522 



ON TASTE, GENIUS, 



therefore, before v/e close this course of instruction, to fix by a new 

 boundary. 



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

 combines 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, imagina* 

 TiON 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 absolutely necessary to the subsistence Qf 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, with- 

 out characters of any kind, becomes furnished with that vast store of ideas, 

 the materials of wisdom and knowledge, which the busy and boundless 

 fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety ? The whole, 

 as I had occasion to prove in a preceding Lecture,* is derived frpm ex- 

 perience, — the experience 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 ma- 

 terials of knowledge. For, in order to produce knowledge, we must not 

 only have a numerous stock of ideas, bilt these ideas must be examined, 

 compared, arranged, combined, according to their connexion and agree- 

 ment, or disconnexion and repugnancy. To do this is the oflice of the 

 JUDGMENT ; and hence he who has a power of making such assortment 

 and comparison with clearness and precision is said to have a deep insight 

 into things ; which is nothing 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 intermediate links on which proper or 

 common judgment depends for its guidance. 



We often, however, meet with persons who have a strong and active 

 propensity to combine ideas, without any attention to their natural agree- 

 ment or connexion. And it is in individuals of this description that the 

 imagination constitutes the ruhng power, and lords it over the judgment. 

 Such combinations are soon made, for they cost no trouble, like those the 

 judgment engages in : and as the persons who are constitutionally prone 



* S Ivect. Ill' 



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