7(i
IMAGINATION.
VO'I. VIII,
look all this, unci say, "Oh, U is only the
newspapers."
There is one other phase of the journal,
istic character which never fails to excite
in my mind a mingled leeling of pity and
disgust. Although all I have enumerated
smell of ignorance and superstition, this
one is clearly their offspring. I mean its
pride in being able to yell "fraud," "cor
ruption" etc., the loudest and longest; its
ability to prescribe remedies for all na
tional evils; its childishness in denounc
ing, as it supposes, the opposite political
party, and the trivial arguments by which
ii seeks to uphold its own. Is not this
ignorance? Could a man, educated and
of noble purposes, be so childish and in
consistent? Now I say nothing of a man aside from
his relations to his paper, hut whatever
good sense he may have, it does seem to
me he lays it aside while "pushing" the
editorial "quill." There may be excep
tions to this rule, but they are like angels1
visits; few and far between.
I feel, therefore, that there is justice in
what I have said and if, gentlemen, vou
do not like it, you may "make the most
of it." Bee.
IMAGINATION.
As Bacon gives it, we would under
stand imagination to be the representa
tive of an individual thought. Glauvillu
says; "Our simple apprehension of cor
poreal objects, if present, is .sense; if
absent, is imagination." Believing imag
ination to be that power which gives birth
to the wonderful productions of the poet
and the painter, we think that, in a great
measure, imagination is the will working
on the material of memory." Through
conception, we have an exact copy or
duplicate of what we have once felt or
perceived, but we are possessed of a pow
er that often sees lit to step outside the
course prescribed by nature, to modify
our conceptions, in order that we may se
lect and combine parts of different ones
and then from wholes. "More pluising,
more terrible and awful, than has ever
been presented in the ordinary course of
nature." Many chapters could be written
upon this subject, were its several and
very important subdivisions discussed as
they might be.
As the act of memory involves the ob
ject, action and the agent, united by their
mutual relations with one indivisablc
state, imagination cannot, whether the
object recalled, were ever discussed or
not. We read some historical work and
particularly notice the discription of a
battle. Let the will now work on the
materials of the memory. We never saw
the battle, were not acquaiuicd with any
of the participants, but the imagination
outrivals the best of artists in producing
before the mind an exact counterpart
of it. We see before us, for instance, the
plains of Marathon. Two large armies
in battle array are fast approaching cacli
other, and as they meet we can almost
hear the the clash of arms. If imagiuo.
lion benefits the world, it also injures it.
We can not do without it, neither can we
rely upon it, for
Who can hold tiro In his hand,
Uy thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or clog tho hungry edge of appetite.
By bare imagination of n feast?
But so far has the imagination been
overbalanced m its worst features by
those of a contrary nature, that all its
faults feem to sink into significance.
Thus imagination in all its work, makes
use of but two materials, space and, time.
In fact, it is stated that the world of iniag.
ination is always a world of imagined
space and imagined lime. Imagination
has most wonderful powers, yet they are
not without a limit , for we cannot cre
ate or conceive of new colors by an
exertion of energy, nor can we oiigi
iiute tastes without number. Mark the
creative power of imagination. The
types of animals already existing, lie
within certain expanses, but imagination