8f THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and of showing how the memory, will, reason and imagination con- 

 tribute in their functioning to the needs of the organism. Such ex- 

 pectations still lack something of fulfilment. Chapters on the imagina- 

 tion continue to give a large, perhaps undue, proportion of space to the 

 discussion of imagery. Works on psychology that confess a disposition 

 to make the functional their text are disappointing and inadequate in 

 their treatment of the imagination. In this field we may confidently 

 await fresh developments, as functional psychology, pushed far enough, 

 should tend to bridge the chasm between a dry science of the states of 

 consciousness as such and a vital knowledge of human nature. 



A psychology genetic other than in name may enable us not merely 

 to realize the part played by the imagination from the dawn of psychic 

 life and its contribution to the physical and social adjustment of the 

 individual, but also to trace the connection of this faculty — I venture 

 to write the word without quotation marks — with the life-preserving 

 and life-promoting emotions. 



It would be rash to claim that recognition in the lower animals 

 implies imagery and that consequently all progressive adjustments, such 

 as form the criteria of intelligence, imply the exercise of imagination. 

 In fact, the indefiniteness of our conception of our own images when we 

 speak of gustatory and tactual imagery, and the increasingly impalpable 

 nature of the conception as in comparative psychology we descend the 

 animal scale, make apparent in this matter the futility of all dogmatism. 

 But it seems certain that growth in intelligence is correlative with the 

 breaking up of the total situation, to which the animal reacts, into dis- 

 parate and independent images, which can be grouped and elaborated 

 after the manner of, in judgments, the later concepts. This means the 

 gradual displacement of association by contiguity through association 

 by similarity, which culminates in the imaginative constructions of 

 genius. 



This development of the consciousness is naturally most marked 

 where the need of adjustment is most imperative. At this point of 

 vital interest the feelings also are naturally engaged, and consequently 

 an intimate relation is to be expected between the imagination and the 

 feelings. We need not pause now to consider the interdependence of 

 the functioning of the imagination and the genesis of the emotions. If 

 necessity is the mother of invention, fear, anger, sympathy, pride and 

 love in their various guises bring it to birth. The inner connection 

 between the emotion and the imagination seems to lie in the Tcinesthetic 

 image or, as some might prefer to say, the kinesthetic sensation. Here 

 the distinction between image and sensation is hard to make. Intro- 

 spection reveals that all perception is accompanied by kinesthetic sensa- 

 tions from the eye, ear and other organs of sense. The corresponding 

 visual, auditory and gustatory images have also a kinesthetic accom- 



