IMAGINATION. 193 



Unseen. And yet Pascal was not wrong 

 when he placed this same faculty of Ima- 

 gination at the very head of the "Deceitful 

 Powers." For it is, in truth, one of the most 

 effective causes and instruments of Degrada- 

 tion. It is its function to give form and 

 expression to all those vague emotions which 

 arise inevitably out of contact between the 

 mind that is in Man and the mind that is 

 in Nature. These emotions are literally 

 what the Poet calls them — "the blank mis- 

 givings of a creature moving about in worlds 

 not realized." But without Knowledge given 

 or acquired, to guide the elements in Imagina- 

 tion which are purely intellectual, and with- 

 out virtue to control the elements which are 

 chiefly moral, this "Superb Power," as Pascal 



O 



