In ordinary matters, inconsistency is the test of
falsehood; in transcendental subjects, it is accounted the badge of
truth.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: _Fortnightly Review_, August, 1868.]
[Footnote 2: Donaldson's "History of Christian Literature and Doctrine,"
Vol. I., p. 277.]
[Footnote 3: Intensity of passion stands confessed in the
self-delineations of men of imaginative genius. We forbear to quote the
familiar instances of Wordsworth, Shelley, or Burns, but may refer to a
remarkable chapter in the life of the famous Scotch preacher, Dr. Thomas
Chalmers. The mere title of the chapter is enough for our purpose. It
related to his early youth, and ran thus, in his own words:--"A year of
mental elysium". It is while living at a white-heat that all the
thoughts and conceptions take a lofty, hyperbolical character; and the
outpouring of these at the time, or afterwards, is the imagination of
the orator or the poet.
The spread of the misconception that we have been combating is perhaps
accounted for by the circumstance that imagination in one man is the
cause of feeling _in others_. Wordsworth, by his imaginative colouring,
has excited a warmer sentiment for nature in many spectators of the lake
country.
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