460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



profane, may yet be permitted to kiss the hem of a seamless garment. 

 Oh, the searching, the far-reaching insight of the epigram, " If there 

 be no God, man must invent one ! " Invention, conception, imagina- 

 tion, creation, are synonymous, and in one sense convertible terms.' 



The pleasures of the imagination if so slight an expression may 

 hint at a meaning, the fullness of which is rapture or transport are 

 manifold, and too manifest to require subtilty of discrimination for 

 their recognition and explanation. These are among the things of 

 blessed memory, of blissful hope, and among those the reality and 

 universality of which are confirmed by all experience. Even those 

 who cuddle the bantlings of their fancy, in the fond delusion that 

 they nurture the offspring of the fertile mother, feel somewhat of the 

 charm indescribable. What, then, the serenity, what the majestic 

 repose, of the creators of thought after their labor, we may only 

 faintly imagine. 



What of the pangs and penalties now what of the price to be 

 paid for this power ? To bring forth in travail was not the sentence 

 of one-half the human race alone. There have been those, indeed, 

 like Raphael, who have wrought the miracles of imagination in the 

 sunshine of the heart, to sweet music of the soul ; but oh, so few 

 escape the throes of thought-birth ! Physiologists tell us of a certain 

 mental process they call " unconscious cerebration." The operation 

 of the imagination unconscious of labor is better known by another 

 name inspii-ation ; its expression is revelation ; its mouth-piece the 

 seer. But rare clay, and only the finest, incases such spirits ; men 

 must work in the storm, in sorrow and suffering, each to his measure 

 of creative ability. Let us never forget, in the terrible struggle for 

 expression, that it is given to lips which press the sword of pain to 

 speak to fellow-men the words " Go thou up higher ! " 



I crave your indulgence for one other thought. Authority and 

 responsibility go hand-in-hand with equal pace. The measure of 

 creative ability is the measure of accountability for its exercise, and 

 the measure of the penalty which perversion of the godlike faculty 

 entails. Like every other energy in Nature, the imagination is equally 

 potent for good and for evil. Let the bravest man tell me he never 

 shudders when he looks within, at the possibilities there disclosed. 

 There is power to make this earth seem nearer heaven or hell. 

 Whose rebellious imagination conceived it were better to reign below 

 than to serve above ? Sound is as full of discord as of harmony. 

 Light may blind us, or guide us on our way. Heat constructs and 

 heat destroys. The dual nature of every force wars with its opposite. 

 The imagination is equally potent to sanctify and to pollute. Guard, 

 then, this gift with fear and trembling ; gi-eat issues depend upon this 

 most powerful, most perilous, and most precious endowment of the 

 intellect. Not like the victor in history need we sigh for other 



' " In seinen Gottern malet sich der Menscli." Goethe. 



