FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[35]Chapter X.[36]Op. cit., Appendix.[37]For a more detailed study of this subject, the reader is referred to the author'sEvolution 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 theInvestigations 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 theUniversity of Colorado Studies, vol. I, 1902, pp. 58-73. (Tr.)[39]Hack Tuke, "Insanity of Children," inDictionary of Psychological Medicine.

[35]Chapter X.

[36]Op. cit., Appendix.

[37]For a more detailed study of this subject, the reader is referred to the author'sEvolution 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 theInvestigations 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 theUniversity of Colorado Studies, vol. I, 1902, pp. 58-73. (Tr.)

[39]Hack Tuke, "Insanity of Children," inDictionary of Psychological Medicine.

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 andsecondary 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, themomentof 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 fullmeasure 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 neitherto 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 towardshis 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 totreat 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 themselvescontain 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 consciousnesswhich 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 beliefdepends 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 totime, 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 emanatesfrom 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 theincidents 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.

[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.))

[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.

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) andYama(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 inthe 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: Howare myths formed? What line does their evolution follow?

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, becomeanimated 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; forthe 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 mindspar 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 celestialphenomena, 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.

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 thatusually 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 worshipdisappears, 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 periodpar excellenceof 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, theprayer 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 apartialtransformation.

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 onaccount 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 bepracticallycurious—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 apost hoc, ergo propter hoc. Whence we have the thorough subjectivity of his interpretation of the world.[62]In short, primitiveman 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 ofdepersonificationof 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 ofdaemons, 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 nineteenthcentury 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 atfirst 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.

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 constructiveimagination 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. "Therewas 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 orof 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.

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