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Imagination, an important synthetic function of the ego by which are evolved and manipulated into new form mental images of objects not present to the senses, has as its prototype early experiences of actively mastering the disappearance and reappearance of objects and the development of 'object constancy'. These experiences cluster around the three stage in the maturation of perception described by Piaget. The first or 'objective stage' involves the separation of the percept from the current activity of the subject, the precursor of the capacity for image formation. The second 'stage of permanent objectification' represents the capacity of the child to retain an image of the vanished object; the third and most crucial 'representational stage', marking the beginning of the apprehension of invariance, shows the capacity of the child to realize that in a series of transformations of the object certain of its attributes which appear to undergo change remain constant, while others which appear to remain constant undergo a change. This treatment of the object seems to be the necessary prototype for the later and more complex imaginative processes, such as the synthesis of new ideas. While much of organized thought is guided by the rule of exclusion of contradiction in causal sequences, imagination functions through temporarily abandoning this rule for the sake of examining contradictions. Its goal, unlike that of fantasy which it resembles, is the extension of cognition rather than instinctual discharge. Imagination is an ego function designed to fill the void of