inspect the completed result. For a similar reason, much of the best
inventive work--writing, for example, or painting--is done in
prolonged periods of intense activity, which allow time for invention
to get warmed to its task, when it takes the bit in its teeth and
dashes off at a furious speed, leaving criticism to trail along
behind.

Invention in the service of art or of economic and social needs is
controlled imagination, realistic, socialized, subjected to criticism.
It cannot afford to be autistic, but must meet objective or social
standards. Mechanical inventions must work when translated into
matter-of-fact wood and iron, and {512} must also pass the social test
of being of some use. Social inventions of the order of institutions,
laws, political platforms and slogans, plans of campaign, must "work"
in the sense of bringing the desired response from the public. Social
imagination of the very important sort suggested by the proverbs,
"Seeing ourselves as others see us", or "Putting ourselves in the
other fellow's place"--for it is only by imagination that we can thus
get outside of our own experience and assume another point of
view--must check up with the real sentiments of other people.

The Enjoyment of Imaginative Art

It requires imagination to enjoy art as well as to produce it. The
producer of the work of art puts the stimuli before you, but you must
make the response yourself, and it is an inventive response, not a
mere repetition of some response you have often made. The novelist
describes a character for you, and you must respond by putting
together the items in the description so as to conceive of a character
you have never met. The painter groups his figures before you, but you
must get the point of the picture for yourself. The musical composer
provides a series of chords, but you must get the "hang" of the
passage for yourself, and if he has introduced a novel effect, it may
not be easy to find any beauty in it, at least on the first hearing.

Art, from the consumer's side, is play. It is play of the imagination,
with the materials conveniently presented by the artist. Now, as art
is intended to appeal to a consumer (or enjoyer), the question as to
sources of satisfaction in the enjoyment of art is fundamental in the
whole psychology of art, production as well as consumption.

We have the same questions to ask regarding the enjoyment of a _novel_
as regarding a daydream. Novel-reading is d