Taking the word "commercial" in its broadest signification, I understand by this expression all those forms of the constructive imagination that have for their chief aim the production and distribution of wealth, all inventions making for individual or collective enrichment. Even less studied than the form preceding, this imaginative manifestation reveals as much ingenuity as any other. The human mind is largely busied in that way. There are inventors of all kinds—the great among these equal those whom general opinion ranks as highest. Here, as elsewhere, the great body invent nothing, live according to tradition, in routine and imitation.

Invention in the commercial or financial field is subject to various conditions with which we are not concerned:

(1) External conditions:—Geographical, political, economic, social, etc., varying according to time, place, and people. Such is its external determinism—human and social here in place of cosmic, physical, as in mechanical invention.

(2) Internal, psychological conditions, most of which are foreign to the primary and essential inventive act:—on one hand, foresight, calculation, strength of reasoning;—in a word, capacity for reflection; on the other hand, assurance, recklessness, soaring into the unknown—in a word, strong capacity for action. Whence arise, if we leave out the mixed forms, two principal types—the calculating, the venturesome. In the former the rational element is first. They are cautious, calculating, selfish exploiters, with no great moral or social preoccupations. In the latter, the active and emotional element predominates. They have a broader sweep. Of this sort were the merchant-sailors of Tyre, Carthage, and Greece; the merchant-travelers of the Middle Ages, the mercantile and gain-hungry explorers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; later, in a changed form, the organizers of great companies, the inventors of monopolies, American "trusts," etc. These are the great imaginative minds.

Eliminating, then, from our subject, what is not the purely imaginative element in order to study it alone, I see only two points for us to treat, if we would avoid repetition—at the initial moment of invention, the intuitive act that is its germ; during the period of development and organization, the necessary and exclusive rÔle of schematic images.

I

By "intuition" we generally understand a practical, immediate judgment that goes straight to the goal. Tact, wisdom, scent, divination, are synonymous or equivalent expressions. First let us note that intuition does not belong exclusively to this part of our subject, for it is found in parvo throughout; but in commercial invention it is preponderating on account of the necessity of perceiving quickly and surely, and of grasping chances. "Genius for business," someone has said, "consists in making exact hypotheses regarding the fluctuations of values." To characterize the mental state is easy, if it is a matter merely of giving examples; very difficult, if one attempts to discover its mechanism.

The physician who in a trice diagnoses a disease, who, on a higher level, groups symptoms in order to deduce a new disease from them, like Duchenne de Boulogne; the politician who knows human nature, the merchant who scents a good venture, etc., furnish examples of intuition. It does not depend on the degree of culture;—not to mention women, whose insight into practical matters is well known, there are ignorant people—peasants, even savages—who, in their limited sphere, are the equals of fine diplomats.

But all these facts teach us nothing concerning its psychological nature. Intuition presupposes acquired experience of a special nature that gives the judgment its validity and turns it in a particular direction. Nevertheless, this accumulated knowledge of itself gives no evidence as to the future. Now, every intuition is an anticipation of the future, resulting from only two processes:—inductive or deductive reasoning, e.g., the chemist foreseeing a reaction; imagination, i.e., a representative construction. Which is the chief process here? Evidently the former, because it is not a matter of fancied hypothesis, but of adaptation of former experience to a new case. Intuition resembles logical operations much more than it does imaginative combinations. We may liken it to unconscious reasoning, if we are not afraid of the seeming contradiction of this expression which supposes a logical operation without consciousness of the middle term. Although questionable, it is perhaps to be preferred to other proposed explanations—such as automatism, habit, "instinct," "nervous connections." Carpenter, who as promoter of "unconscious cerebration," deserves to be consulted, likens this state to reflection. In ending, he reprints a letter that John Stuart Mill wrote to him on the subject, in which he says in substance that this capacity is found in persons who have experience and lean toward practical things, but attach little importance to theory.[131]

Every intuition, then, becomes concrete as a judgment, equivalent to a conclusion. But what seems obscure and even mysterious in it is the fact that, from among many possible solutions, it finds at the first shot the proper one. In my opinion this difficulty arises largely from a partial comprehension of the problem. By "intuition" people mean only cases in which the divination is correct; they forget the other, far more numerous, cases that are failures. The act by which one reaches a conclusion is a special case of it. What constitutes the originality of the operation is not its accuracy, but its rapidity—the latter is the essential character, the former accessory.

Further, it must be acknowledged that the gift of seeing correctly is an inborn quality, vouchsafed to one, denied to another:—people are born with it, just as they are born right-or left-handed: experience does not give it—only permits it to be put to use. As for knowing why the intuitive act now succeeds and at another time fails, that is a question that comes down to the natural distinction between accurate and erroneous minds, which we do not need to examine here.

Without dwelling longer on this initial stage, let us return to the commercial imagination, and follow it in its development.

II

The human race passed through a pre-commercial age. The Australians, Fuegians, and their class seem to have had no idea whatever of exchange. This primitive period, which was long, corresponds to the age of the horde or large clan. Commercial invention, arising like the other forms from needs,—simple and indispensable at first, artificial and superfluous later,—could not arise in that dim period when the groups had almost their sole relations with one another as war. Nothing called it to arise. But at a higher stage the rudimentary form of commerce, exchange in kind or truck, appeared early and almost everywhere. Then this long, cumbersome, inconvenient method gave place to a more ingenious invention—the employment of "standard values," beings or material objects serving as a common measure for all the rest:—their choice varied with the time, place, and people—e.g., certain shells, salt, cocoa-seeds, cloth, straw-matting, cattle, slaves, etc.; but this innovation held all the remainder in the germ, for it was the first attempt at substitution. But during the earliest period of commercial evolution the chief effort at invention consisted of finding increasingly more simple methods in the mechanism of exchange. Thus, there succeeded to these disparate values, the precious metals, in the form of powder and ingots, subject to theft and the inconveniences of weighing. Then, money of fixed denomination, struck under the authority of a chief or of a social group. Finally, gold and silver are replaced by the letter of credit, the bank check, and the numerous forms of fiduciary money.[132]

Every one of these forward steps is due to inventors. I say inventors, in the plural, because it is proven that every change in the means of exchange has been imagined several times, in several ages—though in the same way—on the surface of our earth.

Summing up—the inventive labor of this period is reduced to creating increasingly more simple and more rapid methods of substitution in the commercial mechanism.

The appearance of commerce on a large scale has depended on the state of agriculture, industry, ways of communication, social and economic conditions and political extension. It came into being toward the end of the Roman Republic. After the interruption of the Middle Ages the activity is taken up again by the Italian cities, the Hanseatic League, etc.; in the fifteenth century with the great maritime discoveries; in the sixteenth century by the Conquistadores, hungering for adventure and wealth; later on, by the mixed expeditions, whose expenses are defrayed by merchants in common, and which are often accompanied by armed bands that fight for them; lastly comes the incorporation of great companies that have been wittily dubbed "Conquistadores of the counting-house."

We now come to the moment when commercial invention attains its complex form and must move great masses. Taken as a whole, its psychological mechanism is the same as that of any other creative work. In the first instance, the idea arises, from inspiration, from reflection, or by chance. Then comes a period of fermenting during which the inventor sketches his construction in images, represents to himself the material to be worked upon, the grouping of stockholders, the making up of a capital, the mechanism of buying and selling, etc. All this differs from the genesis of an esthetic or mechanical work only in the end, or in the nature of the images. In the second phase it is necessary to proceed to execution—a castle in the air must be made a solid structure. Then appear a thousand obstructions in the details that must be overcome. As everywhere else, minor inventions become grafted on the principal invention; the author lets us see the poverty or richness in resource of his mind. Finally, the work is triumphant, fails, or is only half-successful.

Did it keep only to these general traits, commercial imagination would be merely the reiteration, with slight changes, of forms already studied; but it has characteristics all its own that must be distinguished.

(1) It is a combining or tactical imagination. Heretofore, we have met nothing like it. This special mark is derived from the very nature of its determinism, which is very different from that limiting the scientific or mechanical imagination. Every commercial project, in order to emerge from the internal, purely imaginative phase, and become a reality, requires "coming to a head," very exact calculation of frequently numerous, divergent, even contrary elements. The American dealer speculating in grain is under the absolute necessity of being quickly and surely informed regarding the agricultural situation in all countries of the world that are rich in grain, that export or import; in regard to the probable chances of rain or drouth; the tariff duties of the various countries, etc. Lacking that, he buys and sells haphazard. Moreover, as he deals in enormous quantities, the least error means great losses, the smallest profit on a unit is of account, and is multiplied and increased into a noticeable gain.

Besides that initial intuition that shows opportune business and moments, commercial imagination presupposes a well-studied, detailed campaign for attack and defense, a rapid and reliable glance at every moment of execution in order to incessantly modify this plan—it is a kind of war. All this totality of special conditions results from a general condition,—namely, competition, strife. We shall come back to this point at the end of the chapter.

Let us follow to the end the working of this creative imagination. Like the other forms, this kind of invention arises from a need, a desire—that of the spreading of "self-feeling," of the expansion of the individual under the form of enrichment. But this tendency, and with it the resulting imaginative creation, can undergo changes.

It is a well-known law of the emotional life that what is at first sought as a means may become an end and be desired for itself. A very sensual passion may at length undergo a sort of idealization; people study a science at first because it is useful, and later because of its fascination; and we may desire money in order to spend it, and later in order to hoard it. Here it is the same: the financial inventor is often possessed with a kind of intoxication—he no longer labors for lucre, but for art; he becomes, in his own way, an author of romance. His imagination, set at the beginning toward gain, now seeks only its complete expansion, the assertion and eruption of its creative power, the pleasure of inventing for invention's sake,[133] daring the extraordinary, the unheard-of—it is the victory of pure construction. The natural equilibrium between the three necessary elements of creation—mobility, combination of images, calculation—is destroyed. The rational element gives way, is obliterated, and the speculator is launched into adventure with the possibility of a dazzling success or astounding catastrophe. But let us note well that the primary and sole cause of this change is in the affective and motor element, in an hypertrophy of the lust for power, in an unmeasured and morbid want of expansion of self. Here, as everywhere, the source of invention is the emotional nature of the inventor.

(2) A second special character of commercial imagination is the exclusive employment of schematic representations. Although this process is also met with in the sciences and especially in social inventions, the imaginative type that we are now considering has the privilege of using them without exception. This, then, is the proper moment for a description.

By "schematic images" I mean those that are, by their very nature, intermediate between the concrete image and the pure concept, but approach more nearly the concept. We have already pointed out very different kinds of representations—concrete images, material pertaining to plastic and mechanical imagination; the emotional abstractions of the diffluent imagination; affective images, the type of which is found in musicians; symbolic images, familiar in mystics. It may seem improper to add another class to this list, but it is not a meaningless subtlety. Indeed, there are no images in general that, according to the ordinary conception, would be copies of reality. Even their separation into visual, auditory, motor, etc., is not sufficient, because it distinguishes them only with regard to their origin. There are other differences. We have seen that the image, like everything living, undergoes corrosions, damages, twisting, and transformation: whence it comes about that this remainder of former impressions varies according to its composition, i.e., in simplicity, complexity, grouping of its constitutive elements, etc., and takes on many aspects. On the other hand, as the difference between the chief types of creative imagination depends in part on the materials employed—on the nature of the images that serve in mental building—a precise determination of the nature of the images belonging to each type is not an idle operation.

In order to clearly explain what we mean by schematic images, let us represent by a line, PC, the scale of images according to the degree of complexity, from the percept, P, to the concept, C.

P——————X——G——S——C

As far as I am aware, this determination of all the degrees has never been made. The work would be delicate; I do not regard it as impossible. I have no intention to undertake it, even as I do not pretend that I have given above the complete list of the various forms of images.

If, then, we consider the foregoing figure merely as a means of representing the gradation to the eye, the image in moving, by hypothesis, from the moment of perception, P, is less and less in contact with reality, becomes simplified, impoverished, and loses some of its constitutive elements. At X it crosses the middle threshold to approach nearer and nearer to the concept. At G let us locate generic images, primitive forms of generalization, whose nature and process of becoming are well-known;[134] we should place farther along, at S, schematic images, which require a higher function of mind. Indeed, the generic image results from a spontaneous fusion of like or very analogous images—such as the vague representation of the oak, the horse, the negro, etc.; it belongs to only one class of objects. The schematic image results from a voluntary act; it is not limited to exact resemblances—it rises into abstraction; so it is scarcely accompanied by a fleeting representation of concrete objects—it is almost reduced to the word. At a higher level, it is freed from all sensuous elements or pictures, and is reduced, in the present instance, to the mere notion of value—it is not different from a pure concept. While the artist and the mechanic build with concrete images, the commercial imagination can act directly neither on things nor on their immediate representations, because from the time that it goes beyond the primitive age it requires a substitution of increasing generality; materials become values that are in turn reducible to symbols. Consequently, it proceeds as in the stating and solving of abstract problems in which, after having substituted for things and their relations figures and letters, calculation works with signs, and indirectly with things.

Aside from the first moment of invention, the finding of the idea—an invariable psychological state—it must be recognized that in its development and detailed construction the commercial imagination is made up chiefly of calculations and combinations that hardly permit concrete images. If we admit, then,—and this is unquestionable—that these are the materials par excellence of the creative imagination, we shall be disposed to hold that the imaginative type we are now studying is a kind of involution, a case of impoverishment—an unacceptable thesis as regards the invention itself, but strictly acceptable as regards the conditions that necessity imposes upon it.

In closing, let us note that financial imagination does not always have as its goal the enriching of an individual or of a closely limited group of associates: it can aim higher, act on greater masses, address itself strenuously to a problem as complex as the reformation of the finances of a powerful state. All the civilized nations count in their history men who imagined a financial system and succeeded, with various fortunes, in making it prevail. The word "system," consecrated by usage, makes unnecessary any comment, and relates this form of imagination to that of scientists and philosophers. Every system rests on a master-conception, on an ideal, a center about which there is assembled the mental construction made up of imagination and calculation which, if circumstances permit, must take shape, must show that it can live.

Let us call to mind the author of the first, or at least, of the most notorious of these "systems." Law claimed that he was applying "the methods of philosophy, the principles of Descartes, to social economy, abandoned hitherto to chance and empiricism." His ideal was the institution of credit by the state. Commerce, said he, was during its first stage the exchange of merchandise in kind; in a second stage, exchange by means of another, more manageable, commodity or universal value, security equivalent to the object it represented; it must enter a third stage when exchange will be made by a purely conventional sign having no value of its own. Paper represents money, just as the latter represents goods, "with the difference that the paper is not security, but a simple promise, constituting credit." The state must do systematically what individuals have done instinctively; but it must also do what individuals cannot do—create currency by printing on the paper of exchange the seal of public authority. We know the history of the downfall of this system, the eulogies and criticisms it has received:—but because of the originality and boldness of his views, the inexhaustible fecundity of his lesser inventions, Law holds an undisputed place among the great imaginative minds.

III

We said above that commerce, in its higher manifestations, is a kind of war.[135] Here, then, would be the place to study the military imagination. The subject cannot be treated save by a man of the profession, so I shall limit myself to a few brief remarks based on personal information, or gleaned from authorities.

Between the various types of imagination hitherto studied we have shown great differences as regards their external conditions. While the so-called forms of pure imagination, whence esthetic, mythic, religious, mystic creations arise, can realize themselves by submitting to material conditions that are simple and not very exacting, the others can become embodied only when they satisfy an ensemble of numerous, inevitable, rigorously determined conditions; the goal is fixed, the materials are rigid, there is little choice of the appropriate means. If there be added to the inflexible laws of nature unforeseen human passions and determinations, as in political or social invention, or the offensive combination of opponents, as in commerce and war; then the imaginative construction is confronted with problems of constantly growing complexity. The most ingenious inventor cannot invent an object as a whole, letting his work develop through an immanent logic:—the early plan must be continually modified and readapted; and the difficulty arises not merely from the multiple elements of the problem to be solved, but from ceaseless changes in their positions. So one can advance only step by step, and go forward by calculations and strict examination of possibilities. Hence it results that underneath this thick covering of material and intellectual conditions (calculation, reasoning), spontaneity (the aptness for finding new combinations, "that art of inventing without which we hardly advance"[136]) reveals itself to few clear-sighted persons; but, in spite of everything, this creative power is everywhere, flowing like subterranean streams, a vivifying agency.

These general remarks, although not applicable exclusively to the military imagination, find their justification in it, because of its extreme complexity. Let us rapidly enumerate, proceeding from without inwards, the enormous mass of representations that it has to move and combine in order to make its construction adequate to reality, able at a precise moment to cease being a dream:—(1) Arms, engines, instruments of destruction and supply, varying according to time, place, richness of the country, etc. (2) The equally variable human element—mercenaries, a national army; strong, tried troops or weak and new. (3) The general principles of war, acquired by the study of the masters. (4) More personal is the power of reflection, the habitual solving of tactical and strategic problems. "Battles," said Napoleon, "are thought out at length, and in order to be successful it is necessary that we think several times in regard to what may happen." All the foregoing should be headed "science." Advancing more and more within the secret psychology of the individual, we come to art, the characteristic work of pure imagination. (5) Let us note the exact, rapid intuition at the commencement of the opportune moments. (6) Lastly, the creative element, the conception, a natural gift bearing the hall-mark of each inventor. Thus "the Napoleonic esthetics was always derived from a single concept, based on a principle that may be summed up thus:—Strict economy wherever it can be done; expenditure without limit on the decisive point. This principle inspires the strategy of the master; it directs everything, especially his battle-tactics, in which it is synthetized and summed up."[137]

Such, in analytical terms, appears the hidden spring that makes everything move, and it is to be attributed neither to experience nor to reasoning, nor to wise combinations, for it arises from the innermost depths of the inventor. "The principle exists in him in a latent state, i.e., in the depths of the unconscious, and unconsciously it is that he applies it, when the shock of the circumstances, of goal and means, causes to flash from his brain the spark stimulating the artistic solution par excellence, one that reaches the limits of human perfection."[138]

[131] Carpenter, Mental Physiology, chapter XI (end).