This should become more apparent as we go on.

 

I. WHAT IS IMAGINATION?

 

Let us not seek for a definition, for a score of varying ones may be found, but

let us grasp this fact: By imagination we mean either the faculty or the process

of forming mental images.

 

The subject-matter of imagination may be really existent in nature, or not at

all real, or a combination of both; it may be physical or spiritual, or

both--the mental image is at once the most lawless and the most law-abiding

child that has ever been born of the mind.

 

First of all, as its name suggests, the process of imagination--for we are

thinking of it now as a process rather than as a faculty--is memory at work.

Therefore we must consider it primarily as

 

_1. Reproductive Imagination_

 

We see or hear or feel or taste or smell something and the sensation passes

away. Yet we are conscious of a greater or lesser ability to reproduce such

feelings at will. Two considerations, in general, will govern the vividness of

the image thus evoked--the strength of the original impression, and the

reproductive power of one mind as compared with another. Yet every normal person

will be able to evoke images with some degree of clearness.