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commonly his information much less at command than those who are possessed of an inferior degree of originality; and what is somewhat remarkable, he has it least of all at command on those subjects on which he has found his invention most fertile. Sir Isaac Newton, as we are told by Dr. Pemberton, was often at a loss when the conversation turned on his own discoveries.1 It is probable that they made but a slight impression on his mind, and that a consciousness of his inventive powers prevented him from taking much pains to treasure them up in his memory. Men of little ingenuity seldom forget the ideas they acquire, because they know that when an occasion occurs for applying their knowledge to use, they must trust to memory and not to invention. Explain an arithmetical rule to a person of common understanding, who is unacquainted with the principles of the science, he will soon get the rule by heart, and become dexterous in the application of it. Another, of more ingenuity, will examine the principle of the rule before he applies it to use, and will scarcely take the trouble to commit to memory a process which he knows he can at any time, with a little reflection, recover. The consequence will be, that in the practice of calculation he will appear more slow and hesitating, than if he followed the received rules of arithmetic without reflection or reasoning.

Something of the same kind happens every day in conversation. By far the greater part of the opinions we announce in it, are not the immediate result of reasoning on the spot, but have been previously formed in the closet, or perhaps have been adopted implicitly on the authority of others. The promptitude, therefore, with which a man decides in ordinary discourse, is not a certain test of the quickness of his apprehension;2 as it may perhaps arise from those uncommon efforts to furnish the memory with acquired knowledge, by which men of slow parts endeavour to compensate for their want of invention; while, on the other hand, it is possible that a consciousness of origi

1 See Note T. Memoria facit prompti ingenii famam, ut illa quæ dicimus, non domo

attulisse, videamur. cap. 2.

sed ibi protinus sumpsisse Quintil. Inst. Orat. lib. xi.

nality may give rise to a manner apparently embarrassed, by leading the person who feels it, to trust too much to extempore exertions.1

In general, I believe, it may be laid down as a rule, that those who carry about with them a great degree of acquired information, which they have always at command, or who have rendered their own discoveries so familiar to them, as always to be in a condition to explain them, without recollection, are very seldom possessed of much invention, or even of much quickness of apprehension. A man of original genius, who is fond of exercising his reasoning powers anew on every point as it occurs to him, and who cannot submit to rehearse the ideas of others, or to repeat by rote the conclusions which he has deduced from previous reflection, often appears, to superficial observers, to fall below the level of ordinary understandings; while another, destitute both of quickness and invention, is admired for that promptitude in his decisions, which arises from the inferiority of his intellectual abilities.

It must indeed be acknowledged in favour of the last description of men, that in ordinary conversation they form the most agreeable, and perhaps the most instructive, companions. How inexhaustible soever the invention of an individual may be, the variety of his own peculiar ideas can bear no proportion to the whole mass of useful and curious information of which the world is already possessed. The conversation, accordingly, of men of genius, is sometimes extremely limited, and is interesting to the few alone, who know the value, and who can distinguish the marks of originality. In consequence too of

In the foregoing observations, it is not meant to be implied, that originality of genius is incompatible with a ready recollection of acquired knowledge; but only that it has a tendency unfavourable to it, and that more time and practice will commonly be necessary to familiarize the mind of a man of invention to the ideas of others, or even to the conclusions of his own understanding, than are requisite in ordinary cases.

Habits of literary conversation, and, still more, habits of extempore discussion, in a popular assembly, are peculiarly useful in giving us a ready and practical command of our knowledge. There is much good sense in the following aphorism of Bacon:-" Reading makes a full man, writing a correct man, and speaking a ready man." See a commentary on this aphorism in one of the Numbers of the Adventurer.

that partiality which every man feels for his own speculations, they are more in danger of being dogmatical and disputatious, than those who have no system which they are interested to defend.

The same observations may be applied to authors. A book which contains the discoveries of one individual only, may be admired by a few, who are intimately acquainted with the history of the science to which it relates, but it has little chance for popularity with the multitude. An author who possesses industry sufficient to collect the ideas of others, and judgment sufficient to arrange them skilfully, is the most likely person to acquire a high degree of literary fame; and although, in the opinion of enlightened judges, invention forms the chief characteristic of genius, yet it commonly happens that the objects of public admiration are men who are much less distinguished by this quality, than by extensive learning and cultivated taste. Perhaps too, for the multitude, the latter class of authors is the most useful, as their writings contain the more solid discoveries which others have brought to light, separated from those errors with which truth is often blended in the first formation of a system.

CHAPTER VII.

OF IMAGINATION.

SECT. I.-ANALYSIS OF IMAGINATION.

IN attempting to draw the line between Conception and Imagination, I have already observed, that the province of the former is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have formerly felt and perceived; that of the latter, 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.

According to the definitions adopted in general by modern philosophers, the province of Imagination would appear to be limited to objects of sight. "It is the sense of sight," says Mr. Addison, "which furnishes the Imagination with its ideas, so that by the pleasures of Imagination, I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds, by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasions. We cannot, indeed, have a single image in the fancy, that did not make its first entrance through the sight." Agreeably to the same view of the subject, Dr. Reid observes, that "Imagination properly signifies a lively conception of objects of sight; the former power being distinguished from the latter, as a part from the whole."

That this limitation of the province of Imagination to one particular class of our perceptions, is altogether arbitrary, seems to me to be evident; for, although the greater part of the materials which Imagination combines be supplied by this

sense, it is nevertheless indisputable, that our other perceptive faculties also contribute occasionally their share. How many pleasing images have been borrowed from the fragrance of the fields and the melody of the groves; not to mention that sister art, whose magical influence over the human frame, it has been, in all ages, the highest boast of poetry to celebrate! In the following passage, even the more gross sensations of Taste form the subject of an ideal repast, on which it is impossible not to dwell with some complacency, particularly after a perusal of the preceding lines, in which the poet describes "the Wonders of the Torrid Zone."

Bear me, Pomona! to thy citron groves;
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing thro' the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclin'd
Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes,
Fann'd by the breeze, its fever cooling fruit;
Or, stretch'd amid these orchards of the sun,
O let me drain the cocoa's milky bowl,
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice
Which Bacchus pours! Nor, on its slender twigs
Low bending, be the full pomegranate scorn'd;
Nor, creeping thro' the woods, the gelid race
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp.
Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride
Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er

The poets imaged in the golden age;

Quick let me strip thee of thy spiny coat,

Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove!1

What an assemblage of other conceptions, different from all those hitherto mentioned, has the genius of Virgil confined in one distich!

Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori,

Hic nemus: hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo.

These observations are sufficient to shew, how inadequate a notion of the province of Imagination (considered even in its

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