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Encyclopedia Britannica



IMAGINATION

This article appears in Volume V14, Page 331 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: I27-INV
IMAGINATION , in general, the power or process of producing mental pictures or ideas. The
term
  is technically used in psychology for the process-of reviving in the mind percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the
term
  conflicts with that of
ordinary
  language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as " imaging ". or " imagery " or to speak of it as " reproductive " as opposed to " productive " or " constructive " imagination (see IMAGE and PSYCHOLOGY). The common use of the term is for the process of forming in the mind new images which have not been previously experienced, or at least only partially or in different combinations. Thus the -image of a centaur is the result of combining the common percepts of man and horse: fairy tales and fiction generally are the result of this process of combination. Imagination in this sense, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of
practical
  necessity, is up to a certain point free from objective restraints. In various
spheres
 , however, even imagination is in practice limited: thus a man whose imaginations do violence to the elementary
laws
  of thought, or to the necessary principles of
practical
  possibility, or to the reasonable probabilities of a given case is regarded as insane. The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis.
1 Tyler, Prim. Culture, ii. 178.
Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are constructed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science. In spite, however, of these broad practical considerations, imagination differs fundamentally from belief in that the latter involves " objective
control
  of subjective activity " (Stout). The play of imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity: it is perfectly possible to imagine myself a millionaire, but unless I believe it I do not, therefore, act as such. Belief always endeavours to conform to objective conditions; though it is from one point of view subjective it is also objectively conditioned, whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of mental development. Thus a savage who is ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy. In ignorance of
pathology
  he is satisfied with this explanation, and actually believes in it, whereas such a hypothesis in the mind of civilized man would be treated as a pure effort of imagination, or even as a hallucination. It follows that the distinction between imagination and belief depends in practice on knowledge, social environment, training and the like.
Although, however, the absence of objective restraint, i.e. a certain unreality, is characteristic of imagination, none the less it has
great
  practical importance as a purely ideational activity. Its very freedom from objective limitation makes it a source of pleasure and pain. A person of vivid imagination suffers acutely from the imagination of perils besetting a friend. In fact in some cases the ideal construction is so " real " that specific
physical
  manifestations occur, as though imagination had passed into belief or the events imagined were actually in progress.


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