Essay on the Creative Imagination Part 20

The appearance of commerce on a large scale has depended on the state of agriculture, industry, ways of communication, social and economic conditions and political extension. It came into being toward the end of the Roman Republic. After the interruption of the Middle Ages the activity is taken up again by the Italian cities, the Hanseatic League, etc.; in the fifteenth century with the great maritime discoveries; in the sixteenth century by the _Conquistadores_, hungering for adventure and wealth; later on, by the mixed expeditions, whose expenses are defrayed by merchants in common, and which are often accompanied by armed bands that fight for them; lastly comes the incorporation of great companies that have been wittily dubbed "_Conquistadores_ of the counting-house."

We now come to the moment when commercial invention attains its complex form and must move great ma.s.ses. Taken as a whole, its psychological mechanism is the same as that of any other creative work. In the first instance, the idea arises, from inspiration, from reflection, or by chance. Then comes a period of fermenting during which the inventor sketches his construction in images, represents to himself the material to be worked upon, the grouping of stockholders, the making up of a capital, the mechanism of buying and selling, etc. All this differs from the genesis of an esthetic or mechanical work only in the end, or in the nature of the images. In the second phase it is necessary to proceed to execution--a castle in the air must be made a solid structure. Then appear a thousand obstructions in the details that must be overcome. As everywhere else, minor inventions become grafted on the princ.i.p.al invention; the author lets us see the poverty or richness in resource of his mind. Finally, the work is triumphant, fails, or is only half-successful.

Did it keep only to these general traits, commercial imagination would be merely the reiteration, with slight changes, of forms already studied; but it has characteristics all its own that must be distinguished.

(1) It is a combining or tactical imagination. Heretofore, we have met nothing like it. This special mark is derived from the very nature of its determinism, which is very different from that limiting the scientific or mechanical imagination. Every commercial project, in order to emerge from the internal, purely imaginative phase, and become a reality, requires "coming to a head," very exact calculation of frequently numerous, divergent, even contrary elements. The American dealer speculating in grain is under the absolute necessity of being quickly and surely informed regarding the agricultural situation in all countries of the world that are rich in grain, that export or import; in regard to the probable chances of rain or drouth; the tariff duties of the various countries, etc. Lacking that, he buys and sells haphazard.

Moreover, as he deals in enormous quant.i.ties, the least error means great losses, the smallest profit on a unit is of account, and is multiplied and increased into a noticeable gain.

Besides that initial intuition that shows opportune business and moments, commercial imagination presupposes a well-studied, detailed campaign for attack and defense, a rapid and reliable glance at every moment of execution in order to incessantly modify this plan--it is a kind of war. All this totality of special conditions results from a general condition,--namely, compet.i.tion, strife. We shall come back to this point at the end of the chapter.

Let us follow to the end the working of this creative imagination. Like the other forms, this kind of invention arises from a need, a desire--that of the spreading of "self-feeling," of the expansion of the individual under the form of enrichment. But this tendency, and with it the resulting imaginative creation, can undergo changes.

It is a well-known law of the emotional life that what is at first sought as a means may become an end and be desired for itself. A very sensual pa.s.sion may at length undergo a sort of idealization; people study a science at first because it is useful, and later because of its fascination; and we may desire money in order to spend it, and later in order to h.o.a.rd it. Here it is the same: the financial inventor is often possessed with a kind of intoxication--he no longer labors for lucre, but for art; he becomes, in his own way, an author of romance. His imagination, set at the beginning toward gain, now seeks only its complete expansion, the a.s.sertion and eruption of its creative power, the pleasure of inventing for invention's sake,[133] daring the extraordinary, the unheard-of--it is the victory of pure construction.

The natural equilibrium between the three necessary elements of creation--mobility, combination of images, calculation--is destroyed.

The rational element gives way, is obliterated, and the speculator is launched into adventure with the possibility of a dazzling success or astounding catastrophe. But let us note well that the primary and sole cause of this change is in the affective and motor element, in an hypertrophy of the l.u.s.t for power, in an unmeasured and morbid want of expansion of self. Here, as everywhere, the source of invention is the emotional nature of the inventor.

(2) A second special character of commercial imagination is the exclusive employment of schematic representations. Although this process is also met with in the sciences and especially in social inventions, the imaginative type that we are now considering has the privilege of using them without exception. This, then, is the proper moment for a description.

By "schematic images" I mean those that are, by their very nature, intermediate between the concrete image and the pure concept, but approach more nearly the concept. We have already pointed out very different kinds of representations--concrete images, material pertaining to plastic and mechanical imagination; the emotional abstractions of the diffluent imagination; affective images, the type of which is found in musicians; symbolic images, familiar in mystics. It may seem improper to add another cla.s.s to this list, but it is not a meaningless subtlety.

Indeed, there are no images in general that, according to the ordinary conception, would be copies of reality. Even their separation into visual, auditory, motor, etc., is not sufficient, because it distinguishes them only with regard to their _origin_. There are other differences. We have seen that the image, like everything living, undergoes corrosions, damages, twisting, and transformation: whence it comes about that this remainder of former impressions varies according to its composition, i.e., in simplicity, complexity, grouping of its const.i.tutive elements, etc., and takes on many aspects. On the other hand, as the difference between the chief types of creative imagination depends in part on the materials employed--on the nature of the images that serve in mental building--a precise determination of the nature of the images belonging to each type is not an idle operation.

In order to clearly explain what we mean by schematic images, let us represent by a line, _PC_, the scale of images according to the degree of complexity, from the percept, _P_, to the concept, _C_.

P------------X----G----S----C

As far as I am aware, this determination of all the degrees has never been made. The work would be delicate; I do not regard it as impossible.

I have no intention to undertake it, even as I do not pretend that I have given above the complete list of the various forms of images.

If, then, we consider the foregoing figure merely as a means of representing the gradation to the eye, the image in moving, by hypothesis, from the moment of perception, _P_, is less and less in contact with reality, becomes simplified, impoverished, and loses some of its const.i.tutive elements. At _X_ it crosses the middle threshold to approach nearer and nearer to the concept. At _G_ let us locate generic images, primitive forms of generalization, whose nature and process of becoming are well-known;[134] we should place farther along, at _S_, schematic images, which require a higher function of mind. Indeed, the generic image results from a spontaneous fusion of like or very a.n.a.logous images--such as the vague representation of the oak, the horse, the negro, etc.; it belongs to only one cla.s.s of objects. The schematic image results from a voluntary act; it is not limited to exact resemblances--it rises into abstraction; so it is scarcely accompanied by a fleeting representation of concrete objects--it is almost reduced to the word. At a higher level, it is freed from all sensuous elements or pictures, and is reduced, in the present instance, to the mere notion of value--it is not different from a pure concept. While the artist and the mechanic build with concrete images, the commercial imagination can act directly neither on things nor on their immediate representations, because from the time that it goes beyond the primitive age it requires a subst.i.tution of increasing generality; materials become values that are in turn reducible to symbols. Consequently, it proceeds as in the stating and solving of abstract problems in which, after having subst.i.tuted for things and their relations figures and letters, calculation works with signs, and indirectly with things.

Aside from the first moment of invention, the finding of the idea--an invariable psychological state--it must be recognized that in its development and detailed construction the commercial imagination is made up chiefly of calculations and combinations that hardly permit concrete images. If we admit, then,--and this is unquestionable--that these are the materials _par excellence_ of the creative imagination, we shall be disposed to hold that the imaginative type we are now studying is a kind of involution, a case of impoverishment--an unacceptable thesis as regards the invention itself, but strictly acceptable as regards the conditions that necessity imposes upon it.

In closing, let us note that financial imagination does not always have as its goal the enriching of an individual or of a closely limited group of a.s.sociates: it can aim higher, act on greater ma.s.ses, address itself strenuously to a problem as complex as the reformation of the finances of a powerful state. All the civilized nations count in their history men who imagined a financial system and succeeded, with various fortunes, in making it prevail. The word "system," consecrated by usage, makes unnecessary any comment, and relates this form of imagination to that of scientists and philosophers. Every system rests on a master-conception, on an ideal, a center about which there is a.s.sembled the mental construction made up of imagination and calculation which, if circ.u.mstances permit, must take shape, must show that it can live.

Let us call to mind the author of the first, or at least, of the most notorious of these "systems." Law claimed that he was applying "the methods of philosophy, the principles of Descartes, to social economy, abandoned hitherto to chance and empiricism." His ideal was the inst.i.tution of _credit_ by the state. Commerce, said he, was during its first stage the exchange of merchandise in kind; in a second stage, exchange by means of another, more manageable, commodity or universal value, security equivalent to the object it represented; it must enter a third stage when exchange will be made by a purely conventional sign having no value of its own. Paper represents money, just as the latter represents goods, "with the difference that the paper is not security, but a simple promise, const.i.tuting credit." The state must do systematically what individuals have done instinctively; but it must also do what individuals cannot do--create currency by printing on the paper of exchange the seal of public authority. We know the history of the downfall of this system, the eulogies and criticisms it has received:--but because of the originality and boldness of his views, the inexhaustible fecundity of his lesser inventions, Law holds an undisputed place among the great imaginative minds.

III

We said above that commerce, in its higher manifestations, is a kind of war.[135] Here, then, would be the place to study the military imagination. The subject cannot be treated save by a man of the profession, so I shall limit myself to a few brief remarks based on personal information, or gleaned from authorities.

Between the various types of imagination hitherto studied we have shown great differences as regards their external conditions. While the so-called forms of pure imagination, whence esthetic, mythic, religious, mystic creations arise, can realize themselves by submitting to material conditions that are simple and not very exacting, the others can become embodied only when they satisfy an _ensemble_ of numerous, inevitable, rigorously determined conditions; the goal is fixed, the materials are rigid, there is little choice of the appropriate means. If there be added to the inflexible laws of nature unforeseen human pa.s.sions and determinations, as in political or social invention, or the offensive combination of opponents, as in commerce and war; then the imaginative construction is confronted with problems of constantly growing complexity. The most ingenious inventor cannot invent an object as a whole, letting his work develop through an immanent logic:--the early plan must be continually modified and readapted; and the difficulty arises not merely from the multiple elements of the problem to be solved, but from ceaseless changes in their positions. So one can advance only step by step, and go forward by calculations and strict examination of possibilities. Hence it results that underneath this thick covering of material and intellectual conditions (calculation, reasoning), spontaneity (the aptness for finding new combinations, "that art of inventing without which we hardly advance"[136]) reveals itself to few clear-sighted persons; but, in spite of everything, this creative power is everywhere, flowing like subterranean streams, a vivifying agency.

These general remarks, although not applicable exclusively to the military imagination, find their justification in it, because of its extreme complexity. Let us rapidly enumerate, proceeding from without inwards, the enormous ma.s.s of representations that it has to move and combine in order to make its construction adequate to reality, able at a precise moment to cease being a dream:--(1) Arms, engines, instruments of destruction and supply, varying according to time, place, richness of the country, etc. (2) The equally variable human element--mercenaries, a national army; strong, tried troops or weak and new. (3) The general principles of war, acquired by the study of the masters. (4) More personal is the power of reflection, the habitual solving of tactical and strategic problems. "Battles," said Napoleon, "are thought out at length, and in order to be successful it is necessary that we think several times in regard to what may happen." All the foregoing should be headed "science." Advancing more and more within the secret psychology of the individual, we come to art, the characteristic work of pure imagination. (5) Let us note the exact, rapid intuition at the commencement of the opportune moments. (6) Lastly, the creative element, the conception, a natural gift bearing the hall-mark of each inventor.

Thus "the Napoleonic esthetics was always derived from a single concept, based on a principle that may be summed up thus:--Strict economy wherever it can be done; expenditure without limit on the decisive point. This principle inspires the strategy of the master; it directs everything, especially his battle-tactics, in which it is synthetized and summed up."[137]

Such, in a.n.a.lytical terms, appears the hidden spring that makes everything move, and it is to be attributed neither to experience nor to reasoning, nor to wise combinations, for it arises from the innermost depths of the inventor. "The principle exists in him in a latent state, i.e., in the depths of the unconscious, and unconsciously it is that he applies it, when the shock of the circ.u.mstances, of goal and means, causes to flash from his brain the spark stimulating the artistic solution _par excellence_, one that reaches the limits of human perfection."[138]

FOOTNOTES:

[131] Carpenter, _Mental Physiology_, chapter XI (end).

[132] Historically, the evolution has not always proceeded strictly in this order, which, however, seems the most logical one.

Negotiable drafts were known to the a.s.syrians and Carthaginians. For thousands of years Egypt used ingots, not real money, but it was acquainted with fiduciary money. In the new world, the Peruvians made use of the scale, the Aztecs were ignorant of its use, etc. For details, see Letourneau, _L'evolution du commerce dans les diverses races humaines_, Paris, 1897, especially pp. 264, 330, 354, 384, etc.

[133] This condition has been well-described by various novelists, among them Zola, in _Money_.

[134] For further details on this point, we refer the reader to our _Evolution of General Ideas_ (chapter I).

[135] A general, a former professor in the War College, told me that when he heard a great merchant tell of the quick and sure service of his commercial information, the conception of the whole, and the care in all the details of his operations, he could not keep from exclaiming, "Why, that is war!"

[136] Leibniz.

[137] General Bonnal, _Les Maitres de la Guerre_, 1899, p. 137. "In him (Napoleon)," says the writer, "there was something of the poet, and one could explain all his acts by means of this singular complex, a medley of imagination, pa.s.sion, and calculation. The dreams of an Ossian with the positive cast of mind of a mathematician and the pa.s.sions of a Corsican--such were the heterogeneous elements that clashed in that powerful organization"

(p. 151).

[138] _Op. cit._, p. 6.

CHAPTER VII

THE UTOPIAN IMAGINATION[139]

When the human mind creates, it can use only two cla.s.ses of ideas as materials to embody its idea, viz.:

(1) Natural phenomena, the forces of the organic and inorganic worlds.

In its scientific form, seeking to explain, to know, it ends in the hypothesis, a disinterested creation. In its industrial aspect, aiming towards application and utilization, it ends in practical, interested inventions.

(2) Human, i.e., psychic elements--instincts, pa.s.sions, feelings, ideas, and actions. Esthetic creation is the disinterested form, social invention is the utilitarian form.

Consequently, we may say that invention in science resembles invention in the fine arts, both being speculative; and that mechanical and industrial invention approaches social invention through a common tendency toward the practical. I shall not insist on this distinction, which, to be definite, rests only on partial characters; I merely wish to mention that invention, whose role in social, political and moral evolution is large, must, in order to be a success, adopt certain processes while neglecting others. This the Utopians do not do.

The development of human societies depends on a mult.i.tude of factors, such as race, geographic and economic conditions, war, etc., which we need neither enumerate nor study. One only belongs to our topic--the successive appearance of idealistic conceptions that, like all other creations of mind, tend to realize themselves, the moral ideal consisting of new combinations arising from the predominance of one feeling, or from an unconscious elaboration (inspiration), or from a.n.a.logy.

At the beginning of civilizations we meet semi-historic, semi-legendary persons--Manu, Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, etc., who were inventors or reformers in the social and moral spheres. That a part of the inventions attributed to them must be credited to predecessors or successors is probable; but the invention, no matter who is its author, remains none the less invention. We have said elsewhere, and may repeat, that the expression _inventor_ in morals may seem strange to some, because we are imbued with the notion of a knowledge of good and evil that is innate, universal, bestowed on all men and in all times. If we admit, on the other hand, as observation compels us to do, not a ready-made morality, but a morality in the making, it must be, indeed, the _creation_ of an individual or of a group. Everybody recognizes inventors in geometry, in music, in the plastic and mechanic arts; but there have also been men who, in their moral dispositions, were very superior to their contemporaries, and were promoters, initiators.[140] For reasons of which we are ignorant, a.n.a.logous to those that produce a great poet or a great painter, there arise moral geniuses who feel strongly what others do not feel at all, just as does a great poet, in comparison with the crowd. But it is not enough that they feel: they must create, they must realize their ideal in a belief and in rules of conduct accepted by other men. All the founders of great religions were inventors of this kind. Whether the invention comes from themselves alone, or from a collectivity of which they are the sum and incarnation, matters little.

In them moral invention has found its complete form; like all invention, it is organic. The legend relates that Buddha, possessed with the desire of finding the perfect road of salvation for himself and all other men, gives himself up, at first, to an extravagant asceticism. He perceives the uselessness of this and renounces it. For seven years he meditates, then he beholds the light. He comes into possession of knowledge of the means that give freedom from _Karma_ (the chain of causes and effects), and from the necessity of being born again. Soon he renounces the life of contemplation, and during fifty years of ceaseless wanderings preaches, makes converts, organizes his followers. Whether true or false historically, this tale is psychologically exact. A fixed and besetting idea, trial followed by failure, the decisive moment of _Eureka!_ then the inner revelation manifests itself outwardly, and through the labors of the master and his disciples becomes complete, imposes itself on millions of men. In what respect does this mode of creation differ from others, at least in the practical order?

Thus, from the viewpoint of our present study, we may divide ethics into living and dead. Living ethics arise from needs and desires, stimulate an imaginative construction that becomes fixed in actions, habits and laws; they offer to men a concrete, positive ideal which, under various and often contrary aspects, is always happiness. The lifeless ethics, from which invention has withdrawn, arise from reflection upon, and the rational codification of, living ethics. Stored away in the writings of philosophers, they remain theoretical, speculative, without appreciable influence on the ma.s.ses, mere material for dissertation and commentary.

In proportion as we recede from distant origins the light grows, and invention in the social and moral order becomes manifest as the work of two princ.i.p.al categories of minds--the fantastic, the positive. The former, purely imaginative beings, visionaries, utopians, are closely related to poets and artists. The latter, practical creators or reformers, capable of organizing, belong to the family of inventors in the industrial-commercial-mechanical order.

I

The chimerical form of imagination, applied to the social sciences, is the one that, taking account neither of the external determinism nor of practical requirements, spreads out freely. Such are the creators of ideal republics, seeking for a lost or to-be-discovered-in-the-future golden age, constructing, as their fancy pleases, human societies in their large outlines and in their details. They are social novelists, who bear the same relation to sociologists that poets do to critics.