Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 16

(2) Mystical imagination has often and erroneously been identified with religious imagination. Although it may be held that every religion, no matter how dull and poor, presupposes a latent mysticism, because it supposes an Unknown beyond the reach of sense, there are religions very slightly mystical in fact--those of savages, strictly utilitarian; among barbarians, the martial cults of the Germans and the Aztecs; among civilized races, Rome and Greece.[105] However, even though the mystic imagination is not confined to the bounds of religious thought, history shows us that there it attains its completest expansion.

To be brief, and to keep strictly within our subject, let us note that in the completely developed great religions there has arisen opposition between the rationalists and the imaginative expounders, between the dogmatists and the mystics. The former, rational architects, build by means of abstract ideas, logical relations and methods, by deduction and induction; the others, imaginative builders, care little for this learned magnificence--they excel in vivid creations because the moving energy with them is in their feelings, "in their hearts;" because they speak a language made up of concrete images, and consequently their wholly symbolic speech is at the same time an original construction. The mystic imagination is a transformation of the mythic imagination, the myth changing into symbols. It cannot escape the necessity of this. On the other hand, the affective states cannot longer remain vague, diffuse, purely internal; they must become fixed in time and s.p.a.ce, and condensed into images forming a personality, legend, event, or rite.

Thus, Buddha represents the tendencies towards pity and resignation, summing up the aspirations for final rest. On the other hand, abstract ideas, pure concepts, being repugnant to the mystic's nature, it is also necessary that they take on images through which they may be seen--e.g., the relations between G.o.d and man, in the various forms of communion; the idea of divine protection in incarnations, mediators, etc. But the images made use of are not dry and colorless like words that by long use have lost all direct representative value and are merely marks or tags. Being symbolic, i.e., concrete, they are, as we have seen, direct subst.i.tutes for reality, and they differ as much from words as sketching and drawing differ from our alphabetical signs, which are, however, their derivatives or abbreviations.

It must, however, be noted that if "the mystic fact is a nave effort to apprehend the absolute, a mode of symbolic, not dialectic, thinking, that lives on symbols and finds in them the only fitting expression,"[106] it seems that this imaginative phase has been to some minds only an internal form, for they have attempted to go beyond it through ecstacy, aspiring to grasp the ultimate principle as a pure unity, without image and without form,[107] which metaphysical realism hopes to attain by other methods and by a different route. However interesting they may be for psychology, these attempts, luring one on further and further, by their seeming or real elimination of every symbolic element, become foreign to our subject, and we cannot consider them at greater length here.

(3) "History shows that philosophy has done nothing but transform ideas of mystic production, subst.i.tuting for the form of images and undemonstrated statements the form of a.s.sertions of a rational system."[108] This declaration of a metaphysician saves us from dwelling on the subject long.

When we seek the difference between religious and metaphysical or philosophical symbolism, we find it in the nature of the const.i.tutive elements. Turned in the direction of religion, mystic symbolism presupposes two princ.i.p.al elements--imagination and feeling; turned in a metaphysical direction, it presupposes imagination and a very small rational element. This subst.i.tution involves appreciable deviation from the primitive type. The construction is of greater logical regularity. Besides, and this is the important characteristic, the subject-matter--though still resembling symbolic images--tends to become concepts: such are vivified abstractions, allegorical beings, hereditary ent.i.ties of spirits and of G.o.ds. In short, metaphysical mysticism is a transition-form towards metaphysical rationalism, although these two tendencies have always been inimical in the history of philosophy, just as in the history of religion.

In this imaginative plan of the world we may recognize stages according to the increasing weakness of the systems, depending on the number and quality of the hypotheses. For example, the progression is apparent between Plotinus and the frenzied creations of the Gnostics and the Cabalists. With the latter, we come into a world of unbridled fancy which, in place of human romances, invents cosmic romances. Here appear the allegorical beings mentioned above, half concept, half symbol; the ten Sephiros of the Cabala, immutable forms of being; the _syzygies_ or couples of Gnosticism--soul and reflection, depth and silence, reason and life, inspiration and truth, etc.; the absolute manifesting itself by the unfolding of fifty-two attributes, each unfolding comprising seven _eons_, corresponding to the 364 days of the year, etc. It would be wearisome to follow these extravagant thoughts, which, though the learned may treat them with some respect, have for the psychologist only the interest of pathologic evidence. Moreover, this form of mystic imagination presents too little that is new for us to speak of it without repeating ourselves.

To conclude: The mystic imagination, in its alluring freedom, its variety, and its richness, is second to no form, not even to esthetic invention, which, according to common prejudice, is the type _par excellence_. Following the most venturesome methods of a.n.a.logy, it has constructed conceptions of the world made up almost wholly of feelings and images--symbolic architectures.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] _Philosophy of the Unconscious_, I, part 2, ch. IX.

[100] J. Darmesteter, in Recejac, _Essai sur les fondements de la connaissance mystique_, p. 124.

[101] In such notions may perhaps be best found the genesis of the present superst.i.tions in regard to "lucky" and "unlucky" numbers, like the number 13, which have such persistence. (Tr.)

[102] See Part Two, chapter II.

[103] Groos, _Die Spiele der Thiere_, pp. 308-312.

[104] Mabilleau, _op. cit._, p. 132.

[105] If we leave out oriental influences and the Mysteries, which, according to Aristotle, were not dogmatic teaching, but a show, an a.s.semblage of symbols, acting by evocation, or suggestion, following the special mode of mystic imagination that we already know.

[106] Recejac, _op. cit._, pp. 139 ff.

[107] One at once calls to mind Plotinus, whose highest philosophy is a kind of indescribable ecstacy. (Tr.)

[108] Hartmann, _op. cit._, vol. I, part 2, chapter IX.

CHAPTER IV

THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION

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 launching us into the unknown. If there does exist a very widespread prejudice to the contrary--if many hold that scientific culture throttles imagination--we must look for the explanation of this view first, in the equivocation, pointed out several times, that makes the essence of the creative imagination consist of images, which are here most often replaced by abstractions or extracts of things--whence it results that the created work does not have the living forms of religion, of art, or even of mechanical invention; and then, in the rational requirements regulating the development of the creative faculty--it may not wander at will. In either case its end is determined, and in order to exist, i.e., in order to be accepted, the invention must become subject to preestablished rules.

This variety of imagination being, after the esthetic form, the one that psychologists have best described, we may therefore be brief. A complete study of the subject, however, remains yet to be made. Indeed, we may remark that there is no "scientific imagination" in general, that its form must vary according to the nature of the science, and that, consequently, it really resolves itself into a certain number of genera and even of species. Whence arises the need of monographs, each one of which should be the work of a competent man.

No one will question that mathematicians have a way of thinking all their own; but even this is too general. The arithmetician, the algebraist, and more generally the a.n.a.lyst, in whom invention obtains in the most abstract form of discontinuous functions--symbols and their relations--cannot imagine like the geometrician. One may well speak of the ideal figures of geometry--the empirical origin of which is no longer anywhere contested--but we cannot escape from representing them as somehow in s.p.a.ce. Does anyone think that Monge, the creator of descriptive geometry, who by his work has aided builders, architects, mechanics, stone cutters in their labors, could have the same type of imagination as the mathematician who has been given up all his life to the theory of number? Here, then, are at least two well-marked varieties, to say nothing of mixed forms. The physicist's imagination is necessarily more concrete; since he is incessantly obliged to refer to the data of sense or to that totality of visual, tactile, motor, acoustic, thermic, etc., representations that we term the "properties of matter." Our eye, says Tyndall, cannot see sound waves contract and dilate, but we construct them in thought--i.e., by means of visual images. The same remarks are true of chemists. The founders of the atomic theory certainly _saw_ atoms, and pictured them in the mind's eye, and their arrangement in compound bodies. The complexity of the imagination increases still more in the geologist, the botanist, the zoologist; it approaches more and more, with its increasing details, to the level of perception. The physician, in whom science becomes also an art, has need of visual representations of the exterior and interior, microscopic and macroscopic, of the various forms of diseased conditions; auditory representations (auscultation); tactile representations (touch, reverberation, etc.); and let us also add that we are not speaking merely of diagnosis of diseases, which is a matter of reproductive imagination, but of the discovery of a new pathologic "ent.i.ty," proven and made certain from the symptoms. Lastly, if we do not hesitate to give a very broad extension to the term "scientific,"

and apply it also to invention in social matters, we shall see that the latter is still more exacting, for one must represent to oneself not only the elements of the past and of the present, but in addition construct a picture of the future according to probable inductions and deductions.

It might be objected that the foregoing enumeration proves a great variety in the _content_ of creative imagination but not in the imagination itself, and that nothing has proven that, under all these various aspects, there does not exist a so-called scientific imagination, that always remains identical. This position is untenable.

For we have seen above[109] that there exists no creative instinct in general, no one mere indeterminate "creative power," but only wants that, in certain cases, excite novel combinations of images. The nature of the separable materials, then, is a factor of the first importance; it is determining, and indicates to the mind the direction in which it is turned, and all treason in this regard is paid for by aborted construction, by painful labor for some petty result. Invention, separated from what gives it body and soul, is nothing but a pure abstraction.

The monographs called for above would, then, be a not unneeded work. It is only from them collectively that the role of the imagination in the sciences could be completely shown, and we might by abstraction separate out the characters common to all varieties--the essential marks of this imaginative type.

Mathematics aside, all the sciences dealing with facts--from astronomy to sociology--suppose three moments, namely, observation, conjecture, verification. The first depends on external and internal sense, the second on the creative imagination, the third on rational operations, although the imagination is not entirely barred from it. In order to study its influence on scientific development, we shall study it (a) in the sciences in process of formation; (b) in the established sciences; (c) in the processes of verification.

II

It has often been said that the perfection of a science is measured by the amount of mathematics it requires; we might say, conversely, that its lack of completeness is measured by the amount of imagination that it includes. It is a psychological necessity. Where the human mind cannot explain or prove, there it invents; preferring a semblance of knowledge to its total absence.[110] Imagination fulfills the function of a subst.i.tute; it furnishes a subjective, conjectural solution in place of an objective, rational explanation. This subst.i.tution has degrees:

(1) The sway of the imagination is almost complete in the pseudo-sciences (alchemy, astrology, magic, occultism, etc.), which it would be more proper to call embryonic sciences, for they were the beginnings of more exact disciplines and their fancies have not been without use. In the history of science, this is the golden age of the creative imagination, corresponding to the myth-making period already studied.

(2) The semi-sciences, incompletely proved (certain portions of biology, psychology, sociology, etc.), although they show a regression of imaginative explanation repulsed by the hitherto absent or insufficient experimentation, nevertheless abound in hypotheses, that succeed, contradict, destroy one another. It is a commonplace truism that does not need to be dwelt on--they furnish _ad libitum_ examples of what has been rightly termed scientific mythology.

Aside from the quant.i.ty of imagination expended, often without great profit, there is another character to be noted--the nature of the belief that accompanies imaginative creation. We have already seen repeatedly that the intensity of the imaginary conception is in direct ratio to the accompanying belief, or rather, that the two phenomena are really one--merely the two aspects of one and the same state of consciousness.

But faith--i.e., the adherence of the mind to an undemonstrated a.s.sertion--is here at its maximum.

There are in the sciences hypotheses that are not believed in, that are preserved for their didactic usefulness, because they furnish a simple and convenient method of explanation. Thus the "properties of matter"

(heat, electricity, magnetism, etc.), regarded by physicists as distinct qualities even in the first half of the last century; the "two electric fluids;" cohesion, affinity, etc., in chemistry--these are some of the convenient and admitted expressions to which, however, we attach no explanatory value.

There is also to be mentioned the hypothesis held as an approximation of reality--this is the truly scientific position. It is accompanied by a provisional and ever-revocable belief. This is admitted, in principle at least, by all scientists, and has been put into practice by many of them.

Lastly, there is the hypothesis regarded as the truth itself--one that is accompanied by a complete, absolute, belief. But daily observation and history show us that in the realm of embryonic and ill-proven sciences this disposition is more flourishing than anywhere else. _The less proof there is, the more we believe._ This att.i.tude, however wrong from the standpoint of the logician, seems to the psychologist natural.

The mind clings tenaciously to the hypothesis because the latter is its own creation, or, because in adopting it, it seems to the mind that it should have itself discovered the hypothesis, so much does the latter harmonize with its inner states. Let us take the hypothesis of evolution, for example: we need not mention its high philosophical bearing, and the immense influence that it exerts on almost all forms of human thought. Nevertheless, it still remains an hypothesis; but for many it is an indisputable and inviolable dogma, raised far above all controversy. They accept it with the uncompromising fervor of believers: a new proof of the underlying connection between imagination and belief--they increase and decrease _pari pa.s.su_.

III

Should we a.s.sign as belonging solely to the imagination every invention or discovery--in a word, whatever is new--in the well-organized sciences that form a body of solid, constantly-broadening doctrine? It is a hard question. That which raises scientific knowledge above popular knowledge is the use of an experimental method and rigorous reasoning processes; but, is not induction and deduction going from the known to the unknown?

Without desiring to depreciate the method and its value, it must nevertheless be admitted that it is preventive, not inventive. It resembles, says Condillac, the parapets of a bridge, which do not help the traveler to walk, but keep him from falling over. It is of value especially as a habit of mind. People have wisely discoursed on the "methods" of invention. There are none; but for which fact we could manufacture inventors just as we make mechanics and watchmakers. It is the imagination that invents, that provides the rational faculties with their materials, with the position, and even the solution of their problems. Reasoning is only a means for control and proof; it transforms the work of the imagination into acceptable, logical results. If one has not imagined beforehand, the logical method is aimless and useless, for we cannot reason concerning the completely unknown. Even when a problem seems to advance towards solution wholly through the reason, the imagination ceaselessly intervenes in the form of a succession of groupings, trials, guesses, and possibilities that it proposes. The function of method is to determine its value, to accept or reject it.[111]

Let us show by a few examples that conjecture, the work of the combining imagination, is at the root of the most diverse scientific inventions.[112]

Every mathematical invention is at first only an hypothesis that must be demonstrated, i.e., must be brought under previously established general principles: prior to the decisive moment of rational verification it is only a thing imagined. "In a conversation concerning the place of imagination in scientific work," says Liebig, "a great French mathematician expressed the opinion to me that the greater part of mathematical truth is acquired not through deduction, but through the imagination. He might have said 'all the mathematical truths,' without being wrong." We know that Pascal discovered the thirty-second proposition of Euclid all by himself. It is true that it has been concluded, wrongly perhaps, that he had also discovered all the earlier ones, the order followed by the Greek geometrician not being necessary, and not excluding other arrangements. However it be, reasoning alone was not enough for that discovery. "Many people," says Naville, "of whom I am one, might have thought hard all their lives without finding out the thirty-two propositions of Euclid." This fact alone shows clearly the difference between invention and demonstration, imagination and reason.

In the sciences dealing with facts, all the best-established experimental truths have pa.s.sed through a conjectural stage. History permits no doubt on this point. What makes it appear otherwise is the fact that for centuries there has gradually come to be formed a body of solid belief, making a whole, stored away in cla.s.sic treatises from which we learn from childhood, and in which they seem to be arranged of themselves. We are not told of the series of checks and failures through which[113] they have pa.s.sed. Innumerable are the inventions that remained for a long time in a state of conjecture, matters of pure imagination, because various circ.u.mstances did not permit them to take shape, to be demonstrated and verified. Thus, in the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon had a very clear idea of a construction on rails similar to our railroads; of optical instruments that would permit, as does the telescope, to see very far, and to discover the invisible. It is even claimed that he must have foreseen the phenomena of interferences, the demonstration of which had to be awaited ten centuries.

On the other hand, there are guesses that have met success without much delay, but in which the imaginative phase--that of the invention preceding all demonstration--is easy to locate. We know that Tycho-Brahe, lacking inventive genius but rich in capacity for exact observation, met Kepler, an adventurous spirit: together, the two made a complete scientist. We have seen how Kepler, guided by a preconceived notion of the "harmony of the spheres," after many trials and corrections, ended by discovering his laws. Copernicus recognized expressly that his theory was suggested to him by an hypothesis of Pythagoras--that of a revolution of the earth about a central fire, a.s.sumed to be in a fixed position. Newton imagined his hypothesis of gravitation from the year 1666 on, then abandoned it, the result of his calculations disagreeing with observation; finally he took it up again after a lapse of a few years, having obtained from Paris the new measure of the terrestrial meridian that permitted him to prove his guess. In relating his discoveries, Lavoisier is lavish in expressions that leave no doubt as to their originally conjectural character. "He _suspects_ that the air of the atmosphere is not a simple thing, but is composed of two very different substances." "He _presumes_ that the permanent alkalies (potash, soda) and the earths (lime, magnesia) should not be considered simple substances." And he adds: "What I present here is at the most no more than a mere _conjecture_." We have mentioned above the case of Darwin. Besides, the history of scientific discoveries is full of facts of this sort.

The pa.s.sage from the imaginative to the rational phase may be slow or sudden. "For eight months," says Kepler, "I have seen a first glimmer; for three months, daylight; for the last week I see the sunlight of the most wonderful contemplation." On the other hand, Hauy drops a bit of crystallized calcium spar, and, looking at one of the broken prisms, cries out, "All is found!" and immediately verifies his quick intuition in regard to the true nature of crystallization. We have already indicated[114] the psychological reasons for these differences.

Underneath all the reasoning, inductions, deductions, calculations, demonstrations, methods, and logical apparatus of every sort, there is something animating them that is not understood, that is the work of that complex operation--the constructive imagination.

To conclude: The hypothesis is a creation of the mind, invested with a provisional reality that may, after verification, become permanent.

False hypotheses are characterized as imaginary, by which designation is meant that they have not become freed from the first state. But for psychology they are different neither in their origin nor in their nature from those scientific hypotheses that, subjected to the power of reason or of experiment, have come out victorious. Besides, in addition to abortive hypotheses, there are dethroned ones. What theory was more clinging, more fascinating in its applications, than that of phlogiston?

Kant[115] praised it as one of the greatest discoveries of the eighteenth century. The development of the sciences is replete with these downfalls. They are psychological regressions: the invention, considered for a time as adequate to reality, decays, returns to the imaginative phase whence it seems to have emerged, and remains pure imagination.