Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For acomplete list, please see the bottom of this document.
The children's letters on page 108 have been reproduced in this text as illustrations.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd.
1906
COPYRIGHT BY
The Open Court Publishing Co.
CHICAGO, U. S. A.
1906
All rights reserved.
To the Memory of My Teacher
and Friend,
Arthur Allin, Ph. D.,
professor of psychology and education,
university of colorado,
who first interested me in the problems of psychology,
this book is dedicated, with reverence
and gratitude, by
The Translator.
The name of Th. Ribot has been for many yearswell known in America, and his works have gainedwide popularity. The present translation of oneof his more recent works is an attempt to renderavailable in English what has been received as aclassic exposition of a subject that is often discussed,but rarely with any attempt to understandits true nature.
It is quite generally recognized that psychologyhas remained in the semi-mythological, semi-scholasticperiod longer than most attempts at scientificformulization. For a long time it has beenthe "spook science" per se, and the imagination, nowanalyzed by M. Ribot in such a masterly manner,has been one of the most persistent, apparently real,though very indefinite, of psychological spooks.Whereas people have been accustomed to speak ofthe imagination as an entity sui generis, as a loftysomething found only in long-haired, wild-eyed"geniuses," constituting indeed the center of a cult,our author, Prometheus-like, has brought it downfrom the heavens, and has clearly shown thatimagination is a function of mind common to all[vi]men in some degree, and that it is shown in ashighly developed form in commercial leaders andpractical inventors as in the most bizarre of romanticidealists. The only difference is that the manifestationis not the same.
That this view is not entirely original with M.Ribot is not to his discredit—indeed, he does notclaim any originality. We find the view clearlyexpressed elsewhere, certainly as early as Aristotle,that the greatest artist is he who actually embodieshis vision and will in permanent form, preferablyin social institutions. This idea is so clearly enunciatedin the present monograph, which the authormodestly styles an essay, that when the end of thebook is reached but little remains of the greatimagination-ghost, save the one great mystery underlyingall facts of mind.
That the present rendering falls far below thelucid French of the original, the translator is wellaware; he trusts, however, that the indulgent readerwill take into account the good intent as offsettingin part, at least, the numerous shortcomings of thisversion.
I wish here to express my obligation to thosefriends who encouraged me in the congenial taskof translation.
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