t as a fact of experience and to assign it its
place in the complex function that produces invention.

The observations of Flournoy (in his book, mentioned above, Part I,
chapter III) have a particular interest in relation to our subject. His
medium, Helene S......--very unlike others, who are satisfied with
forecasts of the future, disclosures of unknown past events, counsel,
prognosis, evocation, etc., without creating anything, in the proper
sense--is the author of three or four novels, one of which, at least, is
invented out of whole cloth--revelations in regard to the planet Mars,
its countries, inhabitants, dwellings, etc. Although the descriptions
and pictures of Helene S. are found on comparison to be borrowed from
our terrestrial globe, and transposed and changed, as Flournoy has well
shown, it is certain that in this "Martian novel," to say nothing of the
others, there is a richness of invention that is rare among mediums: the
creative imagination in its subliminal (unconscious) form encloses the
other in its eclat. We know how much the cases of mediums teach us in
regard to the unconscious life of the mind. Here we are permitted, as an
exceptional case, to penetrate into the dark laboratory of romantic
invention, and we can appreciate the importance of the labor that is
going on there.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] See Part I, Chapter III.

[159] _Mental Physiology_, Book II, chapter 13.

[160] This expression is put in quotation marks because in American
and English usage "sensation" is defined in terms of consciousness,
and such an expression as "unconscious sensation" is paradoxical,
and would lead to futile discussion. (Tr.)

[161] For the detailed criticism of unconscious cerebration, see
Boris Sidis, _The Psychology of Suggestion: A research into the
subconscious nature of Man and Society_, New York, Appletons, 1898,
pp. 121-127. The author, who assumes the coexistence of two
selves--one waking, the other subwaking, and who attributes to the
latter all weakness and vice (according to him the unconscious is
incapable of rising above mere association by contiguity; it is
"stupid," "uncritical," "credulous," "brutal," etc.) would be
greatly puzzled to explain its role in creative activity.

APPENDIX C

COSMIC AND HUMAN IMAGINATION[162]

For Froschammer, _Fancy_ is the original principle of things. In his
philosophical theory it plays the same part as Hegel's _Idea_,
Schopenhauer's _Will_, Hartmann