Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/63

Rh Metaphysics and Geometry are, of all the sciences connected with reason, those in which Imagination has the greatest share; an assertion which, it will not be disputed, has at first sight somewhat of the air of a paradox; and which, on closer examination, will, I apprehend, be found altogether inconsistent with fact. If indeed D’Alembert had, in this instance, used (as some writers have done) the word Imagination as synonymous with Invention, I should not have thought it worth while (at least so far as the geometer is concerned) to dispute his proposition. But that this was not the meaning annexed to it by the author, appears from a subsequent clause, where he tells us, that the most refined operations of reason, consisting in the creation of generals which do not fall under the cognizance of our senses, naturally lead to the exercise of imagination. His doctrine, therefore, goes to the identification of Imagination with Abstraction; two faculties so very different in the direction which they give to our thoughts, that (according to his own acknowledgement) the man who is habitually occupied in exerting the one, seldom fails to impair both his capacity and his relish for the exercise of the other.

This identification of two faculties, so strongly contrasted in their characteristical features, was least of all to be expected from a logician, who had previously limited the province of Imagination to the imitation of material objects; a limitation, it may be remarked in passing, which is neither sanctioned by common use, nor by just views of the philosophy of the Mind. Upon what ground can it be alleged, that Milton’s portrait of Satan’s intellectual and moral character was not the offspring of the same creative faculty which gave birth to his Garden of Eden? After such a definition, however, it is difficult to conceive, how so very acute a writer should have referred to Imagination the abstractions of the geometer and of the metaphysician; and still more, that he should have attempted to justify this reference, by observing, that these abstractions do not fall under the cognizance of the senses. My own opinion is, that, in the composition of the whole passage, he had a view to the unexpected parallel between Homer and Archimedes, with which he meant, at the close, to surprise his readers.

If the foregoing strictures be well-founded, it seems to follow, not only that the attempt of Bacon and of D’Alembert to classify the sciences and arts according to a logical division of our faculties, is altogether unsatisfactory; but that every future attempt of the same kind may be expected to be liable to similar objections. In studying, indeed, the Theory of the Mind, it is necessary to push our analysis as far as the nature of the subject admits of; and, wherever the thing is possible, to examine its constituent principles separately and apart from each other:; [sic] but this consideration itself, when combined with what was before stated on the endless variety of forms in which they may be blended together in our various intel- 1em