DEEAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 293 



as he "will find from the observation of his inmost 

 emotions, combined with the animation and per- 

 sonification of what he sees ; he is so far carried 

 away by the beauty and truth of the representation 

 that the passions represented affect him as if they 

 were those of real persons. This relative perfection 

 of a work of art, either in the way the objects stand 

 out, in the varied diffusion of light and shade, in 

 the movement and expression of figures, in the 

 effect of the whole in its details and background, 

 is all heightened and confirmed by the underlying 

 entification of images. The process we have before 

 described by which a confused group of objects appear 

 to us as a human form or phantasm is also effected 

 in this case in a more subtle way and with less effort 

 of memory ; it is all ultimately due to the primitive 

 fact of animal perception. Our imagination can 

 supply the resemblance, the limbs, colour, and design 

 in a picture in which a face, figure, or landscape are 

 slightly sketched, or in a roughly chiselled statue. 

 We often hear the complaint that a work of art is 

 too highly finished, and it wearies and displeases us 

 because it leaves nothing for the imagination to supply. 

 The remark reveals the fact, of which we are all 

 implicitly conscious, that we are ourselves in part 

 .the artificers of every external phenomenon. 



"We need not stop to prove a truth well-known to 

 all, that architecture and all kinds of monuments 

 lend themselves to a symbolism derived from ancient 



