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that imagination is an intellectual power independent of the organs of sense; as the intellectual element decidedly predominates in sight, while the lower senses are single and emotional in their character, and thus yield less matter to the fancy. We take a certain pleasure in drawing attention to the airy strides of one who so thoroughly sympathizes, as does Bain, with Positive Philosophy. Not having set to ourselves the task of preparing the way for the insensible growth of intellectual out of physical phenomena, we can accept the impression of consciousness, that an act of imagination is one of imagination, quite distinct and distinguishable from every form of perception, clear or obscure. We feel no more interest in discussing imagination under perception, than perception under imagination. In honest induction, we can take what we find. Nor is the intelligibility of our philosophy any the less in thus regarding the mind as an independent first cause of its own action than in filling it with echoes, and mild vibrations, and the lingering, trembling, sobbing, swelling cadences of sensation, as of a harp unable to part with the harmony that has once run along its strings. These transferred analogies are the most inexplicable of all explications. Mind and matter present plain phenomena, each in its own way cognizable; but mental movements that are semi-physical, and physical movements that rise into and are productive of thought, have no organ whatever for their apprehension. Seen with the eye, they become purely material; known by consciousness, they become at once and completely transcendental. Two things known as unlike, each by its own faculty, are far better known than when affirmed to be alike, with no common ground or common origin for their comparison.
Lesson 35 - 7. Influence of imagination on passions On judgment - p.147
7. Whatever is thought of the nature of imagination, its influence and office are not doubtful. It is a great intensifier of emotions. Acting under the impulse of desire,
