercial imagination is made
up chiefly of calculations and combinations that hardly permit concrete
images. If we admit, then,—and this is unquestionable—that these are the
materials par excellence of the creative imagination, we shall be disposed to
hold that the imaginative type we are now studying is a kind of involution, a
case of impoverishment—an unacceptable thesis as regards the invention
itself, but strictly acceptable as regards the conditions that necessity
imposes upon it.
In closing, let us note that financial imagination does not always have as its
goal the enriching of an individual or of a closely limited group of

associates: it can aim higher, act on greater masses, address itself
strenuously to a problem as complex as the reformation of the finances of a
powerful state. All the civilized nations count in their history men who
imagined a financial system and succeeded, with various fortunes, in
making it prevail. The word "system," consecrated by usage, makes
unnecessary any comment, and relates this form of imagination to that of
scientists and philosophers. Every system rests on a master-conception, on
an ideal, a center about which there is assembled the mental construction
made up of imagination and calculation which, if circumstances permit,
must take shape, must show that it can live.
Let us call to mind the author of the first, or at least, of the most notorious
of these "systems." Law claimed that he was applying "the methods of
philosophy, the principles of Descartes, to social economy, abandoned
hitherto to chance and empiricism." His ideal was the institution of credit
by the state. Commerce, said he, was during its first stage the exchange of
merchandise in kind; in a second stage, exchange by means of another,
more manageable, commodity or universal value, security equivalent to the
object it represented; it must enter a third stage when exchange will be
made by a purely conventional sign having no value of its own. Paper
represents money, just as the latter represents goods, "with the difference
that the paper is not security, but a simple promise, constituting credit." The
state must do systematically what individuals have done instinctively; but it
must also do what individuals cannot do—create currency by printing on
the paper of exchange the seal of public authority. We know the history of
the downfall of this system, the eulogies and criticisms it has received:—
but because of the originality and boldness of his views, the inexhaustible
fecundity of his lesser inventions, Law holds an undisputed place among
the great imaginative minds.

III

We said above that commerce, in its higher manifestations, is a kind of war.
[135]
Here, then, would be the place to study the military imagination. The
subject cannot be treated save by a man of the profession, so I shall limit
myself to a few brief remarks based on personal information, or gleaned
from authorities.

Between the various types of imagination hitherto studied we have shown
great differences as regards their external conditions. While the so-called
forms of pure imagination, whence esthetic, mythic, religious, mystic
creations arise, can realize themselves by submitting to material conditions
that are simple and not very exacting, the others can become embodied only
when they satisfy an ensemble of numerous, inevitable, rigorously
determined conditions; the goal is fixed, the materials are rigid, there is
little choice of the appropriate means. If there be added to the inflexible
laws of nature unforeseen human passions and determinations, as in
political or social invention, or the offensive combination of opponents, as
in commerce and war; then the imaginative construction is confronted with
problems of constantly growing complexity. The most ingenious inventor
cannot invent an object as a whole, letting his work develop through an
immanent logic:—the early plan must be continually modified and
readapted; and the difficulty arises not merely from the multiple elements of
the problem to be solved, but from ceaseless changes in their positions. So
one can advance only step by step, and go forward by calculations and strict
examination of possibilities. Hence it results that underneath this thick
covering of material and intellectual conditions (calculation, reasoning),
spontaneity (the aptness for finding new combinations, "that art of
inventing without which we hardly advance"[136]) reveals itself to few clear-
sighted persons; but, in spite of everything, this creative power is
everywhere, flowing like subterranean streams, a vivifying agency.
These general remarks, although not applicable exclusively to the military
imagination, find their justification in it, because of its extreme complexity.
Let us rapidly enumerate, proceeding from without inwards, the enormous
mass of representations that it has to move and combine in order to make its
construction adequate to reality, able at a precise moment to cease being a
dream:—(1) Arms, engines, instruments of destruction and supply, varying
according to time, place, richness of the country, etc. (2) The equally
variable human element—mercenaries, a national army; strong, tried troops
or weak and new. (3) The general principles of war, acquired by the study of
the masters. (4) More personal is the power of reflection, the habitual
solving of tactical and strategic problems. "Battles," said Napoleon, "are
thought out at length, and in order to be successful it is necessary that we
think several times in regard to what may happen." All the foregoing should

be headed "science." Advancing more and more within the secret
psychology of the individual, we come to art, the characteristic work of
pure imagination. (5) Let us note the exact, rapid intuition at the
commencement of the opportune moments. (6) Lastly, the creative element,
the conception, a natural gift bearing the hall-mark of each inventor. Thus
"the Napoleonic esthetics was always derived from a single concept, based
on a principle that may be summed up thus:—Strict economy wherever it
can be done; expenditure without limit on the decisive point. This principle
inspires the strategy of the master; it directs everything, especially his
battle-tactics, in which it is synthetized and summed up."[137]
Such, in analytical terms, appears the hidden spring that makes everything
move, and it is to be attributed neither to experience nor to reasoning, nor to
wise combinations, for it arises from the innermost depths of the inventor.
"The principle exists in him in a latent state, i.e., in the depths of the
unconscious, and unconsciously it is that he applies it, when the shock of
the circumstances, of goal and means, causes to flash from his brain the
spark stimulating the artistic solution par excellence, one that reaches the
limits of human perfection."[138]

FOOTNOTES:
[131] Carpenter, Mental Physiology, chapter XI (end).
[132] Historically, the evolution has not always proceeded strictly in this order,
which, however, seems the most logical one. Negotiable drafts were known to
the Assyrians and Carthaginians. For thousands of years Egypt used ingots, not
real money, but it was acquainted with fiduciary money. In the new world, the
Peruvians made use of the scale, the Aztecs were ignorant of its use, etc. For
details, see Letourneau, L'Évolution du commerce dans les diverses races
humaines, Paris, 1897, especially pp. 264, 330, 354, 384, etc.
[133] This condition has been well-described by various novelists, among them
Zola, in Money.
[134] For further details on this point, we refer the reader to our Evolution of
General Ideas (chapter I).
[135] A general, a former professor in the War College, told me that when he
heard a great merchant tell of the quick and sure service of his commercial
information, the conception of the whole, and the care in all the details of his
operations, he could not keep from exclaiming, "Why, that is war!"

[136] Leibniz.
[137] General Bonnal, Les Maîtres de la Guerre, 1899, p. 137. "In him
(Napoleon)," says the writer, "there was something of the poet, and one could
explain all his acts by means of this singular complex, a medley of imagination,
passion, and calculation. The dreams of an Ossian with the positive cast of mind
of a mathematician and the passions of a Corsican—such were the
heterogeneous elements that clashed in that powerful organization" (p. 151).
[138] Op. cit., p. 6.

CHAPTER VII

THE UTOPIAN IMAGINATION[139]

When the human mind creates, it can use only two classes of ideas as
materials to embody its idea, viz.:
(1) Natural phenomena, the forces of the organic and inorganic worlds. In
its scientific form, seeking to explain, to know, it ends in the hypothesis, a
disinterested creation. In its industrial aspect, aiming towards application
and utilization, it ends in practical, interested inventions.
(2) Human, i.e., psychic elements—instincts, passions, feelings, ideas, and
actions. Esthetic creation is the disinterested form, social invention is the
utilitarian form.
Consequently, we may say that invention in science resembles invention in
the fine arts, both being speculative; and that mechanical and industrial
invention approaches social invention through a common tendency toward
the practical. I shall not insist on this distinction, which, to be definite, rests
only on partial characters; I merely wish to mention that invention, whose
rôle in social, political and moral evolution is large, must, in order to be a
success, adopt certain processes while neglecting others. This the Utopians
do not do.
The development of human societies depends on a multitude of factors,
such as race, geographic and economic conditions, war, etc., which we need
neither enumerate nor study. One only belongs to our topic—the successive
appearance of idealistic conceptions that, like all other creations of mind,
tend to realize themselves, the moral ideal consisting of new combinations
arising from the predominance of one feeling, or from an unconscious
elaboration (inspiration), or from analogy.
At the beginning of civilizations we meet semi-historic, semi-legendary
persons—Manu, Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, etc., who were inventors or
reformers in the social and moral spheres. That a part of the inventions

attributed to them must be credited to predecessors or successors is
probable; but the invention, no matter who is its author, remains none the
less invention. We have said elsewhere, and may repeat, that the expression
inventor in morals may seem strange to some, because we are imbued with
the notion of a knowledge of good and evil that is innate, universal,
bestowed on all men and in all times. If we admit, on the other hand, as
observation compels us to do, not a ready-made morality, but a morality in
the making, it must be, indeed, the creation of an individual or of a group.
Everybody recognizes inventors in geometry, in music, in the plastic and
mechanic arts; but there have also been men who, in their moral
dispositions, were very superior to their contemporaries, and were
promoters, initiators.[140] For reasons of which we are ignorant, analogous
to those that produce a great poet or a great painter, there arise moral
geniuses who feel strongly what others do not feel at all, just as does a great
poet, in comparison with the crowd. But it is not enough that they feel: they
must create, they must realize their ideal in a belief and in rules of conduct
accepted by other men. All the founders of great religions were inventors of
this kind. Whether the invention comes from themselves alone, or from a
collectivity of which they are the sum and incarnation, matters little. In
them moral invention has found its complete form; like all invention, it is
organic. The legend relates that Buddha, possessed with the desire of
finding the perfect road of salvation for himself and all other men, gives
himself up, at first, to an extravagant asceticism. He perceives the
uselessness of this and renounces it. For seven years he meditates, then he
beholds the light. He comes into possession of knowledge of the means that
give freedom from Karma (the chain of causes and effects), and from the
necessity of being born again. Soon he renounces the life of contemplation,
and during fifty years of ceaseless wanderings preaches, makes converts,
organizes his followers. Whether true or false historically, this tale is
psychologically exact. A fixed and besetting idea, trial followed by failure,
the decisive moment of Eureka! then the inner revelation manifests itself
outwardly, and through the labors of the master and his disciples becomes
complete, imposes itself on millions of men. In what respect does this mode
of creation differ from others, at least in the practical order?
Thus, from the viewpoint of our present study, we may divide ethics into
living and dead. Living ethics arise from needs and desires, stimulate an

imaginative construction that becomes fixed in actions, habits and laws;
they offer to men a concrete, positive ideal which, under various and often
contrary aspects, is always happiness. The lifeless ethics, from which
invention has withdrawn, arise from reflection upon, and the rational
codification of, living ethics. Stored away in the writings of philosophers,
they remain theoretical, speculative, without appreciable influence on the
masses, mere material for dissertation and commentary.
In proportion as we recede from distant origins the light grows, and
invention in the social and moral order becomes manifest as the work of
two principal categories of minds—the fantastic, the positive. The former,
purely imaginative beings, visionaries, utopians, are closely related to poets
and artists. The latter, practical creators or reformers, capable of organizing,
belong to the family of inventors in the industrial-commercial-mechanical
order.

I

The chimerical form of imagination, applied to the social sciences, is the
one that, taking account neither of the external determinism nor of practical
requirements, spreads out freely. Such are the creators of ideal republics,
seeking for a lost or to-be-discovered-in-the-future golden age,
constructing, as their fancy pleases, human societies in their large outlines
and in their details. They are social novelists, who bear the same relation to
sociologists that poets do to critics. Their dreams, subjected merely to the
conditions of an inner logic, have lived only within themselves, an ideal
life, without ever passing through the test of application. It is the creative
imagination in its unconscious form, restrained to its first phase.
Nothing is better known than their names and their works: The Republic of
Plato, Thomas More's Utopia, Campanella's City of the Sun, Harrington's
Oceana, Fenelon's Salente, etc.[141] However idealistic they may be, one
could easily show that all the materials of their ideal are taken from the
surrounding reality, they bear the stamp of the milieu, be it Greek, English,
Christian, etc., in which they lived, and it should not be forgotten that in the
Utopians everything is not chimerical—some have been revealers, others
have acted as stimuli or ferments. True to its mission, which is to make

innovations, the constructive imagination is a spur that arouses; it hinders
social routine and prevents stagnation.
Among the creators of ideal societies there is one, almost contemporary,
who would deserve a study of individual psychology—Ch. Fourier. If it is a
question merely of fertility in pure construction, I doubt whether we could
find one superior to him—he is equal to the highest, with the special
characteristic of being at the same time exuberant to delirium and exact in
details to the least minutiæ. He is such a fine type of the imaginative
intellect that he deserves that we stop a moment.
His cosmogony seems the work of an omnipotent demiurge fashioning the
universe at will. His conception of the future world with its "counter-cast"
creations, where the present ugliness and troubles of animal reign become
changed into their opposites, where there will be "anti-lions," "anti-
crocodiles," "anti-whales," etc., is one example of hundreds showing his
inexhaustible richness in fantastic visions: the work of an imagination that
is hot and overflowing, with no rational preoccupation.
On the other hand, his psychogony, based on the idea of metempsychosis
borrowed from the Orient, gives itself up to numerical vagaries. Assuming
for every soul a periodical rebirth, he assigns it first a period of "ascending
subversion," the first phase of which lasts five thousand years, the second
thirty-six thousand; then comes a period of completion, 9,000 years; and
then a period of "descending subversion," whose first stage is 27,000 years,
and the second 4,000 years—a total of 81,000 years. This form of
imagination is already known to us.[142]
The principal part of his psychology, the theory of the emotions,
questionable in many respects, is relatively rational. But in the construction
of human society, the duality of his imagination—powerful and minute—
reappears. We know his methodical organization: the group, composed of
seven to nine persons; the series, comprising twenty-four to thirty-two
groups; a phalanx that includes eighteen groups, constituting the
phalanstery; the small city, a general center of phalanges; the provincial
city, the imperial capital, the universal metropolis. He has a passion for
classification and ordering; "his phalanstery works like a clock."

This rare imaginative type well deserved a few remarks, because of its
mixture of apparent exactness and a natural, unconscious utopianism and
extravagance. For, beneath all these pulsating inventions of precise, petty
details, the foundation is none the less a purely speculative construction of
the mind. Let us add an incredible abuse of analogy, that chief intellectual
instrument of invention, of which only the reading of his books can give an
idea.[143] Heinrich Heine said of Michelet, "He has a Hindoo imagination."
The term would apply still better to Fourier, in whom coexist unchecked
profusion of images and the taste for numerical accumulations. People have
tried to explain this abundance of figures and calculation as a professional
habit—he was for a long time a bookkeeper or cashier, always an excellent
accountant. But this is taking the effect for cause. This dualism existed in
the very nature of his mind, and he took advantage of it in his calling. The
study of the numerical imagination[144] has shown how it is frequently met
with among orientals, whose imaginative development is unquestioned, and
we have seen why the idealistic imagination agrees so well with the
indefinite series of numbers and makes use of it as a vehicle.

II

With practical inventors and reformers the ideal falls—not that they
sacrifice it for their personal interests, but because they have a
comprehension of possibilities. The imaginative construction must be
corrected, narrowed, mutilated, if it is to enter into the narrow frame of the
conditions of existence, until it becomes adapted and determined. This
process has been described several times, and it is needless to repeat it here
in other terms. Nevertheless, the ideal—understanding by this term the
unifying principle that excites creative work and supports it in its
development—undergoes metamorphosis and must be not only individual
but collective; the creation does not realize itself save through a
"communion of minds," by a co-operation of feelings and of wills; the work
of one conscious individual must become the work of a social
consciousness.
That form of imagination, creating and organizing social groups, manifests
itself in various degrees according to the tendency and power of creators.

There are the founders of small societies, religious in form—the Essenes,
the earliest Christian communities, the monastic orders of the Orient and
Occident, the great Catholic or Mohammedan congregations, the semi-lay,
semi-religious sects like the Moravian Brotherhood, the Shakers, Mormons,
etc. Less complete because it does not cover the individual altogether in all
the acts of life is the creation of secret associations, professional unions,
learned societies, etc. The founder conceives an ideal of complete living or
one limited to a given end, and puts it into practice, having for material men
grouped of their free choice, or by coöptation.
There is invention operating on great masses—social or political invention
strictly so called—ordinarily not proposed but imposed, which, however,
despite its coercive power, is subject to requirements even more numerous
than mechanical, industrial, or commercial invention. It has to struggle
against natural forces, but most of all against human forces—inherited
habits, customs, traditions. It must make terms with dominant passions and
ideas, finding its justification, like all other creation, only in success.
Without entering into the details of this inevitable determination, which
would require useless repetition, we may sum up the rôle of the constructive
imagination in social matters by saying that it has undergone a regression—
i.e., that its area of development has been little by little narrowed; not that
inventive genius, reduced to pure construction in images, has suffered an
eclipse, but on its part it has had to make increasingly greater room for
experiment, rational elements, calculation, inductions and deductions that
permit foresight—for practical necessities.
If we omit the spontaneous, instinctive, semi-conscious invention of the
earliest ages, that was sufficient for primitive societies, and keep to
creations that were the result of reflection and of great pretension, we can
roughly distinguish three successive periods:
(1) A very long idealistic phase (Antiquity, Renaissance) when triumphed
the pure imagination, and the play of the free fancy that spends itself in
social novels. Between the creation of the mind and the life of
contemporary society there was no relation; they were worlds apart,
strangers to one another. The true Utopians scarcely troubled themselves to

make applications. Plato and More—would they have wished to realize
their dreams?
(2) An intermediate phase, when an attempt is made to pass from the ideal
to the practical, from pure speculation to social facts. Already, in the
eighteenth century, some philosophers (Locke, Rousseau) drew up
constitutions, at the request of interested persons. During this period, when
the work of the imagination, instead of merely becoming fixed in books,
tends to become objectified in acts, we find many failures and some
successes. Let us recall the fruitless attempts of the "phalansteries" in
France, in Algeria, Brazil, and in the United States. Robert Owen was more
fortunate;[145] in four years he reformed New Larnak, after his ideal, and
with varying fortune founded short-lived colonies. Saint-Simonism has not
entirely died out; the primitive civilization after his ideal rapidly
disappeared, but some of his theories have filtered into or have become
incorporated with other doctrines.
(3) A phase in which imaginative creation becomes subordinated to
practical life: The conception of society ceases to be purely idealistic or
constructed a priori by deduction from a single principle; it recognizes the
conditions of its environment, adapts itself to the necessities of its
development. It is the passage from the absolutely autonomous state of the
imagination to a period when it submits to the laws of a rational imperative.
In other words, the transition from the esthetic to the scientific, and
especially the practical, form. Socialism is a well-known and excellent
example of this. Compare its former utopias, down to about the middle of
the last century, with its contemporary forms, and without difficulty we can
appreciate the amount of imaginative elements lost in favor of an at least
equivalent quantity of rational elements and positive calculations.

FOOTNOTES:
[139] This title, as will be seen later, corresponds only in part to the contents of
this chapter.
[140] For facts in support, see the Psychology of the Emotions, Second Part,
chapter VIII.

[141] Our author does not mention Bacon's New Atlantis, one of the best
specimens of its kind. "Wisest Verulam," active and distinguished in so many
fields, is not amenable to rules, and is here found among "idealists," as
elsewhere among the foremost empiricists and iconoclasts. (Tr.)
[142] See above, Part III, chapter III.
[143] We recommend to the reader the "Epilogue sur l'Analogie," in Le Monde
Industriel, pp. 244 ff., where he will learn that the "goldfinch depicts the child
born of poor parents; the pheasant represents the jealous husband; the cock is the
symbol of the man of the world; the cabbage is the emblem of mysterious love,"
etc. There are several pages in this tone, with alleged reasons in support of the
statements.
[144] See above, chapter II.
[145] For an excellent account of the principles of these movements, see Rae,
Contemporary Socialism; for Owen's ideals, his Autobiography; and for an
account of some of the trials, Bushee's "Communistic Societies in the United
States," Political Science Quarterly, vol. XX, pp. 625 ff. (Tr.)

CONCLUSION.

CONCLUSION
I

The Foundations of the Creative Imagination

Why is the human mind able to create? In a certain sense this question may
seem idle, childish, and even worse. We might just as well ask why does
man have eyes and not an electric apparatus like the torpedo? Why does he
perceive directly sounds but not the ultra-red and ultra-violet rays? Why
does he perceive changes of odors but not magnetic changes? And so on ad
infinitum. We will put the question in a very different manner: Being given
the physical and mental constitution of man such as it is at present, how is
the creative imagination a natural product of this constitution?
Man is able to create for two principal reasons. The first, motor in nature, is
found in the action of his needs, appetites, tendencies, desires. The second
is the possibility of a spontaneous revival of images that become grouped in
new combination.

1. We have already shown in detail[146] that the hypothesis of a "creative
instinct," if the expression is used not as an abbreviated or metaphorical
formula but in the strict sense, is a pure chimera, an empty entity. In
studying the various types of imagination we have always been careful to
note that every mode of creation may be reduced, as regards its beginnings,
to a tendency, a want, a special, determinate desire. Let us recall for the last
time these initial conditions of all invention—these desires, conscious or
not, that excite it.
The wants, tendencies, desires—it matters not which term we adopt—the
whole of which constitutes the instinct of individual preservation, have been
the generators of all inventions dealing with food-getting, housing, making
of weapons, instruments, and machines.

The need for individual and social expansion or extension has given rise to
military, commercial, and industrial invention, and in its disinterested form,
esthetic creation.
As for the sexual instinct, its psychic fertility is in no way less than the
physical—it is an inexhaustible source of imagination in everyday life as
well as in art.
The wants of man in contact with his fellows have engendered, through
instinctive or reflective action, the numerous social and practical creations
regulating human groups, and they are rough or complex, stable or unstable,
just or unjust, kindly or harsh.
The need of knowing and of explaining, well or ill, has created myths,
religions, philosophical systems, scientific hypotheses.
Every want, tendency or desire may, then, become creative, by itself or
associated with others, and into these final elements it is that analysis must
resolve "creative spontaneity." This vague expression corresponds to a sum,
not to a special property.[147] Every invention, then, has a motor origin; the
ultimate basis of the constructive imagination is motor.
2. But needs and desires by themselves cannot create—they are only a
stimulus and a spring. Whence arises the need of a second condition—the
spontaneous revival of images.
In many animals that are endowed only with memory the return of images
is always provoked. Sensation from without or from within bring them into
consciousness under the form, pure and simple, of former experience;
whence we have reproduction, repetition without new associations. People
of slight imagination and used to routine approach this mental condition.
But, as a matter of fact, man from his second year on, and some higher
animals, go beyond this stage—they are capable of spontaneous revival. By
this term I mean that revival that comes about abruptly, without apparent
antecedents. We know that these act in a latent form, and consist of thinking
by analogy, affective dispositions, unconscious elaboration. This sudden
appearance excites other states which, grouped into new associations,
contain the first elements of the creative act.

Taken altogether, and however numerous its manifestations, the
constructive imagination seems to me reducible to three forms, which I
shall call sketched, fixed, objectified, according as it remains an internal
fancy, or takes on a material but contingent and unstable form, or is
subjected to the conditions of a rigorous internal or external determinism.
(a) The sketched form is primordial, original, the simplest of all; it is a
nascent moment or first attempt. It appears first of all in dreaming—an
embryonic, unstable and uncoördinated manifestation of the creative
imagination—a transition-stage between passive reproduction and
organized construction. A step higher is revery, whose flitting images,
associated by chance, without personal intervention, are nevertheless vivid
enough to exclude from consciousness every impression of the external
world—so much so that the day-dreamer re-enters it only with a shock of
surprise. More coherent are the imaginary constructions known as "castles
in Spain"—the works of a wish considered unrealizable, fancies of love,
ambition, power and wealth, the goal of which seems to be forever beyond
our reach. Lastly, still higher, come all the plans for the future conceived
vaguely and as barely possible—foreseeing the end of a sickness, of a
business enterprise, of a political event, etc.
This vague and "outline" imagination, penetrating our entire life, has its
peculiar characters—the unifying principle is nil or ephemeral, which fact
always reduces it to the dream as a type; it does not externalize itself, does
not change into acts, a consequence of its basically chimerical nature or of
weakness of will, which reduces it to a strictly internal and individual
existence. It is needless to say that this kind of imagination is a permanent
and definite form with the dreamers living in a world of ceaselessly
reappearing images, having no power to organize them, to change them into
a work of art, a theory, or a useful invention.
The "sketched" form is or remains an elementary, primitive, automatic
form. Conformably to the general law ruling the development of mind—
passage from indefinite to definite, from the incoherent to the coherent,
from spontaneity to reflection, from the reflex to the voluntary period—the
imagination comes out of its swaddling-clothes, is changed—through the
intervention of a teleological act that assigns it an end; through the union of

rational elements that subdue it for an adaptation. Then appear the other two
forms.
(b) The fixed form comprises mythic and esthetic creations, philosophical
and scientific hypotheses. While the "outline" imagination remains an
internal phenomenon, existing only in and for a single individual, the fixed
form is projected outwards, made something else. The former has no reality
other than the momentary belief accompanying it; the latter exists by itself,
for its creator and for others; the work is accepted, rejected, examined,
criticised. Fiction rests on the same level as reality. Do not people discuss
seriously the objective value of certain myths, and of metaphysical
theories? the action of a novel or drama as though it were a matter of real
events? the character of the dramatis personae as though they were living
flesh and blood?
The fixed imagination moves in an elastic frame. The material elements
circumscribing it and composing it have a certain fluidity; they are
language, writing, musical sounds, colors, forms, lines. Furthermore, we
know that its creations, in spite of the spontaneous adherence of the mind
accepting them, are the work of a free will; they could have been otherwise
—they preserve an indelible imprint of contingency and subjectivity.
(c) This last mark is rubbed out without disappearing (for a thing imagined
is always a personal thing) in the objectified form that comprises successful
practical inventions—whether mechanical, industrial, commercial, military,
social, or political. These have no longer an arbitrary, borrowed reality; they
have their place in the totality of physical and social phenomena. They
resemble creations of nature, subject like them to fixed conditions of
existence and to a limited determinism. We shall not dwell longer on this
last character, so often pointed out.
In order the better to comprehend the distinction between the three forms of
imagination let us borrow for a moment the terminology of spiritualism or
of the common dualism—merely as a means of explaining the matter
clearly. The "outline" imagination is a soul without a body, a pure spirit,
without determination in space. The "fixed" imagination is a soul or spirit
surrounded by an almost immaterial sheath, like angels or demons, genii,
shadows, the "double" of savages, the peresprit of spiritualists, etc. The

objectified imagination is soul and body, a complete organization after the
pattern of living people; the ideal is incarnated, but it must undergo
transformation, reductions and adaptations, in order that it may become
practical—just as the soul, according to spiritualism, must bend to the
necessities of the body, to be at the same time the servant of, and served by,
the bodily organs.
According to general opinion the great imaginers are found only in the first
two classes, which is, in the strict sense of the word, true; in the full sense
of the word false. As long as it remains "outline," or even "fixed," the
constructive imagination can reign as supreme mistress. Objectified, it still
rules, but shares its power with competitors; it avails nought without them,
they can do nothing without it. What deceives us is the fact that we see it no
longer in the open. Here the imaginative stroke resembles those powerful
streams of water that must be imprisoned in a complicated network of
canals and ramifications varying in shape and in diameter before bursting
forth in multiple jets and in liquid architecture.[148]

II

The Imaginative Type.

Let us try now, by way of conclusion, to present to the reader a picture of
the whole of the imaginative life in all its degrees.
If we consider the human mind principally under its intellectual aspect—
i.e., insofar as it knows and thinks, deducting its emotions and voluntary
activity—the observation of individuals distinguishes some very clear
varieties of mentality.
First, those of a "positive" or realistic turn of mind, living chiefly on the
external world, on what is perceived and what is immediately deducible
therefrom—alien or inimical to vain fancy; some of them flat, limited, of
the earth earthy; others, men of action, energetic but limited by real things.
Second, abstract minds, "quintessence abstractors," with whom the internal
life is dominant in the form of combinations of concepts. They have a
schematic representation of the world, reduced to a hierarchy of general

ideas, noted by symbols. Such are the pure mathematicians, the pure
metaphysicians. If these two tendencies exist together, or, as happens, are
grafted one on the other, without anything to counterbalance them, the
abstract spirit attains its perfect form.
Midway between these two groups are the imaginers in whom the internal
life predominates in the form of combinations of images, which fact
distinguishes them clearly from the abstractors. The former alone interest
us, and we shall try to trace this imaginative type in its development from
the normal or average stage to the moment when ever-growing exuberance
leads us into pathology.
The explanation of the various phases of this development is reducible to a
well-known psychologic law—the natural antagonism between sensation
and image, between phenomena of peripheral origin and phenomena of
central origin; or, in a more general form, between the outer and inner life. I
shall not dwell long on this point, which Taine has so admirably treated.[149]
He has shown in detail how the image is a spontaneously arising sensation,
one that is, however, aborted by the opposing shock of real sensation, which
is its reducer, producing on it an arresting action and maintaining it in the
condition of an internal, subjective fact. Thus, during the waking hours, the
frequency and intensity of impressions from without press the images back
to the second level; but during sleep, when the external world is as it were
suppressed, their hallucinatory tendency is no longer kept in check, and the
world of dreams is momentarily the reality.
The psychology of the imaginer reduces itself to a progressively increasing
interchange of rôles. Images become stronger and stronger states;
perceptions, more and more feeble. In this movement opposite to nature I
note four steps, each of which corresponds to particular conditions: (1) The
quantity of images; (2) quantity and intensity; (3) quantity, intensity and
duration; (4) complete systematization.
(1) In the first place the predominance of imagination is marked only by the
quantity of representations invading consciousness; they teem, break apart,
become associated, combine easily and in various ways. All the imaginative
persons who have given us their experiences either orally or in writing
agree in regard to the extreme ease of the formation of associations, not in

repeating past expedience, but in sketching little romances.[150] From
among many examples I choose one. One of my correspondents writes that
if at church, theatre, on a street, or in a railway station, his attention is
attracted to a person—man or woman—he immediately makes up, from the
appearance, carriage and attractiveness his or her present or past, manner of
life, occupation—representing to himself the part of the city he or she must
dwell in, the apartments, furniture, etc.—a construction most often
erroneous; I have many proofs of it. Surely this disposition is normal; it
departs from the average only by an excess of imagination that is replaced
in others by an excessive tendency to observe, to analyze, or to criticise,
reason, find fault. In order to take the decisive step and become abnormal
one condition more is necessary—intensity of the representations.
2. Next, the interchange of place, indicated above, occurs. Weak states
(images) become strong; strong states (perceptions) become weak. The
impressions from without are powerless to fulfill their regular function of
inhibition. We find the simplest example of this state in the exceptional
persistence of certain dreams. Ordinarily, our nocturnal imaginings vanish
as empty phantasmagorias at the inrush of the perceptions and habits of
daily life—they seem like faraway phantoms, without objective value. But,
in the struggle occurring, on waking, between images and perceptions, the
latter are not always victorious. There are dreams—i.e., imaginary creations
—that remain firm in face of reality, and for some time go along parallel
with it. Taine was perhaps the first to see the importance of this fact. He
reports that his relative, Dr. Baillarger, having dreamt that one of his friends
had been appointed editor of a journal, announced the news seriously to
several persons, and doubt arose in his mind only toward the end of the
afternoon. Since then contemporary psychologists have gathered various
observations of this kind.[151] The emotional persistence of certain dreams
is known. So-and-so, one of our neighbors, plays in a dream an odious rôle;
we may have a feeling of repulsion or spite toward him persisting
throughout the day. But this triumph of the image, accidental and ephemeral
in normal man, is frequent and stable in the imaginers of the second class.
Many among them have asserted that this internal world is the only reality.
Gérard de Nerval "had very early the conviction that the majority is
mistaken, that the material universe in which it believes, because its eyes
see it and its hands touch it, is nothing but phantoms and appearances. For

him the invisible world, on the contrary, was the only one not chimerical."
Likewise, Edgar Allan Poe: "The real things of the world would affect me
like visions, and only so; while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became
in turn not only the feeding ground of my daily existence but positively the
sole and entire existence itself." Others describe their life as "a permanent
dream." We could multiply examples. Aside from the poets and artists, the
mystics would furnish copious examples. Let us take an exaggerated
instance: This permanent dream is, indeed, only a part of their existence; it
is above all active through its intensity; but, while it lasts, it absorbs them
so completely that they enter the external world only with a sudden, violent
and painful shock.
(3) If the changing of images into strong states preponderating in
consciousness is no longer an episode but a lasting disposition, then the
imaginative life undergoes a partial systematization that approaches
insanity. Everyone may be "absorbed" for a moment; the above-mentioned
authors are so frequently. On a higher level this invading supremacy of the
internal life becomes a habit. This third degree is but the second carried to
excess.
Some cases of double personality (those of Azam, Reynolds) are known in
which the second state is at first embryonic and of short duration; then its
appearances are repeated, its sphere becomes extended. Little by little it
engrosses the greater part of life; it may even entirely supplant the earlier
self. The growing working of the imagination is similar to this. Thanks to
two causes acting in unison, temperament and habit, the imaginative and
internal life tends to become systematized and to encroach more and more
on the real, external life. In an account by Féré[152] one may follow step by
step this work of systematization which we abridge here to its chief
characteristics.
The subject, M......, a man thirty-seven years old, had from childhood a
decided taste for solitude. Seated in an out-of-the-way corner of the house
or out of doors, "he commenced from that time on to build castles in Spain
that little by little took on a considerable importance in his life. His
constructions were at first ephemeral, replaced every day by new ones.
They became progressively more consistent.... When he had well entered
into his imaginary rôle, he often succeeded in continuing his musing in the

presence of other people. At college, whole hours would be spent in this
way; often he would see and hear nothing." Married, the head of a
prosperous business house, he had some respite; then he returned to his
former constructions. "They commenced by being, as before, not very
durable or absorbing; but gradually they acquired more intensity and
duration, and lastly became fixed in a definite form."
"To sum up, here is what this ideal life, lasting almost from his fourth year,
meant: M...... had built at Chaville, on the outskirts of the forest, an
imaginary summer residence surrounded by a garden. By successive
additions the pavilion became a château; the garden, a park; servants,
horses, water-fixtures came to ornament the domain. The furnishings of the
inside had been modified at the same time. A wife had come to give life to
the picture; two children had been born. Nothing was wanting to this
household, only the being true.... One day he was in his imaginary salon at
Chaville, occupied in watching an upholsterer who was changing the
arrangement of the tapestry. He was so absorbed in the matter that he did
not notice a man coming toward him, and at the question, 'M......, if you
please—?' he answered, without thinking, 'He is at Chaville.' This reply,
given in public, aroused in him a real terror. 'I believe that I was foolish,' he
said. Coming to himself, he declared that he was ready to do anything to get
rid of his ideas."
Here the imaginative type is at its maximum, at the brink of insanity
without being over it. Associations and combinations of images form the
entire content of consciousness, which remains impervious to impressions
from without. Its world becomes the world. The parasitic life undermines
and corrodes the other in order to become established in its place—it grows,
its parts adhere more closely, it forms a compact mass—the imaginary
systematization is complete.
(4) The fourth stage is an exaggeration of the foregoing. The completely
systematized and permanent imaginative life excludes the other. This is the
extreme form, the beginning of insanity, which is outside our subject, from
which pathology has been excluded.
Imagination in the insane would deserve a special study, that would be
lengthy, because there is no form of imagination that insanity has not

adopted. In no period have insane creations been lacking in the practical,
religious, or mystic life, in poetry, the fine arts, and in the sciences; in
industrial, commercial, mechanical, military projects, and in plans for social
and political reform. We should, then, be abundantly supplied with facts.
[153]

It would be difficult, for, if in ordinary life we are often perplexed to decide
whether a man is sane or not, how much more then, when it is a question of
an inventor, of an act of the creative faculty, i.e., of a venture into the
unknown! How many innovators have been regarded as insane, or as at
least unbalanced, visionary! We cannot even invoke success as a criterion.
Many non-viable or abortive inventions have been fathered by very sane
minds, and people regarded as insane have vindicated their imaginative
constructions through success.
Let us leave these difficulties of a subject that is not our own, in order to
determine merely the psychological criterion belonging to the fourth stage.
How may we rightly assert that a form of imaginative life is clearly
pathologic? In my opinion, the answer must be sought in the nature and
degree of belief accompanying the labor of creating. It is an axiom
unchallenged by anyone—whether idealist or realist of any shade of belief
—that nothing has existence for us save through the consciousness we have
of it; but for realism—and experimental psychology is of necessity realistic
—there are two distinct forms of existence.
One, subjective, having no reality except in consciousness, for the one
experiencing it, its reality being due only to belief, to that first affirmation
of the mind so often described.
The other, objective, existing in consciousness and outside of it, being real
not only for me but for all those whose constitution is similar or analogous
to mine.
This much borne in mind, let us compare the last two degrees of the
development of the imaginative life.
For the imaginer of the third stage, the two forms of existence are not
confounded. He distinguishes two worlds, preferring one and making the

best of the other, but believing in both. He is conscious of passing from one
to the other. There is an alternation. The observation of Féré, although
extreme, is a proof of this.
At the fourth stage, in the insane, imaginative labor—the only kind with
which we are concerned—is so systematized that the distinction between
the two kinds of existence has disappeared. All the phantoms of his brain
are invested with objective reality. Occurrences without, even the most
extraordinary, do not reach one in this stage, or else are interpreted in
accordance with the diseased fancy. There is no longer any alternation.[154]
By way of summary we may say: The creative imagination consists of the
property that images have of gathering in new combinations, through the
effect of a spontaneity whose nature we have attempted to describe. It
always tends to realize itself in degrees that vary from mere momentary
belief to complete objectivity. Throughout its multiple manifestations, it
remains identical with itself in its basic nature, in its constitutive elements.
The diversity of its deeds depends on the end desired, the conditions
required for its attainment, materials employed which, as we have seen,
under the collective name "representations" are very unlike one another, not
only as regards their sensuous origin (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) but also
as regards their psychologic nature (concrete, symbolic, affective,
emotional-abstract images; generic and schematic images, concepts—each
group itself having shades or degrees).
This constructive activity, applying itself to everything and radiating in all
directions, is in its early, typical form a mythic creation. It is an invincible
need of man to reflect and reproduce his own nature in the world
surrounding him. The first application of his mind is thinking by analogy,
which vivifies everything after the human model and attempts to know
everything according to arbitrary resemblances. Myth-making activity,
which we have studied in the child and in primitive man, is the embryonic
form whence arise by a slow evolution religious creations—gross or
refined; esthetic development, which is a fallen, impoverished mythology;
the fantastic conceptions of the world that may little by little become
scientific conceptions, with, however, an irreducible residuum of
hypotheses. Alongside of these creations, all bordering upon what we have
called the fixed form, there are practical, objective creations. As for the

latter, we could not trace them to the same mythic source except by
dialectic subtleties which we renounce. The former arise from an internal
efflorescence; the latter from urgent life-needs; they appear later and are a
bifurcation of the early trunk: but the same sap flows in both branches.
The constructive imagination penetrates every part of our life, whether
individual or collective, speculative and practical, in all its forms—it is
everywhere.

FOOTNOTES:
[146] See above, Part I, chapter II.
[147] It is a postulate of contemporary physiology that all the neurones taken
together cannot spontaneously, that is, of themselves, give rise to any movement
—they receive from without, and expend their energy outwards. Nevertheless,
between the two moments that, in reflex and instinctive actions, seem
continuous, a third interposes, which, for the higher psychic acts, may be of long
duration. Thus, reasonings in logical form and reflection regarding a decision to
be made have a feeble tendency to become changed into acts; their motor effects
are indirect, and at a long range. But this intermediate moment is par excellence
the moment for psychology. It is also the moment of the personal equation:
every man receives, transforms, and restores outwards according to his own
organization, temperament, idiosyncrasies, character—in a word, according to
his personality, of which needs, tendencies, desires, are the direct and immediate
expression. So we come back, by another route, to the same definition of
spontaneity.
[148] Besides these three principal forms, there are intermediate forms,
transitions from one category to another, that are hard to classify: certain mythic
creations are half-sketched, half-fixed; and we find religious and social and
political conceptions, partly theoretic or fixed, partly practical or objective.
[149] Taine, On Intelligence, Part I, Book II, ch. I.
[150] See Appendix E.
[151] Sante de Santis, I Sogni, chapter X; Dr. Tissié, Les Rêves, esp. p. 165, the
case of a merchant who dreams of having paid a certain debt, and several weeks
afterward meets his creditor, and maintains that they are even, giving way only
to proof.
[152] For the complete account, see his Pathologie des émotions, pp. 345-49.
(Paris, F. Alcan.)
[153] Dr. Max Simon, in an article on "Imagination in Insanity" (Annales
médico-psychologiques, December, 1876), holds that every kind of mental
disease has its own form of imagination that expresses itself in stories,

compositions, sketches, decorations, dress, and symbolic attributes. The maniac
invents complicated and improbable designs; the persecuted, symbolic designs,
strange writings, bordering on the horrible; megalomaniacs look for the effect of
everything they say and do; the general paralytic lives in grandeur and attributes
capital importance to everything; lunatics love the naïve and childishly
wonderful.
There are also great imaginers who, having passed through a period of insanity,
have strongly regretted it "as a state in which the soul, more exalted and more
refined, perceives invisible relations and enjoys spectacles that escape the
material eyes." Such was Gérard de Nerval. As for Charles Lamb, he would
assert that he should be envied the days spent in an insane asylum. "Sometimes,"
he said in a letter to Coleridge, "I cast a longing glance backwards to the
condition in which I found myself; for while it lasted I had many hours of pure
happiness. Do not believe, Coleridge, that you have tasted the grandeur and all
the transport of fancy if you have not been insane. Everything seems to me now
insipid in comparison." Quoted by A. Barine, Névrosés, p. 326.
[154] There has often been cited the instance of certain maniacs at Charenton,
who, during the Franco-Prussian War, despite the stories that were told them, the
papers that they read, and the shells bursting under the walls of the asylum,
maintained that the war was only imagined, and that all was only a contrivance
of their persecutors.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

The Various Forms of Inspiration[155]

Among the descriptions of the inspired state found in various authors, I
select only three, which are brief and have each a special character.
I. Mystic inspiration, in a passive form, in Jacob Boehme (Aurora): "I
declare before God that I do not myself know how the thing arises within
me, without the participation of my will. I do not even know that which I
must write. If I write, it is because the Spirit moves me and communicates
to me a great, wonderful knowledge. Often I do not even know whether I
dwell in spirit in this present world and whether it is I myself that have the
fortune to possess a certain and solid knowledge."
II. Feverish and painful inspiration in Alfred de Musset: "Invention annoys
me and makes me tremble. Execution, always too slow for my wish, makes
my heart beat awfully, and weeping, and keeping myself from crying aloud,
I am delivered of an idea that is intoxicating me, but of which I am mortally
ashamed and disgusted next morning. If I change it, it is worse, it deserts
me—it is much better to forget it and wait for another; but this other comes
to me so confused and misshapen that my poor being cannot contain it. It
presses and tortures me, until it has taken realizable proportions, when
comes the other pain, of bringing forth, a truly physical suffering that I
cannot define. And that is how my life is spent when I let myself be
dominated by this artistic monster in me. It is much better, then, that I
should live as I have imagined living, that I go to all kinds of excess, and
that I kill this never-dying worm that people like me modestly term their
inspiration, but which I call, plainly, my weakness."[156]

III. The poet Grillparzer[157] analyzes the condition, thus:
"Inspiration, properly so called, is the concentration of all the faculties and
aptitudes on a single point which, for the moment, should include the rest of
the world less than represent it. The strengthening of the state of the soul

comes from the fact that its various faculties, instead of being disseminated
over the whole world, find themselves contained within the limits of a
single object, touch one another, reciprocally upholding, reënforcing,
completing themselves. Thanks to this isolation, the object emerges out of
the average level of its milieu, is illumined all around and put in relief—it
takes body, moves, lives. But to attain this is necessary the concentration of
all the faculties. It is only when the art-work has been a world for the artist
that it is also a world for others."

FOOTNOTES:
[155] See Part One, chapter III.
[156] George Sand, Elle et Lui, I.
[157] In Oelzelt-Newin, op. cit., p. 49.

APPENDIX B
On the Nature of the Unconscious Factor

We have seen that in the question of the unconscious there must be
recognized a positive part—facts, and an hypothetical part—theories.[158]
Insofar as the facts are concerned, it would be well, I think, to establish two
categories—(1) static unconscious, comprising habits, memory, and, in
general, all that is organized knowledge. It is a state of preservation, of rest;
very relatively, since representations suffer incessant corrosion and change.
(2) Dynamic unconscious, which is a state of latent activity, of elaboration
and incubation. We might give a multitude of proofs of this unconscious
rumination. The well-known fact that an intellectual work gains by being
interrupted; that in resuming it one often finds it cleared up, changed, even
accomplished, was explained by some psychologists prior to Carpenter by
"the resting of the mind." It would be just as valid to say that a traveler
covers leagues by lying abed. The author just mentioned[159] has brought
together many observations in which the solution of a mathematical,
mechanical, commercial problem appeared suddenly after hours and days of
vague, undefinable uneasiness, the cause of which is unknown, which,
however, is only the result of an underlying cerebral working; for the
trouble, sometimes rising to anguish, ceases as soon as the unawaited
conclusion has entered consciousness. The men who think the most are not
those who have the clearest and "most conscious" ideas, but those having at
their disposal a rich fund of unconscious elaboration. On the other hand,
shallow minds have a naturally poor unconscious fund, capable of but slight
development; they give out immediately and rapidly all that they are able to
give; they have no reserve. It is useless to allow them time for reflection or
invention. They will not do better; they may do worse.
As to the nature of the unconscious working, we find disagreement and
darkness. One may doubtless maintain, theoretically, that in the inventor
everything goes on in subconsciousness and in unconsciousness, just as in
consciousness itself, with the exception that a message does not arrive as far

as the self; that the labor that may be followed, in clear consciousness, in its
progress and retreats, remains the same when it continues unknown to us.
This is possible. Yet it must at least be recognized that consciousness is
rigorously subject to the condition of time, the unconscious is not. This
difference, not to mention others, is not negligible, and could well arouse
other problems.
The contemporary theories regarding the nature of the unconscious seem to
me reducible to two principal positions—one psychological, the other
physiological.
1. The physiological theory is simple and scarcely permits any variations.
According to it, unconscious activity is simply cerebral; it is an
"unconscious cerebration." The psychic factor, which ordinarily
accompanies the activity of the nervous centers, is absent. Although I
incline toward this hypothesis, I confess that it is full of difficulties.
It has been proven through numerous experiments (Féré, Binet, Mosso,
Janet, Newbold, etc.) that "unconscious sensations"[160] act, since they
produce the same reactions as conscious sensations, and Mosso has been
able to maintain that "the testimony of consciousness is less certain than
that of the sphygmograph." But the particular instance of invention is very
different; for it does not merely suppose the adaptation to an end which the
physiological factor would suffice to explain; it implies a series of
adaptations, corrections, rational operations, of which nervous activity
alone furnishes us no example.[161]
2. The psychological theory is based on an equivocal use of the word
consciousness. Consciousness has one definite mark—it is an internal event
existing, not by itself, but for me and insofar as it is known by me. But the
psychological theory of the unconscious assumes that if we descend from
clear consciousness progressively to obscure consciousness, to the
subconscious, to the unconscious that manifests itself only through its
motor reactions, the first state thus successively impoverished, still remains,
down to its final term, identical in its basis with consciousness. It is an
hypothesis that nothing justifies.
No difficulty arises when we bear in mind the legitimate distinction
between consciousness of self and consciousness in general, the former

entirely subjective, the latter in a way objective (the consciousness of a man
captivated by an attractive scene; better yet, the fluid form of revery or of
the awaking from syncope). We may admit that this evanescent
consciousness, affective in nature, felt rather than perceived, is due to a lack
of synthesis, of relations among the internal states, which remain isolated,
unable to unite into a whole.
The difficulty commences when we descend into the region of the
subconscious, which allows stages whose obscurity increases in proportion
as we move away from clear consciousness, "like a lake in which the action
of light is always nearing extinction" (in double coexisting personalities,
automatic writing, mediums, etc.). Here some postulate two currents of
consciousness existing at the same time in one person without reciprocal
connection. Others suppose a "field of consciousness" with a brilliant center
and extending indefinitely toward the dim distance. Still others liken the
phenomenon to the movement of waves, whose summit alone is lighted up.
Indeed, the authors declare that with these comparisons and metaphors they
make no pretense of explaining; but certainly they all reduce
unconsciousness to consciousness, as a special to a general case, and what
is that if not explaining?
I do not intend to enumerate all the varieties of the psychological theory.
The most systematic, that of Myers, accepted by Delboef and others, is full
of a biological mysticism all its own. Here it is in substance: In every one of
us there is a conscious self adapted to the needs of life, and potential selves
constituting the subliminal consciousness. The latter, much broader in scope
than personal consciousness, has dependent on it the entire vegetative life—
circulation, trophic actions, etc. Ordinarily the conscious self is on the
highest level, the subliminal consciousness on the second; but in certain
extraordinary states (hypnosis, hysteria, divided consciousness, etc.) it is
just the reverse. Here is the bold part of the hypothesis: Its authors suppose
that the supremacy of the subliminal consciousness is a reversion, a return
to the ancestral. In the higher animals and in primitive man, according to
them, all trophic actions entered consciousness and were regulated by it. In
the course of evolution this became organized; the higher consciousness has
delegated to the subliminal consciousness the care of silently governing the
vegetative life. But in case of mental disintegration there occurs a return to
the primitive state. In this manner they explain burns through suggestion,

stigmata, trophic changes of a miraculous appearance, etc. It is needless to
dwell on this conception of the unconscious. It has been vehemently
criticised, notably by Bramwell, who remarks that if certain faculties could
little by little fall into the domain of subliminal consciousness because they
were no longer necessary for the struggle for life, there are nevertheless
faculties so essential to the well-being of the individual that we ask
ourselves how they have been able to escape from the control of the will. If,
for example, some lower type had the power of arresting pain, how could it
lose it?
At the foundation of the psychological theory in all its forms is the
unexpressed hypothesis that consciousness may be likened to a quantity that
forever decreases without reaching zero. This is a postulate that nothing
justifies. The experiments of psychophysicists, without solving the
question, would support rather the opposite view. We know that the
"threshold of consciousness" or minimum perceptible quantity, appears and
disappears suddenly; the excitation is not felt under a determinate limit.
Likewise in regard to the "summit of perception" or maximum perceptible,
any increase of excitation is no longer felt if above a determinate limit.
Moreover, in order that an increase or diminution be felt between these two
extreme limits, it is necessary that both have a constant relation—
differential threshold—as is expressed in Weber's law. All these facts, and
others that I omit, are not favorable to the thesis of growing or diminishing
continuity of consciousness. It has even been maintained that consciousness
"has an aversion for continuity."
To sum up: The two rival theories are equally unable to penetrate into the
inner nature of the unconscious factor. We have thus had to limit ourselves
to taking it as a fact of experience and to assign it its place in the complex
function that produces invention.
The observations of Flournoy (in his book, mentioned above, Part I, chapter
III) have a particular interest in relation to our subject. His medium, Helène
S......—very unlike others, who are satisfied with forecasts of the future,
disclosures of unknown past events, counsel, prognosis, evocation, etc.,
without creating anything, in the proper sense—is the author of three or
four novels, one of which, at least, is invented out of whole cloth—
revelations in regard to the planet Mars, its countries, inhabitants,

dwellings, etc. Although the descriptions and pictures of Helène S. are
found on comparison to be borrowed from our terrestrial globe, and
transposed and changed, as Flournoy has well shown, it is certain that in
this "Martian novel," to say nothing of the others, there is a richness of
invention that is rare among mediums: the creative imagination in its
subliminal (unconscious) form encloses the other in its éclat. We know how
much the cases of mediums teach us in regard to the unconscious life of the
mind. Here we are permitted, as an exceptional case, to penetrate into the
dark laboratory of romantic invention, and we can appreciate the
importance of the labor that is going on there.

FOOTNOTES:
[158] See Part I, Chapter III.
[159] Mental Physiology, Book II, chapter 13.
[160] This expression is put in quotation marks because in American and
English usage "sensation" is defined in terms of consciousness, and such an
expression as "unconscious sensation" is paradoxical, and would lead to futile
discussion. (Tr.)
[161] For the detailed criticism of unconscious cerebration, see Boris Sidis, The
Psychology of Suggestion: A research into the subconscious nature of Man and
Society, New York, Appletons, 1898, pp. 121-127. The author, who assumes the
coëxistence of two selves—one waking, the other subwaking, and who attributes
to the latter all weakness and vice (according to him the unconscious is
incapable of rising above mere association by contiguity; it is "stupid,"
"uncritical," "credulous," "brutal," etc.) would be greatly puzzled to explain its
rôle in creative activity.

APPENDIX C

Cosmic and Human Imagination[162]

For Froschammer, Fancy is the original principle of things. In his
philosophical theory it plays the same part as Hegel's Idea, Schopenhauer's
Will, Hartmann's Unconscious, etc. It is, at first, objective—in the
beginning the universal creative power is immanent in things, just as there
is contained in the kernel the principle that shall give the plant its form and
construct its organism; it spreads out into the myriads of vegetable and
animal existences that have been succeeded or that still live on the surface
of the Cosmos. The first organized beings must have been very simple; but
little by little the objective imagination increases its energy by exercising it;
it invents and realizes increasingly more complex images that attest the
progress of its artistic genius. So Darwin was right in asserting that a slow
evolution raises up organized beings towards fulness of life and beauty of
form.
Step by step, it succeeds in becoming conscious of itself in the mind of man
—it becomes subjective. Generative power, at first diffused throughout the
organism, becomes localized in the generative organs, and becomes
established in sex. "The brain, in living beings, may form a pole opposed to
the reproductive organs, especially when these beings are very high in the
organic scale." Thus changed, the generative power has become capable of
perceiving new relations, of bringing forth internal worlds. In nature and in
man it is the same principle that causes living forms to appear—objective
images in a way, and subjective images, a kind of living forms that arise
and die in the mind.[163]
This metaphysical theory, one of the many varieties of mens agitat molem,
being, like every other, a personal conception, it is superfluous to discuss or
criticise its evident anthropomorphism. But, since we are dealing with
hypotheses, I venture to risk a comparison between embryological
development in physiology, instinct in psychophysiology, and the creative

imagination in psychology. These three phenomena are creations, i.e., a
disposition of certain materials following a determinate type.
In the first case, the ovum after fertilization is subject to a rigorously
determined evolution whence arises such and such an individual with its
specific and personal characters, its hereditary influences, etc. Every
disturbing factor in this evolution produces deviations, monstrosities, and
the creation does not attain the normal. Embryology can follow these
changes step by step. There remains one obscure point in any event, and
that is, the nature of what the ancients called the nisus formativus.
In the case of instinct, the initial moment is an external or internal
sensation, or rather, a representation—the image of a nest to be built, in the
case of the bird; of a tunnel to be dug, for the ant; of a comb to be made, for
the bee and the wasp; of a web to be spun, for the spider, etc. This initial
state puts into action a mechanism determined by the nature of each species,
and ends in creations of special kinds. However, variations of instinct, its
adaptation to various conditions, show that the conditions of the
determinism are less simple, that the creative activity is endowed with a
certain plasticity.
In the third case, creative imagination, the ideal, a sketched construction, is
the equivalent of the ovum; but it is evident that the plasticity of the
creative imagination is much greater than that of instinct. The imagination
may radiate in several very different ways, and the plan of the invention, as
we have seen,[164] may arise as a whole and develop regularly in an
embryological manner, or else present itself in a fragmentary, partial form
that becomes complete after a series of attractions.
Perhaps an identical process, forming three stages—a lower, middle, and
higher—is at the root of all three cases. But this is only a speculative
hypothesis, foreign to psychology proper.

FOOTNOTES:
[162] See above, Part One, Chapter IV.
[163] Those who, not having the courage to read the 575 pages of
Froschammer's book, want more details, may profitably consult the excellent

analysis that Séailles has given (Rev. Philos., March, 1878, pp. 198-220). See
also Ambrosi, Psicologia dell' immaginazione nella storia della filosofia, pp.
472-498.
[164] See above, Part II, chapter IV.

APPENDIX D

Evidence in Regard to Musical Imagination[165]

The question asked above,[166] Does the experiencing of purely musical
sounds evoke images, universally, and of what nature and under what
conditions? seemed to me to enter a more general field—the affective
imagination—which I intend to study elsewhere in a special work. For the
time being I limit myself to observations and information that I have
gathered, picking from them several that I give here for the sake of
shedding light on the question. I give first the replies of musicians; then,
those of non-musicians.
1. M. Lionel Dauriac writes me: "The question that you ask me is complex.
I am not a 'visualizer;' I have infrequent hypnagogic hallucinations, and
they are all of the auditory type.
"... Symphonic music aroused in me no image of the visual type while I
remained the amateur that you knew from 1876 to 1898. When that amateur
began to reflect methodically on the art of his taste, he recognized in music
a power of suggesting:
"1. Sonorous, non-musical images—thunder, clock. Example, the overture
of William Tell.
"2. Psychic images—suggestion of a mental state—anger, love, religious
feeling.
"3. Visual images, whether following upon the psychic image or through the
intermediation of a programme.
"Under what condition, in a symphonic work, is the visual image,
introduced by the psychic image, produced? In the event of a break in the
melodic web (see my Psychologie dans l'Opéra, pp. 119-120). Here are
given, without orderly arrangement, some of the ideas that have come to
me: