The term imagination, then, in its most frequent use, signifies those new combinations of conceptions which will awaken the emotions of taste.
The painter or the poet, when he attempts the exercise of his art, has some leading desire of an object to be secured. Under the influence of this desire, all those conceptions, recurring by the principle of association, which appear fitted to accomplish this object, immediately become vivid and distinct, and are clearly retained in the mind. As other conceptions succeed, other objects are found which will forward the general design, and these also are retained, and thus the process continues till the object aimed at is accomplished, and by the pen or pencil retained in durable characters.
The action of mind to which the term imagination is thus restricted differs in no respect from other acts of conception when the mind is under the influence of desire, except in the nature of the objects of desire. If it is the desire of the mind to establish a proposition by mathematical reasoning, the mind is engaged in the same process of conception as when it is engrossed with the desire to form some combination of taste. In both cases some object of desire stimulates the mind, and whatever conceptions appear fitted to accomplish this object immediately become vivid and distinct.
CHAPTER XIV.
JUDGMENT.
The term judgment, as a mental faculty, signifies "that power of the mind by which it notices relations." It is often used to signify all the intellectual powers, among which it is the most important one. Thus we hear it said that, in certain cases, the feelings and the judgment are in opposition, or that the heart and the judgment are not in agreement.
It is also used often to signify any act of the mind when a comparison is made between two things, or between the truths asserted in any proposition and a truth already believed. The act called memory is a conception attended with one specific act of judgment, by which a present state of mind is compared with a past, and the relation of resemblance perceived.
The nature of our ideas of relation are very different, according to the object or purpose for which the comparison is made. If objects are compared in reference to time, we learn some one of the relations of past, present, or future. No idea of time can be gained except by comparing one period of time with another, and thus noticing their relations. All dates are gained by comparing one point of time with some specified event, such as the birth of the Savior, or some particular period in the revolution of the earth around the sun.
If objects are compared in reference to the succession of our conceptions or perceptions, we gain the ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms firstly, secondly, and thirdly. If objects are compared in reference to the degree of any quality, we gain an idea of such relations as are expressed by the terms brighter, sweeter, harder, louder. If objects are compared in reference to proportion, we gain ideas of such relations as are expressed by the terms an eighth, a half. If objects are compared in reference to the relation of parts to a whole, we gain such ideas as are expressed by the terms part, whole, remainder.
The process of classifying objects and the use of language depend upon the power of judgment; for if we see an object possessing certain qualities, in order to apply the name we must compare and observe their resemblance to the qualities to which such a name has been applied in past experience, and this feeling of resemblance is an act of judgment. The application of a name, then, always implies the exercise of the power of judgment, by which a comparison is made between the present qualities observed in an object and the same qualities which affected the mind when the name has formerly been employed. It also implies the act of association, by which the perception of certain qualities recalls the idea of the sound or object with which they have been repeatedly conjoined.