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 ...

3336 IMAGINATION.
ties and imperfections. In every natural scene, if we destine it
for any particular purpose, there are defects and redundancies,
which art may sometimes, but cannot always, correct. But the
power of imagination is unlimited. She can create and annihilate, and dispose, at pleasure, her woods, her rocks, and her
rivers. Mlilton, accordingly, would not copy his Eden from any
one scene, but would select from each the features which were
most eminently beautiful. The power of abstraction enabled
him to make the separation, and taste directed him in the selection. Thus he was furnished with his materials; by a skilful
combination of which, he has created a landscape, more perfect,
probably, in all its parts, than was ever realized in nature; and
certainly very different from any thing which this country ex.
hibited at the period when he wrote. It is a curious remark of
Mr. Walpole, that 3filton's Eden is free from the defects of the
old English garden, and is imagined on the same principles
which it was reserved for the present age to carry into execution.
From what has been said, it is sufficiently evident, that
imagination is not a simple power of the mind, like attention,
conception, or abstraction; but that it is formed by a combination of various faculties. It is further evident, that it must appear under very different forms, in the case of different individuals; as some of its component parts are liable to be greatly
influenced by habit, and other accidental circumstances. The
variety, for example, of the materials out of which the combinations of the poet or the painter are formed, will depend much
on the tendency of external situation to store the mind with a
multiplicity of conceptions; and the beauty of these combinations will depend entirely on the success with which the power
of taste has been cultivated. What we call, therefore, the
power of imagination, is not the gift of nature, but the result of
acquired habits, aided by favorable circumstances. It is not an
original endowment of the mind, but an accomplishment formed
by experience and situation; and which, in its different gradations, fills up all the interval between the first efforts of untutored genius, and the sublime creations of Raphael or of Milton.