Is imagination, so often called "a capricious faculty," subject to some law? The question thus asked is too simple, and we must make it more precise. As the direct cause of inventi...
When the human mind creates, it can use only two classes of ideas as materials to embody its idea, viz.: (1) Natural phenomena, the forces of the organic and inorganic worlds. In i...
It is quite generally recognized that imagination is indispensable in all sciences; that without it we could only copy, repeat, imitate; that it is a stimulus driving us onward and...
Considered under its intellectual aspect, that is, in so far as it borrows its elements from the understanding, the imagination presupposes two fundamental operations--the one, neg...
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 Froschammer, Fancy is the original principle of things. In his philosophical theory it plays the same part as Hegel's Idea, Schopenhauer's Will, Hartmann's Unconscious, etc. It...
Mystic imagination deserves a place of honor, as it is the most complete and most daring of purely theoretic invention. Related to diffluent imagination, especially in the latter's...
Under this head I designate the imagination that takes pleasure in the unlimited--in infinity of time and space--under the form of number. It seems at first that these two terms--i...
Taking the word "commercial" in its broadest signification, I understand by this expression all those forms of the constructive imagination that have for their chief aim the produc...
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...
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 civilizati...
Up to this point the imagination has been treated analytically only. This process alone would give us but a very imperfect idea of its essentially concrete and lively nature were w...
Among the descriptions of the inspired state found in various authors, I select only three, which are brief and have each a special character. I. Mystic inspiration, in a passive f...
The psychological nature of the imagination would be very imperfectly known were we limited to the foregoing analytical study. Indeed, all creation whatever, great or small, shows...
I By this term I designate principally, not exclusively, what ordinary speech calls "inspiration." In spite of its mysterious and semi-mythological appearance, the term indicates a...
Musical imagination deserves a separate monograph. As the task requires, in addition to psychological capacity, a profound knowledge of musical history and technique, it cannot be...
After having studied the creative imagination in its constitutive elements and in its development we purpose, in this last part, describing its principal forms. This will be neithe...
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 (wha...
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 ungu...
The question asked above, Does the experiencing of purely musical sounds evoke images, universally, and of what nature and under what conditions? seemed to me to enter a more gener...
I It has been often repeated that one of the principal conquests of contemporary psychology is the fact that it has firmly established the place and importance of movements; that i...
I The diffluent imagination is another general form, but one that is completely opposed to the foregoing. It consists of vaguely-outlined, indistinct images that are evoked and joi...
Let us try now, by way of conclusion, to present to the reader a picture of the whole of the imaginative life in all its degrees. If we consider the human mind principally under it...
I have questioned a very great number of imaginative persons, well known to me as such, and have chosen preferably those who, not making a profession of creating, let their fancy w...
We now pass from primitive to civilized man, from collective to individual creation, the characters of which it remains for us to study as we find them in great inventors who exhib...
Whatever opinion we may hold concerning the nature of the unconscious, since that form of activity is related more than any other to the physiological conditions of the mental life...
We have seen that in the question of the unconscious there must be recognized a positive part--facts, and an hypothetical part--theories. Insofar as the facts are concerned, it wou...
Why is the human mind able to create? In a certain sense this question may seem idle, childish, and even worse. We might just as well ask why does man have eyes and not an electric...