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This article focuses on the impact of Cartesianism in the transformations of the concept of imagination at the end of the 17th century, giving attentionprimarily to the thoughts of Malebranche and Fontenelle. These two thinkers emphasizepolarities that are already present in the Cartesian conception of imagination : Malebranche uses the notion of passive imagination to theorize the contagion of affects andideas, while Fontenelle elaborates his history of the human mind around the notion ofactive imagination. Both of them, in the end, give imagination a central role in theformation of a proto-concept of « culture ».