Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/406

390, have often said that their works were composed as in a dream, unknown to themselves; that instead of being deliberately constructed, their ideas have, as it were, flown to them.

Involuntary thought is frequently described by the poets as unconscious. That can not be accurate, for "unconscious thought" is a contradictory phrase. Not even a dream can be said to be unconscious, whether it be purely ideal like most dreams, or produce action as in sleepwalking. In such a state self-consciousness alone is suspended, not consciousness itself. Fancy stands halfway between dreaming and active intellectual function. The latter depends directly on the will, while in the former the will is in total abeyance. All men are subject to fall under the influence of fancy. In ordinary men it makes day-dreams, which everybody recognizes to be opposed to purposive thought. All that fancy produces depends on former impressions of sense. It is powerless to create anything new; its products are mere combinations in memory of the residua of former impressions. They may be unlikely enough, and in that sense it may be true that its products are "original"; but this does not conflict with the facts alleged. It is this creative and somewhat independent power of fancy which lends to the work of art its character of originality, and hence it is that many inquirers have found in that the essence of genius.

The psychological analysis of famous poets will show that the intellectual function is no whit less important a factor of poetic genius than fancy itself, although the latter is the one immediately employed in the act of composition. We have seen that creative fancy works with the material which former impressions of sense have left behind as their remains or residua. The more comprehensive the knowledge of the poet, therefore, and the more he is in condition to assimilate and compact the impressions the world conveys to him, and the sounder and truer his judgments of persons and situations, and the more methodical his thought and the better his memory, by so much the more will his fancy display luxuriance, and so much more various will be his creations. Another psychical phenomenon, besides fancy and intellectual function, surprises us in famous poets—to wit, a refinement of the feelings, heart, and moods. We often find these qualities developed in great poets to a point we can scarcely imagine. Another trait remarkable in famous poets is an instinctive and invincible impulse to express the ideas and feelings within them. In consequence of this impulse, the work of genius is not a voluntary labor, but the "involuntary product of a psychical need. It is not a hankering after applause and success, nor a regard for his other interests, which induces the man of genius to perform his task. It is solely a passion to give shape and form to the idea that