22 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
the generation of organism and life. The most profound
problem, contained beneath the rather superficial formula
with which I first presented it, is, then: Wliat is tire office
of the pure image in the life of the spirit? or (which at
bottom amounts to the same thing), How does the pure
image come into existence? Every inspired work of art gives
rise to a long series of imitators, who just repeat, cut up in
pieces, combine, and mechanically exaggerate that work,
and by so doing play the part of imagination toward or
against the fancy. But what is the justification, or what the
genesis, of the work of genius, which is afterward submitted
(a sign of glory!) to such torments? In order to make this
point clear, we must go deeply into the character of fancy
or pure intuition.
And the best way to prepare this deeper study is to recall
to mind and to criticise the theories with which it has been
sought to differentiate artistic intuition from merely inco-
herent imagination (while taking care not to fall into real-
ism or conceptualism), to establish in what the principle of
unity consists, and to justify the productive character of the
fancy. Tlie artistic image (it has been said) is such, when
it unites the intelligible with the sensible, and represents an
idea. Now “intelligible” and “idea” cannot mean anything
but concept (nor has it a different meaning with those who
maintain this doctrine); even though it be the concrete con-
cept or idea, proper to lofty philosophical speculation, which
differs from the abstract concept or from the representative
concept of the sciences. But in any case, the concept or idea
always unites the intelligible to the sensible, and not only
in art, for the new concept of the concept, first stated by
Kant and (so to speak) immanent in all modem thought,
heals the breach between the sensible and the intelligible