The invectives against idolatry of the early Jewish and Christian apologists, of Philo, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius and others, are very good reading and throw much light on the question how an ancient pagan conceived of his idols. One capital argument of the Christians was the absurdity of a man making an idol and then being afraid of or adoring the work of his own hands. Lactantius preserves the answer of the pagans so attacked (De origine Erroris, ii. 2): We do not, they said, fear the images themselves, but those beings after whose likeness they were fashioned and by whose names they were consecrated. Few such rites of consecration remain, but they must have been similar to those used in India to-day. There the Brahmin invites the god to dwell within the image, specially made hollow to contain him, “performing the ceremony of adhivāsa or inhabitation, after which he puts in the eyes and the prāna, i.e. breath, life or soul.”[1] Similarly Augustine (De civ. Dei, viii. 23) relates how, according to Hermes, the spirits entered by invitation (spiritus invitatos), so that the images became bodies of the gods (corpora deorum). Thus the invisible spirits by a certain art are so joined unto the visible objects of corporeal matter that the latter become as it were animated bodies, images dedicated to those spirits and controlled by them (see [Consecration]). Such statues were animated with sense and full of spirit, they foresaw the future, and foretold it by lot, through their priests, in dreams and in other ways.
See E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ed. 1903 (list of authorities and sources vol., p. 171); L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion (London, 1905); Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, translation by J. S. Stallybrass.
(F. C. C.)
[1] Tylor, Prim. Culture, ii. 178.
IMAGINATION, in general, the power or process of producing mental pictures or ideas. The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as “imaging” or “imagery” or to speak of it as “reproductive” as opposed to “productive” or “constructive” imagination (see [Image] and [Psychology]). The common use of the term is for the process of forming in the mind new images which have not been previously experienced, or at least only partially or in different combinations. Thus the image of a centaur is the result of combining the common percepts of man and horse: fairy tales and fiction generally are the result of this process of combination. Imagination in this sense, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of practical necessity, is up to a certain point free from objective restraints. In various spheres, however, even imagination is in practice limited: thus a man whose imaginations do violence to the elementary laws of thought, or to the necessary principles of practical possibility, or to the reasonable probabilities of a given case is regarded as insane. The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis. Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are constructed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science. In spite, however, of these broad practical considerations, imagination differs fundamentally from belief in that the latter involves “objective control of subjective activity” (Stout). The play of imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity: it is perfectly possible to imagine myself a millionaire, but unless I believe it I do not, therefore, act as such. Belief always endeavours to conform to objective conditions; though it is from one point of view subjective it is also objectively conditioned, whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of mental development. Thus a savage who is ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy. In ignorance of pathology he is satisfied with this explanation, and actually believes in it, whereas such a hypothesis in the mind of civilized man would be treated as a pure effort of imagination, or even as a hallucination. It follows that the distinction between imagination and belief depends in practice on knowledge, social environment, training and the like.
Although, however, the absence of objective restraint, i.e. a certain unreality, is characteristic of imagination, none the less it has great practical importance as a purely ideational activity. Its very freedom from objective limitation makes it a source of pleasure and pain. A person of vivid imagination suffers acutely from the imagination of perils besetting a friend. In fact in some cases the ideal construction is so “real” that specific physical manifestations occur, as though imagination had passed into belief or the events imagined were actually in progress.
IMĀM, an Arabic word, meaning “leader” or “guide” in the sense of a “pattern whose example is followed, whether for good or bad.” Thus it is applied to the Koran, to a builder’s level and plumb-line, to a road, to a school-boy’s daily task, to a written record. It is used in several of these, senses in the Koran, but specifically several times of leaders and (ii. 118) of Abraham, “Lo, I make thee a pattern for mankind.” Imām thus became the name of the head of the Moslem community, whose leadership and patternhood, as in the case of Mahomet himself, is to be regarded as of the widest description. His duty is to be the lieutenant, the Caliph (q.v.) of the Prophet, to guard the faith and maintain the government of the state. Round the origin and basis of his office all controversies as to the Moslem state centre. The Sunnites hold that it is for men to appoint and that the basis is obedience to the general usage of the Moslem peoples from the earliest times. The necessity for leaders has always been recognized, and a leader has always been appointed. The basis is thus agreement in the technical sense (see [Mahommedan Law]), not Koran nor tradition from Mahomet nor analogy. The Shī’ites in general hold that the appointment lies with God, through the Prophet or otherwise, and that He always has appointed. The Khārijites theoretically recognize no absolute need of an Imām; he is convenient and allowable. The Motazilites held that reason, not agreement, dictated the appointment. Another distinction between the Sunnites and the Shī’ites is that the Sunnites regard the Imām as liable to err, and to be obeyed even though he personally sins, provided he maintains the ordinances of Islām. Effective leadership is the essential point. But the Shī’ites believe that the divinely appointed Imām is also divinely illumined and preserved (ma‘ṣūm) from sin. The above is called the greater Imāmate. The lesser Imāmate is the leadership in the Friday prayers. This was originally performed by the Imām in the first sense, who not only led in prayers but delivered a sermon (khuṭba); but with the growth of the Moslem empire and the retirement of the caliph from public life, it was necessarily given over to a deputy—part of a gradual process of putting the Imāmate or caliphate into commission. These deputy Imāms are, in Turkey, ministers of the state, each in charge of his own parish; they issue passports, &c., and perform the rites of circumcision, marriage and burial. In Persia among Shī’ites their position is more purely spiritual, and they are independent of the state. A few of their leaders are called Mujtahids, i.e. capable of giving an independent opinion on questions of religion and canon law. A third use of the term Imām is as an honorary title. It is thus applied to leading theologians, e.g. to Abū Ḥanīfa, ash-Shāfi‘ī, Malik ibn Anas, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (these are called “the four Imāms”), Ghazāli.