Chapter 4

THE ORGANIC CONDITIONS OF THE IMAGINATION.

Anatomical conditions: various hypotheses. Obscurity of the question. Flechsig's theory.--Physiological conditions: are they cause, effect, or accompaniment? Chief factor: change in cerebral and local circulation.--Attempts at experimentation.--The oddities of inventors brought under two heads: the explicable and inexplicable. They are helpers of inspiration.--Is there any analogy between physical and psychic creation? A philosophical hypothesis on the subject.--Limitation of the question. Impossibility of an exact answer. 65