Imaginative Cognition and Inspired Cognition

This, then, is what is always going on when we think. Aroused by sense-perceptions outside, or inwardly by memory, the ego gets the upper hand over the lifeless substances, and—in accordance with the stimulation of the senses or of the memories—swings these lifeless substances to and fro in us, we might almost say makes drawings in us with them. For this is no figurative conception; this use of inorganic matter by the ego is absolute reality It might be compared to reducing chalk to a powder and then with a chalky finger drawing all kinds of figures. It is an actual fact that the ego sets this lifeless matter oscillating, masters it, and with it draws figures in us, though the figures are certainly unlike those usually drawn outside. Yet the ego with the help of this lifeless substance does really make drawings and form crystals in us—though not crystals like those found in the mineral kingdom (see red in drawing).