388 Dr. Barnes on the Influence of the Imagination , 
and watchful reafon ? Let me juft mention 
another exalted charafter, in proof of the fame 
point—Mr. Locke. No where do you perceive 
ftronger lines of a vigorous and a&ive fancy, 
than in the writings of this immortal philofopher. 
His (tile is full of imagery and aliufion, the moft 
beautiful and happy. He has all the fignatures 
of a glowing , and, at the fame time, of a Joher and 
cautious mind. For Jack imagination only do 
I plead—under the command, and employed in 
the fervice , of that judgment, whofe province 
it is, to direct, and to control. 
Even in the a£t of reasoning, which is gene¬ 
rally efteemed the moft folernn and ferious 
procefs of the mind, imagination is effentially 
neceffary. For if the mind be not able to 
chufe with advantage thofe intermediate ideas, 
on which its reafonings depend ; if it is not 
able, by means of this excurfive power, to range 
abroad, to view its fubjeft on every fide, to 
catch minuter, as well as larger fimilitudes and 
differences ; if, in one word, it has not a&ivity* 
eomprehenfion, quicknefs, all which depend 
chiefly upon imagination, it will not poffefs, in 
any confiderable ftrength, that illative power, 
which we acknowledge to be fo noble a faculty 
of human nature. 
If the preceding obfervations are true, with 
refpedt to mathematics—the region of fcience 
which feems moft remote from the fairy land of 
fancy. 
