nature and every apperceptive moment may furnish one of them."[89] Let us, indeed, note that, for the worshiper, the god to whom he addresses himself and while he is praying, is always the greatest and most powerful. The assignment of attributes passes suddenly from one to the other, regardless of contradiction. In this versatility some writers believe they have discovered a vague pantheistic conception. Nothing is more questionable, fundamentally, than this interpretation. It is more in harmony with the psychology of these naive minds to assume simply an extreme state of "impressionism," explicable by the logic of feeling. Thus, there is a complete antithesis between the imagination that has created the clear-cut and definite polytheism of the Greeks and that whence have issued those fluctuating divinities that allow the presentation of the future doctrine of _Maya_, of universal illusion--another more refined form of the diffluent imagination. Finally, let us note that the Hellenic imagination realized its gods through anthropomorphism--they are the ideal forms of human attributes[90]--majesty, beauty, power, wisdom, etc. The Hindoo imagination proceeds through symbolism: its divinities have several heads, several arms, several legs, to symbolize limitless intelligence, power, etc.; or better still, animal forms, as e.g., Ganesa, the god of wisdom, with the head of the elephant, reputed the wisest of animals. (5) It would be easy to show by the history of literature and the fine arts that the vague forms have been preferred according to peoples, times, and places. Let us limit ourselves to a single contemporary example that is complete and systematically created--the art of the "symbolists." It is not here a question of criticism, of praise, or even of appreciation, but merely of a consideration of it as a psychological fact likely to instruct us in regard to the nature of the diffluent imagination. This form of art despises the clear and exact representation of the outer world: it replaces it by a sort of music that aspires to express the changing and fleeting inwardness of the human soul. It is the school of the subject "who wants to know only mental states." To that end, it makes use of a natural or artificial lack of precision: everything floats in a dream, men as well as things, often without mark in time and space. Something happens, one knows not where or when; it belongs to no country, is of no period in time: it is _the_ forest, _the_ traveler, _the_ city, _the_ knight, _the_ wood; less frequently, even _He_, _She_, _It_. In short, all the vague and unstable characters of the pure, content-less affective state. This process of "suggestion" sometimes succeeds, sometimes fails. The word is the sign _par excellence_. As, according to the symbolists, it should give us emotions rather than representations, it is necessary that it lose, partially, its intellectual function and undergo a new adaptation.