Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Philosophical Remains (1883)/Lecture on Imagination, 1848
LECTURE ON IMAGINATION.
1848.
Poetical composition is usually and rightly regarded as the intellectual province over which the imagination more particularly presides. The possession of this faculty is essential to the enjoyment as well as to the production of poetry. When developed in a high degree, it renders him who is gifted with it a poet, while it enables those who possess it in a lower degree to appreciate and relish the strains which they could not have themselves composed.
Now, in order to reach some decisive principle by which we may determine when the imagination is exercised properly and when it is exercised perversely, I must raise a somewhat singular question, a question which you may at first sight regard as extravagant. But, perhaps, with a little patience we may be led by our question to find what we want, viz., a standard which shall decide between the right and the wrong employment of the imagination as it displays itself in poetical creation. Looking at poetry, then, in its abstract and absolute character, looking at what we may call the spirit of poetry as it exists, not incarnated in this or that particular composition, but as a genial power which enlightens the intellect and the heart both of the poet himself and of those who listen to his strains; looking at poetry under this point of view, I ask, putting the question in the form of a bold, brief, and strong antithesis, Does man make poetry, or does poetry make man? Is the human mind the original source to which poetry may be traced as to its fountainhead? or is not rather poetry itself the fountainhead from whence flow the eternal waters which invigorate and purify, and in some measure constitute our souls? Does the human mind fabricate for itself the idea of the beautiful and the idea of the sublime? or do not rather these ideas fashion and fabricate the human mind? Does man derive his poetical inspiration from himself? or does he derive himself as a poet from the everlasting poetry of Him who has sown the sky with stars and the earth with flowers, who is Himself the substance of the true, the beautiful, and the good?
This question may appear mystical and obscure. Let me then explain myself by a reference to a still more general question, a question in regard to the fundamental nature of the human mind itself. All the accounts that can be rendered as to the nature of the human mind may be generalised into the two following theories: they may rather be said to generalise themselves, before the survey of the reflective student, into the two following theories. The first theory holds that the human mind is something, the creation of which is finished when a man is born. The mind, according to this theory, may be said to be thrown off complete, in so far as its existence is concerned, at the birth of the individual. It is, moreover, supposed to be endowed with certain faculties by means of which it subsequently acquires all its knowledge. This knowledge, however, is not viewed as the staple of the mind's existence; it is not regarded as itself the mind, but as an adventitious acquisition which the mind might or might not have possessed. The mind, quâ existent, is supposed to be as much a mind whether it be invested with this knowledge or not, just as a man is as much an existing man whether he be clothed or naked. This theory, in short, distinguishes between the existence of the mind and the knowledge appertaining to the mind. It gives the preference and the priority to the existence. The knowledge it regards as a secondary and posterior formation. The mind is as much an existing mind without this knowledge as it is with it. The mind of a savage, according to this doctrine, is as much an existing mind as the mind of a Newton, a Milton, or a Chalmers. The theory thus shortly described may be termed the psychological theory of the human mind. We may remark farther, that this theory, in estimating the relation between the mind and its knowledge, regards the mind as the steady and the permanent; its knowledge as the temporary and the fluctuating. It teaches that the mind is the moulder of knowledge, and not that knowledge is the moulder of the mind.
Opposed to this doctrine stands what we would call the genuine metaphysical theory of the human mind. According to this theory, knowledge is not the accident and appendage, it is the essence and the existence of the mind. This doctrine is precisely the reverse of the preceding one. There our mental existence, our intellectual constitution, is laid down as the basis of knowledge; here knowledge is laid down as the basis of our mental existence, as the maker, under God, of our mental constitution. I am convinced that such among you as may intend to hereafter prosecute your speculative researches in a profound and zealous spirit, and to study philosophy both in itself and in its history,—I am convinced that you must build your labours upon the distinction now brought before you.
Whichever of the theories you may yourselves adopt it is essential to the prosecution of your philosophical studies that you should be made aware of the existence of the distinction between them. The one of these theories regards knowledge or ideas as the essence of the mind; the other of them regards the mind as something which may exist destitute of all knowledge or ideas. The former we may call the metaphysical, the latter the psychological theory of the mind. This distinction lies at the very root of philosophy, and by keeping it in view we obtain a clue which enables us to understand and appreciate the aim and the works of true speculative thinkers, from Plato downwards. We mistake the views of these philosophers if we suppose that they regarded knowledge as the offspring of the human mind, or ideas as its modifications; on the contrary, they regarded the mind as the offspring of an objective knowledge, a knowledge which existed prior to its existence. They held that ideas moulded and modified the mind, not that it moulded or modified them. For myself, I am disposed to adopt the second of these theories, for if we once accept the psychological theory, we shall never be able completely to eradicate either from our own minds or from those of others the sophistry and the scepticism which for ages have bewildered the world. But the metaphysical theory carries us triumphant over every difficulty.
As an illustration of the difference between the two theories, and of the mode in which sophistry and scepticism are overthrown by the one theory while they are all-powerful against the other, let me appeal to the well-known distinction between right and wrong. You have a mind, says the sophist, a mind to begin with, and this mind of yours makes the distinction between right and wrong. But it does not follow that a distinction which your mind makes is an embodiment of absolute, necessary, and immutable truth. The distinction between right and wrong is doubtless a distinction for you. But it does not follow that right and wrong are absolutely and in themselves distinct. In short, you cannot conclude an objective and divine, and absolutely true distinction from the existence of a mere subjective and human distinction. It is thus that the sceptic has in all ages endeavoured to confound moral distinctions. And the terms of the psychological theory afford us no grounds upon which his argument may be successfully resisted and answered. But what is the answer? The answer is this: I have, properly speaking, no mind to begin with. I have no mind before the distinction between right and wrong is revealed to me. My mind exists subsequently to this revelation. At any rate, I acquire my mind, if not after, yet in the very act which brings before me the distinction. The distinction exists, it exists as an immutable institution of God prior to the existence of our minds. And it is the knowledge of this distinction which forms the prime constituent, not of our mental acquisitions, but of our mental existence. Extinguish in a man's mind the distinction between good and evil, and you not merely extinguish his mind's knowledge, you extinguish a large portion, if not the whole, of his mind's existence. I shall have occasion to dwell more fully on this doctrine hereafter. Meanwhile I would just request any one who is not altogether satisfied with our views to consider, and to consider well, what he means by the mind acquiring a knowledge of the distinction between good and evil; and then to ask himself candidly this question, Whether a knowledge of this distinction be not in his estimation essential to the very existence of the mind which he yet endeavours to suppose in existence previous to the knowledge in question? I hold that a mind which has no knowledge of the distinction between right and wrong, is not a mind at all in any intelligible sense. I hold that it is the knowledge of the distinction which makes the mind, and not the mind which makes the distinction and the knowledge of the distinction. Now this doctrine affords a complete answer to the sceptic's cavils against the immutable truth of moral distinctions. Our mind, says the sceptic, makes the distinction between right and wrong; we have therefore no decisive guarantee for the absolute truth of the distinction; it depends on the existence of our minds. It cannot be shown to have an objective and independent validity. I answer, No; it is, on the contrary, the distinction, God's distinction, between right and wrong which makes our minds, which converts blind instincts into rational aims; the objective validity, the immutable truth of the distinction, is therefore indefeasibly guaranteed. The existence of our minds depends on and follows the existence of the distinction. The existence of the distinction is thus secured as an absolute and invariable, an inflexible truth. It is the prior, the steady, the permanent, and the independent. We are the posterior, the plastic, and the fluctuating. And our fluctuations cease, that is, our minds exist with a veritable existence, just in proportion as we accommodate ourselves to the standard distinction; while, on the contrary, our fluctuations increase, our minds lose their very existence, just in proportion as we endeavour to accommodate to ourselves the standard difference between right and wrong. That is the foundation, I conceive, on which all true ethical theory must be based.
But without attempting to develop these views in a detailed form at present, I would merely remark, that the doctrine of the human mind which I am disposed to adopt is this, expressed briefly and antithetically it is this: It is not man's mind which puts him in possession of knowledge, but it is knowledge which puts him in possession of a mind. Instead of making mind the radical, and knowledge and ideas the derivative, as is usually done, I would make knowledge and ideas the radical, and mind the derivative. In making knowledge and ideas the basis and the constituent of the mind, we are dealing with facts of the existence of which we are assured, we are keeping within the limits of a prudent and circumspect induction. But in making mind the basis and upholder of knowledge, we are dealing with we know not what, a phantom, an abstraction, which not only eludes our research, but which leads us astray into a wilderness thickly set with sceptical snares and sophistical pitfalls.
Taking our stand, then, on the general doctrine that knowledge under the Divine appointment is the maker and upholder of the human mind, and repudiating the converse doctrine, which views knowledge as altogether subordinate to the mind; maintaining that man acquires his mind by means of knowledge, and not his knowledge by means of mind; we now return to the consideration of poetry, and we ask what view are we to take of that access of intellectual power which is termed poetical inspiration? of those ideas of beauty and sublimity which are the pillars of poetical art? It is obvious that, in harmony with the preceding remarks, we must regard this inspiration and these ideas as that which produces the poetical mind, as that which engenders the inspiration and the ideas. The ideas of the beautiful and the sublime, these are the prior elements. The poetical mind is a subsequent and derivative formation. The inspiration proceeds not from the man himself, it comes from a higher and more authoritative source. The man himself owes his existence as a poet unto it; it does not owe its existence unto him. We therefore reply, in answer to our original question, that it is poetry which makes the man, and not the man who makes poetry.
Should the critic here interfere, and tell us that this is an extravagant and untenable doctrine, we reply that at any rate we have Homer, the father of the epic, and Milton, his illustrious compeer, on our side of the question. If Homer regarded himself as the original source of his own poetry, what intelligible sense can be attached to his invocation, Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά (Sing, O goddess, the wrath)? I insist upon taking these words literally, and they certainly indicate that "the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle" regarded himself as the mere mouthpiece which was to give utterance in immortal strains to the inspiration that came from a higher quarter and took possession of his soul. Then what shall we say to the more elaborate invocation with which Milton opens up to us the sublimities of 'Paradise Lost'? If the poet be not a hypocrite and a deceiver (and who has ever dared to bring forward such a charge ?), this invocation is clearly an acknowledgment that it is not to himself that he looks for the inspiration which is to support him in the accomplishment of his great enterprise.
" Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos. Or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, O Spirit that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the firs
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like, sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."
Having thus explained our doctrine, and having seen it corroborated by the testimony of the greatest of poets, I proceed to consider what ground or criterion this doctrine affords us for determining where the poet exercises his imagination properly, and where he exercises it perversely. If the poet's inspiration be a divine derivative, if his ideas of beauty and sublimity be not the indigenous produce of his own mind; but if his mind be, on the contrary, a product resulting from these ideas, does not this impose upon his imagination a stringent obligation to keep aloof all the promptings of his mere subjective carnal nature while exercising his lofty art? If he be the high priest of nature, if God has anointed him with power, what right has he to carry forth into that service the pictures of a sensual soul, or the passions of a fleshly heart? The poet sins against the genius he is endowed with whenever he allows the subjective current of licentious feeling to overflow the boundaries of his objective inspiration. It is not, however, necessary that the feelings should be licentious or immoral to render them amenable to condemnation. That no doubt aggravates the perversion; but it is at all times a most dangerous thing for a poet to draw upon mere subjective feeling for the purpose of giving zest to his descriptions. The feelings to which the poet gives utterance may be altogether unobjectionable in themselves, and yet their introduction may have the effect of ruining his poetry in the estimation of all competent judges. So delicate a thing is poetical composition, that a poet is almost sure to mar the effect of his best creations whenever he attempts to mix up mere subjective feeling with the objective ideas of beauty and sublimity which are imparting their own tenderness and their own grandeur to his compositions. As an instance of this, let me read to you the following passage from Lord Byron, descriptive of the Cataract of Velino:—
" The roar of waters I—from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That guard the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,
" And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
Is an eternal April to the ground,
Making it all one emerald:—how profound
The gulf! and how the giant element
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful rent.
" To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
With many windings, through the vale:—Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an eternity,
As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread,—a matchless cataract,
" Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a deathbed, and unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien."
The two similitudes to which I object in this description are, first, the iris or rainbow, which is represented as sitting amidst the infernal surges like Hope upon a deathbed. Let us consider this resemblance. There is certainly no fault to be found with it on the score of its morality; it is calculated to be solemn and impressive. But it appears to me to be incongruous and out of place. There is no analogy or similitude between the scene here presented to our imagination and the picture of hope upon a deathbed. The agitation of these distracted waters is the agitation of overpowering life, and not the trouble of death either still or convulsed. Hope upon a deathbed is no doubt a radiant crown, whether it encircles the dying brows of him whose last hour has struck, or the foreheads of his weeping friends; but that is a peaceful though a mournful scene, it is a picture bearing no resemblance to this frenzied flood; or if it be not a peaceful scene, if the passions of anguish, like those tumultuous waters, boil up around this bed of death, then the poet's similitude is lost, for, unlike the steady Iris to which he likens her, Hope will in these circumstances, for a time at least, be extinguished in despair.
Nor do I think that the poet is more happy in his efforts where he again speaks of this Iris
" Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien."
I object to this similitude on the same grounds on which I objected to the former one. This Iris does not resemble Love watching Madness with unalterable mien: no two things were ever more unlike. Our feelings, mine at least, revolt against the association. The poet has here attempted to stimulate himself and us to entertain feelings which the situation does not of itself suggest. These similitudes are not rooted in genuine inspiration. Their beauty is a spurious beauty: they are specimens of the false sublime. Here the poet has trusted to the earthly and not to the celestial impulse.
The exercise of Lord Byron's imagination is, to my mind, stained throughout with vices of this nature. His best passages are often sullied with mortal stains, because he refused to acknowledge the obligations due to the genius of which he was the depository. Listen to his voice amid the thunderstorm:—
" The sky is changed! and such a change! O Night
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman."
"As is the light of a dark eye in woman!" Oh that that had been away! We can all admire dark eyes in woman, but we do not want to be called upon to admire them now. Here we are, in the heart of a thunderstorm among the mountains; the Alps are wild with obstreperous enjoyment, sympathy with the exultation of the hills, glee triumphant over terror, and terror bounding buoyant on the waves of glee. These are the ruling spirits of the time. What have woman's eyes to do with a scene like this?
The true poet's motto must ever be, "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." But in assuming this badge he merely dissevers himself from the tastes of the licentious multitude. He links himself all the closer to our essential and universal humanity, and his success, however limited his popularity may be for a time, is ultimately secure.