Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 12

Nevertheless, I am able to cite the case of a well-known scholar who began with a taste for art, especially plastic art, went over rapidly to literature, devoted his life to biologic studies, in which he gained a very deserved reputation; then, in turn, became totally disgusted with scientific research, came back to literature and finally to the arts, which have entirely monopolized him.

Finally--for there are very many forms--in some the imagination, though strong, scarcely pa.s.ses beyond the first stage, always retains its youthful, almost childish form, hardly modified by a minimum of rationality. Let us note that it is not a question here of the characteristic ingenuousness of some inventors, which has caused them to be called "grown-up children," but of the candor and inherent simplicity of the imagination itself. This exceptional form is hardly reconcilable except with esthetic creation. Let us add the mystic imagination. It could furnish examples, less in its religious conceptions, which are without control, than in its reveries of a scientific turn. Contemporary mystics have invented adaptations of the world that take us back to the mythology of early times. This prolonged childhood of the imagination, which is, in a word, an anomaly, produces curiosities rather than lasting works.

At this third period in the development of the imagination appears a second, subsidiary law, that of _increasing complexity_; it follows a progressive line from the simple to the complex. Indeed, it is not, strictly speaking, a law of the imagination but of the rational development exerting an influence on it by a counter-action. It is a law of the mind that _knows_, not of one that _imagines_.

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

II

Historically considered, in the species, the development of the imagination follows the same line of progress as in the individual. We will not repeat it; it would be mere reiteration in a vaguer form of what we have just said. A few brief notes will suffice.

Vico--whose name deserves to be mentioned here because he was the first to see the good that we can get from myths for the study of the imagination--divided the course of humanity into three successive ages: divine or theocratic, heroic or fabulous, human or historic, after which the cycle begins over again. Although this too hypothetic conception is now forgotten, it is sufficient for our purposes. What, indeed, are those first two stages that have everywhere and always been the harbingers and preparers of civilization, if not the triumphant period of the imagination? It has produced myths, religions, legends, epics and martial narratives, and imposing monuments erected in honor of G.o.ds and heroes. Many nations whose evolution has been incomplete have not gone beyond this stage.

Let us now consider this question under a more definite, more limited, better known form--the history of intellectual development in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. It shows very distinctly our three periods.

No one will question the preponderance of the imagination during the middle Ages: intensity of religious feeling, ceaselessly repeated epidemics of superst.i.tion; the inst.i.tution of chivalry, with all its accessories; heroic poetry, chivalric romances; courts of love, efflorescence of Gothic art, the beginning of modern music, etc. On the other hand, the _quant.i.ty_ of imagination applied during this epoch to practical, industrial, commercial invention is very small. Their scientific culture, buried in Latin jargon, is made up partly of antique traditions, partly of fancies; what the ten centuries added to positive science is almost _nil_. Our figure, with its two curves, one imaginative, the other rational, thus applies just as well to historical development as to individual development during this first period.

No more will anyone question that the Renaissance is a critical moment, a transition period, and a transformation a.n.a.logous to that which we have noted in the individual, when there rises, opposed to imagination, a rival power.

Finally, it will be admitted without dissent that during the modern period social imagination has become partly decayed, partly rationalized, under the influence of two princ.i.p.al factors--one scientific, the other economic. On the one hand the development of science, on the other hand the great maritime discoveries, by stimulating industrial and commercial inventions, have given the imagination a new field of activity. There have arisen points of attraction that have drawn it into other paths, have imposed upon it other forms of creation that have often been neglected or misunderstood and that we shall study in the Third Part.

THIRD PART

THE PRINc.i.p.aL TYPES OF IMAGINATION

PRELIMINARY

After having studied the creative imagination in its const.i.tutive elements and in its development we purpose, in this last part, describing its princ.i.p.al forms. This will be neither a.n.a.lytic nor genetic but concrete. The reader need not fear wearisome repet.i.tion; our subject is sufficiently complex to permit a third treatment without reiteration.

The expression "creative imagination," like all general terms, is an abbreviation and an abstraction. There is no "imagination in general,"

but only _men who imagine_, and who do so in different ways; the reality is in them. The diversities in creation, however numerous, should be reducible to types that are _varieties_ of imagination, and the determination of these varieties is a.n.a.logous to that of character as related to will. Indeed, when we have settled upon the physiological and psychological conditions of voluntary activity we have only done a work in _general_ psychology. Men being variously const.i.tuted, their modes of action bear the stamp of their individuality; in each one there is a personal factor that, whatever its ultimate nature, puts its mark on the will and makes it energetic or weak, rapid or slow, stable or unstable, continuous or intermittent. The same is true of the creative imagination. We cannot know it completely without a study of its varieties, without a special psychology, toward which the following chapters are an attempt.

How are we to determine these varieties? Many will be inclined to think that the method is indicated in advance. Have not psychologists distinguished, according as one or another of image-groups preponderates, visual, auditory, motor and mixed types? Is not the way clear and is it not well enough to go in this direction? However natural this solution may appear, it is illusory and can lead to naught. It rests on the equivocal use of the word "imagination," which at one time means mere reproduction of images, and at another time creative activity, and which, consequently, keeps up the erroneous notion that in the creative imagination images, the raw materials, are the essential part. The materials, no doubt, are not a negligible element, but by themselves they cannot reveal to us the species and varieties that have their origin in an anterior and superior tendency of mind. We shall see in the sequel that the very nature of constructive imagination may express itself indifferently in sounds, words, colors, lines, and even numbers. The method that should allege to settle the various orientations of creative activity according to the nature of images would no more go to the bottom of the matter than would a cla.s.sification of architecture according to the materials employed (as rock, brick, iron, wood, etc.) with no regard for differences of style.

This method aside, since the determination must be made according to the individuality of the architect, what method shall we follow? The matter is even more perplexing than the study of character. Although various authors have treated the latter subject (we have attempted it elsewhere), no one of the proposed cla.s.sifications has been universally accepted. Nevertheless, despite their differences, they coincide in several points, because these have the advantage of resting on a common basis--the large manifestations of human nature, feeling, doing, thinking. In our subject I find nothing like this and I seek in vain for a point of support. Cla.s.sifications are made according to the essential dominating attributes; but, as regards the varieties of the creative imagination, what are they?

We may, indeed, as was said above, distinguish two great cla.s.ses--the intuitive and the combining. From another point of view we may distinguish invention of free range (esthetic, religious, mystic) from invention more or less restricted (mechanical, scientific, commercial, military, political, social). But these two divisions are too general, leading to nothing. A true cla.s.sification should be in touch with facts, and this one soars too high.

Leaving, then, to others, more skilled or more fortunate, the task of a rational and systematic determination, if it be possible, we shall try merely to distinguish and describe the princ.i.p.al forms, such as experience gives them to us, emphasizing those that have been neglected or misinterpreted. What follows is thus neither a cla.s.sification nor even a complete enumeration.

We shall study at first two general forms of the creative imagination--the plastic and the diffluent--and later, special forms, determined by their content and subject.

Wundt, in a little-noticed pa.s.sage of his _Physiological Psychology_, has undertaken to determine the composition of the "princ.i.p.al forms of talent," which he reduces to four:

The first element is imagination. It may be intuitive, "that is, conferring on representations a clearness of sense-perception," or combining; "then it operates on multiple combinations of images." A very marked development in both directions at the same time is uncommon; the author a.s.signs reasons for this.

The second element is understanding (_Verstand_). It may be inductive--i.e., inclining toward the collection of facts in order to draw generalizations from them--or deductive, taking general concepts and laws to trace their consequences.

If the intuitive imagination is joined to the inductive spirit we have the talent for observation of the naturalist, the psychologist, the pedagogue, the man of affairs.

If the intuitive imagination is combined with the deductive spirit we have the a.n.a.lytical talent of the systematic naturalist, of the geometrician. In Linnaeus and Cuvier the intuitive element predominates; in Gauss, the a.n.a.lytical element.

The combining imagination joined to the inductive spirit const.i.tutes "the talent for invention strictly so-called," in industry, in the technique of science; it gives the artist and the poet the power of composing their works.

The combining imagination plus the deductive spirit gives the speculative talent of the mathematician and philosopher; deduction predominates in the former, imagination in the latter.[78]

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Wundt, _Physiologische Psychologie_, 4th German edition, Vol.

II, pp. 490-95.

CHAPTER I

THE PLASTIC IMAGINATION

I

By "plastic imagination" I understand that which has for its special characters clearness and precision of form; more explicitly those forms whose materials are clear images (whatever be their nature), approaching perception, giving the impression of reality; in which, too, there predominate _a.s.sociations with objective relations_, determinable with precision. The plastic mark, therefore, is in the images, and in the modes of a.s.sociation of images. In somewhat rough terms, requiring modifications which the reader himself can make, it is the imagination that materializes.

Between perception--a very complex synthesis of qualities, attributes and relations--and conception--which is only the consciousness of a quality, quant.i.ty, or relation, often of only a single word accompanied by vague outlines and a latent, potential knowledge; between concrete and abstract, the image occupies an intermediate position and can run from one pole to another, now full of reality, now almost as poor and pale as a concept. The representation here styled plastic descends towards its point of origin; it is an external imagination, arising from sensation rather than from feeling and needing to become objective.

Thus its general characters are easy of determination. First and foremost, it makes use of visual images; then of motor images; lastly, in practical invention, of tactile images. In a word, the three groups of images present to a great extent the character of externality and objectivity. The clearness of form of these three groups proceeds from their origin, because they arise from sensation well determined in s.p.a.ce--sight, movement, touch. Plastic imagination depends most on spatial conditions. We shall see that its opposite, diffluent imagination, is that which depends least upon that factor, or is most free from it. Among these naturally objective elements the plastic imagination chooses the most objective, which fact gives its creations an air of reality and life.

The second characteristic is inferiority of the affective element; it appears only intermittently and is entirely blotted out before sensory impression. This form of the creative imagination, coming especially from sensation, aims especially at sensation. Thus it is rather superficial, greatly devoid of that internal mark that comes from feeling.

But if it chance that both sensory and affective elements are equal in power; if there is at the same time intense vision adequate to reality, and profound emotion, violent shock, then there arise extraordinary imaginative personages, like Shakespeare, Carlyle, Michelet. It is needless to describe this form of imagination, excellent pen-pictures of which have been given by the critics;[79] let us merely note that its psychology reduces itself to an alternately ascending and descending movement between the two limiting points of perception and idea. The ascending process a.s.signs to inanimate objects life, desires and feelings. Thus Michelet: "The great streams of the Netherlands, _tired_ with their very long course, _perish_ as though from _weariness_ in the _unfeeling_ ocean."[80] Elsewhere, the great folio begets the octavo, "which becomes the parent of the small volume, of booklets, of ephemeral pamphlets, invisible spirits flying in the night, creating under the very eyes of tyrants the circulation of liberty." The descending process materializes abstractions, gives them body, makes them flesh and bone; the Middle Ages become "a poor child, torn from the bowels of Christianity, born amidst tears, grown up in prayer and revery, in anguish of heart, dying without achieving anything." In this dazzle of images there is a momentary return to primitive animism.

II

In order to more fully understand the plastic imagination, let us take up its princ.i.p.al manifestations.

1. First, the arts dealing with form, where its necessity is evident.

The sculptor, painter, architect, must have visual and tactile-motor images; it is the material in which their creations are wrapped up. Even leaving out the striking acts requiring such a sure and tenacious external vision (portraits executed from memory, exact remembrance of faces at the end of twenty years, as in the case of Gavarni, etc.[81]), and limiting ourselves merely to the usual, the plastic arts demand an observant imagination. For the majority of men the concrete image of a face, a form, a color, usually remains vague and fleeting; "red, blue, black, white, tree, animal, head, mouth, arm, etc., are scarcely more than words, symbols expressing a rough synthesis. For the painter, on the other hand, images have a very high precision of details, and what he sees beneath the words or in real objects are a.n.a.lyzed facts, positive elements of perception and movement."[82]