of
birds; that certain animals, especially in anger, seem to be subject to
delusions and pursued by phantoms; and lastly, that in some there is
produced a condition resembling nostalgia, expressing itself in a
violent desire to return to former haunts, or in a wasting away
resulting from the absence of accustomed persons and things. All these
facts, especially the latter, can hardly be explained without a vivid
recollection of the images of previous life.

4. The highest stage consists of intentionally reuniting images in order
to make novel combinations from them. This may be called an active
synthesis, and is the true creative imagination. Is this sometimes found
in the animal kingdom? Romanes very clearly replies, no; and not without
offering a plausible reason. For creation, says he, there must first be
capacity for abstraction, and, without speech, abstraction is very weak.
One of the conditions for creative imagination is thus wanting in the
higher animals.

We here come to one of those critical moments, so frequent in animal
psychology, when one asks, Is this character exclusively human, or is it
found in embryo in lower forms? Thus it has been possible to support a
theory opposing that of Romanes. Certain animals, says Oelzelt-Newin,
fulfill all the conditions necessary for creative imagination--subtle
senses, good memory, and appropriate emotional states.[36] This
assertion is perhaps true, but it is purely dialectic. It is equivalent
to saying that the thing is possible; it does not establish it as a
fact. Besides, is it very certain that all the conditions for creative
imagination are present here, since we have just shown that there is
lack of abstraction? The author, who voluntarily limits his study to
birds and the construction of their nests, maintains, against Wallace
and others, that nest-building requires "the mysterious synthesis of
representations." We might with equal reason bring the instances of
other building animals (bees, wasps, white ants, the common ants,
beavers, etc.). It is not unreasonable to attribute to them an
anticipated representation of their architecture. Shall we say that it
is "instinctive," consequently unconscious? At least, may we not group
under this head, changes and adaptations to new conditions which these
animals succeed in applying to the typical plans of their construction?
Observations and even systematic experiments (like those of Huber,
Forel, _et al._) show that,