Images may also be classified according to the use made of past experience.  Past experience may be recalled in approximately the same form in which it occurred, or it may be reconstructed.  In the former case the image is called reproductive image or memory image; in the latter form it is called productive or creative image, or image of the imagination.  The reproductive image never duplicates experience, but in its major features it closely corresponds to it, whereas the productive image breaks up old experiences and from them makes new wholes which correspond to no definite occurrence.  The elements found in both kinds of imagery must come from experience.  One cannot imagine anything the elements of which he has not experienced.  Creative imagination transcends experience only in the sense that it remodels and remakes, but the result of that activity produces new wholes as far removed from the actual occurrences as “Alice in Wonderland” is from the humdrum life of a tenement dweller.  Just the same, the fact that the elements used in creative work must be drawn from experience is extremely suggestive from a practical point of view.  It demonstrates the need of a rich sensory life for every child.  It also explains the reason for the lack of appreciation on the part of immature children of certain types of literature and certain moral questions.

No more need be said here of the reproductive image, as it is synonymous with the memory image and was therefore treated fully under the topic of memory.  One fact should be borne in mind, however, and that is, that the creative image is to some extent dependent on the reproductive image as it involves recall.  However, as productive imagery involves the recall of elements or parts rather than wholes, an individual may have talent in creative imagery without being above the average in exact reproduction.

Productive imagery may be classified as fanciful, realistic, and idealistic according to the character of the material used.  Fanciful productive imagery is characterized by its spontaneity, its disregard of the probable and possible, its vividness of detail.  It is its own reward, and does not look to any result beyond itself.  Little children’s imaginations are of this type—­it is their play world of make-believe.  The incongruity and absurdity of their images have been compared to the dreams of adults.  Lacking in experience, without knowledge of natural laws, their imagination runs riot with the materials it has at its command.  Some adults still retain it to a high degree—­witness the myths and fairy stories, “Alice in Wonderland,” and the like.  All adults in their “castle-building” indulge in this type of imagery to some extent.  Realistic productive imagery, as its name implies, adheres more strictly to actual conditions, it deals with the probable.  It usually is constructed for a purpose, being put to some end beyond itself.  It lacks much of the emotional element possessed by