THERE was a time (the eighteenth century) when, certain investigators of aesthetics, among the many essaying the difficult task of fitting the imagination into its true place in the system of the mind, identified or confused the so-called “pleasures of imagination” (play of fancy) with the “pleasure of art” (artistic creation); and so spirited did the discussion of those pleasures become that it provoked several well-known didactic poems in French and English literature. And the same identification and the same confusion reappeared in later years. They may be found in the work of Edward von Hartmann, the not over-subtle philosopher of the Unconscious; and particularly in a theory of the so-called “apparent feelings” put forward by the “sensualist,” or rather semi-sensualist, Kirchmann—a man who lived in the nineteenth century but belonged spiritually to the previous age.

I say “confusion,” and I will keep the word. To use, for the moment, the terminology of the old philosophy, the “pleasures of imagination” relate to “substance,” whereas the “pleasure of art” relates to “form”; or, expressing the idea in a more modern way: “form,” in art, is nothing but the contemplative attitude of the mind, and “substance,” taken by itself, is nothing but the emotional travail that accompanies action: with the consequence that the “pleasure of art” is of a conceptual or theoretical origin, while the “pleasures of imagination” originate directly from the practical.

So true is this that people long ago observed, and ever with a surprise akin to stupor, that things which are painful or disgusting when encountered “in life,” become sources of pleasure when encountered in art (Aristotle mentioned loathsome animals and decaying bodies, Boileau, “le serpent” and “le monstre odieux”). The fact is that when “pleasures of the imagination” are involved, we enjoy the sight of those things only which suggest images pleasing in themselves or capable of being used as instruments of pleasure. By “pleasure,” as I use the word here, I do not mean a pleasure that is unmixed, unadulterated, simon-pure pleasure—such a pleasure is an abstraction and does not exist in reality. Nor do I mean a pleasure, even, that is prevailingly or in large part uniform, placid, or idyllic. I mean any feeling which, however varying, fluctuating or tumultuous its course, finally eventuates in pleasure. The spectacle of agony, for instance, might under certain conditions produce a sense of actual voluptuousness. So martyrdom, tasted in the imagination, might give us an exalted joy.

In view of this I have always and consistently refused to accept the theories of “contrast” and of “ugliness surmounted,” which have in the past occasioned no end of philosophy-building, and which are still favourite toys of professors of aesthetics (of no great weight, I must say) in universities of Germany or other countries. They are “hedonistic” and not “aesthetic” theories. Not only have they thrown no light on aesthetic science, but they have perverted and falsified sound aesthetics.

For when they chance to describe some real psychic process and not a mere abstraction, they relate to the “pleasures of imagination” and not to the “pleasure of artistic creation.” And on the same grounds I have rejected Kirchmann’s theory of “apparent feelings”; except in the one case where, in accord with that theory, the pleasure is derived from the “appearance” and not from the “feeling” that underlies it—from the artistic “form,” that is, and not from the “substance.” In the pleasure born of Kirchmann’s “appearance,” we see the universal man in action, and we enjoy things—humour, ferocity, voluptuousness, gentleness, as the case may be—as a pure spectacle of humanity in the large. In the pleasure of the “feeling”—of the matter underneath the “appearance”—it is the individual man we see acting as an individual with all his particular interests, inclinations, and predilections; and here we enjoy only such things as are in harmony with our practical concerns at the moment.

It is true, of course, that some of the processes of artistic creation, properly so-called, may be used, and indeed are commonly used, in indulging in the “pleasures of imagination.” Certain problems of education and censorship arise, indeed, from a recognition of this fact. It may be desirable to bring certain books or certain pictures, let us say, to the attention of young people, and to keep others out of their reach. This is because the work of art need not be taken in its whole reality and considered in its purely aesthetic aspects. It may be broken up, and its “substance” used to gratify the imagination, helpfully or harmfully according to circumstances. In the case of “immoral” or “harmful” books, people are usually quite ready to distinguish between the “pleasures of imagination” and the “pleasure of art.” But the “helpful” book is just as good a proof of the distinction here indicated.

Once we have clearly understood that the “pleasures of imagination” are of practical origin, we must further be on our guard not to confuse them with the echoes that the action of the will produces in the imagination—with all the images (representations) which accompany the exercise of will in its fluctuations between hope and fear, love and hate, and so on. In the latter case the essential and determining factor is the quality of the volitional process itself—the objective toward which the will is exercised; whereas in the other case, the objective is the immediate pleasure or satisfaction obtained by exercise of the imagination. Whence it follows that the so-called “pleasures of imagination” are not the pleasures of activity in general, but one case always, one aspect, of hedonistic or, as I prefer to say, of utilitarian activity.

It is equally a mistake to group the “pleasures of imagination” under the general caption of “play”; for play is not an activity, but an alternation or vibration between various activities of life, the one used as relief or repose for the other—as “play,” in short. The “pleasures of imagination” are, on the contrary, actual needs of the human mind. When we cannot satisfy ourselves in a given form of reality, but still insist on having some satisfaction of one or another of our yearnings, we find that satisfaction in imagining things. Since, as a matter of fact, our needs cannot be satisfied (or at least choose not to be satisfied), it might seem the part of wisdom and good sense to suppress or overlook them. But they are so urgent, so assertive, that the effort to repress them would prove either costly or (in some circumstances) vain. So we find it easier and more economical to let them have their way in the imagination. A comparison that makes the situation clear is furnished by the reaction of the body to diseases. There are certain ailments which cannot be checked at the first symptoms. We have to resign ourselves to a siege, allowing them to run their course till they are vanquished by the resources of the body itself. The physician can ease the pain meanwhile, but he can do nothing more than that.

It is not, indeed, a question of pleasures that are imaginary, presumed and not actual, avowed but not real. They are actual and they are real—a reality fully taken into account in common language which describes them as “physical” and in technical language which calls them “psycho-physical” or “dualistic.” The theorists of the “apparent feelings,” Kirchmann and Hartmann, assigned to them the peculiarity of a lesser intensity as compared with “real” pleasures. But this is wholly arbitrary: they may, with equal justice, be said to have greater intensity than the “real.” The truth is that they are qualitatively different; and to regard them as of the same quality but of lesser (or greater) intensity as compared with the so-called “real” leads to the disappointment, so often observed and so often lamented, of finding realisation inferior to anticipation. Such disappointments can be avoided only by remembering that a dream (which has a reality all its own) is a dream and gives the pleasures of dreaming; while reality is reality and affords the differing pleasure of the real. As the wise poet of the “Vintage” counsels: “Enjoy the present and hope in the future: thus a double sweetness consoleth man.” The needs in question, be it recalled, are needs that are unable, or unwilling, to find satisfaction in the sphere of the actual. And in very truth, there is no probability that dreamers would always choose to have their dreams come true. Not even in fancies of sexual passion is this the case. Men often long in their dreams for women whom they desire in no other way. And very frequently we give vent to the most ferocious hatreds in our imagination: we fight, we conquer, we kick, and we kill people whom we would never harm in the least if they fell into our power in real life. In fact, we quite generally note a sort of contrast between the things people enjoy in imagination and the things they actually do. Men of combat lull themselves to sleep in dreams of peace and restfulness. Men of unclean lives create worlds of innocence and purity in their minds; whereas men whose actual conduct is above reproach imagine the most horrible crimes. It is as though their imagination became a sort of refuse can for the filth and offal of their souls; and, in general, it seems to offer compensation for whatever is banished from the field of action.

In this process, as a matter of fact, bad men are not made better nor good men worse; for their wills and their objectives remain unchanged. The activity of the imagination is confined to its own world and does not intrude into the sphere of effective volition. There is no occasion even for moral censure or commendation of this caressing or seconding of certain fancies. It is a case rather of “cleaning house,” of liberating the mind from intrusive desires. The cruel or dissolute man dreams his dream of gentleness or virtue and then goes back to his cruelty or his dissoluteness with renewed vim.

It is a fact, however, that we feel more or less ashamed of our surrenders to the pleasures of imagination, especially as we grow riper with the years and become more earnestly conscious of life with its necessities and duties. Such mortification tends to distinguish grown people from boys and especially from young girls, who, as we say, “just live on imagination,” working out great “affairs,” great dramas, great romances, all in their minds, and finding in fancy the source of deep despairs and infinite consolations—the “ideal,” as adolescents say, with none too much respect for that venerable word. Even races and peoples seem to differ from each other in the same way, and are sometimes so judged as inferior or superior. The inferiority of the East as compared with the West has been referred to an abuse of the pleasures of imagination in the one case (pleasures sustained even by artificial stimuli) and to an insistence on thought and action in the other.

However, the sense of shame we feel is easily explicable if we bear in mind the analogy suggested above between the need for compromising with the imagination and the need for dealing gingerly with certain diseases. We are never proud of our sufferings and wants nor of the steps we are forced to take to humour or relieve them. We reprove, furthermore, those who transform their diseases and “treatments” into habits, instead of applying radical remedies to the conditions which impel them now to flame with inner wrath and now to flirt in fancy with Prince Charming or the Ideal Woman. And we pass a judgment of inferiority on such peoples and individuals as artificially promote this sterile and futile life, pouring the best of their energies into a vapid play of fancy that stupefies and lulls to sleep.