Page:Posthumous Works of Mary Wollstonecraft Vol4.djvu/199

Rh piness of a superior state, has been supposed to be intuitive, and the happiest effusions of human genius have seemed like inspiration—the deductions of reason destroy sublimity.

I am more and more convinced, that poetry is the first effervescence of the imagination, and the forerunner of civilization.

When the Arabs had no trace of literature or science, they composed beautiful verses on the subjects of love and war. The flights of the imagination, and the laboured deductions of reason, appear almost incompatible.

Poetry certainly flourishes most in the first rude state of society. The passions speak most eloquently, when they are not shackled by reason. The sublime