390 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions, have often said that their works were composed as in a 

 dream, unknown to themselves ; that instead of being deliberately 

 constructed, their ideas have, as it were, flown to them. 



Involuntary thought is frequently described by the poets as 

 unconscious. That can not be accurate, for " unconscious 

 thought^' is a contradictory phrase. Not even a dream can be 

 said to be unconscious, whether it be purely ideal like most 

 dreams, or produce action as in sleepwalking. In such a state 

 self-consciousness alone is suspended, not consciousness itself. 

 Fancy stands halfway between dreaming and active intellectual 

 function. The latter depends directly on the will, while in the 

 former the will is in total abeyance. All men are subject to fall 

 under the influence of fancy. In ordinary men it makes day- 

 dreams, which everybody recognizes to be opposed to purposive 

 thought. All that fancy produces depends on former impressions 

 of sense. It is powerless to create anything new ; its products 

 are mere combinations in memory of the residua of former im- 

 pressions. They may be unlikely enough, and in that sense it 

 may be true that its products are "original"; but this does not 

 conflict with the facts alleged. It is this creative and somewhat 

 independent power of fancy which lends to the work of art its 

 character of originality, and hence it is that many inquirers have 

 found in that the essence of genius. 



The psychological analysis of famous poets will show that the 

 intellectual function is no whit less important a factor of poetic 

 genius than fancy itself, although the latter is the one immediately 

 employed in the act of composition. We have seen that creative 

 fancy works with the material which former impressions of sense 

 have left behind as their remains or residua. The more compre- 

 hensive the knowledge of the poet, therefore, and the more he is 

 in condition to assimilate and compact the impressions the world 

 conveys to him, and the sounder and truer his judgments of per- 

 sons and situations, and the more methodical his thought and 

 the better his memory, by so much the more will his fancy dis- 

 play luxuriance, and so much more various will be his creations. 

 Another psychical phenomenon, besides fancy and intellectual 

 function, surprises us in famous poets to wit, a refinement of the 

 feelings, heart, and moods. We often find these qualities devel- 

 oped in great poets to a point we can scarcely imagine. Another 

 trait remarkable in famous poets is an instinctive and invincible 

 impulse to express the ideas and feelings within them. In conse- 

 quence of this impulse, the work of genius is not a voluntary labor, 

 but the "involuntary product of a psychical need. It is not a 

 hankering after applause and success, nor a regard for his other 

 interests, which induces the man of genius to perform his task. 

 It is solely a passion to give shape and form to the idea that ex- 



