Essay on the Creative ImaginationRibot, Th. (Théodule)
Science
Essay on the Creative Imagination
Ribot, Th. (Théodule)
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Imagination
Association by contrast is, from its very nature, vague, arbitrary,
indeterminate. It rests, in truth, on an essentially subjective and
fleeting conception, that of contrariety, which it is almost impossible
to delimit scientifically; for, most often, contraries exist only by and
for us. We know that this form of association is not primary and
irreducible. It is brought down by some to contiguity, by most others to
resemblance. These two views do not seem to me irreconcilable. In
association by contrast we may distinguish two layers,--the one,
superficial, consists of contiguity: all of us have in memory associated
couples, such as large-small, rich-poor, high-low, right-left, etc.,
which result from repetition and habit; the other, deep, is resemblance;
_contrast exists only where a common measure between two terms is
possible_. As Wundt remarks, a wedding may be compared to a burial (the
union and separation of a couple), but not to a toothache. There is
contrast between two colors, contrast between sounds, but not between a
sound and a color, at least in that there may not be a common basis to
which we may relate them, as in the previously given instances of
"colored" sound. In association by contrast, there are conscious
elements opposed to one another, and below, an unconscious element,
resemblance,--not clearly and logically perceived, but felt--that evokes
and relates the conscious elements.
Whether this explanation be right or not, let us remark that association
by contrast could not be left out, because its mechanism, full of
unforeseen possibilities, lends itself easily to novel relations.
Otherwise, I do not at all claim that it is entirely dependent upon the
emotional factor. But, as Hoeffding observes,[16] the special property of
the emotional life is moving among contraries; it is altogether
determined by the great opposition between pleasure and pain. Thus, the
effects of contrasts are much stronger than in the realm of sensation.
This form of association predominates in esthetic and mythic creation,
that is to say, in creation of the free fancy; it becomes dimmed in the
precise forms of practical, mechanical, and scientific invention.
III
Hitherto we have considered the emotional factor under a single aspect
only--the purely emotional--that which is manifested in consciousness
under an agreeable or disagreeable or mixed form. But thoughts,
feelings, and emotions include elements that are deeper--motor, i.e.,
impulsive or inhibitory--which we may neglect the less since it is in
movements that we seek the origin of the creative imagination. This
motor element is what current speech and often even psychological
treatises designate under the terms "creative instinct," "inventive
instinct;" what we express in another form when we say that creators are
guided by instinct and "are pushed like animals toward the
accomplishment of certain acts."
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