RECOLLECTIONS SUMMONED BY THE WILL 109 



recombined ; and there are almost infinite possi- 

 bilities for the activity of the imagination in 

 creating new forms out of pre-existing elements. 

 The imagination may be stimulated by the con- 

 scious establishment of a " field of volition," or 

 mental disposition towards a certain theme or 

 subject, as, for instance, the composition of a 

 landscape. This " field of volition " may, perhaps, 

 be likened to the magnetic field that is developed 

 round the poles of a magnet. It sets up an 

 activity that causes the memory-stream to present 

 to us recollections which are apposite to the 

 subject before us which are, that is to say, 

 attracted by the same emotional interest. The 

 fertility of the imagination the abundance of the 

 materials with which the artist can construct 

 depends upon the emotions that have been aroused 

 in him by the various features and phases of 

 actual landscapes that he has seen, and the links 

 which his emotions have established between 

 them. If he is of an emotional disposition that 

 is to say, an " imaginative " man from his 

 memory will surge up a flood of detail. If he is 

 of colder temperament, or his brain is not 

 functioning actively, he may have to cudgel his 

 memory for ideas. By a similar process the 

 poet is inspired with similitudes and rhythmical 

 expressions, the musician with sequences and 

 combinations of sounds, the mechanic with new 

 contrivances, and the mathematician, who can find 

 emotional interest in the properties of numbers, 

 quantities, and positions, can picture in a form 

 which hardly eludes his conception such unsub- 

 stantial possibilities as a fourth dimension. Crea- 

 tive art is the offspring of imagination ; so are the 

 theories of science, and the mechanical inventions 

 that have given a special character to modern 

 civilization. Occasionally, it may be objected, 



