al conditions of the mental life, the present time is
suitable for an exposition of the hypotheses that it is permissible to
express concerning the organic bases of the imagination. What we may
regard as positive, or even as probable, is very little.

I

First, the anatomical conditions. Is there a "seat" of the imagination?
Such is the form of the question asked for the last twenty years. In
that period of extreme and closely bounded localization men strained
themselves to bind down every psychic manifestation to a strictly
determined point of the brain. Today the problem presents itself no
longer in this simple way. As at present we incline toward scattered
localization, functional rather than properly anatomical, and as we
often understand by "center" the synergic action of several centers
differently grouped according to the individual case, our question
becomes equivalent to: "Are there certain portions of the brain having
an exclusive or preponderating part in the working of the creative
imagination?" Even in this form the question is hardly acceptable.
Indeed, the imagination is not a primary and relatively simple function
like that of visual, auditory and other sensations. We have seen that it
is a state of tertiary formation and very complex. There is required,
then, (1) that the elements constituting imagination be determined in a
rigorous manner, but the foregoing analysis makes no pretense of being
definitive; (2) that each of these constitutive elements may be strictly
related to its anatomic conditions. It is evident that we are far from
possessing the secret of such a mechanism.

An attempt has been made to put the question in a more precise and
limited form by studying the brains of men distinguished in different
lines. But this method, in avoiding the difficulty, answers our question
indirectly only. Most often great inventors possess qualities besides
imagination indispensable for success (Napoleon, James Watt, etc.). How
draw a dividing line so as to assign to the imagination only its
rightful share? In addition, the anatomical determination is beset with
difficulties.

A method flourishing very greatly about the middle of the nineteenth
century consisted of weighing carefully a large number of brains and
drawing various conclusions as to intellectual superiority or
inferiority from a comparison of the weights. We find on this point
numerous documents in the special works published during the pe