FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[3]Cf. the well-known aphorism, "Apperception ist alles." (Tr.)[4]See especially J. Philippe, "La déformation et les transformations des images" inRevue 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 thePsychologia Empiricaof 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," whodonothing, 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 makeresultsor 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.)

[3]Cf. the well-known aphorism, "Apperception ist alles." (Tr.)

[4]See especially J. Philippe, "La déformation et les transformations des images" inRevue 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 thePsychologia Empiricaof 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," whodonothing, 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 makeresultsor 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.)

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.)

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—butwhyandhowthey 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.

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 justifiedby 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 outin 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. Hereagain 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 estheticimagination, 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 sayingfacit 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 withtheir 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 thenatural 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.

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 meanswhat affects us in some way undera 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 commonemotionalnote. 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 soundi) 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 offeeling, dependent on temperament at first, which many cultivate and refine as though it were a precious rarity. Therelies 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 iscontrast 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.

Hitherto we have considered the emotional factor under a single aspect only—the purely emotional—that which is manifested in consciousness under anagreeable 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 instinctin generalwhich, 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 notasource, butsources.

Let us consider from our present viewpoint the human duality, thehomo 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 combinationof images; and lastly, that it objectify andrealizeitself in an appropriate form.

We shall try later (in the Conclusion) to answer the question,Whyis one imaginative? In passing, let us put the opposite question, Why is onenotimaginative? 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 aneedof acting upon it; he tries to conciliate them, even to turn them to his service by magic rites and operations.Hiscuriosity 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 isshifting and his scientific knowledgenil. 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 atthe 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 ofluxuryacting, 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 estheticimagination 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, andDie Spiele der Menschen, 1899 (Eng. trans., Appletons, New York, 1898, 1901).

[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, andDie Spiele der Menschen, 1899 (Eng. trans., Appletons, New York, 1898, 1901).

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 donot 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 haveexpressed 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 whichexists 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 influenceof 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 activitypasses 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 onthe 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 anindex. 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 themselvesreally inspired without producing anything of value.[22]

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 themoment; 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:ArecallsC, although there is between them neither contiguity nor resemblance, but because a middle term,B, which does not enter consciousness, serves as a transition betweenAandC. 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 ofthe 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 thatAshould call upDthrough the medium ofbandc, 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 ideaA; it is the center of a network; it can radiate in all directions—B, C, D, E, F, etc.Why does it call up nowB, laterF?

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.Bis in a state of tension andCis not; or it may be thatDexerts an arresting influence onC. ConsequentlyCcannot prevail. But an hour later conditions have changed and victory rests withC. 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 GothicHôtel 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 thewords 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. Accordingto one view it would be especially physiological, consequently different; according to another, the difference can exist onlyin 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.

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