Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 2

[7] Sully, _Human Mind_, I, p. 365; James, _Psychology_, I, p. 502.

[8] For a good criticism of the term, consult t.i.tchener, _Outlines of Psychology_ (New York, 1896), p. 190.

[9] For the discussions on the reduction to a unity, a detailed bibliography will be found in Jodl, _Lehrbuch der Psychologie_ (Stuttgart, 1896), p. 490. On the comparison of the two laws, James, _op. cit._, I, 590; Sully, _op. cit._, I, 331 ff; Hoffding, _Psychologie_, 213 ff. (Eng. ed. _Outlines of Psychology_, pp. 152 ff.).

[10] Note here a characteristically nave working of the primitive intellect in explaining the unknown in terms of the known. Cf. Part II, Chap. iii, below. (Tr.)

[11] It is yet, and will probably long remain, an open question whether we can draw any clear distinction between the two kinds of mind here discussed. The author is careful to base his distinction on the "predominance" of the "rational" or of the "imaginative"

process. So-called "thinkers," who _do_ nothing, can not, certainly, be ranked with the persons of great intellectual attainment through whose efforts the progress of the world is made; on the other hand, the author seeks to make _results_ or accomplishments the crucial test of true imagination (see Introduction).

As regards the relative value or rank of the two bents of mind there has ever been, and probably forever will be, great difference of opinion. Even in this intensely "practical" age there is an undercurrent of feeling that the narrowly "practical" individual is not the final ideal, and the innermost conviction of many is the same as that of the poet who declares that "a dreamer lives forever, but a thinker dies in a day." (Tr.)

CHAPTER II

THE EMOTIONAL FACTOR.

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 or condemned it as an endless cause of mistakes. The point of view of the psychologist is altogether different. He does not need at all to investigate whether emotions and pa.s.sions give rise to mental phantoms--which is an indisputable fact--but _why_ and _how_ they arise. For, the emotional factor yields in importance to no other; it is the ferment without which no creation is possible. Let us study it in its princ.i.p.al forms, although we may not be able at this moment to exhaust the topic.

I

It is necessary to show at the outset that the influence of the emotional life is unlimited, that it penetrates the entire field of invention with no restriction whatever; that this is not a gratuitous a.s.sertion, but is, on the contrary, strictly justified by facts, and that we are right in maintaining the following two propositions:

1. _All forms of the creative imagination imply elements of feeling._

This statement has been challenged by authoritative psychologists, who hold that "emotion is added to imagination in its esthetic aspect, not in its mechanical and intellectual form." This is an error of fact resulting from the confusion, or from the imperfect a.n.a.lysis, of two distinct cases. In the case of non-esthetic creation, the role of the emotional life is simple; in esthetic creation, the role of emotional element is double.

Let us consider invention, first, in its most general form. The emotional element is the primal, original factor; for all invention presupposes a want, a craving, a tendency, an unsatisfied impulse, often even a state of gestation full of discomfort. Moreover, it is concomitant, that is, under its form of pleasure or of pain, of hope, of spite, of anger, etc., it accompanies all the phases or turns of creation. The creator may, haphazard, go through the most diverse forms of exaltation and depression; may feel in turn the dejection of repulse and the joy of success; finally the satisfaction of being freed from a heavy burden. I challenge anyone to produce a solitary example of invention wrought out _in abstracto_, and free from any factors of feeling. Human nature does not allow such a miracle.

Now, let us take up the special case of esthetic creation, and of forms approaching thereto. Here again we find the original emotional element as at first motor, then attached to various aspects of creation, as an accompaniment. But, _in addition, affective states become material for the creative activity_. It is a well-known fact, almost a rule, that the poet, the novelist, the dramatist, and the musician--often, indeed, even the sculptor and the painter--experience the thoughts and feeling of their characters, become identified with them. There are, then, in this second instance, two currents of feeling--the one, const.i.tuting emotion as material for art, the other, drawing out creative activity and developing along with it.

The difference between the two cases that we have distinguished consists in this and nothing more than this. The existence of an emotion-content belonging to esthetic production changes in no way the psychologic mechanism of invention generally. Its absence in other forms of imagination does not at all prevent the necessary existence of affective elements everywhere and always.

2. _All emotional dispositions whatever may influence the creative imagination._

Here, again, I find opponents, notably Oelzelt-Newin, in his short and substantial monograph on the imagination.[12] Adopting the twofold division of emotions as sthenic and asthenic, or exciting and depressing, he attributes to the first the exclusive privilege of influencing creative activity; but though the author limits his study exclusively to the esthetic imagination, his thesis, even understood thus, is untenable. The facts contradict it completely, and it is easy to demonstrate that all forms of emotion, without exception, act as leaven for imagination.

No one will deny that fear is the type of asthenic manifestations. Yet is it not the mother of phantoms, of numberless superst.i.tions, of altogether irrational and chimerical religious practices?

Anger, in its exalted, violent form, is rather an agent of destruction, which seems to contradict my thesis; but let us pa.s.s over the storm, which is always of short duration, and we find in its place milder intellectualized forms, which are various modifications of primitive fury, pa.s.sing from the acute to the chronic state: envy, jealousy, enmity, premeditated vengeance, and so forth. Are not these dispositions of the mind fertile in artifices, stratagems, inventions of all kinds?

To keep even to esthetic creation, is it necessary to recall the saying _facit indignatio versum_?

It is not necessary to demonstrate the fecundity of joy. As for love, everyone knows that its work consists of creating an imaginary being, which is subst.i.tuted for the beloved object; then, when the pa.s.sion has vanished, the disenchanted lover finds himself face to face with the bare reality.

Sorrow rightly belongs in the category of depressing emotions, and yet, it has as great influence on invention as any other emotion. Do we not know that melancholy and even profound sorrow has furnished poets, musicians, painters, and sculptors with their most beautiful inspirations? Is there not an art frankly and deliberately pessimistic?

And this influence is not at all limited to esthetic creation. Dare we hold that hypochondria and insanity following upon the delirium of persecution are devoid of imagination? Their morbid character is, on the contrary, the well whence strange inventions incessantly bubble.

Lastly, that complex emotion termed "self-feeling," which reduces itself finally to the pleasure of a.s.serting our power and of feeling its expansion, or to the pitiable feeling of our shackled, enfeebled power, leads us directly to the motor elements that are the fundamental conditions of invention. Above all, in this personal feeling, there is the satisfaction of being a causal factor, i.e., a creator, and every creator has a consciousness of his superiority over non-creators.

However petty his invention, it confers upon him a superiority over those who have invented nothing. Although we have been surfeited with the repeated statement that the characteristic mark of esthetic creation is "being disinterested," it must be recognized, as Groos has so truly remarked,[13] that the artist does not create out of the simple pleasure of creating, but in order that he may behold a mastery over other minds.[14] Production is the natural extension of "self-feeling," and the accompanying pleasure is the pleasure of conquest.

Thus, on condition that we extend "imagination" to its full sense, without limiting it unduly to esthetics, there is, among the many forms of the emotional life, not one that may not stimulate invention. It remains to see this emotional factor at work,--to note how it can give rise to new combinations; and this brings us to the a.s.sociation of ideas.

II

We have said above that the ideal and theoretic law of the recurrence of images is that of "total redintegration," as e.g., recalling all the incidents of a long voyage in chronological order, with neither additions nor omissions. But this formula expresses what ought to be, not what actually occurs. It supposes man reduced to a state of pure intelligence, and sheltered from all disturbing influences. It suits the completely systematized forms of memory, hardened into routine and habit; but, outside of these cases, it remains an abstract concept.

To this law of ideal value, there is opposed the real and practical law that actually obtains in the revival of images. It is rightly styled the "law of interest" or the affective law, and may be stated thus: In every past event the interesting parts alone revive, or with more intensity than the others. "Interesting" here means _what affects us in some way under a pleasing or painful form_. Let us note that the importance of this fact has been pointed out not by the a.s.sociationists (a fact especially worth remembering) but by less systematic writers, strangers to that school,--Coleridge, Shadworth Hodgson, and before them, Schopenhauer. William James calls it the "ordinary or mixed a.s.sociation."[15] The "law of interest" doubtless is less exact than the intellectual laws of contiguity and resemblance. Nevertheless, it seems to penetrate all the more in later reasoning. If, indeed, in the problem of a.s.sociation we distinguish these three things--facts, laws, causes--the practical law brings us near to causes.

Whatever the truth may be in this matter, the emotional factor brings about new combinations by several processes.

There are the ordinary, simple cases, with a natural, emotional foundation, depending on momentary dispositions. They exist because of the fact that representations that have been accompanied by the same emotional state tend later to become a.s.sociated: the emotional resemblance reunites and links disparate images. This differs from a.s.sociation by contiguity, which is a repet.i.tion of experience, and from a.s.sociation by resemblance in the intellectual sense. The states of consciousness become combined, not because they have been previously given together, not because we perceive the agreement of resemblance between them, but because they have a common _emotional_ note. Joy, sorrow, love, hatred, admiration, ennui, pride, fatigue, etc., may become a center of attraction that groups images or events having otherwise no rational relations between them, but having the same emotional stamp,--joyous, melancholy, erotic, etc. This form of a.s.sociation is very frequent in dreams and reveries, i.e., in a state of mind in which the imagination enjoys complete freedom and works haphazard. We easily see that this influence, active or latent, of the emotional factor, must cause entirely unexpected grouping to arise, and offers an almost unlimited field for novel combinations, the number of images having a common emotional factor being very great.

There are unusual and remarkable cases with an exceptional emotional base. Of such is "colored hearing." We know that several hypotheses have been offered in regard to the origin of this phenomenon.

Embryologically, it would seem to be the result of an incomplete separation between the sense of sight and that of hearing, and the survival, it is said, from a distant period of humanity, when this state must have been the rule; anatomically, the result of supposed anastamoses between the cerebral centers for visual and auditory sensations; physiologically, the result of nervous irradiation; psychologically, the result of a.s.sociation. This latter hypothesis seems to account for the greater number of instances, if not for all; but, as Flournoy has observed, it is a matter of "affective" imagination. Two sensations absolutely unlike (for instance, the color blue and the sound _i_) may resemble one another through the equal retentive quality that they possess in the organism of some favored individuals, and this emotional factor becomes a bond of a.s.sociation. Observe that this hypothesis explains also the much more unusual cases of "colored" smell, taste, and pain; that is, an abnormal a.s.sociation between given colors and tastes, smells, or pains.

Although we meet them only as exceptional cases, these modes of a.s.sociation are susceptible to a.n.a.lysis, and seem clear, almost self-evident, if we compare them with other, subtle, refined, barely perceptible cases, the origin of which is a subject for supposition, for guessing rather than for clear comprehension. It is, moreover, a sort of imagination belonging to very few people: certain artists and some eccentric or unbalanced minds, scarcely ever found outside the esthetic or practical life. I wish to speak of the forms of invention that permit only fantastic conceptions, of a strangeness pushed to the extreme (Hoffman, Poe, Baudelaire, Goya, Wiertz, etc.), or surprising, extraordinary thoughts, known of no other men (the symbolists and decadents that flourish at the present time in various countries of Europe and America, who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they are preparing the esthetics of the future). It must be here admitted that there exists an altogether special manner of _feeling_, dependent on temperament at first, which many cultivate and refine as though it were a precious rarity. There lies the true source of their invention.

Doubtless, to a.s.sert this pertinently, it would be necessary to establish the direct relations between their physical and psychical const.i.tution and that of their work; to note even the particular states at the moment of the creative act. To me at least, it seems evident that the novelty, the strangeness of combinations, through its deep subjective character, indicates an emotional rather than an intellectual origin. Let us merely add that these abnormal manifestations of the creative imagination belong to the province of pathology rather than to that of psychology.

a.s.sociation by contrast is, from its very nature, vague, arbitrary, indeterminate. It rests, in truth, on an essentially subjective and fleeting conception, that of contrariety, which it is almost impossible to delimit scientifically; for, most often, contraries exist only by and for us. We know that this form of a.s.sociation is not primary and irreducible. It is brought down by some to contiguity, by most others to resemblance. These two views do not seem to me irreconcilable. In a.s.sociation by contrast we may distinguish two layers,--the one, superficial, consists of contiguity: all of us have in memory a.s.sociated couples, such as large-small, rich-poor, high-low, right-left, etc., which result from repet.i.tion and habit; the other, deep, is resemblance; _contrast exists only where a common measure between two terms is possible_. As Wundt remarks, a wedding may be compared to a burial (the union and separation of a couple), but not to a toothache. There is contrast between two colors, contrast between sounds, but not between a sound and a color, at least in that there may not be a common basis to which we may relate them, as in the previously given instances of "colored" sound. In a.s.sociation by contrast, there are conscious elements opposed to one another, and below, an unconscious element, resemblance,--not clearly and logically perceived, but felt--that evokes and relates the conscious elements.

Whether this explanation be right or not, let us remark that a.s.sociation by contrast could not be left out, because its mechanism, full of unforeseen possibilities, lends itself easily to novel relations.

Otherwise, I do not at all claim that it is entirely dependent upon the emotional factor. But, as Hoffding observes,[16] the special property of the emotional life is moving among contraries; it is altogether determined by the great opposition between pleasure and pain. Thus, the effects of contrasts are much stronger than in the realm of sensation.

This form of a.s.sociation predominates in esthetic and mythic creation, that is to say, in creation of the free fancy; it becomes dimmed in the precise forms of practical, mechanical, and scientific invention.

III

Hitherto we have considered the emotional factor under a single aspect only--the purely emotional--that which is manifested in consciousness under an agreeable or disagreeable or mixed form. But thoughts, feelings, and emotions include elements that are deeper--motor, i.e., impulsive or inhibitory--which we may neglect the less since it is in movements that we seek the origin of the creative imagination. This motor element is what current speech and often even psychological treatises designate under the terms "creative instinct," "inventive instinct;" what we express in another form when we say that creators are guided by instinct and "are pushed like animals toward the accomplishment of certain acts."

If I mistake not, this indicates that the "creative instinct" exists in all men to some extent--feeble in some, perceptible in others, brilliant in the great inventors.

For I do not hesitate to maintain that the creative instinct, taken in this strict meaning, compared to animal instinct, is a mere figure of speech, an "ent.i.ty" regarded as a reality, an abstraction. There are needs, appet.i.tes, tendencies, desires, common to all men, which, in a given individual at a given moment can result in a creative act; but there is no special psychic manifestation that may be the "creative instinct." What, indeed, could it be? Every instinct has its own particular end:--hunger, thirst, s.e.x, the specific instincts of the bee, ant, beaver, consist of a group of movements adapted for a determinate end that is always the same. Now, what would be a creative instinct _in general_ which, by hypothesis, could produce in turn an opera, a machine, a metaphysical theory, a system of finance, a plan of military campaign, and so forth? It is a pure fancy. Inventive genius has not _a_ source, but _sources_.

Let us consider from our present viewpoint the human duality, the _h.o.m.o duplex_:

Suppose man reduced to a state of pure intelligence, that is, capable of perceiving, remembering, a.s.sociating, dissociating, reasoning, and nothing else. All creative activity is then impossible, because there is nothing to solicit it.

Suppose, again, man reduced to organic manifestations; he is then no more than a bundle of wants, appet.i.tes, instincts,--that is, of motor activities, blind forces that, lacking a sufficient cerebral organ, will produce nothing.

The cooperation of both these factors is indispensable: without the first, nothing begins; without the second, nothing results. I hold that it is in needs that we must seek for the primary cause of all inventions; it is evident that the motor element alone is insufficient.

If the needs are strong, energetic, they may determine a production, or, if the intellectual factor is insufficient, may spoil it. Many want to make discoveries but discover nothing. A want so common as hunger or thirst suggests to one some ingenious method of satisfying it; another remains entirely dest.i.tute.

In short, in order that a creative act occur, there is required, first, a need; then, that it arouse a combination of images; and lastly, that it objectify and _realize_ itself in an appropriate form.