Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

IMAGINATION, 335
To illustrate these observations, let us consider the steps by
which Milton must have proceeded in creating his imaginary
garden of Eden. WVhen he first proposed to himself that subject of description, it is reasonable to suppose, that a variety of
the most striking scenes which hoe had seen crowded into his
mind. The association of ideas suggested them, and the power
of conception placed each of them before him, with all its beaupower of voluntary abstraction, and a choice among all the materials of
his experience, would he, therefore, be endowed with the creative faculty?
I think not. The philosophers fiom whom I borrow this theory seem to
me to have omitted one of the main elements which make up the function
of imagination: this is, the judgment and the feeling of the beautiful, —
the pure love wrrhich ought to aid the work of the intellect and the memory, and to infuse its own warmth into both of them. To remember, to
abstract, and to combine, is not to have imagination; if it were so, thle
cool mathematician, who goes on from one deduction to another, and from
one theorem to anotlher, ouoght to be considered an artist. Whether my
memory calls up spontaneously objects with their forms, or whether,
by the force of my will, I call them up myself, and when these images
are evoked, thong'h I have the power of abstracting them, and combining
them anew, - in all this, I see nothing but memory and reason. But is
it with reason and memory alone, that you will make a Michael Angelo
or a Raphael? Would it be enough for Corneille to remember the historical facts, and to combine them artistically, in order to make his tragedy
of the Horatii? Besides a great memnory and a powerful intellect, there
was needed for these great men a measure of enthusiasm, of love - not
that vulgar love which depends on physical sensibility - but the pure and
disinterested love which we have denominated the sentiment of the
beautiful..... Men are very nearly equal to each other in respect to
memory, reason, ancl will; but they possess in very unequal degrees the
power of imagination; because some of them remain cold and unaffected
in presence of the objects, cold in the remembrance of them, cold in their
abstractions and combinations; while others, deeply touched at the sight
of beauty, preserve, through the operations of memory and the voluntary
combination of images, the same vivacity of emotion, the same warmth of
senltiment." - D Vlcti, dlm Beaet, et cldu Bien.
On tile other hand, Sir William Hamilton, in remarkling on the doctrine
of the incompatibility of creative imagination and philosophical talent, as
held by Hume, Kant, and Reid, says, "There is required, however, for the
metaphysician, not less imagination than for the poet, though of a different
kind; it may, in fact, be doubted whether Hlomer or Aristotle pos;sessed
this faculty in greater vigor." -:Notes t1, Reid.]