this point of view, brought together in this manner, these things, which once appeared foreign to one another, appear as collabora— tors.Similarly, when Huyghens conceived the theory of light waves, he perceived the phenomena of luminous radiation and propagation of sound waves or waves formed by the wind on the surface of a lake as consequences of the same principle, applica— tions of the same formula, whereas until then they had not seemed to have any relation to one another.
Thus we see that the inventive idea can be utilitarian or disin— terested, that is, its subject may be a relation of means to end or of consequence to principle ( of species to genus).But this does not prevent the inventive idea from being in both cases a purely intellectual fact, a deductive analysis, provoked to be sure by a fer— ment of passion, a special desire, which this conception satisfies but which has nothing in common with those completely different desires that the conception is destined to satisfy when it is utilitar—ian in nature.