The union of elements, in all such productions of the imagination, is regulated by the knowledge, the taste, and the intellectual habits of the author; and, we must add, by his moral principles. According to the views, the habits, and the principles of him who frames them, therefore, they may either contribute to moral and intellectual improvement, or they may tend to mislead the judgment, vitiate the taste, and corrupt the moral feelings.

Similar observations apply to the conduct of the imagination in individuals, and its influence in the cultivation of moral and intellectual character. There is certainly no power of the mind that requires more cautious management and stern control; and the proper regulation of it cannot be too strongly impressed upon the young. The sound and proper exercise of it may be made to contribute to the cultivation of all that is virtuous and estimable in human character. It leads us, in particular, to place ourselves in the situation of others, to enter into their feelings and wants, and 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 friendship and the harmonies of civil and social intercourse. We may even say that we exercise imagination when we endeavor to act upon that high standard of morals which requires us "to do to others as we would that they should do unto us:" for in this mental act we must imagine ourselves in the situation of other men, and, in their character, judge of our own conduct towards them. Thus a man deficient in imagination, though he may be free from any thing unjust or dishonorable, is apt to be cold, contracted, and selfish, regardless of the feelings and indifferent of the distresses of others. Further, we may be said to exercise imagination when we carry our views beyond present and sensible objects, and endeavor to feel the power of "things which are not seen," and the reality of scenes and times which are yet to come. On the other hand, imagination may be employed for calling into being evils which have no existence, or for exaggerating those which

The exercise of imagination, how regulated? Effects? Importance of a proper regulation of it? Its useful effects! Moral effects of a deficiency of imagination? Perverted imagination. Its effects?

are real; for fostering malevolent feelings, and for imputing to those with whom we are connected motives and intentions which have no foundation in truth. Finally, an ill-regulated imagination may be employed in occupying the mind with waking dreams and vain delusions, to the exclusion of all those high pursuits which ought to employ the faculties of a rational being.

There has been considerable difference of opinion in regard to the effects produced upon the mind by fictitious narrative. Without entering minutely upon the merits of this controversy, I think it may be contended, that two evils are likely to arise from much indulgence in works of fiction. The one is a tendency to give way to the wild play of the imagination; a practice most deleterious, both to the intellectual and moral habits. The other is a disruption of the harmony which ought to exist between the moral emotions and the conduct, a principle of extensive and important influence. In the healthy state of the moral feelings, for example, the emotion of sympathy excited by a tale of sorrow ought to be followed by some efforts for the relief of the sufferer. When such relations in real life are listened to from time to time without any such efforts, the emotion gradually becomes weakened, and that moral condition is produced which we call selfishness, or hardness of heart. Fictitious tales of sorrow appear to have a similar tendency; the emotion is produced without the corresponding conduct; and when this habit has been much indulged the result seems to be, that a cold and barren sentimentalism is produced, instead of the habit of active benevolence. If fictitious narratives be employed for depicting scenes of vice, another evil of the greatest magnitude is likely to result from them, even though the conduct exhibited should be shown to end in remorse and misery: for by the mere familiarity with vice an injury is done to the youthful mind, which is in no degree compensated by the moral at the close.

Imagination, therefore, is a mental power of extensive influence, and capable of being turned to important purposes

Fictitious narrative. Two evils resulting from it? Example. What evils from fictitious tales of sorrow? From fictitious tales of vice? Inference from these views?

it

in the cultivation of individual character. But to be so, must be kept under the strict control both of reason and of virtue. If it be allowed to wander at discretion, through scenes of imagined wealth, ambition, frivolity, or pleasure it tends to withdraw the mind from the important pursuits of life, to weaken the habit of attention, and to impair the judgment. It tends, in a most material manner, to prevent the due exercise of those nobler powers which are directed to the cultivation both of science and virtue. The state of a mind which has yielded itself to the influence of this delusive habit cannot be more forcibly represented than in the words of an eloquent writer :-"The influence of this habit of dwelling on the beautiful fallacious forms of imagination will accompany the mind into the most serious speculations, or rather musings, on the real world, and what is to be done in it, and expected; as the image which the eye acquires from looking at any dazzling object still appears before it wherever it turns. The vulgar materials that constitute the actual economy of the world will rise up to its sight in fictitious forms, which it cannot disenchant into plain reality, nor will even suspect to be deceptive. It cannot go about with sober, rational inspection, and ascertain the nature and value of all things around it. Indeed, such a mind is not disposed to examine with any careful minuteness the real condition of things. It is content with ignorance, because environed with something more delicious than such knowledge in the paradise which imagination creates. In that' paradise it walks delighted, till some imperious circumstance of real life call it thence, and gladly escapes thither again when the avocation is past. There every thing is beautiful and noble as could be desired to form the residence of an angel. If a tenth part of the felicities that have been enjoyed, the great actions that have been performed, the beneficent institutions that have been established, and the beautiful objects that have been seen in that happy region, could have been imported into this terrestrial place,-what a delightful thing it would have been to awake each morning to see such a world once more."*

Foster's Essays.

state of mind induced by a perverted imagination? Foster's description of its

effects?

To the same purpose are the words of another writer of the highest authority :-" To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not, for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he. should most desire; amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow. In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degress the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish."*

22

SECTION IV.

OF REASON OR JUDGMENT.

THE most simple view which we can take of reason probably is, that it is the exercise of mind by which we compare facts with each other, and mental impressions with external things. The applications of this mental process may be referred to the following heads :

I. We compare facts with each other, so as to trace their relations, connections, and tendencies; and to distinguish

• Johnson's Rasselas.

Johnson's description. Definition of reason? How many general applications ?

the connections which are incidental from those which are fixed and uniform.

What we call the relations of things, whether referring to external events or mental processes, comprehend all those facts which form the great objects of human knowledge, with respect either to the individuals, or their tendencies towards each other. They may be briefly enumerated in the following manner :—

1. Relations of character, or those marks, characters, or properties by which a substance may be recognised, and may be distinguished from all others; for example, the botanical characters of a plant-the chemical properties of a mineral-the symptoms of a disease-sensible properties of color, taste, smell, &c.-the mental endowments and moral qualities of individual men.

2. Relations of resemblance and analogy, arising out of a comparison of the qualities of various individual substances or events. These admit of various degrees. When there is a close agreement between two events or classes of events it constitutes resemblance: when there are points of difference, it is analogy. In the latter case, we then trace the degrees of analogy, depending upon the number of points in which the resemblance holds and the number of points in which there is a difference. On the relations of resemblance also depend the arts of arrangement and classification; and the use of those general terms by which we learn to express a great number of individual objects by a single term, derived from certain characters in which they agree, such as solids, fluids, quadrupeds, &c. We find a certain number of substances which agree so much in their properties, that we class them together as one species. We then find other substances, which agree with these in a certain number of their properties, but differ in others. We dismiss the latter, and retain those only in which they all agree, and so form the whole into a genus. The individuals forming the genus are still found to agree in some of their properties with various other substances, and by leaving out of view those in which they differ, we again form this still larger number into a class or order.

First? What comprehended under the phrase relations of things? First class? Examples? Second Class? Distinction between resemblance and analogy? Arts depending upon these relations? Process of classification.