Geology as a r/ieans of culture — A. Winchell. 49 
ploration by the light of this faculty. It goes before discovery, 
and discloses resting-places for thought in the midst of the 
gloom of the unknown. Its creative jDowers are often exer- 
cised under the promptings of analogy, congruity or contrast, 
and it thus becomes luxuriant in simile and metaj^hor. By its 
luminous apiDrehension of the forms and details of concrete 
things inaccessible to perception, it contributes to graphic de- 
scription; and through its resources of metaphor, both illumin- 
ates the thought and garnishes the style. Imagination is there- 
fore a powerful instrument in the creation of new conceptions 
and the transmission of them to the intelligence of others. A 
mind well fitted for the creation of new conceptions possesses 
one of the most effective gifts of culture; and if, in addition, 
it wields the power of graphic and pleasing elucidation, its 
cultural gifts are brilliant, attractive and useful. Assuredly, 
then, the imagination is one of the most important faculties to 
improve and strengthen by the arts of education. 
I have mentioned the intellectual powers and processes some- 
what in the order in which they are the subject of disciplinary 
exercise in the popular systems of "liberal" culture, rather than 
in the order of their importance or the order of their spontan- 
eous development. Assurdl}-, however, the sense-memory 
would receive no content unless the sense-perceptions had been 
previously called into activity; and the picturing power of im- 
agination would remain latent unless sense-jjerception had sup- 
plied the elements of its creations. Perceptions are the antece- 
dents and conditions of sense-memory, of imagination and of 
induction. They are also the conditions of the awaking from 
slumber of those intuitive cognitions of necessary truths, which 
regulate and control all human actions. Perceptions, in other 
words, are the germinal elements of all knowledge and of all 
power of knowledge. In a more obvious sense, they are the 
sole means of communication with the external world. They 
find therefore a more constant, and more diversified and more 
essential use than any other of our intellectual powers. The 
most widely and variously exercised of our faculties are those 
which most demand the improvement of judicious culture. To , 
learn how to observe most advantageously should be one of the ' 
c'^'ef ends of education. 
