VI. THE TEACHER'S USE OF THE IMAGINATION


Imagination is governed by the same general laws of association which
control habit and memory. In these two former topics the emphasis was
upon getting a desired result without any attention to the form of that
result. Imagination, on the other hand, has to do with the way past
experience is used and the form taken by the result. It merges into
memory in one direction and into thinking in another. No one definition
has been found acceptable--in fact, in no field of psychology is there
more difference of opinion, in no topic are terms used more loosely,
than in this one of imagination. Stated in very general terms,
imagination is the process of reproducing, or reconstructing any form of
experience. The result of such a process is a mental image. When the
fact that it is reproduction or reconstruction is lost sight of, and the
image reacted to as if it were present, an illusion or hallucination
results.

Images may be classified according to the sense through which the
original experience came, into visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile,
kinæsthetic, and so on. In many discussions of imagery the term
"picture" has been used to describe it, and hence in the thought of many
it is limited rather definitely to the visual field. Of course this is
entirely wrong. The recall of a melody, or of the touch of velvet, or of
the fragrance of a rose, is just as much mental imagery as the recall of
the sight of a friend.

Three points of dispute in connection with image types are worth while
noting. First, the question is raised by some psychologists as to