delicacy of the faculty of reason by employing it indiscriminately in the support of truth or falsehood. We may thus gain the praise of acuteness or readiness in debate; but we lose what is of incomparably greater consequence, the instinctive love of truth, and the delicate discrimination between truth and error.

And, lastly; it is impossible for us to reason well, or so to reason as to increase the sum of human knowledge, without the possession of large and accurate knowledge. Reasoning is the process by which we pass from the known to the unknown. The known, then, lies at the foundation of our process. Unless there be something known, we cannot begin to reason; and the greater the amount of our knowledge, the larger is the material with which we labor. The more exact our knowledge is, the more successfully can we use it in the discovery of truth.

Able men, of marked independence of mind, and strong tendency for investigation, by failing to know what other men have discovered, are liable to waste their energies in search of that which has been already discovered. Hence, after arriving at valuable truth, they find themselves in the rear of their age. Though the cases are rare, able men sometimes fall into this error. If this be the case with men of unusual endowments, how much more does it deserve the attention of those who can boast of no extraordinary talent! He who would enlarge the field of human knowledge, must stand upon the limits of the known, before he can expect to enter the field of the unknown.

REFERENCES.

Cultivation of the reasoning faculties Abercrombie, Part 3, section 4 Mathematicians not good reasoners-Abercrombie, Part 3, section 4

Difference between sound judgment and ingenious disputation crombie, Part 3, section 4.

Power of reasoning depends on extent of knowledge- Abercrombie, Part 3, section 4.

Use of authorities - Locke, Book 4, chap. 20, section 17.

Advantage of clearness and exactitude of knowledge-Locke, Book 4 chap. 12, section 14.

CHAPTER VI1.

IMAGINATION.

SECTION I.- THE NATURE OF THIS FACULTY

THE next faculty of which we propose to treat is the Imagination. It is the power by which, from simple conceptions already existing in the mind, we form complex wholes or images. Thus, the painter, selecting several beautiful views from various landscapes which he has observed, forms them into a single picture. The novelist unites the elements of several characters which he has observed in the conception of his hero.

It is manifest that some form of abstraction must, by necessity, precede the exercise of imagination. Were we not able to analyze the concrete, and contemplate its several parts separate from each other, we could never unite them at will, so as to form an original image. The parts must be mentally severed before they can be reunited in a new conception. It is this power of reüniting the several elements of a conception at will, that is, properly, imagination. Imagination may then be designated as the power of combination.

There is, however, a difference in the manner in which the power of combination receives and modifies the materials derived from abstraction. In treating of abstraction I attempted to show that it included three acts; first, analy

sis, by which the qualities of a concrete obiect are separated from each other; second, generalization, by which these simple elements of an individual become a general abstract idea; and, third, combination, by which these last are united in a complex conception, representing not an individual but a class. The act by which we form classes, may perhaps, more properly be called conception than imagination.

The act of imagination proper, differs from that act hy which we form classes. In the first place, the mode of abstraction in the two cases is unlike. In forming conceptions of classes we first separate qualities from each other. In collecting the elements for a picture in the imagination, we separate not qualities so much as parts. Again; before we can proceed to form classes, we must first generalize our individual abstractions, and thus form general abstract ideas. In imagination proper we do not generalize, but at once unite the ideas of individual parts which we have previously separated from each other. In the third place, the result is dissimilar. In the one case we form a notion of a class, meaning no particular individual; in the other, we form a notion of an individual, which is the more perfect in proportion to its distinct individuality.

The difference between these cases may be illustrated by a familiar example. Suppose that a physiologist were attempting to form a scientific conception of an animal, say, for instance, of a horse. He would examine the first specimen with all the accuracy in his power, taking note specially of all the qualities of its external appearance and internal structure. He would, in the second place, examine other specimens, taking note of each particular quality as before. These qualities would then not belong to one specimen, but to them all, or would become general abstract ideas. He would next distinguish those that were constant

from those which were variable, uniting the constant into a single conception, and rejecting the others as valueless. This conception thus formed would represent the class, and would correspond to the word horse, whenever he or other physiologists used it.

But, were an artist required to paint the charger of a commander-in-chief on a battle-field, he would proceed in a very different manner. Observing several horses, he would perceive one remarkable for the beauty of its head. The body of another, and the neck of a third are distinguished for elegance of form and symmetry of proportions. Without any act of generalization, he would unite such of these several parts as he chose into one image, which he would transfer to the canvas. This picture would not be the representation of a class, but of an individual. The object of the painter would be, not to form an image which should stand for all horses, but a picture of a more beautiful horse than had ever existed, thus making this representation to stand out by itself, distinguished from every other that had ever been conceived.

Imagination proper is, therefore, the power of forming not general conceptions, designating classes, but particular images representing individuals. It is the power by which we form pictures in the mind, of some object or event. Hence, it would seem that those writers have erred who state that this act of the mind closely resembles the process of reasoning. The two acts are really remarkably unlike. The materials used in the reasoning process are always propositions, that is, affirmations respecting genera and species. The imagination, on the contrary, employs conceptions of separate parts, which it combines into an individual whole. The process which they employ is dissimilar; the one forming syllogisms, the other uniting elements. The result at which they arrive is different. The one ends in