cknowledged
fact, but also _negatively_ by the absence of the effect above
mentioned in all those productions of the mind which we pronounce
unnatural. It is therefore in effect, or _quoad_ ourselves, both
truth and life, addressed, if we may use the expression, to that
inscrutable _instinct_ of the imagination which conducts us to
the knowledge of all invisible realities.

A distinct apprehension of the reality and of the office of this
important principle, we cannot but think, will enable us to ascertain
with some degree of precision, at least so far as relates to art,
the true limits of the Possible,--the sphere, as premised, of Ideal
Invention.

As to what some have called our _creative_ powers, we take it
for granted that no correct thinker has ever applied such expressions
literally. Strictly speaking, we can _make_ nothing: we can
only construct. But how vast a theatre is here laid open to the
constructive powers of the finite creature; where the physical eye is
permitted to travel for millions and millions of miles, while that of
the mind may, swifter than light, follow out the journey, from star to
star, till it falls back on itself with the humbling conviction that
the measureless journey is then but begun! It is needless to dwell on
the immeasurable mass of materials which a world like this may supply
to the Artist.

The very thought of its vastness darkens into wonder. Yet how much
deeper the wonder, when the created mind looks into itself, and
contemplates the power of impressing its thoughts on all things
visible; nay, of giving the likeness of life to things inanimate; and,
still more marvellous, by the mere combination of words or colors, of
evolving into shape its own Idea, till some unknown form, having no
type in the actual, is made to seem to us an organized being. When
such is the result of any unknown combination, then it is that we
achieve the Possible. And here the Realizing Principle may strictly be
said to prove itself.

That such an effect should follow a cause which we know to be purely
imaginary, supposes, as we have said, something in ourselves which
holds, of necessity, a predetermined relation to every object either
outwardly existing or projected from the mind, which we thus recognize
as true. If so, then the Possible and the Ideal are convertible terms;
having their existence, _ab initio_, in the nature of the mind.
The soundness of this inference is also supported negatively, as