Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/65

 Rh between the genius of imagination with its symbolic presentation, and the talent of memory with its mimic reproduction. And so I take it are Blake's visions: not the substance that dreams are made of—not the fanciful fears of the too impressionable child—not the ghosts of the superstitious or the incoherent rhapsodies of the lunatic. Blake himself made sharp distinction between terrifying ghosts, the delusions of a disordered stomach, and the visions of truth. He knew well, I must think, the psychologist's distinction between illusions of the senses and delusions of the mind—a distinction which the legal authorities admit as differentiating mere erratic brain-work from insanity. For as long as a man knows when he may be self-cheated, he is sane indeed. So long as he knows his visions are not concrete, or that his imagination must not be trusted to see in the dark, say, when he is driving a motor, not even the most unimaginative mental specialist would dare accuse him, because of his visions and imaginations, of being insane; and this, although the said specialist loves to speak of a certain gift, which he is too poor to possess, as being akin to madness.