ent_ of creative imagination but not in the
imagination itself, and that nothing has proven that, under all these
various aspects, there does not exist a so-called scientific
imagination, that always remains identical. This position is untenable.
For we have seen above[109] that there exists no creative instinct in
general, no one mere indeterminate "creative power," but only wants
that, in certain cases, excite novel combinations of images. The nature
of the separable materials, then, is a factor of the first importance;
it is determining, and indicates to the mind the direction in which it
is turned, and all treason in this regard is paid for by aborted
construction, by painful labor for some petty result. Invention,
separated from what gives it body and soul, is nothing but a pure
abstraction.

The monographs called for above would, then, be a not unneeded work. It
is only from them collectively that the role of the imagination in the
sciences could be completely shown, and we might by abstraction separate
out the characters common to all varieties--the essential marks of this
imaginative type.

Mathematics aside, all the sciences dealing with facts--from astronomy
to sociology--suppose three moments, namely, observation, conjecture,
verification. The first depends on external and internal sense, the
second on the creative imagination, the third on rational operations,
although the imagination is not entirely barred from it. In order to
study its influence on scientific development, we shall study it (a) in
the sciences in process of formation; (b) in the established sciences;
(c) in the processes of verification.

II

It has often been said that the perfection of a science is measured by
the amount of mathematics it requires; we might say, conversely, that
its lack of completeness is measured by the amount of imagination that
it includes. It is a psychological necessity. Where the human mind
cannot explain or prove, there it invents; preferring a semblance of
knowledge to its total absence.[110] Imagination fulfills the function
of a substitute; it furnishes a subjective, conjectural solution in
place of an objective, rational explanation. This substitution has
degrees:

(1) The sway of the imagination is almost complete in the
pseudo-sciences (alchemy, astrology, magic, occultism, etc.), which it
would be more proper to call embryonic sciences, for they were the
beginnings of more exact disciplines and the