ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 211 



But the imagination is more than a mere messenger; 

 as being invested with, or, at least, usurping no small au 

 thority, besides delivering the message. Thus, Aristotle 

 well observes, that the mind has the same command over 

 the body, as the master over the slave; but reason over 

 the imagination, the same that a magistrate has over a free 

 citizen, who may come to rule in his turn. 2 For in matters 

 of faith and religion, the imagination mounts above reason. 

 Not that divine illumination is seated in the imagination, 

 but, as in divine virtues, grace makes use of the motions 

 of the will; so in illumination it makes use of the motions 

 of the imagination; whence religion solicits access to the 

 mind, by similitudes, types, parables, dreams, and visions. 

 Again, the imagination has a considerable sway in persua 

 sion, insinuated by the power of eloquence: for when the 

 mind is soothed, enraged, or any way drawn aside by the 

 artifice of speech, all this is done by raising the imagina 

 tion; which, now growing unruly, not only insults over, 

 but, in a manner, offers violence to reason, partly by blind 

 ing, partly by incensing it. Yet there appears no cause 

 why we should quit our former division: for in general, 

 the imagination does not make the sciences; since even 

 poetry, which has been always attributed to the imagina 

 tion, should be esteemed rather a play of wit than a science. 

 As for the power of the imagination in natural things, we 

 have already ranged it under the doctrine of the soul; 

 and for its affinity with rhetoric, we refer it to the art of 

 rhetoric. 



This part of human philosophy which regards logic, is 

 disagreeable to the taste of many, as appearing to them no 

 other than a net, and a snare of thorny subtilty. For as 

 knowledge is justly called the food of the mind, so in the 

 desire and choice of this food, most men have the appetite 

 of the Israelites in the wilderness, who, weary of manna, as 

 a thin though celestial diet, would have gladly returned to 



2 Aristotle s Politics, i. 5, 6. 



