The Philosophy of the Beautiful (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 Excerpt: ...in a word, pure and absolute ideas; and in this case would you rob him of his imagination? We do not affirm that the theory we combat is wrongfully founded, if it relies on mere language; but language, to be worth any thing, must be simply the reflection of thought. Now, if human thought attributes imagination to every kind of association of sentiments, and of ideas, then thought is arrayed against language, and by consequence against the system we attack. Philosophers of the sensational school have written pages about the imagination, which cannot satisfy the mind if it does not put every thought into the forms of common language. According to this school, this is the origin and process of the imagination: in the presence of a physical object I experience a sensation; this sensation is preserved when the object is removed, and is called memory: from time to time a part of the memory grows weak, whilst another part retains its strength; this condition of it is abstraction, which is, therefore, only sensation become partial. Now, with the part of the sensation retained, let there be associated other images and thoughts, that is to say, if the theory be consistent, other fragments of sensation; and we thus obtain imagination. So that imagination is explained by association, association by mem-We might have supposed, that nearly every one would have allowed sensation to be but very remotely connected with imagination; from whose instantaneous, far-darting glance into what is unknown, rather than into what is seen and felt, one would refer the origin of imagination to the supersensuous. ory, and memory by sensation: nothing can be more clear than this system, bnt, in return, nothing can be more false. First of all, it takes no account of the will, which is a pr...