FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181  
182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   >>   >|  
things. Astrology groups into "constellations" stars that are billions of miles apart, believes that it discovers there an animal shape, human or any other, and deduces therefrom alleged "influences." This star is reddish (Mars), sign of blood; this other is of a pure, brilliant silvery light (Venus) or livid (Saturn), and acts in a different way. We know what clever structures of conjectures and prognoses have been built on these foundations. Need we mention the Middle Age practice of charms, which even in our day still has adherents among cultured people? The physicians of the time of Charles II, says Lang, gave their patients "mummy powder" (pulverized mummies) because the mummies, having lasted a long time, must prolong life.[121] Gold in solution has been esteemed as a medicine--gold, being a perfect substance, should produce perfect health. In order to get rid of a disease nothing is more frequent among primitive men than to picture the sick person on wood or on the ground, and to strike the injured part with an arrow or knife, in order to annihilate the sickening principle. (3) Finally, there is the magic influence ascribed to certain words. It is the triumph of the theory of _nomina numina_; we need not return to it. But the working of the mind on words, erecting them into entities, conferring life and power on them--in a word, the activity that creates myths and is the final basis of all constructive imagination--appears also here.[122] II Up to this point we have considered the practical imagination only in its somewhat petty aspect in small inventions or as semi-morbid in superstitious fancies. We now come to its higher form, mechanical invention. This subject has not been studied by psychologists. Not that they have misunderstood its role, which is, after all, very evident; but they limit themselves to speak of it cursorily, without emphasizing it. In order to appreciate its importance, I see no other way than to put ourselves face to face with the works that it has produced, to question the history of discovery and useful arts, to profit by the disclosures of inventors and their biographers. Of a work of this kind, which would be very long because the materials are scattered, we can give here only a rough sketch, merely to take therefrom what is of interest for psychology and what teaches us in regard to the characters peculiar to this type of imagination. The erroneous view that opposes im
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181  
182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
imagination
 

perfect

 
mummies
 

therefrom

 
superstitious
 

morbid

 

invention

 
higher
 

studied

 

fancies


mechanical
 

subject

 

practical

 

activity

 

creates

 
conferring
 

entities

 
return
 
working
 

erecting


considered

 

aspect

 

constructive

 

appears

 

inventions

 

scattered

 

sketch

 

materials

 

biographers

 

interest


erroneous
 

opposes

 

peculiar

 
characters
 

psychology

 

teaches

 

regard

 

inventors

 
disclosures
 
cursorily

emphasizing

 

misunderstood

 
evident
 

importance

 

discovery

 

history

 

profit

 

question

 

produced

 

psychologists