gies with human life and manners, which gave occasion to some of his most exquisite odes. But, lastly, this habit, like any other, can only be cultivated by practice. We must form the combinations of the imagination, if we would learn to form them. We must assiduously cultivate the practice of writing, if we would learn to write well. If we would write well, we must write earnestly, having an end in view, and being deeply interested in the effort to attain it. In this state of mind analogies the more readily suggest themselves. As they arise dimly and flit before us at a distance, we should summon them into our presence, and shape them if possible to our purpose, If they are intractable we must labor the more strenuously, viewing them from different points, and striving to seize upon their analogy with the idea which we wish them to illustrate. We may frequently fail, or at best succeed but imperfectly. This, however, should not discourage us. Nothing was ever exquisitely finished without unwearied and patient labor, and at the cost of repeated and mortifying failure. By untiring and well-directed effort, great things may in the end be accomplished. We must be patient with ourselves, and not expect to do without labor what other men have done in no other manner. Paradise Lost was the work of almost a lifetime. Cowper somewhere informs us that his poetry, which seems to flow without effort, cost him, on an average, half an hour for every line. If incessant toil was necessary to successful effort in minds so highly gifted, ordinary men surely need not to expect to succeed without it. REFERENCES. Imagination in general - Stewart, vol. i., chap. 7, sec. 1. Difference between abstraction in reasoning and imagination-Stewart, vol. i., chap. 4, sec. 1. Relation of imagination to character-Stewart, vol. i., chap. 7, secs. 4-6. Manner in which imagination pleases us- -Stewart, vol. i., chap. 5, Part 1, sec. 4. Relation of imagination to fine arts-vol. i., ch. 7, sec. 2. THERE is another mode in which the imagination acts, of sufficient importance to deserve particular attention. It may be denominated Philosophical Imagination. With some remarks concerning it we shall conclude the present chapter. In this form of imagination, as in the preceding, we combine the elements which previously existed in the mind. The elements, however, are in the two cases dissimilar. In poetic imagination, as I have said, we make use of parts of individual wholes, which we combine anew, forming an image at will. In philosophical imagination our elements are single general truths or separate laws of nature, or the various relations of these laws to each other. These we combine into a conception of a new and more complicated law or general philosophical truth. The conceptions when formed by these separate acts of imagination are also exceedingly unlike. By poetical imagination we form an individual picture, which may be represented to the senses. By philosophical imagination we form not a picture, but an ideal conception of some general truth. By the one we form images, by the other we frame hypotheses. In the one case, the conception is addressed to the taste, and if the emotion of beauty or sublimity is awakened, our object is accomplished. In the other, the taste is wholly neglected, and our appeal is exclusively to the understanding. If the conception is analogous to truth, or if its truth or falsehood can be definitely determined, nothing more is required. The design of the one is to give us pleasure; of the other, to enlarge our knowledge. The nature of the conceptions which we are considering may be understood by examples. Copernicus, having observed the various established facts respecting the motions of the heavenly bodies, sought to form a conception of their various relations which should account for every fact by bringing it under the control of some understood and acknowledged law. Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe had made the same attempt before, but they imagined laws nowhere existing, and left many of the facts wholly unaccounted for. Copernicus supposed the sun to be the centre of a single system, the stars being themselves centres of systems at infinite distances from it; the earth and planets to move around the sun in orbits nearly circular, and the moon to be a satellite of the earth, revolving around it, and thus with it revolving around the centre of the system. By this conception, all the facts thus far observed were accounted for. Dr. Black, reflecting upon the facts which he had observed respecting the freezing of water, the melting of ice, and the formation and condensation of vapor, sought to form a conception of some general law, which should account for all the phenomena. He was thus led to originate the doctrine of latent heat, and immediately saw that this would fulfil every requirement. Each of these is an instance of philosophical imagination. It is an original conception of some general law, or combination of laws, addressing itself to the understanding, and harmonizing otherwise apparently contradictory facts. These illustrations appertain to science. But essentially` the same exercise of the imagination must be employed in every original design. We can never either think or act efficiently, unless we think or act in conformity with a plan. There must always exist some ideal which we propose either to prove, or else to realize in action. This ideal must be the product of the imagination. The ideal of Paradise Lost was thoroughly thought out before a line of it was written. So the plan of every great enterprise must be matured, and its detail thoroughly arranged, before it can be commenced with any hope of success. We see, then, how important an element of individual or social progress is found in the exercise of this faculty. It must be apparent that great diversities of character must necessarily arise from the different degrees in which this endowment is bestowed. Some men have no ideals. They form no plans beyond those demanded in the conduct of the ordinary affairs of life. In all things else they follow instinctively the beaten track, and yield with unquestioning submission to the opinions of those who have gone before them. They have no other rule of action than implicitly to follow their file-leader, fully convinced that nothing can be better than what has been, and that a course of action must of necessity be wise, provided it has been for a long while pursued. Others, again, are overburdened with imaginings. They do nothing but form plans, and originate projects which have no foundation in general principles, and must inevitably end in ludicrous failure. Such men, however, rarely attempt to realize their own schemes; they are satisfied with the attempt to force them upon others. They are the builders of castles in the air, ever striving after impossibilities, spending their lives in the fruitless labor of pursuing phantoms and grasping after unsubstantial shadows. That man is rarely endowed who is able to originate ideals resting on truth, and wrought out with that bold sagacity which ensures the possibility of realizing them in action. When such power is united with executive talent, and guided by enlarged benevolence, it designates a man who was created for the benefit of his race. It is important to observe the relation which a philosophical imagination sustains to the reasoning power in our investigation of truth. I have said that reasoning is the process by which we pass from the known to the unknown, and thus transform the unknown into the known. Suppose the philosopher to stand on the utmost limits of the known. His reason is prepared either to prove or disprove any proposition that may be presented. But there is no proposition presented. There is nothing within the cognizance of the understanding, but on the one side the known, and, on the other, absolute silence and darkness. Reason presents no proposition. Its sole province is either to prove or disprove what is placed before it. None of the other faculties which we have considered can present propositions to the reason, as the matter on which its powers shall be exerted. Hence the necessity of the imagination. Its office is to pass beyond the limits of the known, and form a conception which may be true of something in the unknown. This it presents in the shape of a proposition or a philosophical conception. As soon as this is done, an opportunity is offered for the exercise of the reasoning faculty. There is something now to be proved, and there may be something by which to prove it. We at once endeavor to discover some media of proof which may show a necessary connection between what is known, and this proposition which is, as yet, unknown. Until this connection can be shown, our proposition is a mere suggestion, a theory, an hypothesis. As soon as this connection has been established, what was before hypothesis becomes acknowledged truth, and by just so much is the dominion of science extended. Or, to express the same idea in another form, experiment, |