1893.] on the Imaginative Faculty. 127 



But I am forgetting Napoleon — he was able to imagine himself an 

 emperor, and, circumstances conspiring with him, he became one. 

 His enemies thought they were belittling him by calling him an 

 actor, and the Pope, whom he hurled from the Papal throne, could 

 only retort " Comediante " ; but the comedian continued to play his 

 part of emperor while the Pope was in exile. The artistic methods 

 of the first Napoleon are brought into strong relief when contrasted 

 with those of his less imaginative nephew. Indeed, the difference 

 between the imaginative and the unimaginative actor is well ex- 

 emplified in these two. Had Napoleon the Third possessed the true 

 dramatic instinct, he would not have been guilty of the Boulogne 

 fiasco. On that occasion, in order to impress the populace with a 

 supernatural significance of his mission, he had recourse to the stagey 

 device of a tame eagle, which, as the emblem of empire, was at a 

 given cue to alight upon him. But the bird, which had been trained 

 to perch upon his top-hat, disdained his crown. Here we have an 

 illustration of the futility of unimaginative stage-management. 



The imagination is the mind's eye. To him who has it not, life 

 presents itself as a picture possessing all the merits of a photograph, 

 and none of the blemishes of a work of art. He who does not 

 treasure it, will lose its use. In a burst of scientific fantasy, I once 

 propounded the theory that the soft place on the top of a baby's head 

 was really intended by beneficent Nature to enable us, through this 

 yet open channel, to destroy by electricity, or what not, those tissues 

 of the brain which go to make the vicious portions of our nature. In 

 unfolding my discovery to a scientific friend, I learned, however, that 

 this particular part of our brain was really a primitive eye, and was 

 no doubt used by our prehistoric ancestors for the purpose of seeing ob- 

 jects overhead. The Cyclops was probably a throwback of this species. 

 In certain lower forms of animals, I am told, in lizards, for instance, 

 this eye is infinitely more developed than it is in the higher animals, 

 in whom, from disuse, it has become practically extinct. Even so 

 will the imagination, this third eye of the mind, looking heavenward, 

 lose its function unless it is exercised. The waning of the imagina- 

 tion is, next to the loss of his childish faith, the most tragic thing in 

 a man's life. I can conceive no fate more terrible than that which 

 befalls the artist in watching with still undiminished powers of self- 

 observation, the slow ebbing of the imaginative faculty, to see it 

 drifting out to sea in the twilight of life. Better be deprived of 

 sight than to feel that the world has lost its beauty — for the blind 

 are happier than the blear-eyed. . . . 



It would be interesting to know whether the cultivation of the 

 aesthetic faculties would have strengthened or weakened in Darwin 

 those other forces which have made him such a shining figure in the 

 history of science. It may be that what was a loss to the man was a 

 gain to humanity, for to every one is only vouchsafed a limited 

 power of concentration. Nor must it be suj)posed that Science and 

 Art are separate and opposing forces ; they are rather two mighty 



