The Elements of Character - Paperback

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IMAGINATION. " Imagination rules the world." ?Napoleon. "Imagination is the mediatrix, the nurse, the mover of all the several parts of our spiritual organism. Without her, all our ideas stagnate, all our conjceptions wither, all our perceptions become rough and sensual." ? LEBEN. Imagination is that power of the mind by which it forms pictures or images within itself. Thought is but a shapeless, lifeless entity, until Imagination moulds it into form. We cannot bring what we know out into life until Imagination presents it to the Affections as a possible reality. Thought is an uncreative power, and gives form to nothing. Imagination is a more positive power, and can impart form to everything in thought. Thought acts subjectively, while Imagination is more objective in its operations. Thought is, by itself, a pure abstraction: passing into the Imagination it becomes a possible reality, and in the Affections a vital reality. The Affections cannot love or hate anything while it is a mere thought; but when it becomes an image, it is at once an object either of attraction or repulsion. Thought, therefore, can be lifted up into the Affections, and then be made manifest in life, only through the medium of the Imagination. It has been remarked by a celebrated writer, that all great discoverers, inventors, and mathematicians have been largely endowed with Imagination. It might with equal truth have been added, that all successful persons in every department of life are endowed with an Imagination commensurate in power with that of the other faculties. To the mechanic in his shop, no less than to the student in his cell, is it requisite that he should be able to form a distinct image in his mind of whatever he wishes to perform. So the teacher, the preacher, and the parent la...