Baudelaire used to say: "Inspiration means working every day"; but this aphorism does not appear to epitomize his personal experience. Regular daily work is, so to speak, inspiration regularized, domesticated, enslaved. These terms do not involve a contradiction, for it is certain that the second state can only gain in depth by becoming periodic. Habit, so powerful, reinforces nature to strengthen a psychological state which then comes to be a veritable necessity. Those who depart from a daily routine experience a certain uneasiness both during and after their regular working-hours--sometimes a real distress--especially if they remain in the same surroundings. Remorse has, perhaps, no other origin, whether it be connected with an habitual act which has not been accomplished, or with an act which is not habitual, and which has violently interrupted the customary procession of the days. If inspiration be a second state, it may, then, be a second state induced voluntarily. There is no doubt that artists, writers, scientists can work without preparation when obliged to, spurred on only by necessity, and that, on the other hand, the work thus produced is quite as good as that done entirely for its own sake. This does not mean that the subconscious has remained inactive during the effort initiated by the will, but that its activity has been induced. There is, then, a subconscious state which is not spontaneous, which comes to mingle with the conscious when required by the will, but which, little by little, as the work progresses, substitutes itself for the will. It is often enough to set to work, in order to feel all the difficulties that had paralyzed effort vanish one by one; but perhaps this reasoning is paralogical, and the work has precisely become possible only because of the preliminary breaking-down of the obstacles which had confronted the mind in the first place. In either case, however, there is evident intervention of the subconscious forces.