which are dissimilar and opposite in their nature. The possession, to a large extent, of the capacity of taste, is less common than is that of wit; and a very high degree of beauty is less frequently attained than is great humour.

The capacity of taste is of little general utility for the common practical purposes of life. Like the corresponding capacities of deprehension and analysis, it originates in the acuteness and refinement of the mind; but they are, by no means, necessarily co-existent with it.

Deficiency in this capacity" occasions a person to be dull in perceiving the more minute and nice points of excellence and beauty among many presented to his notice, and to make awkward and unsuitable combinations of ideas, both in pictorial composition and in that by writing. Of the different capacities of this faculty, taste appears to be that which is most susceptible of improvement by artificial education.

So far as they exhibit any preference for objects or subjects, either animate or inanimate, on account of their beauty, or other tasteful qualities, animals may appear to be influenced by some principle analogous to the capacity of taste; although in their case what really actuates them is not this capacity, but those sensations and emotions which certain objects, and also sounds, produce, and which in the case of man are entirely different to the exercise of taste, but are the introductory or incipient processes that lead to its exercise, as causing pleasurable emotions to be excited."

4. The Capacity of Origination.

The most important and exalted of the capacities which constitute the faculty of genius is that of origination, comprising the power both of imagination and invention. This

8 "Incorrectness of taste may arise, either from the dulness of our internal senses, or from the debility of judgment."-Gerard on Taste, pt. ii. s. 6.

"When we behold male birds elaborately displaying their plumes and splendid colours before the females, whilst other birds not thus decorated make no such display, it is impossible to doubt that the females admire the beauty of their male partners.”—Darwin's Descent of Man, &c., vol. i. p. 63.

The same acute observer and able writer also remarks that "birds appear to be the most æsthetic of all animals, excepting of course man, and they have nearly the same taste for the beautiful as we have."-Ibid., vol ii. p. 39. And that "as male birds display with so much care their fine plumage and other ornaments in the presence of the females, it is obviously probable that these appreciate the beauty of their suitors. It is however difficult to obtain direct evidence of their capacity to appreciate beauty."-Ibid., p. 111.

PARTICULAR APPLICATION OF THIS CAPACITY.

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capacity, like those of comprehension and judgment, seems to consist in a peculiar expansion of the mind as regards its ability to embrace a wide and comprehensive range of ideas.

Origination is that capacity of the faculty of genius by which it is enabled to combine together different and very remote ideas of different subjects, so as to form by such combination a new and original subject altogether. The power to effect this operation extends alike to ideas of visible objects and to those of abstract matters, such as the qualities and characteristics of various beings or subjects.'

1 Lord Bacon defines imagination to be "the representation of an individual thought.”—Nat. Hist., Cent. X., 945.

According however to Hobbes, imagination is nothing but decaying sense; and is found in man, and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking.-Leviathan, pt. i. c. ii.

Condillac states that "imagination takes place when a perception, in virtue of the connexion, which attention has established between it and the object, is revived at the sight of this object."—Origin of Knowledge, pt. i. c. ii.

Malebranche lays it down that "the faculty of imagining, or the imagination, consists only in the power the soul has of framing the images of objects, by effecting a change in the fibres of that part of the brain which may be called the principal part, as being that which corresponds to all the parts of our body; and is the place where the soul keeps her immediate residence, if I may be so allowed to speak."-Search after Truth, b. ii. c. 1. According to Mr. Ruskin, “the imagination has three totally distinct functions. It combines, and by combination creates new forms; but the secret principle of this combination has not been shown by the analyst. Again, it treats or regards both the simple images and its own combinations in peculiar ways; and, thirdly, it penetrates, analyzes, and reaches truths by no other faculty discoverable."-Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. s. 2, c. 1.

Helvetius's definition of imagination is that it is "the invention with respect to images, as genius is with respect to ideas."-Essays on the Mind, Ess. iv. c. ii.

"Our imagination is nothing else but the various appearances of our sensible ideas in the brain, where the soul frequently works in uniting, disjoining, multiplying, magnifying, diminishing, and altering the several shapes, colours, sounds, motions, words, and things that have been communicated to us by the outward organs of sense."-Dr. Watts' Logic, pt. ii. c. iii. s. 3.

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By imagination we understand the power of comparing images with ideas, of giving colours to our thoughts, of aggrandizing our sensations, of perceiving distinctly all the remote affinities of objects."-Buffon. Nat. Hist. Nat. of Animals.

"When ideas, and trains of ideas, occur, or are called up in a vivid manner, and without regard to the former actual impressions and perceptions, this is said to be done by the power of imagination or fancy." -Hartley. Observations on Man. Introd., p. 3.

Dugald Stewart lays it down that "the province of conception is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have formerly felt and perceived; that of imagination, to make a selection of qualities, and of circumstances, from a variety of different objects; and by combining and disposing these, to form a new creation of its own."-Elements of Philos. of Human Mind, pt. ii. c. vii. s. 1.

As the ideas of all external and material objects are derived through the senses; so the ideas which constitute any new, original, arbitrary system or matter which has no real existence in nature, are obtained, not intuitively, or by the direct communication to the understanding of the idea of such being from any external object, but by discovering or inventing this new system or subject, through combinations of the nature above described. The process in question is effected by making fresh compounds of ideas of whatever nature, and through whatever capacity of the understanding they are obtained; as by changing the position of a kaleidoscope, through which the particles of its figures are transposed, we produce others entirely new.

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As in the material, so in the mental world, nothing ever originates or is created without some germinating source from which it springs. Not only, indeed, is every original composition and every imaginative object created by combinations together of old ideas and substances, but we find that when combinations are attempted to be made out of ideas which are themselves inadequate for the purpose-when, as it were, the mind seems to be making an effort to invent or conjure up objects or phantasms beyond its own experience, and for which it possesses not the materials requisite--such a production fails to strike the mind, the operation of accomplishing it never arriving at maturity; and we discover that we are utterly unable to travel the smallest space beyond the verge prescribed as the limit of our intellectual inventive exertion. Such, indeed, is our poverty, or rather utter destitution, as regards inventive power, beyond the capacity of compounding together ideas in the manner I have described, that we cannot even imagine a new sense beyond those which we have; although it is possible and supposed by some, that in a future state of being we may be endowed with many such, and that those which we now have are but imperfectly adapted even for several of the purposes of this life to which we would apply them; and must be comparatively,

Dr. Carpenter defines imagination, in its lowest and simplest exercises, to be "that reproduction of the mental idea, or representation of an object formerly perceived through the senses, which is more generally understood by the term conception. In strict language, every such reproduction of our image, however distinctly traceable to the laws of association, is an act of imagination."-Mental Physiology, b. ii. c. xii. p. 487.

2 Mr. Grindon tells us that the finest part of originality is combination, and the power of generalizing and uniting, discovering new harmonies among familiar elements, and showing us gracefully and eloquently how to see for ourselves."-Life, c. xxiv. p. 300.

3 Vide ante, Prel. Diss., s. 1, a. 1, vol. i. p. 7.

"From the power we have of reviving our perceptions in the absence of objects, is derived that of reuniting and connecting the most distant ideas. Everything is capable of assuming a new form in our imagination." -Condilliac. Origin of Knowledge, pt. i. c. xi. s. 75.

ESSENTIAL NATURE OF OUR ORIGINATIVE POWER.

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if not wholly, useless, in our condition hereafter. Nevertheless, if we task ourselves to imagine what any new sense would be, we shall at once find that we are trying to effect this exercise of the imagination, by the combination together of the properties and qualities of our present senses, in a manner corresponding with that in which we invent or originate other new objects and ideas, by compounding old materials. Nor can the most ingenious, by any devices whatsoever, advance a step beyond this effort.*

As by the operation of the capacity of origination, new combinations of ideas are made; so by this means are new discoveries actually effected. Invention is, however, the power of combining into one different and various ideas, and not the mere power of finding out or discovering them. Most persons, indeed, are able to effect the latter; but efficiently to accomplish the former, requires an extensive endowment with this capacity. Many people can select and bring together, and with great judgment, too, a wide range of different ideas, and even those of an imaginative character; but who, from a deficiency in origination, are unable to melt them together so as to amalgamate them into one. A person possessing this capacity to a large extent, appears moreover able to originate new theories, and to bring forth results which the generality are unable to discover.

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Fancy often aids reason in the progress of discovery, and serves as a torch to assist our wanderings through those dark, dreary, and dismal caverns, where the light of truth has not as yet been able to penetrate. Nevertheless, much that passes for philosophy may, after all, prove to be but mere fancy; and some that pretends to be but mere fancy, may have fair claim to be ranked as sound philosophy, of which it occasionally turns out to be, if not the actual substance, yet the seed or germ."

To this paragraph Dr. Richardson has appended the following note:"I should give entire assent to this view, which, in the text, is so naturally and forcibly stated. The mind possesses no prime creative power whatever. It merely recreates the created. And even Shakspere himself, does no more than condense, by his senses, the nature around him, to reconstruct it on paper, according to his reading of it, for the comprehension of less gifted receivers of nature."

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Fancy," according to Wordsworth," is given to quicken and beguile the temporal part of our nature; imagination, to incite and support the eternal."

Dr. de Sainte Croix has supplied the note which follows to the above paragraph:-"The word fancy ought to be designated here as the faculty by which genius creates for itself the images and the representations of things. This faculty is, indeed, nearly synonymous with imagination, with the difference that 'imagination is the field where our ideas are sown, which spring up in thoughts, blossom in fancies, and ripen into notions. Idea presents the object, imagination receives it, thought considers it, fancy paints it, and it becomes a notion.' I think that it is

An individual largely endowed with origination, is also enabled when engaged in controversy, to perceive what new arguments or points which have not before been resorted to, may be adduced in support of his views; and in many cases he is thus capacitated to draw forth apparently great and important results from premises which appeared barren and insignificant. That wonderful power of adapting certain means to ends entirely different to those which they originally served, which is possessed by some men, and, apparently, not at all by others, enabling them to effect such great purposes, and to discover and devise new and original means for accomplishing them, that were never seen before; is also, owing to the capacity of origination, which qualifies the person so gifted to unite one to another, and to cause them effectually to operate, different, and apparently discordant elements, which were never before conjoined.

The capacity of origination, it will therefore be perceived, may be applied for various purposes in the mind of any individual extensively endowed with it. It is alike fitted for aiding the progress of the sciences, for discovering fresh resources in cases of difficulty, assisting in artificial composition of each kind, or in controversial contest.

In matters of knowledge and reasoning, the capacity of origination is either of great advantage, or a serious obstacle, according as it is used for its proper end, or misused for purposes to which it is not naturally adapted. If the inventive power exercised by this capacity is employed as a pioneer to make new discoveries, and to explore the path for the reason to follow, solid benefit may result from its application in this manner: and, indeed, were it not for the aid which the reason receives from this capacity, but little progress in science would be effected. This, indeed, is the mode in which all new discoveries are achieved. If, on the other hand, the capacity of origination alone be relied upon for the acquisition of knowledge, or the solution of rational problems,-if the creations of the imagination are accepted as the basis of real information, or the deductions of right reason, there is no error that may

also well that you have expressed the meaning of the word fancy, which has not its complete equivalent in the French language, at least, for this particular express signification. In the meantime, I believe that an explanation on this subject will not be out of place as regards the above passage."

7 According to Lord Bacon, the imagination is not " simply and only a messenger, but is invested with, or at least asserteth no small authority in itself, besides the duty of the message."-Advancement of Learning, b. ii.

8"So far from being an enemy to truth, the imagination helps it forward more than any other faculty of the mind.”—Madame de Stäel.