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I
6
INVENTION *1
1902
However dangerous it may be to generalize here, let us try to formulate a few general considerations
concerning the psychological or exterior conditions for invention, its different classes, social
consequences, and finally the direction it appears to follow in its infinite meanderings.
About the physiological conditions of invention we know little for certain except that this cerebral
creative effort more or less congests the brain. “Low, short pulse, cold pale skin, feverish head,
glistening, bloodshot, wandering eyes: such is the classic description” of this state given by Ribot.
Furthermore, it seems that some connection exists between the generative function and creative
imagination. If one admits, as I am tempted to do, that generation is a sort of vital invention, this
correlation is not surprising. In the case of certain inventors, it is certain that the height of their
inventiveness corresponded to their period of greatest sexual force. Between the ages of twenty-five
and thirty-five arose those concepts that they spent the rest of their lives developing, correcting, and
illuminating. 1 But this rule (which is never without exception) is most applicable to aesthetic
inventions, least applicable to industrial ones: the precocity of industrial innovation is as remarkable
as the extension of their productivity into old age. From adolescence, even from childhood, their
special aptitudes are revealed in the construction of small machines of often striking ingenuity. There
is no schoolyard without its fledgling mechanic, its born engineer, an instinctive builder like the
beaver.
The psychology of the man of imagination in every realm of ideas has been traced by Ribot 2 and
less extensively by Paulhan, who emphasizes the logic and teleology typical of the inventor. This is in
basic agreement with Ribot’s idea that the imaginative person is not only a dreamer but an
impassioned man whose idée fixe is nourished by a fixed sentiment. According to him there is no
invention which does not imply an emotional element or a desire, and there is no emotion, be it fear
or anger, sorrow or joy, hate or love, which cannot be a ferment to invention. Such a tenacious
preoccupation explains the profound distraction of genius, its “internal finality” (to use Souriau’s
terminology), which becomes fruitful if it happens to encounter a favorable “exterior chance.” That is
why, contrary to the normal state of affairs, images in the inventor’s hallucinatory reverie tend to
become strong states while sensations become weak states. This unnatural tendency may be realized
to a greater or lesser extent: its extreme degree is insanity, which here appears not the condition of
genius nor even its usual accompaniment but rather a fortuitous malady, the decline of genius into the
excesses which destroy it. Nor should the inventor’s faith in his mission, which he needs to support
him in his battles and in his concentration on his ideas, be confused with the megalomania of a
lunatic.
When the self is absorbed in a goal for a long time, it is rare that the sub-self, incorrectly called the
unconscious, does not participate in this obsession, conspiring with our consciousness and
collaborating in our mental effort. This conspiracy, this collaboration whose service is faithful yet
hidden, is inspiration, which remains no less mysterious even when we remove the myths concerning
it. Without the continual activity of this internal hive, of this mass of small auxiliary consciences