14 THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION. 



exist ; and you cannot help feeling as if you were 

 present bodily on the spot, and saw all the par- 

 ties all the subjects of that thought, whoever, 

 whatever, or wherever they may be. No matter 

 whether the thought is real, that is, of realities, 

 or not ; no matter whether it is even possible : 

 still it comes as if it were both real and present. 

 What Shakspeare says of " the poet's eye" is partly 

 true of "the mind's eye," in the most unpoetical 

 man that lives : that always gives to the ' ' airy 

 nothing" of thought "a local habitation;" and there 

 wants only the power of expression in order to give 

 it " a name." To give that name is, however, no 

 necessary part of the thought. It is another and a 

 separate operation, and may be inferior in men 

 who think well, or superior in those who think 

 but indifferently. But thought stands nearly in 

 the same relation to expression, that the exercise 

 of the senses does to thought ; where there is no 

 thought, there can be no expression ; and if both 

 faculties have their proper exercise, the man who 

 thinks most correctly, always expresses himself in the 

 clearest and most agreeable manner; and if he 

 had the hand of a painter he could easily and cor- 

 rectly make a picture of any subject of his 

 thoughts. However long the process of thinking 

 may be, the subjects are present, as if they were 

 before the eyes all the time ; and one can alter 

 their relations to each other, just as if one were 

 moving them about by mechanical force, and yet 

 they preserve their identity, or are the very same 

 parties amid all their changes of relation, just as 

 the mind itself remains the same amid all its 

 changes of thought. 



This changing of the relations of subjects of 



