Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 17

IV

Imagination is not absent from the third stage of scientific research, in demonstration and experimentation, but here we must be brief, (1) because it pa.s.ses to a minor place, yielding its rank to other modes of investigation, and (2) because this study would have to become doubly employed with the practical and mechanical imagination, which will occupy our attention later. The imagination is here only an auxiliary, a useful instrument, serving:

(1) In the sciences of reasoning, to discover ingenious methods of demonstration, stratagems for avoiding or overcoming difficulties.

(2) In the experimental sciences for inventing methods of research or of control--whence its a.n.a.logy, above mentioned, to the practical imagination. Furthermore, the reciprocal influence of these two forms of imagination is a matter of common observation: a scientific discovery permits the invention of new instruments; the invention of new instruments makes possible experiments that are increasingly more complicated and delicate.

One remark further: This constructive imagination at the third stage is the only one met with in many scientists. They lack genius for invention, but discover details, additions, corrections, improvements. A recent author distinguishes (a) those who have created the hypothesis, prepared the experiments, and imagined the appropriate apparatus; (b) those who have imagined the hypothesis and the experiment, but use means already invented; and (c) those who, having found the hypothesis made and demonstrated, have thought out a new method of verification.[116]

The scientific imagination becomes poorer as we follow it down this scale, which, however, bears no relation to exactness of reasoning and firmness of method.

Neglecting species and varieties, we may reduce the fundamental characters of the scientific imagination to the following:

For its material, it has concepts, the degree of abstraction of which varies with the nature of the science.

It employs only those a.s.sociational forms that have an objective basis, although its mission is to form new combinations, "the discoveries consisting of the relation of ideas, capable of being united, which hitherto have been isolated."[117] (Laplace.) All a.s.sociation with an affective basis is strictly excluded.

It aims toward objectivity: in its conjectural construction it attempts to reproduce the order and connection of things. Whence its natural affinity for realistic art, which is midway between fiction and reality.

It is unifying, and so just the opposite of the esthetic imagination, which is rather developmental. It puts forward the master idea (Claude Bernard's _idee directrice_), a center of attraction and impulse that enlivens the entire work. The principle of unity, without which no creation succeeds, is nowhere more visible than in the scientific imagination. Even when illusory, it is useful. Pasteur, scrupulous scientist that he was, did not hesitate to say: "The experimenter's illusions are a part of his power: they are the preconceived ideas serving as guides for him."

V

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

This necessity is expressed by the creation of a cosmic or human hypothesis constructed after the type and methods of scientific hypotheses, but radically subjective in its origin--only apparently objective. _It is a rationalized myth._

The three moments requisite for the const.i.tution of a science are found here, but in a modified form: reflection replaces observation, the choice of the hypothesis becomes all-important, and its application to everything corresponds to scientific proof.

(1) The first moment or preparatory stage, does not belong to our subject. It requires, however, a word in pa.s.sing. In all science, whether well or ill established, firm or weak, we start from facts derived from observation or experiment. Here, facts are replaced by general ideas. The terminus of every science is, then, the starting-point of philosophical speculation:--metaphysics begins where each separate science ends; and the limits of the latter are theories, hypotheses. These hypotheses become working material for metaphysics which, consequently, is an hypothesis built on hypotheses, a conjecture grafted on conjecture, a work of imagination superimposed on works of imagination. Its princ.i.p.al source, then, is imagination, to which reflection applies itself.

Metaphysicians, indeed, hold that the object of their researches, far from being symbolic and abstract, as in science, or fict.i.tious and imaginary, as in art, is the very essence of things,--absolute reality.

Unfortunately, they have never proven that it suffices to seek in order to find, and to wish in order to get.

(2) The second stage is critical. It is concerned with finding the principle that rules and explains everything. In the invention of his theory the metaphysician gives his measure, and permits us to value his imaginative power. But the hypothesis, which in science is always provisional and revocable, is here the supreme reality, the fixed position, the _inconcussum quid_.

The choice of the principle depends on several causes: The chief of these is the creator's individuality. Every metaphysician has a point of view, a personal way of contemplating and interpreting the totality of things, a belief that tends to recruit adherents.

Secondary causes are: the influence of earlier systems, the sum of acquired knowledge, the social _milieu_, the variable predominance of religions, sciences, morality, esthetic culture.

Without troubling ourselves with cla.s.sifications, otherwise very numerous, into which we may group systems (idealism, materialism, monism, etc.) we shall, for our purpose, divide metaphysicians into the imaginative and rational, according as the imagination is superior to the reason or the reason rules the imagination. The differences between these two types of mind, already clearly shown in the choice of the hypothesis, are proven in its development.

(3) The fundamental principle, indeed, must come out of its state of involution and justify its universal validity by explaining everything.

This is the third moment, when the scientific process of verification is replaced by a process of construction.

All imaginative metaphysics have a dynamic basis, e.g., the Platonic _Ideas_, Leibniz' _Monadology_, the _Nature-philosophy_ of Sch.e.l.ling, Schopenhauer's _Will_, and Hartmann's _Unconscious_, the mystics, the systems that a.s.sume a world-soul, etc. Semi-abstract, semi-poetic constructions, they are permeated with imagination not only in the general conception, but also in the numberless details of its application. Such are the "fulgurations" of Leibniz, those very rich digressions of Schopenhauer, etc. They have the fascination of a work of art as much as that of science, and this is no longer questioned by metaphysicians themselves;[118] they are living things.

Rational metaphysics, on the other hand, have a chilly aspect, which brings them nearer the abstract sciences. Such are most of the mechanical conceptions, the Hegelian _Dialectic_, Spinoza's construction _more geometrico_, the _Summa_ of the Middle Ages. These are buildings of concepts solidly cemented together with logical relations. But art is not wholly absent; it is seen in the systematic concatenation, in the beautiful ordering, in the symmetry of division, in the skill with which the generative principle is constantly brought in, in showing it ever-present, explaining everything. It has been possible to compare these systems with the architecture of the Gothic cathedrals, in which the dominant idea is incessantly repeated in the numberless details of the construction, and in the branching multiplicity of ornamentation.

Further, whatever view we adopt as to its ultimate value, it must be recognized that the imagination of the great metaphysicians, by the originality and fearlessness of its conceptions, by its skill in perfecting all parts of its work, is inferior to no other form. It is equal to the highest, if it does not indeed surpa.s.s them.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] See Part I, chapter II.

[110] Cf. the Preface to Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_. "Our reason ... is always troubled with questions which cannot be ignored, because they spring from the very nature of reason, and which cannot be answered, because they transcend the powers of human reason." (Tr.)

[111] In the rare _Notes_ that he has left, James Watt writes that one afternoon he had gone out for a stroll on the Green at Glasgow, and his thoughts were absorbed with the experiments in which he was busied, trying to prevent the cooling of the cylinder. The thought then came to him that steam, being an elastic fluid, should expand and be precipitated in a s.p.a.ce formerly void; and having made a vacuum in a separate vessel and opened communication between the steam of the cylinder and the vacant s.p.a.ce, we see what should follow. Thus, having imagined the masterpiece of his discovery, he enumerates the processes that, employed in turn, allowed him to perfect it.

[112] For further information we refer to the _Logique de l'hypothese_, by E. Naville, from which are borrowed most of the facts here given.

[113] This much-criticised defect has been only partially overcome in our methods of education through "object" lessons, and, if we may call them so, evolutionary methods, showing to the child "wie es eigentlich gewesen." Cf. J. Dewey, "_The School and Society_." (Tr.)

[114] See above, Part Two, chapter IV.

[115] Preface to the _Critique of Pure Reason_.

[116] Colozza, _L'immagin.a.z.ione nella Scienza_ (Paravia, 1900), pp.

89 ff. In this author will be found abundant details respecting famous discoveries or experiments--those of Galileo, Franklin, Grimaldi, etc.

[117] Here is an example in confirmation, taken from Duclaux's book on Pasteur: Herschel established a relation between the crystalline structure of quartz and the rotatory power of the substance; later on, Biot established it for sugar, tartaric acid, etc.--i.e., for substances in solution, whence he concluded that the rotatory power is due to the form of the molecule itself, not to the arrangement of the molecules in relation to one another. Pasteur discovered a relation between molecular dyssymmetry and hemiedry, and the study of hemiedry in crystals led him logically to that of fermentation and spontaneous generation.

[118] On this point cf. Fouillee, _L'Avenir de la Metaphysique_, pp.

79 ff.

CHAPTER V

THE PRACTICAL AND MECHANICAL IMAGINATION

The study of the practical imagination is not without difficulties.

First of all, it has not hitherto attracted psychologists, so that we enter the field at random, and wander unguided in an unexplored region.

But the princ.i.p.al obstacle is in the lack of determination of this form of imagination, and in the absence of boundary lines. Where does it begin, and where does it end? Penetrating all our life even in its least details, it is likely to lead us astray through the diversity, often insignificant, of its manifestations. To convince ourselves of this fact, let us take a man regarded as least imaginative:--subtract the moments when his consciousness is busied with perceptions, memories, emotions, logical thought and action--all the rest of his mental life must be put down to the credit of the imagination. Even thus limited, this function is not a negligible quant.i.ty:--it includes the plans and constructions for the future, and all the dreams of escaping from the present; and there is no man but makes such. This had to be mentioned on account of its very triteness, because it is often forgotten, and consequently the field of the creative imagination is unduly restricted, being limited little by little to exceptional cases.

It must, however, be recognized that these small facts teach us little.

Consequently, following our adopted procedure, dwelling longest on the clearer and more evident cases in which the work of creating appears distinctly, we shall rapidly pa.s.s over the lower forms of the practical imagination, in order to dwell on the higher form--technical or mechanical imagination.

I

If we take an ordinary imaginative person,--understanding by this expression, one whom his nature singles out for no special invention--we see that he excels in the small inventions, adapted for a moment, for a detail, for the petty needs constantly arising in human life. It is a fruitful, ingenious, industrious mind, one that knows how to "take hold of things." The active, enterprising American, capable of pa.s.sing from one occupation to another according to circ.u.mstances, opportunity, or imagined profits, furnishes a good example.

If we descend from this form of sane imagination toward the morbid forms, we meet first the unstable--knights of industry, hunters of adventure, inventors frequently of questionable means, people hungry for change, always imagining what they haven't, trying in turn all professions, becoming workmen, soldiers, sailors, merchants, etc., not from expediency, but from natural instability.