out long ago.1 Of course objections were urged against such a plea, but they were urged half-heartedly, and Tyndall, on the one hand, and Ribot, on the other, have successfully established the claims of science to imagination and inspiration. And yet even now many people appear to agree with Shelley that "poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. 'A man cannot say 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness." To look for the origin of poetic illumination in a spirit outside the borders of intelligence has been the fashion, no doubt, but it is no more true than that we can reason whenever we exert the will to do so. Every man must have a god, and Shelley's was the belief in a god outside men who inspires poets. To-day, however, as will be made evident in the pages to follow, inspiration calls for no greater factor than the mind in its conscious and subconscious activities. Even intuition is losing its mysteries, one by one. It used to be imagined that an intuition was "pure untaught knowledge," or signified "a cognition not determined by a previous cognition of the same object." Did Colburn, the arithmetical boy prodigy, give square roots and cube roots at a moment's notice without a previous knowledge of figures, as figures? Did Mozart compose without the slightest knowledge of musical notation, and play divinely the first time he set eyes on a piano? Do we "It is a common error to suppose that the intellectual powers which make the poet or historian are essentially different from those which make the man of science. Powers of observation, however acute, could never make a scientific discoverer; for discovery requires the creative effort of the imagination. . . . Fertility of imagination is essential for that step from the less to the more perfectly known, which we call discovery. But fertility of imagination alone is insufficient for the highest achievements in poetry, history, or science; for in all these subjects the strictest self-criticism and the soundest judgment are necessary in order to ensure that the results are an advance in the direction of truth."-E. B. Poulton, Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 12. 2 Shelley's A Defence of Poetry (Cook's Edition), p. 39. not find that intuitions come from experience so richly unified that when a new situation presents itself illumination comes in a moment, and judgment is instantaneous? Memory, acting for the most part unconsciously, but with unusual efficiency, is the basis of our intuitions Instinctive likes and dislikes, immediate decisions when confronted with a new situation in business, are the spontaneous outcome of previous experience acting in a focus. V To reason a thing out is to turn to a collection of facts, to study their pros and cons, and to weigh them with a view to securing a preponderance on one side or another. The task is often laborious, and it shows intellect in its least attractive light; whereas in intuition we see the mind working on its highest levels; the process is rapid almost to instantaneity, but its rapidity is the sole difference dividing it from the slower method of reasoned argument. The law of associa 1 John Stuart Mill, in a letter to Dr W. B. Carpenter, says: "I have long recognised as a fact that judgments really grounded on a long succession of small experiences mostly forgotten, or perhaps never brought out into distinct consciousness, often grow into the likeness of intuitive perceptions. I believe this to be the explanation of the intuitive insight thought to be characteristic of women; and of that which is often found in experienced practical persons who have not attended much to theory, nor been often called upon to explain the ground of their judgments. And I should agree with you that a mind which is fitted by constitution and habits to receive truly and retain well the impressions made by its passing experiences will often be safer in relying on its intuitive judgments, representative of the aggregate of its past experience, than on the influences that can be drawn from such facts or reasonings as can be distinctly called to mind at the moment."-Mental Physiology, p. 486. "By intuition," says Bergson, "is meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it, and consequently inexpressible."Metaphysics, p. 7. 2 A writer in The Monist (April, 1916)-Mr H. J. Mulford—whilst arguing pretty much on the same basis as ourselves, puts intuition on a lower plane than reasoned thought. "It is merely reflex thought, without the value even of self-conscious thought" (p. 309). tion, acting on the method of low pressure in one case and of high pressure in the other, explains the movement of ideas in both instances. The more we are able to understand association the clearer will be our knowledge of all the mental processes involved in originality. We see it in those sudden advents of thoughts quite foreign to the subject in hand. You engage your attention and focus it on, say, the subject of law; and after some time the stream of thinking is broken into by a sudden recollection-you are reminded of a man whose name has not entered your mind for perhaps ten years. Why does it do so now? You say you cannot tell. True-not for the moment; but if you think back slowly you will most likely find that the words law and fugitive are associated, and that Fuge, the name of the long-forgotten person, did not come into consciousness by chance, but by law, the law of association-this time as similarity in sound.1 We often say a thought "came to us, just as Wordsworth conceived when he said: "Think you, 'mid this mighty sum and we have encouraged ourselves in believing that readymade thoughts and fine inspirations sometimes come to us from a spiritual world outside us. To deny it would be to fall into the dogmatic habit we condemn in these pages; but we can say it is highly improbable, even when telepathy is admitted. The sudden and mysterious "comings" are true enough, especially with men of genius, but these comings, if they could be studied closely, would be found to have a This is the cart before the horse, and Mr Mulford should henceforth avoid any spontaneous notion. Carson (in his Mathematical Education, chapter on "Intuitions ") says: "Intuitions are on the same footing as primary assumptions concerning gravitation. They differ from these in that they are formed unconsciously as a result of universal experience rather than conscious experiment." 1 1 An excellent and up-to-date investigation of association generally is found in Prof. Felix Arnold's Psychology of Association (U.S.A.). natural history in the mental world to which they belong. Inspiration is that familiarly favourable moment when the factors of thought-i.e. external stimuli and internal response are in true rapport with each other. We cannot affirm that there is a law of inspiration, but we know some of the conditions, some of the bodily and mental states accompanying mentally creative activity, and these we shall now study in extenso. If a law is a mode of operation then we may rightly speak of these conditions as laws of inspiration. CHAPTER II THE LAWS OF INSPIRATION I A. One of the primary conditions of inspiration is that a period of close inquiry and reflection should be followed either by a change of subject or a period of mental inactivity. After producing evidence in support of this law we shall endeavour to explain its underlying causes. Haydn said: "When my work does not advance I retire into the oratory with my rosary and say an Ave; immediately ideas come to me."1 Here, a change of subject was sufficient to arouse dormant notions, and one wonders whether the result would have been the same if Haydn had turned to painting or botany. Later, we shall hazard a guess as to why a sudden transfer of interest to a new emotional association can establish a desired connection in a sphere where direct effort was unsuccessful. It is almost as if a telephone subscriber, failing to get the number he wanted, deliberately rang up somebody else, and immediately got into touch with the first number asked for. Another illustration is found in the life of Berlioz. He desired to compose a song, with chorus, for the Cinq Mai of Beranger, but was pulled up short by the refrain: "Pauvre soldat, je reverrai la France, La main d'un fils me fermera les yeux.” He tried it again and again-but in vain. He gave it up in despair. Two years afterwards he was bathing in the Tiber, and on rising from a dive he found himself humming the musical phrase so long sought in vain.2 The length of 1 Lombroso, Man of Genius, p. 19. * Paulhan, Psychologie de l'Invention, p. 24. Prof. Jastrow gives a number of cases in his book on The Subconscious. "Hamilton evolved the intricate conception of the invention of quaternions while walking |