bodies.[76]

It is an accepted view that of these two modes, one, the abridged or
intuitive process, is superior to the other. I confess to having held
this prejudice. On examination, I find it doubtful, even false. There is
a _difference_, not any "higher" and "lower."

First of all, both these forms of creation are necessary. The intuitive
process can suffice for an invention of short duration: a rhyme, a
story, a profile, a _motif_, an ornamental stroke, a little mechanical
contrivance, etc. But as soon as the work requires time and development
the discursive process becomes absolutely necessary: with many inventors
one easily perceives the change from one form to the other. We have seen
that in the case of Chopin, "creation was spontaneous, miraculous,"
coming complete and sudden. But George Sand adds: "The crisis over, then
commenced the most heartrending labor at which I have ever been
present," and she pictures him to us agonized, for days and weeks,
running after the bits of lost inspiration. Goethe, likewise, in a
letter to Humboldt regarding his Faust, which occupied him for sixty
years, full of interruptions and gaps: "The difficulty has been to get
through strength of will what is really to be gotten only by a
spontaneous act of nature." Zola, according to his biographer, Toulouse,
"imagines a novel, always starting out with a general idea that
dominates the work; then, from induction to induction, he draws out of
it the characters and all the story."

To sum up: Pure intuition and pure combination are exceptional;
ordinarily, it is a mixed process in which one of the two elements
prevails and permits its qualification. If we note, in addition, that it
would be easy to group under these two headings names of the first rank,
we shall conclude that the difference is altogether in the _mechanism_,
not in the _nature_ of creation, and is consequently accessory; and that
this difference is reducible to natural dispositions, which we may
contrast as follows:

Ready-witted minds, Logically-developing
excelling in conception, minds, excelling in
making the whole almost elaboration.
out of one piece.

Work primarily unconscious. Patience the preponderating
role.

Work primarily conscious.

Actions quick. Actions slow.

V

"Were we to raise monuments to inventors in the arts and sciences, there
would be fe