CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

IMAGINATION.

§. 304. Imagination an intellectual process, closely related to reasoning. LEAVING the subject of reasoning, we next proceed to the consideration of the Imagination; which, as well as the reasoning power, obviously comes under the general head of the Intellect, rather than of the Sensibilities. It is true, we are apt to associate the exercises of the heart with those of the imagination, and undoubtedly we have some reason for doing so; but in doing this we are liable, not merely to associate, but to identify and confound them. But they are in fact essentially different. An exercise of the Imagination, in itself considered, is purely an intellectual process. The process may, indeed, be stimulated and accelerated by a movement of the sensibilities; there may be various extraneous influences operating either to increase or to diminish its vivacity and ener

but the process itself, considered separately from contingent circumstances, is wholly intellectual. So that he, who possesses a creative and well sustained imagination, may be said, with no small degree of truth, to possess a powerful intellect, whatever torpidity may characterize the region of the affections.

The imagination is not only entitled to be ranked under the general head of the Intellect, in distinction from the Sensibilities; but it is to be remarked further, which may perhaps have escaped the notice of some, that it possesses, especially in the process or mode of its action, a close affinity with the reasoning power. It is a remark ascribed to D'Alembert, whose great skill in the mathematics would seem

to justify his giving an opinion on such a subject, that the imagination is brought into exercise in geometrical processes; which is probably true, so far as some of the mental acts involved in imagination, such as association and the perception of relations, are concerned. And in illustration of his views, he intimates in the same connection, that Archimedes the geometrician, of all the great men of antiquity, is best entitled to be placed by the side of Homer.* Certain it is, that, in some important respects, there is an intimate relationship between the powers in question, the deductive and imaginative. They both imply the antecedent exercise of the power of abstraction; they are both occupied in framing new combinations of thought from the elements already in possession; they both put in requisition, and in precisely the same way, the powers of association and relative suggestion. But at the same time, they are separated from each other and characterized by the two circumstances, that their objects are different, and that they operate, in part, on different materials. Reasoning, as it aims to give us a knowledge of the truth, deals exclusively with facts more or less probable. Imagination, as it aims chiefly to give pleasure, is at liberty to transcend the limits of the world of reality, and consequently often deals with the mere conceptions of the mind, whether they correspond to reality or not. Accordingly the one ascertains what is true, the other what is possible; the office of the one is to inquire, of the other to create ; reasoning is exercised within the limits of what is known and actual, while the appropriate empire of the imagination is the region of the conjectural and conceivable.

§. 305. Definition of the power of imagination.

Without delaying longer upon the subject, which however is not without its importance, of the place which imagination ought to occupy in a philosophical classification of the mental powers, we next proceed to consider more particularly, what imagination is, and in what manner it operates.Imagination is a complex exercise of the mind, by means of which various conceptions are combined together, so as to form new wholes. The conceptions have properly enough

*Stewart's Historical Dissertation.-Prefatory Remarks.

been regarded as the materials, from which the new creations are made; but it is not until after the existence of those mental acts, which are implied in every process of imagination, that they are fixed upon, detained, and brought out from their state of singleness into happy and beautiful combinations.

Our conceptions have been compared to shapeless stones, as they exist in the quarry, which "require little more than mechanic labor to convert them into common dwellings, but that rise into palaces and temples only at the command of architectural genius." That rude, and little more than mechanic effort, which converts the shapeless stones of the quarry into common dwellings, may justly be considered, when divested of its metaphorical aspect, a correct representation of this mental property, as it exists among the great mass of mankind; while the architectural genius, which creates palaces and temples, is the well furnished and sublime imagination of poets, painters, and orators.

We speak of imagination as a complex mental operation, because it implies, in particular, the exercise of the power of association in furnishing those conceptions, which are combined together; also the exercise of the power of relative suggestion, by means of which the combination is effected.

§. 306. Process of the mind in the creations of the imagination.

It may assist us in more fully understanding the nature of imagination, if we endeavor to examine the intellectual operations of one, who makes a formal effort at writing, whether the production he has in view be poetical or of some other kind. A person cannot ordinarily be supposed to sit down to write on any occasion whatever, whether it involve a higher or less degree of the exercise of the imagination, without having some general idea of the subject to be written upon already in the mind. The general idea, or the subject in its outlines, must be supposed to be already present. He, accordingly, commences the task before him with the expectation and the desire of developing the subject more or less fully, of giving to it not only a greater continuity and a better arrangement, but an increased interest in every respect. As he feels interested in the topic which he proposes to write upon, he can of course, by a mere act of the will, although

he might not have been able in the first instance to have originated it by such an act, detain it before him for a length of time.

Various conceptions continue, in the mean while, to arise in the mind, on the common principles of association; but as the general outline of the subject remains fixed, they all have a greater or less relation to it. And partaking in some measure of the permanency of the outline, to which they have relation, the writer has an opportunity to approve some and to reject others, according as they impress him as being suitable or unsuitable to the nature of the subject. Those, which affect him with emotions of pleasure, on account of their perceived fitness for the subject, are retained and committed to writing, while others, which do not thus affect and interest him, soon fade away altogether.Whoever carefully notices the operations of his own mind, when he makes an effort at composition, will probably be well satisfied, that this account of the intellectual process is very near the truth.

§. 307. Further remarks on the same subject.

The process, therefore, stated in the most simple and concise terms, is as follows. We first think of some subject. With the original thought or design of the subject, there is a co-existent desire to investigate it, to adorn it, to present it to the examination of others. The effect of this desire, followed and aided as it naturally is at such times by an act of the will, is to keep the general subject in mind; and, as the natural consequence of the exercise of association, various conceptions arise, in some way or other related to the general subject. Of some of these conceptions we approve in consequence of their perceived fitness to the end in view, while we reject others on account of the absence of this requisite quality of agreeableness or fitness.

For the sake of convenience and brevity we give the name of IMAGINATION to this complex state or series of states of the mind. It is important to possess a single term, expressive of the complex intellectual process; otherwise, as we so frequently have occasion to refer to it in common conversation, we should be subjected, if not properly to a circumlocution, at least to an unnecessary multiplication of words. But while we find it so much for our convenience to make use of

this term, we should be careful and not impose upon ourselves, by ever remembering, that it is the name, nevertheless, not of an original and independent faculty, which of itself accomplishes all, that has been mentioned, but of a complex or combined action of a number of faculties.

§. 308, Illustration from the writings of Dr. Reid.

Dr. Reid (ESSAY IV. ch. 4.) gives the following graphical statement of the selection, which is made by the writer from the variety of his constantly arising and departing conceptions."We seem to treat the thoughts, that present themselves to the fancy in crowds, as a great man treats those [courtiers] that attend his levee. They are all ambitious of his attention. He goes round the circle, bestowing a bow upon one, a smile upon another; asks a short question of a third, while a fourth is honored with a particular conference; and the greater part have no particular mark of attention, but go as they came. It is true, he can give no mark of his attention to those who were not there; but he has a sufficient number for making a choice and distinction."

§. 309. Grounds of the preference of one conception to another.

A question after all arises, on what principle is the mind enabled to ascertain that congruity or incongruity, fitness or unfitness, agreeably to which it makes the selection from its various conceptions. The fact is admitted, that the intellectual principle is successively in a series of different states, or, in other words, that there are successive conceptions or images, but the inquiry still remains, why is one image in the group thought or known to be more worthy than any other image, or why are any two images combined together in preference to any two others?

The answer is, it is owing to no secondary law, but to an instantaneous and original suggestion of fitness or unfitness. Those conceptions, which, by means of this original power of perceiving the relations of things, are found to be suitable to the general outlines of the subject, are detained. Those images, which are perceived to possess a peculiar congruity and fitness for each other, are united together, forming new and more beautiful compounds. While others, although no