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ON TASTE, GENIUS 



LECTURE XV. 



ON TASTE, GENIUS, AND IMAGINATION. 



Before we close our analysis of the faculties of the mind, there are yet 

 three powers, that have a larger claim upon our attention than we have 

 hitherto been able to give them. These are, the faculties of taste, genius, and 

 imagination; the alliance between which is so close, that many philosophers 

 have conceived they are produced at the same moment, and cannot exist 

 separately. This, however, is an erroneous opinion, proceeding from a want 

 of clear ideas as to their respective characters — characters which do not ap- 

 pear to have been at any time very accurately defined ; and the peculiar 

 limits and distinctions of which I shall take leave, therefore, before we close 

 this course of instruction, to fix by a new boundary. 



Imagination, then, is that faculty of the mind which calls forth and com- 

 bines ideas with great rapidity and vivacity, whether congruous or in- 

 congruous. 



Genius is that faculty which calls forth and combines ideas with great 

 rapidity and vivacity, and with an intuitive perception of their congruity 

 or incongruity. 



Taste is that faculty which selects and relishes such combinations of 

 ideas as produce genuine beauty, and rejects the contrary. 



These definitions are simple, but, I trust, correct ; and if so, imagination is 

 the basis of the whole ; taste may exist without genius, and genius without 

 taste, as I shall presently endeavour to show ; but neither can exist without 

 imagination. Yet imagination is neither taste nor genius, since, though ab- 

 solutely necessary to the subsistence of these powers, the great mart that 

 furnishes them with their daily food, it may also exist without them. 



Let us commence, then, with the faculty of imagination. Whence comes 

 it that the mind, at first a tabula rasa, a sheet of white paper, without charac- 

 ters of any kind, becomes furnished with that vast store of ideas, the mate- 

 rials of wisdom and knowledge, which the busy and boundless fancy of man 

 has painted on it with an almost endless variety 1 The whole, as I had occa- 

 sion to prove in a preceding lecture,* is derived from experience,— the expe- 

 rience of sensation and reflection ; from what have been called objective 

 and subjective ideas; from the observations of the mind employed either about 

 external sensible objects, or the internal operations of itself, perceived and 

 reflected upon by its own faculties. 



Now, it is the office of the reason to hunt out for and accumulate ideas 

 from both the above sources, as it is that of the perception to distinguish them 

 when present, and of the memory to recall them on future occasions. And 

 hence, he who has laid in the largest stock of ideas is possessed, not indeed 

 of the most extensive knowledge, but of the most extensive materials of 

 knowledge. For, in order to produce knowledge, we must not only have a 

 numerous stock of ideas, but these ideas must be examined, compared, ar- 

 ranged, combined, according to their connexion and agreement, or discon- 

 nexion and repugnancy. To do this is the office of the judgment; and hence, 

 he who has a power of making such assortment and comparison with clear- 

 ness and precision is said to have a deep insight into things; which is no- 

 thing more than affirming that the faculty of his judgment is correct and acute. 

 I have stated genius to be that faculty by which the mind rapidly or intuitively 

 perceives the congruity or incongruity of ideas ; so that genius is intuitive 

 judgment; it is judgment that looks forward at once from the beginning to 

 the end of a chain of ideas, and stands in little or no need of the interme- 

 diate links on which proper or common judgment depends for its guidance. 



* Series in. Lecture iU. 



