Is imagination, so often called "a capricious faculty," subject to some law? The question thus asked is too simple, and we must make it more precise.
As the direct cause of invention, great or small, the imagination acts without assignable determination; in this sense it is what is known as "spontaneity"—a vague term, which we have attempted to make clear. Its appearance is irreducible to any law; it results from the often fortuitous convergence of various factors previously studied.
Leaving aside the moment of origin, does the inventive power, considered in its individual and specific development, seem to follow any law, or, if this term appear too ambitious, does it present, in the course of its evolution, any perceptible regularity? Observation separates out an empirical law; that is, extracts directly an abridged formula that is only a condensation of facts. We may enunciate it thus: The creative imagination in its complete development passes through two periods separated by a critical phase: a period of autonomy or efflorescence, a critical moment, a period of definitive constitution presenting several aspects.
This formula, being only a summary of experience, should be justified and explained by the latter. For this purpose we can borrow facts from two distinct sources: (a) individual development, which is the safest, clearest, and easiest to observe; (b) the development of the species, or historical development, according to the accepted principle that phylogenesis and ontogenesis follow the same general line.
I
First Period. We are already acquainted with it: it is the imaginative age. In normal man, it begins at about the age of three, and embraces infancy, adolescence, youth: sometimes a longer, sometimes a shorter period. Play, romantic invention, mythic and fantastic conceptions of the world sum it up first; after that, in most, imagination is dependent on the influence of the passions, and especially sexual love. For a long time it remains without any rational element.
Nevertheless, little by little, the latter wins a place. Reflection—including under the term the working of the intelligence—begins very late, grows slowly, and the proportion as it asserts itself, gains an influence over the imaginative activity and tends to reduce it. This growing antagonism is represented in the following figure.
The curve IM is that of the imagination during this first period. It rises at first very slowly, then attains a rapid ascent and keeps at a height that marks its greatest attainment in this earliest form. The dotted line RX represents the rational development that begins later, advances much more slowly, but progressively, and reaches at X the level of the imaginative curve. The two intellectual forms are present like two rivals. The position MX on the ordinate marks the beginning of the second period.
Second Period. This is a critical period of indeterminate length, in any case, always much briefer than the other two. This critical moment can be characterized only by its causes and results. Its causes are, in the physiological sphere, the formation of an organism and a fully developed brain; in the psychologic order, the antagonism between the pure subjectivity of the imagination and the objectivity of ratiocinative processes; in other words, between mental instability and stability. As for the results, they appear only in the third period, the resultant of this obscure, metamorphic stage.