_Art essentially creative._--So when the poet, the painter, the skillful architect, the mighty orator, call forth from the slumbering elements new forms of beauty and power, are not they, too, in their humble way, creators? True, they have in so doing combined conceptions previously existing in the mind. The writer combines in new forms the existing letters of the alphabet, the painter combines existing colors, the architect puts together previously-existing stones. But is this all he does? Is it the chief thing? Is this the soul and spirit of his divine art? No; there is a new power, a new element, not thus expressed--the power of conceiving, and calling into existence, in the realm of thought, that which has no actual existence in the world of sober reality. He who has this power is a _maker_--[Greek: poiêtês]. It is a power conferred, in some degree, on all, in its highest degree, on few. The poet, painter, orator, the gifted creative man, whoever he is, belongs to this class.
§ VI.--IMAGINATION LIMITED TO SENSIBLE OBJECTS.
_Law of the Imagination._--It is a law of the imagination, that whatever it represents, it realizes, clothes in sensible forms, conceives as visible, audible, tangible, or in some way within the sphere and cognizance of sense. Whatever it has to do with, whatever object it seizes and presents, it brings within this sphere, invests with sensible drapery. Now, strictly speaking, there are no objects, save those of sense, which admit of this process, which can be, even in conception, thus invested with sensible forms, pictured to the eye, or represented to the other senses as objects of their cognizance. If I conceive of objects strictly immaterial as thus presented, I make them, by the very conception, to depart from their proper nature and to become sensible. Imagination has nothing to do, then, strictly speaking, with abstract truths and conceptions, with spiritual and immaterial existences, with ideas and feelings as such, for none of these can be represented under sensible forms, or brought within the sphere and cognizance of the senses. Sensible objects are the groundwork, therefore, of its operation--the materials of its art.
_But not to visible Objects._--It is not limited, however, to _visible_ objects merely--is not a mere picture-forming, image-making power. It more frequently, indeed, fashions its creations after the conceptions which sight affords than those of the other senses; but it deals also with conceptions of sound, as in music, and the play of storm and tempest, and with other objects of sense, as the taste, the touch, pressure, etc. Thus the _gelidi fontes_ of Virgil is an appeal to the sense of delicious coolness not less than to that of sparkling beauty. A careful analysis of every act of the imagination will show, I think, a _sensible basis_ as the groundwork of the fabric--something seen, or heard, or felt--something said or done--some sensible reality--something which, however ideal and transcendental in itself and in reality, yet admits of expression in and through the senses; otherwise it were a mere conception or _abstraction_--a mere idea--not an imagination.