"
[Footnote 3: "Introduction a la Metaphysique." _Revue de Metaphysique
et de Morale_, Janvier, 1903.]
This is evidently well observed: heighten the tone a little, and you
might have a poem on those joyful pangs of gestation and parturition
which are not denied to a male animal. It is a description of the
_sensation_ of literary composition, of the _immediate experience_ of
a writer as words and images rise into his mind. He cannot summon his
memories explicitly, for he would first have to remember them to do
so; his consciousness of inspiration, of literary creation, is nothing
but a consciousness of pregnancy and of a certain "direction of
movement," as if he were being wafted in a balloon; and just in its
moments of highest tension his mind is filled with mere expectancy and
mere excitement, without images, plans, or motives; and what guides it
is inwardly, as M. Bergson says, simplicity itself. Yet excellent as
such a description is psychologically, it is a literary confession
rather than a piece of science; for scientific psychology is a part of
natural history, and when in nature we come upon such a notable
phenomenon as this, that some men write and write eloquently, we
should at once study the antecedents and the conditions under which
this occurs; we should try, by experiment if possible, to see what
variations in the result follow upon variations in the situation.
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