.

These are facts; from which we may learn, that with less than a whole,
either already wrought, or so indicated that the excited imagination
can of itself complete it, no genuine response will ever be given to
any production of man. And we learn from it also this twofold truth;
first, that the Idea of a Whole contains in itself a preexisting law;
and, secondly, that Art, the peculiar product of the Imagination, is
one of its true and predetermined ends.

As to its practical application, it were fruitless to speculate. It
applies itself, even as truth, both in action and reaction, verifying
itself: and our minds submit, as if it had said, There is nothing
wanting; so, in the converse, its dictum is absolute when it announces
a deficiency.

To return to the objection, that we often receive pleasure from many
things in Nature which seem to us fragmentary, we observe, that nothing in
Nature can be fragmentary, except in the seeming, and then, too, to the
understanding only,--to the feelings never; for a grain of sand, no less
than a planet, being an essential part of that mighty whole which we call
the universe, cannot be separated from the Idea of the world without a
positive act of the reflective faculties, an act of volition; but until
then even a grain of sand cannot cease to imply it. To the mere
understanding, indeed, even the greatest extent of actual objects which
the finite creature can possibly imagine must ever fall short of the vast
works of the Creator. Yet we nevertheless can, and do, apprehend the
existence of the universe. Now we would ask here, whether the influence of
a _real_,--and the epithet here is not unimportant,--whether the influence
of a real Whole is at no time felt without an act of consciousness, that
is, without thinking of a whole. Is this impossible? Is it altogether out
of experience? We have already shown (as we think) that no _unmodified
copy_ of actual objects, whether single or multifarious, ever satisfies
the imagination,--which imperatively demands a something more, or at least
different. And yet we often find that the very objects from which these
copies are made _do_ satisfy us. How and why is this? A question more
easily put than answered. We may suggest, however, what appears to us a
clew, that in abler hands may possibly lead to its solution; namely, the
fact, that, among the innumerable emotions of a pleasurable kind derived
from the actual, there is not one, perhaps, which