IMAGINATION. Early in the history of psychology, imagination meant nothing more than the ability or power of having mental images. (See IMAGE, PSYCHOLOGICAL). Later, a distinction was made between the imaging of previous experience (reproductive imagination), and the forming of new images from the old (productive imagination). Still later, the former was subsumed under the term °mem ory," and the latter became the sole meaning of imagination. As now understood, however, imagination is something more than the mere having of discrete images or ideas. It is rather a sequence of mental processes which is di rected in its course either by the perceptions or feelings of the moment (passive imagina tion), or by some dominating idea or disposi tion which looks to the creation of a new ob ject (creative imagination). Psychologically regarded, the characteristic process of this consciousness is the image of imagination. But, psychologically again, it is wrong to suppose as some psychologists have formerly supposed, that the images in and of themselves may com bine to form novel compounds. Hobbes says, for instance, that °when a man compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of another man, as when a -man imagines him self a Hercules or an Alexander, . . . it is a compound image."' Hobbes was led into this error because he did not distinguish between the image as bare unmeaningful process and the image as object, as logical meaning. We now know' that the meaning which the image carries is not intrinsic to the image, that it may be carried by other processes than the image, and that under certain circumstances it may have no representation whatever in consciousness. Fur thermore, all associations, i.e., combinations, are functions of meanings; there is nothing in the images themselves to condition their combination. But when a new meaning has been reached we may find in consciousness an imaginal process which carries the new mean ing, and which, when regarded as object, may bear the likeness of the object meant. Only in this way may a compound image such as Hobbes describes be attained.
This image, the image of imagination, ap pears only in minds of a certain constitution and its mode varies, of course, according to differences in ideational type. In some cases the imaged object is so complete and distinct in form and so stable in quality that it serves as a guide to the artist who undertakes a formal expression of his new creation. Legouve, for example, is said to have remarked to Scribe, "When I write a scene I hear, you see; at each' phrase which I write, the voice of the person who is speaking strikes my ear. You, who are the theatre itself, your actors walk, act before your eyes: I am the listener and you the spectator?' °Nothing could be more correct," Scribe replied; °Do you know where I am when I am writing a piece? In the middle of the parterre." We know also that Goethe and Dickens visualized their scenes and that the latter heard his characters speak; that Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven heard their music before it was expressed in notes and that some painters have had visual ideas so stable in form and color as to serve as models.
The image of imagination is, as has been said, the characteristic feature of the imaginal consciousness. But like the patterns of thought and action, the imaginal is a determined con sciousness; the ideas proceed in an orderly way. In passive imagination the images fol low the course of perception as when we see the incidents related by a story-teller, or hear the character speak in the drama we read. In
these cases, as Titchener says, "a certain indefi nite direction is given to our ideas by the presented stimuli; then the ideas as they come in their predetermined order, arc supplemented in this imaginal way.° In constructive imagina tion, on the other hand, the successive ideas not only have a direction, but they also drive for ward to an end, namely, the new creation. The determining factors here are dispositions in the nervous system which may or may not find conscious representation. In the first place we have what Ribot calls the "instinct of creation. the need of producing in a determined line." This, if mentally expressed, comes as a vague ambition or aim, and the disposition serves to restrict all ideas that do not fit in with the am bition or aim. Then without warning but usu ally after long incubation and as the result of some chance situation, or some grouping of associative tendencies, a new meaning, a happy thought,.is born. • If the new meaning is carried in consciousness by an image and if it has upon it the feeling of strangeness, then it is the image of imagination. The feeling of strangeness, however, alternates with a feeling of satis faction, of joy, sometimes of exaltation. It is not surprising that in view of the suddenness of its initiation, its unaccountableness, its feel ing of strangeness and the joy which it brings, the new idea often seems to come as an inspira tion from on high. Sometimes the new con ception comes in its complete form. George Sand, for example, says of Chopin: °Creation was spontaneous, miraculous; he wrought with out foreseeing. It would come complete, sud den, sublime?' But at other times and more frequently, the new idea is vague, incomplete, or only in outline, and the period that follows is one of hard labor characterized by secondary attention, conflicting ideas and variable moods. This is the period when the painter cleans and recleans his canvass, the musician writes and rewrites his themes, the poet casts and recasts his lines. But all the while the image of imagi nation serves both as model and as goal assist ing the dispositions in keeping the imaginal consciousness true to its course.
There remains to mention a third feature of the imaginal consciousness, the feeling of empathy. There seems to be a natural tendency for an individual of the imaginal type to feel himself into a situation. It is not enough for the artist to picture the scene he creates: he becomes a part of it. He not only invents a character ; he lives it. Scribe projected himself into the pit and watched his actors act; he might equally well have become the characters themselves, as Dickens became Little Nell and suffered as she suffered. Psychologically, empathy is a conscious attitude that analyzes into images of imagination and kinzsthetic sensations. Its counterpart in perception and memory is imitation.
Bibliography.—To the titles under IMAGE, PSYCHOLOGICAL, add Hobbes, T., 'Leviathan) (London 1839); Lucca, E.,
Phantasie, eine psychologische Untersuchung> (Leipzig 1908) ; Peillaube, E.,