IMAGINATION. 143 



Bain, and others, who also maintain, with considerable pro- 

 bability, that the cerebral change accompanying the idea of a 

 past sensation is the same in kind and place, though not in 

 degree of intensity, as was the cerebral change which accom- 

 panied the original sensation.* 



In its next stage of development Ideation may be re- 

 garded as the memory of a simple perception, and imme- 

 diately after this the principle of association by contiguity 11 ' 

 comes in. Later on there arises association by similarity, V** 

 and from this point onwards Ideation advances by abstrac- /" 

 tion, generalization, and symbolic construction, in ways and 

 degrees which will constitute one of the topics to be con- 

 sidered in my next work. 



From this brief sketch, then, it will be seen that we have \ 

 already considered the lowest stages of Ideation while treating ll 

 of Memory and the Association of Ideas. Eesuming, there- 

 fore, the analysis at the point where we there left it, I shall 

 devote this chapter to a consideration of those higlier phases 

 of the idea-forming powers which we may conveniently in- 

 clude under the general term Imagination. 



Now, under this general term we include a variety of 

 mental states, which although all bearing kinship to one 

 another, are so diverse in the degree of mental development 

 which they betoken that we must begin by analyzing them. 



As used in popular phraseology, the word Imagination is 



* Tlius, Mr. Spencer says, " The idea is an imperfect and feeble repetition 

 of the original impression . . . There is first a presented manifestation of the 

 riyid order, and then, afterwards, there may come a represented manifestation 

 that is like it except in being much less distinct." {First Principles, p. 145.) 

 And Professor Bain says, " What is the manner of occupation of the brain with 

 a resuscitated feeling of resistance, a smell, or a sound ? There is only one 

 answer that seems admissible. The renewed feeling occtipies the very same 

 parts, and in the same manner, as the original feeling, and no other parts, 

 nor in any other assignable manner." {Senses and Intellect, p. 338.) While 

 quite assenting to this view of ideation, so far as the psychology of the sub- 

 ject is concerned, I think we are much too ignorant of the physiology of 

 cerebration to indulge in any such confident assertions respecting the precise 

 seat and manner of the formation of ideas. Again, with reference to Mr. 

 Spencer's views, it is needless to repeat the point in n-hich I disagree with 

 him touching the earliest stages of memory — or those before the advt nt of 

 the association of ideas. Only I may point out tliat as the simplest possible 

 idea is held to consist in a faint revival of a sensation (as distinguished from 

 a perception), it follows that the occurrence of the simplest possible idea 

 precedes the occurrence of its association with any other idea ; and if so, 

 the memory of the sensation, or the faint revival of the sensation in which 

 the idea is held to consist, must also precede any association with other faint 

 revivals of the same kind. 



