Imagination

Imagination (Lat. imaginatio). "The meaning of this word enters into many relationships, and is thereby rendered difficult to define. The principal meaning is doubtless what connects it with poetry and fine art, from which the other significations branch off. The simplest mode of explaining this complicated relationship will be to state in separation-the different constituents of the power in question. We shall then see why and where it touches upon other faculties, which still require to be distinguished from it.

"1. Imagination has for its objects the concrete, the real, or the individual, as opposed to abstractions and generalities, which are the matter of science. The full coloring of reality is implied in our imagination of any scene of nature. In this respect, there is something common to imagination and memory. If we endeavor to imagine a volcano, according as we succeed, we have before the mind everything that a spectator would observe on the spot. Thus, sensation, memory, and imagination alike deal with the fullness of the actual world, as opposed to the abstractions of science and the reasoning faculties.

"The faculty called conception, in one of its meanings, has also to do with this concrete fullness, although, in what Sir William Hamilton deems the original and proper meaning of that word, this power is excluded. In popular language, and in the philosophy of Dugald, Stewart, conception is applied to the case of our realizing any description of actual life, as given in history or in poetry. When we completely enter into a scene portrayed by a writer or speaker, and approach the situation of the actual observer, we are often said to conceive what is meant, and also to imagine it; the best word for this signification probably is 'realize.'