an influence on it by a counter-action. It is a
law of the mind that _knows_, not of one that _imagines_.

It is needless to show that theoretical and practical intelligence
develops as an increasing complex. But from the time that the mind
distinguishes clearly between the possible and the impossible, between
the fancied and the real--which is a capacity wanting in primitive
man--as soon as man has formed rational habits and has undergone
experience the impress of which is ineffaceable, the creative
imagination is subject, _nolens volens_, to new conditions; it is no
longer absolute mistress of itself, it has lost the assurance of its
infancy, and is under the rules of logical thought, which draws it along
in its train. Aside from the exceptions given above--and even they are
partial exceptions only--creative power depends on the ability to
understand, which imposes upon it its form and developmental law. In
literature and in the arts comparison between the simplicity of
primitive creations and the complexity of advanced civilizations has
become commonplace. In the practical, technical, scientific and social
worlds the higher up we go the more we have to know in order to create,
and in default of this condition we merely repeat when we think we are
inventing.

II

Historically considered, in the species, the development of the
imagination follows the same line of progress as in the individual. We
will not repeat it; it would be mere reiteration in a vaguer form of
what we have just said. A few brief notes will suffice.

Vico--whose name deserves to be mentioned here because he was the first
to see the good that we can get from myths for the study of the
imagination--divided the course of humanity into three successive ages:
divine or theocratic, heroic or fabulous, human or historic, after which
the cycle begins over again. Although this too hypothetic conception is
now forgotten, it is sufficient for our purposes. What, indeed, are
those first two stages that have everywhere and always been the
harbingers and preparers of civilization, if not the triumphant period
of the imagination? It has produced myths, religions, legends, epics and
martial narratives, and imposing monuments erected in honor of gods and
heroes. Many nations whose evolution has been incomplete have not gone
beyond this stage.

Let us now consider this question under a more definite, more limited,
better known form--the history of intellectu