* * * *

[RELATION OF FEELINGS TO IMAGINATION.]

III. A third error, deserving of brief comment, is a singular inversion
of the relationship of the Feelings to the Imagination. It is frequently
affirmed, both in criticism and in philosophy, that the Feelings depend
upon, or have their basis in, the Imagination.

An able and polished writer, discussing the character of Edmund Burke,
remarks: "The passions of Burke were strong; this is attributable in
great measure to the intensity of the imaginative faculty". Again,
Dugald Stewart, observing upon the influence of the Imagination on
Happiness, says: "All that part of our happiness or misery which arises
from our _hopes_ or our _fears_ derives its existence entirely from the
power of imagination". He even goes the length of affirming that
"_cowardice_ is entirely a disease of the imagination". Another writer
accounts for the intensity of the amatory sentiments in Robert Burns by
the strength of his imagination.

[IMAGINATION GROUNDED IN FEELING.]

Now, I venture to affirm that this view very nearly reverses the fact.
The Imagination is determined by the Feelings, and not the Feelings by
the Imagination. Intensity of feeling, emotion, or passion, is the
earlier fact: the intellect swayed and controlled by feeling, shaping
forms to correspond with an existing emotional tone, is Imagination. It
was not the imaginative faculty that gave Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,
and the poets generally, their great enjoyment of nature; but the love
of nature, pre-existing, turned the attention and the thoughts upon
nature, filling the mind as a consequence with the impressions, images,
recollections of nature; out of which grew the poetic imaginings.
Imagination is a compound of intellectual power and feeling. The
intellectual power may be great, but if it is not accompanied with
feeling, it will not minister to feeling; or it will minister to many
feelings by turns, and to none in particular. As far as the intellectual
power of a poet goes, few men have excelled Bacon. He had a mind stored
with imagery, able to produce various and vivid illustrations of
whatever thought came before him; but these illustrations touched no
deep feeling; they were fresh, original, racy, fanciful, picturesque,
a play of the head that never touched the heart. The man was by nature
cold; he had not the emotional depth or compass of an average
Englishman. Perhaps his strongest feeling of