eam-land where nothing is but what is
not, perhaps an emotional intellect may have absorbed into its
passionate vision of possibilities some truth of what will be--the more
comprehensive massive life feeding theory with new material, as the
sensibility of the artist seizes combinations which science explains
and justifies. At any rate, presumptions to the contrary are not to be
trusted. [Footnote: Chapter XLI.]

As explicit is a passage in _Theophrastus Such_, wherein imagination is
regarded as a means of knowledge, because it rests on a subconscious
expression of experience.

It is worth repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward
vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy
constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiae of experience,
which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the
habitual confusion of probable fact with the fictions of fancy and
transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs
every material object, every incidental fact, with far-reaching
memories and stored residues of passion, bringing into new light the
less obvious relations of human existence. [Footnote: Chapter XIII.]

Imagination, feeling and the whole inward life are being constantly shaped
by our actions. Experience gives new character to the inward life, and at
the same time determines its motives and its inclinations. The muscles
develop as they are used; what has been once done it is easier to do again.
In the same way, our deeds influence our lives, and compel us to repeat our
actions. At least this is George Eliot's opinion, and one she is fond of
re-affirming. After Arthur had wronged Hetty, his life was changed, and of
this change wrought in his character by his conduct, George Eliot says,--

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we
know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with
inward facts which constitute a man's critical actions, it will be
better not to think ourselves wise about his character. There is a
terrible coercion in our deeds which may at first turn the honest man
into a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the change; for this
reason--that the second wrong presents itself to him in the guise of
the only practicable right. The action which before commission has been
seen with that b