Essay on the Creative ImaginationRibot, Th. (Théodule)
Science
Essay on the Creative Imagination
Ribot, Th. (Théodule)
Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Imagination
B. On the nature of the unconscious factor. Two
categories--static unconscious, dynamic
unconscious.--Theories as to the nature of the
unconscious.--Objections, criticisms. 338
C. Cosmic and human imagination. 346
D. Evidence in regard to musical imagination. 350
E. The imaginative type and association of ideas. 353
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
THE MOTOR NATURE OF THE CONSTRUCTIVE IMAGINATION
I
It has been often repeated that one of the principal conquests of
contemporary psychology is the fact that it has firmly established the
place and importance of movements; that it has especially through
observation and experiment shown the representation of a movement to be
a movement begun, a movement in the nascent state. Yet those who have
most strenuously insisted on this proposition have hardly gone beyond
the realm of the passive imagination; they have clung to facts of pure
reproduction. My aim is to extend their formula, and to show that it
explains, in large measure at least, the origin of the creative
imagination.
Let us follow step by step the passage from reproduction pure and simple
to the creative stage, showing therein the persistence and preponderance
of the motor element in proportion as we rise from mere repetition to
invention.
First of all, do all representations include motor elements? Yes, I
say, because every perception presupposes movements to some extent, and
representations are the remnants of past perceptions. Certain it is
that, without our examining the question in detail, this statement holds
good for the great majority of cases. So far as visual and tactile
images are concerned there is no possible doubt as to the importance of
the motor elements that enter into their composition. The eye is very
poorly endowed with movements for its office as a higher sense-organ;
but if we take into account its intimate connection with the vocal
organs, so rich in capacity for motor combinations, we note a kind of
compensation. Smell and taste, secondary in human psychology, rise to a
very high rank indeed among many animals, and the olfactory apparatus
thus obtains with them a complexity of movements proportionate to its
importance, and one that at times approaches that of sight. There yet
remains the group of internal sensations that might cause discussion.
Setting aside the fact that the vague impressions bound up with chemical
changes within the tissues are scarcely factors in representation, we
find that the sensations resulting from changes in respiration,
circulation, and digestion are not lacking in motor elements. The mere
fact that, in some persons, vomiting, hiccoughs, micturition, etc., can
be caused by perceptions of sight or of hearing proves that
representations of this character have a tendency to become translated
into acts.
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