HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 473 



the advancement of learning, or incapable of being turned to any 

 useful account. 



We now come to the second series of causes, of which we have 

 before spoken, of the decline andprogress of science in the east and 

 Greece respectively. 



There are two sorts of functions to be attributed to the imagina- 

 tion : the one consists in the reproduction of the traces of sensible 

 impressions, the other in forming new combinations of the elements 

 of these impressions. 



Where the first of these predominates to the exclusion of the other, 

 it rather arrests than favours the progress of the understanding. It is 

 one of the most fruitful causes of error and delusion. It enslaves the 

 reason, and is absorbed in the consideration of the images it has pro- 

 duced, which remain isolated and unfruitful, the links and affinities 

 being unbroken which analogy establishes between different ideas. 



This picturesque faculty has the principal share in the first production 

 of science ; but it fills up with marvellous fictions those voids which 

 experience alone ought to enable us to occupy. The magical effect of 

 these fictions prevents our observing their want of a solid foundation. 

 The curiosity is satisfied and destroyed, and a vague contemplation, 

 which enjoys what it thinks it possesses rather than seeks what it 

 knows it is ignorant of, takes place of the spirit of investigation. 



The latter function of combination is the true source of invention; 

 it aids the progress of science and philosophy more materially than is 

 generally believed. This architectural imagination, if we may use 

 the expression, is to the mind what sport is to childhood a healthful 

 exercise. It scatters flowers over the path by which we are to ar- 

 rive at our object, by incessantly exciting the curiosity from the no- 

 velty of its conceptions ; it arouses the sluggish activity of the wearied 

 spirit by inducing it to labour on its materials under new shapes ; it 

 breaks the chains of habit by offering different relations from those 

 supplied by memory. Analogy is the instrument by which it per- 

 forms its wonders and creates a harmony in science. 



Of these two characters of the imagination the former did then 

 and still does predominate in the east from the effects of climate, cus- 

 tom, and institutions ; even their works of literature always contains 

 some wild fancies and monstrous fictions whose brilliant colours daz- 

 zle the imagination and hide from the careless observer their want of 

 symmetry and plan. 



The Greeks combined these two properties of the imagination in a 

 fortunate concert; they borrowed from nature the brilliant colours in 

 which she adorns her work, but did not neglect the skilful harmony 

 which is equally found in them. Hence, among the Greeks the soul 

 which animated their paintings, their sculpture and their architecture, 

 and spread over their productions an ineffable charm. 



Hence that perception of true beauty which among them conducted 

 the arts so rapidly to a perfection which has not been surpassed or 

 even equalled in all succeeding ages. A thousand favourable circum- 

 stances seconded their efforts ; the remembrance of the heroic ages, 

 the passion for glory and its reward, the national festivals, the forms 

 of public worship, and their free estate. Poesy, above all, flourished 



