fair new world hangs poised and trembling on its axis, peifect 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 combinea 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 a maker —πOINTÍS. It is a power conferred, in some degree, on all, in its highest degree, on few. The poet, painter, orator, the gifted crcative man, whoever he is, belongs to this class.

§ VI.-IMAGINATION LIMITED TO SENSIBLE OBJECTS.

Law of the Imagination. It is a law of the imagina tion, 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 their

cognizance. 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, to visible objects 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 the gelidi fontes of 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, a sensible basis as 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 or abstraction not an imagination.

a mere idea

§ VII-IMAGINATION LIMITED TO NEW RESULTS.

The simple reproduction of the past, whether an object o 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, differ

ent. It is not the simple image-making power, then, for mental reproduction gives you an image or picture of any former object of perception, as you 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 a sound, 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, conception imaginative, and 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 't, and call forth its hidden

harmonies 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" o 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, or such as 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 naterial of a lively and awakened fancy, but merely a casua uggestion 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, the power of doing the thing under consideration? We merely sit still in the dark. ened 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. not altogether so. The mind is not altogether passive in this thing; there is an activity involved 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 suscepti bility, 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, renember 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, think of any given thing, for