Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 13

The role of tactile-motor images is not insignificant. There has often been cited the instance of sculptors who, becoming blind, have nevertheless been able to fashion busts of close resemblance to the original. This is memory of touch and of the muscular sense, entirely equivalent to the visual memory of the portrait painters mentioned above. Practical knowledge of design and modeling--i.e., of contour and relief--though resulting from natural or acquired disposition, depends on cerebral conditions, the development of definite sensory-motor regions and their connections; and on psychological conditions--the acquisition and organization of appropriate images. "We learn to paint and carve," wrote a contemporary painter, "as we do sewing, embroidery, sawing, filing and turning." In short, like all manual labor requiring a.s.sociated and combined acts.

2. Another form of plastic imagination uses words as means for evoking vivid and clear impressions of sight, touch, movement; it is the poetic or literary form. Of it we find in Victor Hugo a finished type. As all know, we need only open his works at hazard to find a stream of glittering images. But what is their nature? His recent biographers, guided by contemporary psychology, have well shown that they always paint scenes or movements. It is unnecessary to give proofs. Some facts have a broader range and throw light upon his psychology. Thus we are told that "he never dictates or rhymes from memory and composes only in writing, for he believes that writing has its own features, and he wants to _see the words_. Theophile Gautier, who knows and understands him so well, says: 'I also believe that in the sentence we need most of all an _ocular_ rhythm. A book is made to be read, not to be spoken aloud.'" It is added that "Victor Hugo never spoke his verses but wrote them out and would often ill.u.s.trate them on the margin, as if he needed to fixate the image in order to find the appropriate word."[83]

After visual representations come those of movement: the steeple _pierces_ the horizon, the mountain _rends_ the cloud, the mountain _raises himself_ and looks about, "the cold caverns open their mouths _drowsily_," the wind lashes the rock into tears with the waterfall, the thorn is an enraged plant, and so on indefinitely.

A more curious fact is the transposition of sonorous sensations or images of sound, and like them without form or figure, into visual and motor images: "The _ruffles_ of sound that the fifer cuts out; the flute _goes up_ to alto like a frail capital on a column." This thoroughly plastic imagination remains identical with itself while reducing everything spontaneously, unconsciously, to spatial terms.

In literature this altogether foreign mode of creative activity has found its most complete expression among the _Parna.s.siens_ and their congeners, whose creed is summed up in the formula, faultless form and impa.s.siveness. Theophile Gautier claims that "a poet, no matter what may be said of him, is a _workman_; it is not necessary that he have more intelligence than a laborer and have knowledge of a state other than his own, without which he does badly. I regard as perfectly absurd the mania that people have of hoisting them (the poets) up onto an ideal pedestal; _nothing is less ideal than a poet_. For him words have in themselves and outside the meaning they express, their own beauty and value, just like precious stones not yet cut and mounted in bracelets, necklaces and rings; they charm the understanding that looks at them and takes them from the finger to the little pile where they are put aside for future use." If this statement, whether sincere or not, is taken literally, I see no longer any difference, save as regards the materials employed, between the imagination of poets and the imagination active in the mechanical arts. For the usefulness of the one and the "uselessness" of the other is a characteristic foreign to invention itself.

3. In the teeming ma.s.s of myths and religious conceptions that the nineteenth century has gathered with so much care we could establish various cla.s.sifications--according to race, content, intellectual level; and, in a more artificial manner but one suitable for our subject, according to the degree of precision or fluidity.

Neglecting intermediate forms, we may, indeed, divide them into two groups; some are clear in outline, are consistent, relatively logical, resembling a definite historical relation; others are vague, multiform, incoherent, contradictory; their characters change into one another, the tales are mixed and are imperceptible in the whole.

The former types are the work of the plastic imagination. Such are, if we eliminate oriental influences, most of the myths belonging to Greece when, on emerging from the earliest period, they attained their definite const.i.tution. It has been held that the plastic character of these religious conceptions is an effect of esthetic development: statues, bas-reliefs, poetry, and even painting, have made definite the attributes of the G.o.ds and their history. Without denying this influence we must nevertheless understand that it is only auxiliary. To those who would challenge this opinion let us recall that the Hindoos have had gigantic poems, have covered their temples with numberless sculptures, and yet their fluid mythology is the opposite of the Greek. Among the peoples who have incarnated their divinities in no statue, in no human or animal form, we find the Germans and the Celts. But the mythology of the former is clear, well kept within large lines; that of the latter is fleeting and inconsistent--the despair of scholars.[84]

It is, then, certain that myths of the plastic kind are the fruits of an innate quality of mind, of a mode of feeling and of translating, at a given moment in its history, the preponderating characters of a race; in short, of a form of imagination and ultimately of a special cerebral structure.

4. The most complete manifestation of the plastic imagination is met with in mechanical invention and what is allied thereto, in consequence of the need of very exact representations of qualities and relations.

But this is a specialized form, and, as its importance has been too often misunderstood, it deserves a separate study. (See Chapter V, _infra_.)

III

Such are the princ.i.p.al traits of this type of imagination: clearness of outline, both of the whole and of the details. It is not identical with the form called realistic--it is more comprehensive; it is a genus of which "realism" is a species. Moreover, the latter expression being reserved by custom for esthetic creation, I purposely digress in order to dwell on this point: that the esthetic imagination has no essential character belonging exclusively to it, and that it differs from other forms (scientific, mechanical, etc.) only in its materials and in its end, not in its primary nature.

On the whole, the plastic imagination could be summed up in the expression, _clearness in complexity_. It always preserves the mark of its original source--i.e., in the creator and those disposed to enjoy and understand him it tends to approach the clearness of perception.

Would it be improper to consider as a variety of the genus a mode of representation that could be expressed as _clearness in simplicity_? It is the dry and rational imagination. Without depreciating it we may say that it is rather a condition of imaginative poverty. We hold with Fouillee that the average Frenchman furnishes a good example of it. "The Frenchman," says he, "does not usually have a very strong imagination.

His internal vision has neither the hallucinative intensity nor the exuberant fancy of the German and Anglo-Saxon mind; it is an intellectual and distant view rather than a sensitive resurrection or an immediate contact with, and possession of, the things themselves.

Inclined to deduce and construct, our intellect excels less in representing to itself real things than in discovering relations between possible or necessary things. In other words, it is a logical and combining imagination that takes pleasure in what has been termed the abstract view of life. The Chateaubriands, Hugos, Flauberts, Zolas, are exceptional with us. We reason more than we imagine."[85]

Its psychological const.i.tution is reducible to two elements: slightly concrete images, _schemas_ approaching general ideas; for their a.s.sociation, relations predominantly rational, more the products of the logic of the intellect than of the logic of the feelings. It lacks the sudden, violent shock of emotion that gives brilliancy to images, making them arise and grouping them in unforeseen combinations. It is a form of invention and construction that is more the work of reason than of imagination proper.

Consequently, is it not paradoxical to relate it to plastic imagination, as species to genus? It would be idle to enter upon a discussion of the subject here without attempting a cla.s.sification; let us merely note the likenesses and differences. Both are above all objective--the first, because it is sensory; the other, because it is rational. Both make use of a.n.a.logous modes of a.s.sociation, dependent more on the nature of things than on the personal impression of the subject. Opposition exists only on one point: the former is made up of vivid images that approach perception; the latter is made up of internal images bordering upon concepts. Rational imagination is plastic imagination desiccated and simplified.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] Thus Taine says of Carlyle: "He cannot stick to simple expression; at every step he drops into figures, gives body to every idea, must touch forms. We see that he is possessed and haunted by glittering or saddening visions; in him every thought is an explosion; a flood of seething pa.s.sion reaches the boiling-point in his brain, which overflows, and the torrent of images runs over the banks and rushes with all its mud and all its splendor. He cannot reason, he must paint." Despite the vigor of this sketch, the perusal of ten pages of _Sartor Resartus_ or of the _French Revolution_ teaches more in regard to the nature of this imagination than all the commentaries.

[80] For a point of view in criticism that has seemed correct to many on this matter, compare the well-known chapter on the "Pathetic Fallacy" by Ruskin, in his _Modern Painters_. (Tr.)

[81] Arreat (_Psychologie du peintre_, pp. 62 ff.) gives a large number of examples of this.

[82] _Ibid._, p. 115.

[83] For further details on this point, consult Mabilleau, _Victor Hugo_, 2nd part, chaps. II, III, IV.--Renouvier, in the book devoted to the poet, a.s.serts that "on account of his apt.i.tude for representing to himself the details of a figure, order and position in s.p.a.ce, beyond any present sensation," Victor Hugo could have become a mathematician of the highest order.

[84] As bearing out the position of the author, we may also call attention to the fact that while the Hebrew race has had very slight development in the plastic arts, yet its mythology has always taken a very definite form, even when dealing with the vaguest and most abstract subjects. (Tr.)

[85] Fouillee, _Psychologie du peuple francais_, p. 185.

CHAPTER II

THE DIFFLUENT IMAGINATION

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 joined according to the least rigorous modes of a.s.sociation. It presents, then, two things for our consideration--the nature of the images and of their a.s.sociations.

(1) It employs neither the clear-cut, concrete, reality-penetrated images of the plastic imagination, nor the semi-schematic representations of the rational imagination, but those midway in that ascending and descending scale extending from perception to conception.

This determination, however, is insufficient, and we can make it more precise. a.n.a.lysis, indeed, discovers a certain cla.s.s of ill-understood images, which I call emotional abstractions, and which are the proper material for the diffluent imagination. These images are reduced to certain qualities or attributes of things, taking the place of the whole, and chosen from among the others for various reasons, the origin of which is affective. We shall comprehend their nature better through the following comparison:

Intellectual or rational abstraction results from the choice of a fundamental, or at least princ.i.p.al, character, which becomes the subst.i.tute for all the rest that is omitted. Thus, extension, resistance, or impenetrability, come to represent, through simplification and abbreviation, what we call "matter."

Emotional abstraction, on the other hand, results from the permanent or temporary predominance of an emotional state. Some aspect of a thing, essential or not, comes into relief, solely because it is in direct relation to the disposition of our sensibility, with no other preoccupation; a quality, an attribute is spontaneously, arbitrarily selected because it impresses us at the given instant--in the final a.n.a.lysis, because it somehow pleases or displeases us. The images of this cla.s.s have an "impressionist" mark. They are abstractions in the strict sense--i.e., extracts from and simplifications of the sensory data. They act less through a direct influence than by evoking, suggesting, whispering; they permit a glance, a pa.s.sing glimpse: we may justly call them crepuscular or twilight ideas.

(2) As for the forms of a.s.sociation, the relations linking these images, they do not depend so much on the order and connections of things as on the changing dispositions of the mind. They have a very marked subjective character. Some depend on the intellectual factor; the most usual are based on chance, on distant and vacillating a.n.a.logies--further down, even on a.s.sonance and alliteration. Others depend on the affective factor and are ruled by the disposition of the moment: a.s.sociation by contrast, especially those alike in emotional basis, which have been previously studied. (First Part, Chapter II.)

Thus the diffluent imagination is, trait for trait, the opposite of the plastic imagination. It has a general character of inwardness because it arises less from sensation than from feeling, often from a simple and fugitive impression. Its creations have not the organic character of the other, lacking a stable center of attraction; but they act by diffusion and inclusion.

II

By its very nature it is _de jure_, if not _de facto_, excluded from certain territories--if it ventures therein it produces only abortions.

This is true of the practical sphere, which permits neither vague images nor approximate constructions; and of the scientific world, where the imagination may be used only to create a theory or invent processes of discovery (experiments, schemes of reasoning). Even with these exceptions there is still left for it a very wide range.

Let us rapidly pa.s.s over some very frequent, very well-known manifestations of the diffluent imagination--those obliterated forms in which it does not reach complete development and cannot give the full measure of its power.

(1) Revery and related states. This is perhaps the purest specimen of the kind, but it remains embryonic.

(2) The romantic turn of mind. This is seen in those who, confronted by any event whatever or an unknown person, make up, spontaneously, involuntarily, in spite of themselves, a story out of whole cloth. I shall later give examples of it according to the written testimony of several people.[86] In whatever concerns themselves or others they create an imagined world, which they subst.i.tute for the real.

(3) The fantastic mind. Here we come away from the vague forms; the diffluent imagination becomes substantial and a.s.serts itself through its permanence. At bottom this fantastic form is the romantic spirit tending toward objectification. The invention, which was at first only a thoroughly internal construction and recognized as such, aspires to become external, to become realized, and when it ventures into a world other than its own, one requiring the rigorous conditions of the practical imagination, it is wrecked, or succeeds only through chance, and that very rarely. To this cla.s.s belong those inventors, known to everyone, who are fertile in methods of enriching themselves or their country by means of agricultural, mining, industrial or commercial enterprises; the makers of the utopias of finance, politics, society, etc. It is a form of imagination unnaturally oriented toward the practical.[87]

(4) The list increases with myths and religious conceptions; the imagination in its diffuse form here finds itself on its own ground.

Depending on linguistics, it has recently been maintained that, among the Aryans at least, the imagination created at first only momentary G.o.ds (_Augenblicksgotter_).[88] Every time that primitive man, in the presence of a phenomenon, experienced a perceptible emotion, he translated it by a name, the manifestation of what was imagined the divine part in the emotion felt. "Every religious emotion gives rise to a new name--i.e., a new divinity. But the religious imagination is never identical with itself; though produced by the same phenomenon, it translates itself, at two different moments, by two different words." As a consequence, "during the early periods of the human race, religious names must have been applied not to _cla.s.ses_ of beings or events but to _individual_ beings or events. Before worshipping the comet or the fig-tree, men must have worshiped each one of the comets they beheld crossing the sky, every one of the fig-trees that their eyes saw."

Later, with advancing capacity for generalization, these "instantaneous"

divinities would be condensed into more consistent G.o.ds. If this hypothesis, which has aroused many criticisms, be sound--if this state were met with--it would be the ideal type of imaginative instability in the religious order.

Nearer to us, authentic evidence shows that certain peoples, at given stages of their history, have created such vague, fluid myths, that we cannot succeed in delimiting them. Every G.o.d can change himself into another, different, or even opposite, one. The Semitic religions might furnish examples of this. There has been established the ident.i.ty of Istar, Astarte, Tanit, Baalath, Derketo, Mylitta, Aschera, and still others. But it is in the early religion of the Hindoos that we perceive best this kaleidoscopic process applied to divine beings. In the vedic hymns not only are the clouds now serpents, now cows and later fortresses (the retreats of dark Asuras), but we see Agni (fire) becoming Kama (desire or love), and Indra becoming Varuna, and so on.

"We cannot imagine," says Taine, "such a great clearness. The myth here is not a disguise, but an expression; no language is more true and more supple. It permits a glimpse of, or rather, it causes us to discern the forms of clouds, movements of the air, changes of seasons, all the happenings of sky, fire, storm: external nature has never met a mind so impressionable and pliant in which to mirror itself in all the inexhaustible variety of its appearances. However changeable nature may be, this imagination corresponds to it. It has no fixed G.o.ds; they are changeable like the things themselves; they blend one into another.

Everyone of them is in turn the supreme deity; no one of them is a distinct personality; everyone is only a moment of nature, able, according to the apperception of the moment, to include its neighbor or be included by it. In this fashion they swarm and teem. Every moment of nature and every apperceptive moment may furnish one of them."[89] Let us, indeed, note that, for the worshiper, the G.o.d to whom he addresses himself and while he is praying, is always the greatest and most powerful. The a.s.signment of attributes pa.s.ses suddenly from one to the other, regardless of contradiction. In this versatility some writers believe they have discovered a vague pantheistic conception. Nothing is more questionable, fundamentally, than this interpretation. It is more in harmony with the psychology of these nave minds to a.s.sume simply an extreme state of "impressionism," explicable by the logic of feeling.

Thus, there is a complete ant.i.thesis between the imagination that has created the clear-cut and definite polytheism of the Greeks and that whence have issued those fluctuating divinities that allow the presentation of the future doctrine of _Maya_, of universal illusion--another more refined form of the diffluent imagination.