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 ...

!3IAGINATION. 8 47
]Hence, among the various sources of the sublime, tile peculiar
stress laid by Longinus on what he calls Visions, (pavTraial) —
6rav'a 6yiyf xr' rv iovtaaoO tcai xrovc vPXTretv 6otci, /cat wra' o4t1v AS
ro7S &ao'VCV, [when you seem, from enthusiasm and strong feeling,
actually to see the things spoken of, and to place them before
the eyes of your hearers.]
Different aims of philosophical and rhetorical composition. -
In treating of abstraction, I formerly remarked, that the perfection of philosophical style is to approach as nearly as possible
to that species of language we employ in algebra, and to exclude
every expression which has a tendency to divert the attention by
exciting the imagination, or to bias the judgment by casual
associations. For this purpose, the philosopher ought to be
sparing in the employment of figurative words, and to convey
his notions by general terms which have been accurately defined.
To the orator, on the other hand, when he wishes to prevent the
cool exercise of the understanding, it may, on the same account,
be frequently useful to delight or to agitate his hearers, by
blending with his reasonings the illusions of poetry, or the magical influence of sounds consecrated by popular feelings. A
regard to the different ends thus aimed at in philosophical and
in rhetorical composition, renders the ornaments which are so
becoming in the one, inconsistent with good taste and good sense
when adopted in the other.
In poetry, as truths and facts are introduced, not Ior the purpose of information, but to convey pleasure to the mind, nothing
offends more, than those general expressions which form the
great instrument of philosophical reasoning. The original
pleasures, which it is the aim of poetry to recall to the mind,
are all derived from individual objects; and, of consequence,
(with a very few exceptions, which it does not belong to my
present subject to enumerate,) the more particular and the more
appropriated its language is, the greater will be the charm it possesses.
With respect to the description of the course of the Danube
already quoted, I shall not dispute the result of the experiment
to be as the author represents it. That words may often be