(1) It is a combining or tactical imagination. Heretofore, we have met nothing like it. This special mark is derived from the very nature of its determinism, which is very different from that limiting the scientific or mechanical imagination. Every commercial project, in order to emerge from the internal, purely imaginative phase, and become a reality, requires "coming to a head," very exact calculation of frequently numerous, divergent, even contrary elements. The American dealer speculating in grain is under the absolute necessity of being quickly and surely informed regarding the agricultural situation in all countries of the world that are rich in grain, that export or import; in regard to the probable chances of rain or drouth; the tariff duties of the various countries, etc. Lacking that, he buys and sells haphazard. Moreover, as he deals in enormous quantities, the least error means great losses, the smallest profit on a unit is of account, and is multiplied and increased into a noticeable gain. Besides that initial intuition that shows opportune business and moments, commercial imagination presupposes a well-studied, detailed campaign for attack and defense, a rapid and reliable glance at every moment of execution in order to incessantly modify this plan--it is a kind of war. All this totality of special conditions results from a general condition,--namely, competition, strife. We shall come back to this point at the end of the chapter. Let us follow to the end the working of this creative imagination. Like the other forms, this kind of invention arises from a need, a desire--that of the spreading of "self-feeling," of the expansion of the individual under the form of enrichment. But this tendency, and with it the resulting imaginative creation, can undergo changes.