In considering the imagination as a source of error, we have no need to select the instance of a fancy satanically inflamed to passion, or satanically deluded, or even one of a purely materialistic bias and leaning. For fancy, even in its greatest exaltation and purest form, is at best but a subjective view and mode of cogitative apprehension, and, consequently, as such, is ever a fruitful parent of delusion. How very rarely an imagination is to be found which is not predominantly subjective, is shown precisely in the very highest grade of its development--in the creations of imitative art. Of the exalted geniuses who in single ages and nations have distinguished themselves from the great mass, and attained to that rare eminence--the reputation of the true artist; out of this short list of great names, how few can be selected of whose productions it can be truly said and boasted--Here in this picture we have something more than a mere general view, or the peculiar fantasy of an individual; here life and nature stand before us in their full truth and objective reality, and speak to us in that universal language, which is intelligible to men of all countries and all times! And the same remark applies to the whole domain of scientific thought in general; but especially to physical and historical science.
In like manner, in the sphere of the will, it is not merely immoral volitions, which, as such, must ever be false and wrong, that are exclusively the source of erroneous thought. The spring of those errors which we are at present considering lies in the very form of the will itself, _i.e._, in the absolute willing, even though its object and end be, in themselves, perfectly legitimate and unexceptionable. That this absolute willing--or, to speak more humanly, and in ordinary language, self-will and obstinacy--is a fundamental and hereditary failing of the human character, as at present constituted, which shows itself in the very youngest children, with the first dawn of reason, and requires to be most watchfully checked, is but too well known to every teacher and every mother. But not in infancy only, but also in the most important and comprehensive relations of life--nay, even in the history of the world--this same absolute willing proves the most pernicious of all the sources of error and corruption in the soul and life of man, even when its object is not unmitigatedly bad, or when, perhaps, it may even deserve to be called great and noble. It is through this absolute willing that the sovereign with unlimited authority, even though he be gifted with a strong and comprehensive intellect, and possessed of many estimable qualities and moral virtues, becomes, nevertheless, the oppressor of his people and the merciless tyrant. Through it, also, in states which are not monarchical, but where the supreme authority is divided among several estates, views and principles which, calmly considered and duly limited by opposing principles, are true and beneficial, by being advanced absolutely, and without qualification, are converted into so many violent factions, which, distracting the minds of men and inflaming their passions, produce a wide-spread and fearful anarchy.