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"Imagination is still more inventive in all its other operations. It can lead us from a perception that is present, to the view of many more, and carry us through extensive, distant, and untrodden fields of thought. It can dart in an instant, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth; it can run with the greatest ease and celerity, through the whole compass of nature, and even beyond its utmost limits."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Author

An Essay on Genius

Place of Publication

London and Edinburgh

Publisher

Printed for W. Strahan, T.Cadell, and W. Creech

Date

1774

Metaphor

"Imagination is still more inventive in all its other operations. It can lead us from a perception that is present, to the view of many more, and carry us through extensive, distant, and untrodden fields of thought. It can dart in an instant, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth; it can run with the greatest ease and celerity, through the whole compass of nature, and even beyond its utmost limits."

Metaphor in Context

Imagination is still more inventive in all its other operations. It can lead us from a perception that is present, to the view of many more, and carry us through extensive, distant, and untrodden fields of thought. It can dart in an instant, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth; it can run with the greatest ease and celerity, through the whole compass of nature, and even beyond its utmost limits. It can transpose, vary, and compound our perceptions into an endless variety of forms, so as to produce numberless combinations that are wholly new. Even in sleep, when the senses are locked up, and when the exercise of memory is totally suspended, imagination eminently displays its inventive force; which is then so great, that "the slow of speech make unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are but little acquainted with; the grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of the mind, than invention; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible when the faculty is employed, and we read without stop or hesitation, letters, books, or papers, which are merely the instantaneous suggestions of our own imaginations."
(I.ii, pp. 30-1)