ever, only expended on newer and less imaginative follies.-W. B. Clulow.

327.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.-Dr. Samuel Johnson.

328.

He involves himself in a labyrinth of nonsense, who endeavours to maintain falsehood by argument.-Letters of Junius.

329.

Self-delusion is ever averse from enquiry, though by enquiry alone can the charm be dissolved.-Dr. Parr.

330.

The indiscriminate defence of right and wrong contracts the understanding while it corrupts the heart. Letters of Junius.

331.

To give a reason for fancy were to weigh the fire and measure the wind.

332.

The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present condition or with our past attainments, and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Hence the ardour of the selfish to better their fortunes, and to add to their personal accomplishments; and hence the zeal of the patriot and philosopher to advance the virtue and happiness of the human race. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man

will become as stationary as that of the brutes.Dugald Stewart.

333.

Imagination is the deceptive province of man's mind, the fruitful source of error and falsehood; and it is the more treacherous, inasmuch as it is not uniformly, and consistently so; imagination would serve as an infallible rule of faith if it were infallibly false. But being for the most (although not always) fallacious, it gives no indication of its proper quality, but throws the same colouring over truth and falsehood. I am not referring here to the weak and foolish; I speak of the wisest of men; and it is among them that the imagination exercises its most powerful influences over the mind. Reason may well complain that she knows not how to put a just estimate on the objects presented to her consideration. This mighty power-the perpetual antagonist of reason-which delights to shew its ascendancy by bringing it under its control and dominion, has a second nature in man. has its joys and its sorrows, its health, its sickness, its wealth, its poverty; it compels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny; it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again an artificial acuteness; it has its follies and its wisdom; and the most perverse thing of all is, that it fills its votaries with a complacency more full and complete even than that which reason can supply. imaginative have pleasures peculiar to themselves, and into which those of more phlegmatic dispositions cannot enter. They aspire to mastery over the minds of others; they argue with confidence and hardihood, while others are cautious and timid; their self-complacent temperament gives them often an advantage over their hearers;

It

The

and their imaginary wisdom finds ready favour with judges as visionary as themselves. It is not in their power, indeed, to impart wisdom to fools; but they can make them happy in spite of reason, when only able to make her followers dissatisfied with themselves. The one, in fact, crowns men with glory; the other lays them low in humiliation.-Pascal. 334.

The sound and proper exercise of imagination may be made to contribute to the cultivation of all that is virtuous and estimable in the human character. It leads us in particular, to place ourselves in the situation of others, to enter into their feelings and wants, to participate in their distresses. It thus tends to the cultivation of sympathy, and the benevolent affections: and promotes all those feelings which exert so extensive an influence in the duties of civil and religious intercourse.-Abercrombie.

335.

A person of an active imagination, who is too much in the habit of exercising it, may be apt to see things in too favourable or too unfavourable a light; and may be equally liable to suffer by it, either from present anxiety, or future disappointment.-W. Danby.

336.

Imagination exaggerates petty objects, till they fill the mind in an extravagant degree; and in the same way, with a rash presumption, she diminishes great objects, and brings them down to her own standard.-Pascal.

337.

The furthest stretch of reason is, to know that there is an infinite number of things which utterly surpass it; and it must be very feeble indeed, if it reach not so far as to know this.

It is fit we should know how to doubt where we ought; to be confident where we ought; and to submit where we ought. He who is deficient in these respects, does not yet understand the powers of reason. Yet there are men

who err against each of these principles: either, considering everything as demonstrated, because they are unacquainted with the nature of demonstration; or, doubting of every thing, because they know not where to submit; or, submitting to every thing, because they know not where they ought to judge.-Pascal.

338.

One great object of our endeavours should be, to know the limits of our mental powers, to know why they are so limited, and why certain things are hidden from us: this we may do, and this knowledge is perhaps the highest, and certainly, is the most useful and satisfactory that we can attain. It will teach us the value of those communications, which supply any defect they may have in informing our reason, by the impression they are calculated to make upon our feelings.-W. Danby.

339.

Is it not a proof of the limited power of the human mind, that it can state a difficulty which it cannot solve? Does not this imply a sort of imperfect comprehension ?-W. Danby.

340.

There are three forms of speaking, which are as it were, the style and phrase of imposture.

The first kind is of them who, as soon as they have gotten any subject or matter, do straight cast it into an art, reducing all into divisions and distinctions; thence drawing assertions or positions, and so framing oppositions by questions

and answers. Hence issueth the cobwebs and clatterings of the Schoolmen.

The second kind is of them who, out of the vanity of their wit, (as church poets) do make and devise all variety of tales, stories, and examples, whereby they may lead men's minds to a belief; from whence did grow the legends and infinite fabulous inventions and dreams of the ancient heretics.

The third kind is of them who fill men's ears with mysteries, high parables, allegories, and illusions, which mystical and profound form, many of the heretics also made choice of.

By the first kind of these, the capacity and wit of man is fettered and entangled; by the second, it is trained on and inveigled; by the third, it is astonished and enchanted; but by every one of them the while it is seduced and abused.-Bacon.

341.

If we demand not good security for truth, we give advantage to impostors and cheats.-Dr. Whichcote.

342.

Impressions independent of the will, whether produced directly through the senses, or by trains of association within the mind, gradually lose their power by repetition; but habits, whether of mind or body depending on a previous determination of the will, gain strength by their very exercise, so as at length to become a part of ourselves, and an element of our happiness. -Professor Sedgwick.

343.

Habits are lost by forbearing those acts which are connatural to them, and conservative of them -Dr. Whichcote.