378 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Imagination is a faculty capable of affording us the highest and 
most refined pleasure, and we have Professor Tyndal’s authority for 
considering it of the greatest utility in the pursuit of the sciences. 
The imagination, however, must be cultivated as the imagination, 
and as nothing else. It is a very common error to mistake the 
imagination for the memory. The use of the memory is very sug- 
gestive of the use of the imagination, and it would be well if no 
confusion could arise in the use of both—a strong reason for special 
cultivation. 
Our reasoning power I have placed last of the divisions of the 
intellect, though I need hardly say they are not least in importance. 
As, however, they cannot be exercised without the memory, and as 
Professor Tyndal points out how they are assisted by the imagination, 
I have thought it best to consider the other two divisions first. 
The cultivation of the reasoning powers demands the same special 
care that all the divisions of the mind require. Reasoning leads to 
judgment, correct judgment being the result of well-performed 
reasoning. It is evident that judgment is neither memory nor 
imagination. Mathematics are rightly considered as excellent train- 
ing for the mind, but they would be much more efficient if the 
reasoning powers were submitted to special cultivation. By the 
study of mathematics, the reasoning powers are led to look for posi- 
tive results. In the acquisition of knowledge, they are required to 
take propositions and assertions on authority without question. 
Here are two opposite extremes, between which the ordinary reason- 
ing powers, so much required in every-day life, are left to cultivate 
themselves. Thus it seems to me that there is too common a 
tendency to hold positive opinions on subjects that do not admit of 
positive opinions at all. 
I now arrive at the third and last primary division of the mind 
—the will, which many may consider the most important of the 
three. “A character,” says Novalis, ‘“‘is a completely fashioned 
will.” I hope particularly to avoid provoking any discussion on 
the much vexed question of the freedom of the will. Let that be 
assumed if necessary. All our most important acts are under the 
direction of our will, and our will springs from our desires, which 
form the motives for the exercise of our will. To cultivate our 
will is therefore to cultivate our desires. When a person is said to 
have a strong will, it is because he has a very strong desire to attain 
an object to which all other desires are subordinate. When a person 
