384 Dr. Barnes on the Influence of the Imagination, 
hand, a mind, keen and fervent in the pro- 
fecution of a favourite fubjed:, viewing it at¬ 
tentively on every fide, catching every ray of 
light, which can illuminate, and every kindred 
fentiment, which can illuftrate it. Without 
animation and ardour, thefe would never have 
been difcovered j without imagination and affec¬ 
tion, the underftanding would have lain torpid 
and inactive. Fancy, that noble and neceffary 
power, has placed the fubjed in every poffible 
combination of form and circumftance, has 
called in to its aid ideas, images, and analogies, 
which, at firft, feemed mod foreign and inappli¬ 
cable ; and has thus beheld it in afpeds, which 
the dull plodder would never have imagined. 
By this means, a knowledge is acquired, various, 
extenflve, and exad, beyond what could other- 
ways, have poffibly been obtained. The office 
of the underftanding, is, merely that of a judge, 
to pafs jentence upon the caufe before it. The 
imagination colleds and arranges the evidence , 
and brings it before the deciding power, in 
fuch a form, as may lead to an accurate and 
judicious determination. 
This influence of the imagination and paffions 
upon the judgment muft, however, differ greatly, 
according to the different kinds of evidence , of 
which different Jubjedis are capable. In mere 
mathematics , where the mind has to contemplate 
pure demonfrative truth, little more is neceffary, 
than 
