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 constitutive 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 analogous images—such as the vague representation of the oak, the horse, the negro, etc.; it belongs to only one class 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 substitution 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 substituted 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 associates: it can aim higher, act on greater masses, 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 assembled the mental construction made up of imagination and calculation which, if circumstances 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 institution 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, constituting 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 passions 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 mass 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]