86 METAPHYSICS 



stances the freest use of that faculty, the possession of 

 which is held more or less by all humanity, and, we may 

 add, much of the higher animated world, in order that he 

 may, so to speak, " swing himself free " into the unknown 

 beyond in order, peradventure, that he may alight on the 

 nearest foothold of neighbouring fact or tangible fragment 

 of accepted truth ? Verily, whether we will or not, the 

 resolution is usually formed, and the required " leap into 

 the dark " taken, and often with the best results both to 

 the progress of science and the advance of civilisation. 

 Many a discovery and invention owe their origin and 

 attainment to such fortunate occurrences, let us, therefore, 

 welcome every effort of the scientific athlete and the 

 earnest enquirer after truth to throw themselves aloof 

 from the entanglements and limitations of received 

 doctrine when they have arrived at the confines of their 

 knowledge, and to take up the rdle of pioneers in dis- 

 covery in the great continents of the unknown which 

 everywhere stretch around our " cribbed, cabined, and 

 confined" world of accepted truth. 



Imagination, as a trained faculty, is one of the most 

 fruitful of great results in the everyday progress of 

 mankind, whether in the realms of art, poetry, music, or 

 all that is " excellent and of good report " in the world of 

 literature ; why, therefore, should we forbid its chastened 

 use in the regions of even the severest science, where its 

 presence can relieve the tension and monotony of the 

 most rigid logic, and assist the slow and exact processes 

 of deduction and induction, smoothing and harmonising 

 the contradictory and irreconcilable, casting a glow and 

 charm over the life-work of even the greatest stickler 

 after style and form, and giving a completeness of detail 

 to the whole fabric of knowledge pleasing to the " mind's 

 eye" to look upon, and attractive to the searcher after 

 truth ? 



The history of discovery and invention generally, and 

 the glimpses of autobiographic experience bearing on the 

 matter so plentifully recorded throughout the pages of 

 literature, past and contemporary, amply prove that 

 imagination has never been absent as a factor in the work 

 and course of progress, and a potent instrument in the 



