IMAGINATION.
§ I.—General Character of this Faculty.
The Point at which we have arrived.—We have thus far treated of those forms of mental representation which are concerned in the reproduction of what has once been perceived or felt, and in the recognition of it as such. It remains still to investigate that form of the representative power, which has for its office something quite distinct from either of these, and which we may term thecreativefaculty.
Office of this Faculty.—By the operation of this power, the former perceptions and sensations are replaced in thought, and combined as in mental reproduction, but not, as in mental reproduction, according to theoriginalandactual, so that the past is simply repeated, but rather according to the mind's ownideal, and at its own will and fancy; so that while the groundwork of the representation is something which has been, at some time, an object of perception, the picture itself, as it stands before the mind in its completeness, is not the copy of any thing actually perceived, but a creation of the mind's own. This power the mind has, and it is a power distinct from either of those already mentioned, and not less wonderful than either. The details of the original perception are omitted; time, place, circumstance fall out, or are varied to suit the fancy; the scene is laid when and where we like; the incidents follow each other no longer in their actual order; the original, in a word, is no longer faithfully transcribed, but the picture is conformed to the taste and pleasure of the artist. The conception becomesIDEAL. This is imagination in its true and proper sphere—the creative power of the mind.
§ II.—Relation of this to other Faculties.
The true province of imagination may be more definitely distinguished by comparing it with other powers of the mind.
Imagination as related to Memory.—How, then, does imagination differ frommemory? In this, first and chiefly, that memory gives us the actual, imagination, the ideal; in this also, that memory deals only with the past, while imagination, not confined to such limits, sweeps on bolder wing, and without bound, alike through the future and the past. In one respect they agree. Both give theabsent—that which is not now and here present to sense. Both are representative rather than presentative. Both also are forms of conception.
To Perception.—In what respect does it differ fromperception? In perception the object is given, presented; in imagination it is thought, conceived; in the former case it is given asactual, in the latter, conceived not as actual but as ideal.
To Judgment.—Imagination differs fromjudgment, in that the latter deals, not like the former, with things in themselves considered, but rather with the relations of things—is, in other words, a form not ofsimple, but ofrelativeconception; and also in that it deals with these relations asactual, not as ideal. It has always specific reference to truth, and is concerned in the formation of opinion and belief, as resting on the evidence of truth, and the perception of the actual relations of things.
To Reasoning.—In like manner it differs fromreasoning, which also has to do with truths, facts—has for its object to ascertain and state those facts or principles; its sole and simple inquiry being, what istrue? Imagination concerns itself with no such inquiry, admits of no such limitation. Its thought is not whatdidactually occur, but what in given circumstancesmightoccur. Its question is not what reallywas, oris, orwill be, but whatmaybe; whatmay beconceivedas possible or probable under such or such contingencies.
Reasoning, moreover, reaches only such truths as are involved in its premises, and may fairly be deduced as conclusions from those premises. It furnishes no new material, but merely evolves and unfolds what lies wrapped up in the admitted premises. Imagination lies under no such restriction. There is no necessary connection between the wrath of Achilles, and the consequences that are made to result from it in the unfolding of the epic.
To Taste.—Imagination andtasteare by no means identical. The former may exist in a high degree where the latter is essentially defective. In such a case the conceptions of the imagination are, it may be, too bold, passing the limits of probability, or, it may be, offensive to delicacy, wanting in refinement and beauty, or in some way deficient in the qualities that please a cultivated mind. This is not unfrequently the case with the productions of the poet, the painter, the orator. There is no lack of imagination in their works, while, at the same time, they strike us as deficient in taste. Taste is the regulating principle, whose office is to guide and direct the imagination, sustaining to it much the same relation that conscience does to free moral action. It is a lawgiver and a judge.
To Knowledge.—Still more widely does imagination differ from simple knowledge. There may be great learning and no imagination, and the reverse is equally true. We know that which is—the actual; we imagine that which is not—the ideal. Learning enlarges and quickens the mind, extends the field of its vision, augments its resources, expands its sphere of thought and action; in this way its powers are strengthened, its conceptions multiplied and vivified. There is furnished, consequently, both more and better material for the creative faculty to work upon. Further than this, the imagination is little indebted to learning.
Illustration of these Differences.—To illustrate the differences already indicated: I stand at my window and look out on the landscape. My eye rests on the form and dark outline of a mountain, pictured against the sky. Perception, this. I go back to my desk, I shut my eyes. That form and figure, pencilled darkly against the blue sky, are still in my mind. I seem to see them still. That heavy mass, that undulating outline, that bold rugged summit—the whole stands before me as distinctly as when my eye rested upon it. Conception, this, replacing the absent object. I not only in my thoughts seem to see the mountain thus reproduced, but Iknowit when seen; I recognize it as the mountain which a moment before I saw from my window. Memory, this, connecting the conception with something in my past experience. The picture fades perhaps from my view, and I begin to estimate the probable distance of the mountain, or its relative height, as compared with other mountains. Judgment, this, or the conception of relations. I proceed to calculate the number of square miles of surface on a mountain of that height and extent. Reasoning, this. And now I sweep away, in thought, the actual mountain, and replace it with one vastly more imposing and grand. Eternal snows rest upon its summits; glaciers hold their slow and stately march down its sides; the avalanche thunders from its precipices.Imaginationnow has the field to herself.
§ III.—Active and Passive Imagination.
View of Dr. Wayland.—"If we regard the several act of this faculty," says Dr. Wayland, "we may, I think, observe a difference between them. We have the power to originate images or pictures for ourselves, and we have the power to form them as they are presented in language. The former may be called active, and the latter passive imagination. The active, I believe, always includes the passive power, but the passive does not always include theactive. Thus we frequently observe persons who delight in poetry and romance, who are utterly incapable of creating a scene or composing a stanza. They can form the pictures dictated by language, but are destitute of the power of original combination."
Correctness of this View questioned.—That many who enjoy the creations of the poet and the splendid fictions of the dramatist and novelist, are themselves incapable of producing like creations, is doubtless true. The same is true in other departments of the creative art. Many persons enjoy a fine painting or statue, good music, or a noble architectural design, who cannot themselves produce these works of art. This does not prove them deficient, however, in imagination, for the inability may be owing to other causes, as want of training; nor, on the other hand, does the simple enjoyment of ideal creations involve a different kind of imagination from that exercised in creating. Imagination is, as it seems to me, always active, never passive. Where it exists, and whenever it is called into exercise, it acts, and its action is, in some sense, creative. It conceives the ideal, that which, as conceived, does not exist, or at least is not known to the senses as existing. It matters not in what way these ideal conceptions are suggested, whether by the signs of language written or spoken, or by those characters which the painter, the sculptor, or the architect presents, each in his own way, and with his own material, or by one's own previous conceptions.Everyideal conception is suggested bysomethingantecedent to itself. All active imagination is, in other words, passive, in the sense here intended, and all passive imagination, so called, is in reality active, so far as it is, properly speaking, imagination at all. The difference between the faculty that produces and that which merely enjoys, is a difference ofdegreerather than of kind. The one is an imagination peculiarly active; the other slightly so; or, more properly, the one mind hasmuch, the otherlittleimagination.
Philosophic Imagination.—The termphilosophicimagination, in distinction frompoetic, is employed by the same distinguished writer to denote the faculty, possessed by some minds of a high order, of discovering new truths in science; of so classifying and arranging known facts as to bring to light the laws which govern them, or, by a happy conjecture, assigning to phenomena hitherto unexplained, a theory which will account for them. Whether the faculty now intended is properly imagination, admits of question. Its field is that of conjecture, supposition, theory, invention. It involves the exercise of judgment and reason. It seeks after truth. It is a process of discovering what is. Imagination deals with the ideal only—inquires not for the true.
§ IV.—Imagination a Simple Faculty.
Common Theory.—The view which has been very generally entertained of the faculty now under consideration, both in this country, and by the Scotch philosophers, resolves it partially or wholly into other powers of the mind, as abstraction, association, judgment, taste. In this view, it is no longer a simple faculty, if indeed it can with propriety be called a faculty at all, inasmuch as the effects ascribed to it can be accounted for by the agency of the other powers now named.
A different View.—It seems to me that imagination, while doubtless it presupposes and involves the exercise of the suggestive and associative principle, of the analytic or divisive principle by which compounds are broken up into their distinct elements, and also, to some extent, of judgment, or the principle which perceives relations, is, nevertheless, itself a power distinct from each of these, and from all of them in combination. Memorypresupposesperception, or something to be reproduced and remembered. It is not, therefore, to be regarded as a complex faculty, comprising the perceptive power as one of its factors. The power to combine, inlike manner,presupposesthe previous separation of elements capable of being reunited, but is not to be resolved into that power which produces such separation. Itinvolvessome exercise of judgment along with its own proper and distinctive activity, but is not to be confounded with, or resolved into the power of perceiving relations.
The faculty of ideal conception is really a power of the mind, and it is a simple power, a thing of itself, although it may involve and presuppose the activity of other faculties along with its own. Abstraction, association, judgment, taste—none of them singly, nor all of them combined, are what we mean by it.
Theory of Brown.—Dr. Brown resolves the faculty now in question into simple suggestion, accompanied, in the case ofvoluntaryimagination, with desire, and with judgment. There is nothing in the process different from what occurs in any case of the suggestion of one thought by another, he would say. We think of a mountain, we think of gold, and some analogy, or common property of the two, serves to suggest the complex conception, mountain of gold. Even where the process is not purely spontaneous, but accompanied with desire on our part, it is still essentially the same process. We think of something, and this suggests other related conceptions, some of which we approve as fit for our purpose, others we reject as unfit. Here is simple suggestion accompanied with desire and judgment; and these are all the factors that enter into the process. "We may term this state, or series of states, imagination or fancy, and the term may be convenient for its brevity. But in using it we must not forget that the term, however brief and simple, is still the name of a state that is complex, or of a succession of states, that the phenomena comprehended under it being the same in nature, are not rendered, by the use of a mere word, different from those to which we have already given peculiar names expressive of them as they exist separately, and that it is to the classes of these elementary phenomena,therefore, that we must refer the whole process of imagination in our philosophic analysis."
Strictures on this Theory.—This view, it will be perceived, in reality sweeps the faculty of imagination entirely from the field. To this I cannot yield my assent. Is not this state, or affection of the mind, as Dr. Brown calls it, quite a distinct thing from other mental states and affections? Has it not a charactersui generis? Is not the operation, the thing done, adifferentthing from what is done in other cases, and by other faculties; and has not the mind thepowerof doing this new and different thing; and is not that power of doing a given thing what we mean in any case by afacultyof the mind? Is there not an element in this process under consideration which isnotinvolved in other mental processes, viz.: theidealelement; the conception, not of the actual and the real, as in the case of the other faculties, but of the purely ideal? And if the mind has the faculty of forming a class of conceptions so entirely distinct from the others, why not give that faculty a name, and its own proper name, and allow it a place, its own proper place, among the mental powers?
§ V.—Imagination not merely the Power of Combination.
The prevalent View.—This question is closely connected with that just discussed. The usual definitions make the faculty under consideration a mere process of combining and arranging ideas previously in the mind, so as to form new compounds. You have certain conceptions. These you combine one with another, as a child puts together blocks that lie before him, to suit himself, now this uppermost, now that, and the result is a world of imagination. It is the mere arrangement of previous conceptions, and not itself a power of producing or connecting any thing. And even this arrangement of former conceptions is itself aspontaneouscasual process, according to Dr. Brown, not properly apowerof the mind.
Makes Imagination little else than Invention.—According to this view, imagination is hardly to be distinguished from mereinventionin the mechanic arts, which is the result of some new combination of previously existing materials. The construction of a steam-pump with a new kind of valve, is as really a work of imagination, as Paradise Lost. The man who contrives a carding-machine, and the man who conceives the Transfiguration, the Apollo Belvidere, or the Iliad, are exercising both the same faculty—merely combining in new forms the previous possessions of the mind.
This View inadequate.—This is a very meagre and inadequate view, as it seems to me, of the faculty of imagination. It fixes the attention upon, and elevates into the importance of a definition, a circumstance in itself unimportant, while it overlooks the essential characteristic of the faculty to be defined. Thecreative activityof the mind is lost sight of in attending to thematerialson which it works.
The Distinctive Element of Imagination overlooked.—Imagination I take to be the power of conceiving the ideal. The elements which enter into and compose that ideal conception, are, indeed, elements previously existing, not themselves the mind's creations; but the conception itself is the mind's own creation, and this creative activity, this power of conceiving the purely ideal, is the very essence of that which we are seeking to define. True, the separate conceptions which enter into the composition of Paradise Lost—trees, flowers, rivers, mountains, angels, deities—were already in the poet's mind before he began to meditate the sublime epic. They were but the material on which he wrought. Has he then created nothing, conceived nothing? Have we truly and adequately described that immortal poem when we say that it is a mere combination of trees, rivers, hills, and angels, in certain proportions and relations not previously attempted?
Illustration drawn from the Arts.—The artist makes useof colors previously existing when he would produce a painting, and of marble already in the block, when he would chisel a statue or a temple. In reality he only combines. Yet it would be but a poor definition of any one of these sublime arts to say that painting, sculpture, architecture, is merely the putting together of previous materials to form new wholes. We object to such a definition, not because it affirms what is not true, but because it does not affirm the chief and most important truth; not because of what it states, but because of what it omits to state. These are creative arts. They give us indeed not new substances, but new forms, new products, new ideas. So is imagination a creative faculty. The individual elements may not be new, but the grand product and result is new, a creation of the mind's own. And this is of more consequence than the fact that the elementary conceptions were already in the mind. The one is the essential characteristic, the other a comparatively unimportant circumstance; the one describes the thing itself, the other the meremodus operandiof the thing.
Illustration drawn from the Creation of the material World.—What iscreationin its higher and more proper sense, as applied to the formation, by divine power, of the world in which we dwell? There was a moment, in the eternity of the past, when the omnipotent builder divided the light from the darkness, and the evening and the morning were the first day. The elements may have existed before—heat, air, earth, water, the various material and diffused substance of the world about to be—but latent, confused, chaotic those elements, not called forth and appointed each to its own proper sphere. Light slumbers amid the chaotic elements unseen. He speaks the word, and it comes forth from its hiding-place, and stands revealed in its own beauty and splendor. Has God made nothing, in so doing? Has he conceived nothing,creatednothing? And when the work goes on, and is at length complete, and thefair new world hangs poised and trembling on its axis, perfect in every part, and rejoicing the heart of the builder, is there no new power displayed in all this, no creation here? And do we well and adequately express the sublime mystery when we say that the deity has merely arranged and combined materials previously existing, to form a new whole?
Art essentially creative.—So when the poet, the painter, the skillful architect, the mighty orator, call forth from the slumbering elements new forms of beauty and power, are not they, too, in their humble way, creators? True, they have in so doing combined conceptions previously existing in the mind. The writer combines in new forms the existing letters of the alphabet, the painter combines existing colors, the architect puts together previously-existing stones. But is this all he does? Is it the chief thing? Is this the soul and spirit of his divine art? No; there is a new power, a new element, not thus expressed—the power of conceiving, and calling into existence, in the realm of thought, that which has no actual existence in the world of sober reality. He who has this power is amaker—ποιητησ. It is a power conferred, in some degree, on all, in its highest degree, on few. The poet, painter, orator, the gifted creative man, whoever he is, belongs to this class.
§ VI.—Imagination limited to Sensible Objects.
Law of the Imagination.—It is a law of the imagination, that whatever it represents, it realizes, clothes in sensible forms, conceives as visible, audible, tangible, or in some way within the sphere and cognizance of sense. Whatever it has to do with, whatever object it seizes and presents, it brings within this sphere, invests with sensible drapery. Now, strictly speaking, there are no objects, save those of sense, which admit of this process, which can be, even in conception, thus invested with sensible forms, pictured to the eye, or represented to the other senses as objects of theircognizance. If I conceive of objects strictly immaterial as thus presented, I make them, by the very conception, to depart from their proper nature and to become sensible. Imagination has nothing to do, then, strictly speaking, with abstract truths and conceptions, with spiritual and immaterial existences, with ideas and feelings as such, for none of these can be represented under sensible forms, or brought within the sphere and cognizance of the senses. Sensible objects are the groundwork, therefore, of its operation—the materials of its art.
But not to visible Objects.—It is not limited, however, tovisibleobjects merely—is not a mere picture-forming, image-making power. It more frequently, indeed, fashions its creations after the conceptions which sight affords than those of the other senses; but it deals also with conceptions of sound, as in music, and the play of storm and tempest, and with other objects of sense, as the taste, the touch, pressure, etc. Thus thegelidi fontesof Virgil is an appeal to the sense of delicious coolness not less than to that of sparkling beauty. A careful analysis of every act of the imagination will show, I think, asensible basisas the groundwork of the fabric—something seen, or heard, or felt—something said or done—some sensible reality—something which, however ideal and transcendental in itself and in reality, yet admits of expression in and through the senses; otherwise it were a mere conception orabstraction—a mere idea—not an imagination.
§ VII.—Imagination limited to New Results.
The simple reproduction of thepast, whether an object or perception, or sensation, or conception merely, the simple reproduction or bringing back of that to the mind, we have assigned as the office of another faculty. Imagination, we have said, departs from the reality, and gives you not what you have had before, but something new, other, different.It is not the simple image-making power, then, for mental reproduction gives you an image or picture of any former object of perception,asyou have seen it—a portrait of the past, true and faithful to the original.
Some writers would differ from the view now expressed. Some of the Germans assign to imagination the double office of producing the new and reproducing the old; the latter they call imaginative reproduction. In what respect this latter differs from the faculty of mental reproduction in general, it is difficult to perceive. When I remember a word spoken, or a song, I have the conception of asound, or a series of sounds. When I remember an object in nature, as a mountain, a house, etc., I have the conception of a material object, having some definite form, and figure, outline, proportion, magnitude, etc. The conception of the absent object presents itself in such a case, of course, as an image or picture of the object to the mental eye. It is as really the work of conception reproductive, however, to replace, in this case, the absent object as once perceived, as it is to bring back to mind any thing else that has once been before it;e. g., a spoken word or a date in history. We may, if we please, term this faculty, as employed on objects of sight, conceptionimaginativeand distinguish it from the same faculty as employed in reproducing other objects; but it were certainly better to appropriate the term imagination to the single and far higher province of creation—the office of conceiving the ideal under the form of the sensible.
§ VIII.—Imagination a Voluntary Power, or Process.
Is it an act which the mind puts forth when it will, and withholds when it will? Or is it a mere passive susceptibility of the mind to be impressed in this particular way? As the harp lies passive to the wind, which comes and goes we know not how or whither, so does the mind lie open to such thoughts and fancies as flit over it and call forth its hiddenharmonies as they pass by? Those who, with Dr. Brown, resolve imagination into mere suggestion, of course take the latter view.
Often spontaneous.—Undoubtedly, the greater part of our ideal conceptions are spontaneous—the thoughts that rise at the instant, unpremeditated, uncalled, the suggestions of the passing moment or event. This is true of our daily reveries, and all the little romances we construct, when we give the reins to fancy, and a "varied scene of thought"—to use the beautiful expression of Cudworth—passes before us, peopled with forms unreal and illusive. There is no special volition to call up these conceptions, orsuchas these. They take their rise and hue from the complexion of the mind at the time, and the character of the preceding conceptions, in the ever moving, ever varying series and procession of thought. They are like the shifting figures on the curtain in a darkened room, shadows coming and going, as the forms of those without move hither and thither. So far, all is spontaneous. Nay, more: It is, doubtless, impossible, by direct volition, to call up any conception, ideal or otherwise; since this, as Dr. Brown has well argued, would be "either to will without knowing what we will, which is absurd," or else to have already the conception which we wished to have, which is not less absurd.
If no intentional Activity, then Imagination not a Faculty.—Is there then no intentional creation of new and ideal conceptions, of images, similes, metaphors, and other like material of a lively and awakened fancy, but merely acasualsuggestion of such and such thoughts, quite beyond any control and volition or even purpose of ours? If so, then, after all, is it proper to speak of a faculty of imagination, since we have not, in this case, thepowerofdoingthe thing under consideration? We merely sit still in the darkened room, and watch the figures as they come and go, with some desire that the thing may go on, some appreciation of it, some critical judgment of the different forms and movements.
The Mind not wholly passive in the Process.—I reply this is not altogether so. The mind is not altogetherpassivein this thing; there is anactivityinvolved in the process, and that of the mind's own. There is a power, either original or acquired, of conceiving such thoughts as are now under consideration, a readiness for them, a proneness to them[, a bias, propensity, inclination, more powerful in some than in others, by virtue of which this process occurs. We may call this a faculty, though, more strictly, perhaps,a susceptibility, but it is, in truth, one of the endowments of the mind, part of its furniture, one form of its activity.
A more direct voluntary Element.—But there is, further than this, and more directly, a voluntary element in the process. It is in our power to yield, or not, to this propensity, this inclination to the ideal; to put forth the mental activity in this direction, or to withhold it; to say whether or not the imagination shall have its free, full play, and with liberated wing soar aloft through her native skies; whether our speech shall be simple argument, unadorned stout logic, or logic not less stout, clothed with the pleasing, rustling drapery which a lively imagination is able to throw, like a splendid robe, over the naked form of truth.
There is, then, really a mental activity, and an activity in some degree under control of the will, in the process we are considering.
Same Difficulty lies elsewhere.—The same difficulty which meets us here, meets us elsewhere, and lies equally against other mental powers. We cannot, by direct volition, remember a past event, for this implies, as in the case of the volition to imagine a given scene, either that the thing is already in view, or else that we will we know not what. Yet, as every one knows, there is a way of recalling past events; a faculty or power of doing this thing; a faculty which we exercise when we please.
The same may be said of the power of thought in general. We cannot, by direct volition,thinkof any given thing, forto will to think of it is already to have thought of it, yet there is mental activity involved in every process of thought a mental power exercised, a faculty of some sort exercised. Nor is it a power altogether beyond our own control. We can direct our thoughts, can govern them, can turn them, as we do a water course, thatwillflow somewhere, but whose channel we may lead this way or that.
§ IX.—Use and Abuse of Imagination.
Influence upon the Mind.—As to the benefits arising from the due use and exercise of this faculty, not much, perhaps, is requisite to be said. It gives vividness to our conceptions, it raises the tone of our entire mental activity, it adds force to our reasoning, casts the light of fancy over the sombre plodding steps of judgment, gilds the recollections of the past, and the anticipations of the future, with a coloring not their own. It lights up the whole horizon of thought, as the sunrise flashes along the mountain tops, and lights up the world. It would be but a dreary world without that light.
Influence on the Orator.—By its aid the orator presents his clear, strong argument in its own simple strength and beauty, or commands those skillful touches, that, by a magic spell, thrill all hearts in unison. There floats before his mind, ever as he proceeds, thebeau idealof what his argument should be; toward this he aspires, and those aspirations make him what he is. No man is eloquent who has not the imagination requisite to form and keep vividly before him such an ideal.
On the Artist.—By its aid the artist breathes into the inanimate marble the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. By its aid, deaf old Beethoven, at his stringless instrument, calls up the richest harmony of sound, and blind old Milton, in his darkness and desolateness, takes his magician's wand, and lo! there rises before him the vision of that Paradisewhere man, in his primeval innocence, walked with God.
On other Minds.—Nor is it the poet, the orator, the artist, alone, that derive benefit from the exercise of this faculty, or have occasion to make use of it. It is of inestimable value to us all. It opens for us new worlds, enlarges the sphere of our mental vision, releases us from the bonds and bounds of the actual, and gives us, as a bird let loose, the wide firmament of thought for our domain. It gilds the bald, sullen actualities, and stern realities of life, as the morning reddens the chill, snowy summits of the Alps, till they glow in resplendent beauty.
On the Spectator and Observer.—It is of service, not to him who writes alone, but to him who reads; not to him who speaks alone, but to him who hears; not to the artist alone, but to theobserverof art; for neither poet, nor orator, nor artist, can convey the full meaning, thesoul, the inspiration of his work, to one who has not the imagination to appreciate and feel the beauty, and the power, that lie hidden there. There is just as much meaning in their works, to us, as there is soul in us to receive that meaning. The man of no imagination sees no meaning, no beauty, no power, in the Paradise Lost, the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Aurora of Guido, or the master-pieces of Canova and Thorwalsden.
Errors of Imagination.—Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices, illusions of the imagination; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some wrong use, of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We dwell upon its pleasing visions till we forget the sober face of truth. We fancy pleasures, benefits, results which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark and dreary side of things till all nature wears the sombre hue of our disordered fancy.
Not, therefore, to set aside its due Culture.—All this weare liable to do. All these abuses of the imagination are possible, likely enough to occur. Against them we must guard. But to cry out against the culture and due exercise of the imagination, because of these abuses to which it is liable, is not the part of wisdom or highest benevolence. To hinder its fair and full development, and to preclude its use, is to cut ourselves off, and shut ourselves out, from the source of some of the highest, purest, noblest, pleasures of this our mortal life.
No Faculty perhaps of more Value.—It is not too much to say, that there is, perhaps, no faculty of the mind which, under due cultivation, and within proper bounds, is of more real service to man, or is more worthy of his regard, than this. Especially, is it of value in forming and holding before the mind an ideal of excellence in whatever we pursue, a standard of attainment, practicable and desirable, but loftier far than any thing we have yet reached. To present such an ideal, is the work of the imagination, which looks not upon the actual, but the possible, and conceives that which is more perfect than the human eye hath seen, or the human hand wrought. No man ever yet attained excellence, in any art or profession, who had not floating before his mind, by day and by night, such an ideal and vision of what he might and ought to be and to do. It hovers before him, and hangs over him, like the bow of promise and of hope, advancing with his progress, ever rising as he rises, and moving onward as he moves; he will never reach it, but without it he would never be what he is.
§ X.—Culture of the Imagination.
Strengthened by Use.—In what way, it is sometimes asked, may the faculty under consideration be improved and strengthened? To this it may be replied, in general, that the ideal faculty, like every other, is developed and strengthened by exercise, weakened and impaired by neglect. Thereis no surer way to secure its growth than to call its present powers, whatever they may be, into frequent exercise. The mental faculties, like the thews and muscles of the physical frame, develop by use. Imagination follows the same general law.
Study of the Works of others.—I do not mean by this exclusively the direct exercise of the imagination in ideal creations of our own, although its frequent employment in this way, is of course necessary to its full development. But the imagination is also exercised by the study of the ideal creations of others, especially of those highly gifted minds which have adorned and enriched their age with productions of rarest value, which bear the stamp and seal of immortality. With these, in whatever department of letters or art, in poetry, oratory, music, painting, sculpture, architecture—whatever is grand, and lofty, and full of inspiration, whatever is beautiful and pleasing, whatever is of choicest worth and excellence in its own proper sphere; with these let him become familiar who seeks to cultivate in himself the faculty of the ideal. Every work of the imagination appeals to the imagination of the observer, and thus develops the faculty which it calls into exercise. No one can be familiar with the creations of Shakspeare and Milton, of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and not catch something of their inspiration.
Study of Nature.—Even more indispensable is the study of nature; and it has this advantage, that it is open to those who may not have access to the sublime works of the highest masters of art. Nature, in all her moods and phases—in her wonderful variety of elements—the grand and the lowly, the sublime and the beautiful, the terrible and the pleasing—nature in her mildest and most fearful displays of power, and also in her softest and sweetest attractions, is open to every man's observation, and he must be a close observer and a diligent student of her who would cultivate in himself the ideal element. The most giftedsons of genius, the minds most richly endowed with the power of ideal creation, have been remarkable for their love and careful study of nature.
Mistake on this Point.—I must notice in this connection, however, a mistake into which some have fallen in regard to this matter. The simple description of a scene in nature, just as it is, is not properly a work of the imagination. It is simply perception or memory that is thus exercised, along with judgment and artistic power of expression. Imagination gives not the actual, but the ideal. She never satisfies herself with an exact copy. The mere portrait painter, however skillful, is not in the highest sense an artist. The painter, mentioned by Wayland, who copied the wing of the butterfly for the wing of the Sylph, was not, in so doing, exercising his imagination, but only his power of imitation. So, too, when Walter Scott gives us, in the cave of Denzel, a precise description of some spot which he has seen, even to the very plants and flowers that grow among the rocks, that scene, however pleasing and life-like, is not properly a creation of his own imagination; it is a description of the actual, and not a conception of the ideal. Much that is included under the general title of works of the imagination is not properly the production of that faculty.
Coleridge has made essentially the same remark, that in what is called a work of imagination, much is simple narration, much the filling up of the outline, and not to be attributed to that faculty.
The Student of Nature not a mere Copyist.—The true study of nature, is not to observe simply that we may copy what she presents, but rather to gather materials on which our own conceptive power may work, and which it may fashion after its own designs into new combinations and results of beauty. Nature, too, is full of hints and suggestions which a discerning mind, and an eye practised to the beautiful, will not fail to catch and improve. It is onlywhen we do this, when we begin, in fact, to depart from, and go beyond the actual, that we exercise the imagination.
Difference illustrated by an Example.—The difference between simple description, and the creations of the conceptive faculty, may be shown by reference to a single example:
"The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,As lightly and as free;Ten thousand stars were in the sky,Ten thousand in the sea;For every wave, with dimpled cheekThat leaped upon the air,Had caught a star in its embrace,And held it trembling there."
"The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,As lightly and as free;Ten thousand stars were in the sky,Ten thousand in the sea;For every wave, with dimpled cheekThat leaped upon the air,Had caught a star in its embrace,And held it trembling there."
The quiet stillness of the evening, the reflection of the stars in the sea, are the two simple ideas which enter into this beautiful stanza. They would have been faithfully and fully expressed, so far as regards all the perfections of exact description, by the simple propositions which follow: "The evening hours passed swiftly and silently; many stars appeared in the sky, and each was reflected in the sea."
The poet is not content with this description. The swiftness and silentness of those passing hours remind him of the flight of birds along the sky. The resemblance strikes him as beautiful. He embodies it in his description. It is an ideal conception. He goes further. He sees in the water, not the reflection merely of the stars, but the stars themselves, as many in the sea as in the sky. Here is a departure from the truth, from the actual, an advance into the region of the ideal. Imagination, thus set free, takes still further liberties: attributes to the inanimate wave thedimpled cheekof beauty, ascribes its restlessness not to the laws of gravitation, but to the force of a strictly human passion, under the influence of which it leaps into the airtoward the object of its affection, seizes it, and holds it, trembling, in its embrace.
§ XI.—Historical Sketch.
Various Definitions, and Theories of Imagination By Different Writers.
Definition of Dr. Reid.—Reidmakes it nearly synonymous with simple apprehension. "I take imagination, in its most proper sense, to signify a lively conception ofobjects of sight," the conception of things as they appear to the eye.Addisonemploys the term with the same limitation, that is, as confined to objects of sight.
Of Stewart.—Stewartregards this as incorrect, holds that imagination is not confined tovisibleor evensensibleobjects. He regards it as a complex, not a simple power, including simple apprehension, abstraction, judgment, or taste, and association of ideas; its province being to select, from different objects, a variety of qualities and circumstances, and combine and arrange them so as to form a new creation of its own.
Of Brown.—Browndiffers not essentially from the view of Stewart. He also makes imagination a complex operation, involving conception, abstraction, judgment, association. He distinguishes between thespontaneousand thevoluntaryoperation of the imaginative power; in the former case, there is no voluntary effort of selection, combination, etc., but images arise independently of any desire or choice of ours, by the laws of suggestion; and this he holds to be the most frequent operation of the faculty. In the case of voluntary imagination, which is attended with desire, this desire is the prominent thing, and serves to keep the conception of the subject before the mind, in consequence of which, a variety of associated conceptions follow, by the laws of suggestion, in regular train. Of these suggested conceptions and images, some, we approve, others, we donot; the former, by virtue of our approval, become more lively and permanent, while the latter pass away. Thus, without any direct effort or power of the will to combine and separate these various conceptions, they shape themselves according to our approval and desire, in obedience to the ordinary laws of suggestion.
Of Smith.—Sydney Smithregards imagination in much the same light—a faculty in which association plays the principal part, assisted by judgment, taste, etc., amounting, in fact, to much the same thing that we call invention; the process by which a poet constructs a drama, or a machinist a steam-engine, being essentially the same.
Of Wayland and Upham.—Wayland, in common with most of the authors already cited, makes imagination a complex faculty, involving abstraction, and association; "the power by which, from simple conceptions already existing in the mind, we form complex wholes or images." Some form of abstraction necessarily precedes the exercise of this power. The different elements of a conception must be first mentally severed before we can reunite them in a new conception. "It is this power of reuniting the several elements of a conception at will, that is, properly, imagination. Imagination may then be designated the power of combination."Uphamtakes the same view. The same view, essentially, is also given byAmandè Jacques, a French writer of distinction.
View of Tissot.—Tissot, as also many of the German philosophers, gives imagination the double province of recalling sensible intuitions, objects of sight, such as we have known them, and also of conceiving objects altogether differently disposed from our original perceptions of them, varied from the reality. The former they call imaginationreproductive, the latter,creative. That form of the imagination which is purely spontaneous, in distinction from the voluntary, they term fancy.
Of Coleridge and Mahan.—Coleridge, followed byMahan,regards imagination as the power which recombines the several elements of thought into conceptions, which conform not tomere existences, but tocertain fundamental ideas in the mind itself, ideas of the beautiful, sublime, etc.
These Definitions agree in what.—These definitions, it will be perceived, with scarcely an exception make imagination to be a complex faculty, and regard it as merelythe power of combining, in new forms, the various elements of thought already in the mind. The correctness of each of these ideas has been already discussed.