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. 3 67
means of fictitious history, displays of character may be most
successfully given, and the various weaknesses of the heart exposed. I only mean to insinuate, that a taste for them may be
carried too far; that the sensibility which terminates in imagination, is but a refined and selfish luxury; and that nothing can
effectually advance our moral improvement, but an attention to
the active duties which belong to our stations.*
VI. Important uses to which the power of izmagination is subservient. - The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement.
As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters
more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present
condition, or with our past attainments; and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal
excellence. Hence the ardor of the selfish to better their fortunes, and to add to their personal accomplishments; and hence
the zeal of the patriot and the philosopher to advance the virtue and the happiness of the human race. Destroy this faculty,
and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of
the brutes.
When the notions of enjoyment or of excellence which imagination has formed, are greatly raised above the ordinary standard, they interest the passions too deeply to leave us at all times
the cool exercise of reason, and produce that state of the mind
which is commonly known by the name of enthusiasm; a temper
a After all the concessions I have here made in favor of such fictitious
histories as our modern novels, I must acknowledge my own partiality for
those performances of an earlier date, which describe the advetzeures of imaginary orders of being. [The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, Fairy Tales,
etc.1 Many of them afford lessons of morality not less instructive than
those in our most unexceptionable novels; and they possess,,over and
above, the important advantage of giving to the imagination of young persons a much more vigorous exercise, while they have no such tendency
as novels have to mislead them in their views of human life. In most
cases, it may be laid down as a rule, that fictitious histories are dangerous,
in proportion as the manners they exhibit profess to approachl to those
which we expect to meet with in the world.