[79] Thus Taine says of Carlyle: "He cannot stick to simple expression; at every step he drops into figures, gives body to every idea, must touch forms. We see that he is possessed and haunted by glittering or saddening visions; in him every thought is an explosion; a flood of seething passion reaches the boiling-point in his brain, which overflows, and the torrent of images runs over the banks and rushes with all its mud and all its splendor. He cannot reason, he must paint." Despite the vigor of this sketch, the perusal of ten pages of _Sartor Resartus_ or of the _French Revolution_ teaches more in regard to the nature of this imagination than all the commentaries.
[80] For a point of view in criticism that has seemed correct to many on this matter, compare the well-known chapter on the "Pathetic Fallacy" by Ruskin, in his _Modern Painters_. (Tr.)
[81] Arréat (_Psychologie du peintre_, pp. 62 ff.) gives a large number of examples of this.
[83] For further details on this point, consult Mabilleau, _Victor Hugo_, 2nd part, chaps. II, III, IV.--Renouvier, in the book devoted to the poet, asserts that "on account of his aptitude for representing to himself the details of a figure, order and position in space, beyond any present sensation," Victor Hugo could have become a mathematician of the highest order.
[84] As bearing out the position of the author, we may also call attention to the fact that while the Hebrew race has had very slight development in the plastic arts, yet its mythology has always taken a very definite form, even when dealing with the vaguest and most abstract subjects. (Tr.)
[85] Fouillée, _Psychologie du peuple français_, p. 185.
The diffluent imagination is another general form, but one that is completely opposed to the foregoing. It consists of vaguely-outlined, indistinct images that are evoked and joined according to the least rigorous modes of association. It presents, then, two things for our consideration--the nature of the images and of their associations.
(1) It employs neither the clear-cut, concrete, reality-penetrated images of the plastic imagination, nor the semi-schematic representations of the rational imagination, but those midway in that ascending and descending scale extending from perception to conception. This determination, however, is insufficient, and we can make it more precise. Analysis, indeed, discovers a certain class of ill-understood images, which I call emotional abstractions, and which are the proper material for the diffluent imagination. These images are reduced to certain qualities or attributes of things, taking the place of the whole, and chosen from among the others for various reasons, the origin of which is affective. We shall comprehend their nature better through the following comparison: