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"Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and youth, appears in those early periods in all its puerile brilliance and simplicity, long before the reasoning faculty discovers itself in any considerable degree."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Author

An Essay on Original Genius

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly

Date

1767

Metaphor

"Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and youth, appears in those early periods in all its puerile brilliance and simplicity, long before the reasoning faculty discovers itself in any considerable degree."

Metaphor in Context

With regard to the first of these points: though Genius discovers itself in a vast variety of forms, we have already observed, that those forms are distinguished and characterised by one quality common to them all, possessed indeed in very different degrees, and exerted in very different capacities; this quality, it will be understood, is Imagination. The mental powers unfold themselves in exact proportion to our necessities and occasions for exercising them. Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and youth, appears in those early periods in all its puerile brilliance and simplicity, long before the reasoning faculty discovers itself in any considerable degree. Imagination however, in general, exercises itself for some time indiscriminately on the various objects presented to it by the senses, without taking any particular or determinate direction; and sometimes the peculiar bent and conformation of Genius is discernible only in the advanced period of youth. The mind, as soon as it becomes capable of attending to the representation it receives of outward objects by the ministry of the senses, views such a representation with the curiosity of a stranger, who is presented with the prospect of an agreeable and uncommon scene. The novelty of the objects at first only affects it with pleasure and surprise. It afterwards surveys, revolves, and reviews them successively one after another; and, at last, after having been long conversant with them selects one distinguished and favourite object from the rest, which it pursues with its whole bent and vigour. There are some persons, it is true, in whom a certain bias or talent for one particular art or science, rather than another, appears in very early life; and in so great a degree as would incline us to imagine, that such a disposition and talent must have been congenial and innate. While persons are yet children, we discover in their infantile pursuits the opening buds of Genius; we discern the rudiments of the Philosopher, the poet, the Painter, and the Architect.
(pp. 28-30)