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"Association could not recal the idea of the design, in order to bring back fancy when it has wandered from it, if judgment did not inform us that it had wandered, by perceiving the tendency of the ideas which it has suggested. The finest imagination, totally destitute of assistance from judgment, would in some measure resemble a blind man, who may be very dexterous in groping the right road, but cannot know certainly, whether he continues in it, and has no means of recovering it, if he once stray."

— 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

"Association could not recal the idea of the design, in order to bring back fancy when it has wandered from it, if judgment did not inform us that it had wandered, by perceiving the tendency of the ideas which it has suggested. The finest imagination, totally destitute of assistance from judgment, would in some measure resemble a blind man, who may be very dexterous in groping the right road, but cannot know certainly, whether he continues in it, and has no means of recovering it, if he once stray."

Metaphor in Context

Regularity of imagination, which is of the greatest importance in genius, could never be acquired without the aid of judgment. It is only judgment constantly exerting itself along with fancy, and often checking it and examining its ideas, that produces by degrees a habit of correctness in thinking, and enures the mind to move straight forward to the end proposed, without declining into the byepaths which run off on both sides. Imagination is a faculty so wild in its own nature, that it must be accustomed to the discipline of reason before it can become same and manageable enough for a correct production. Not will it be capable of this even after it has acquired the greatest possible regularity, except judgment attend it and perpetually curb its motions. The most regular imagination will sometimes make an unnatural excursion, and present improper ideas; judgment must therefore be ready to review its work, and to reject such ideas. Many of Bacon's conjectures concerning subjects which he had not opportunity to examine perfectly, are false though they be ingenious, and would have been disavowed by judgment, when it had canvassed them. Newton's imagination was more correct than his, and more constantly under the control of judgment; yet reason would have perhaps, on examination, rejected some of the suppositions which he makes in his queries. The first sketch of every work of genius, is always very different from the finished piece. Not only are many things added by the posterior essays of imagination, affected by new associations in repeated views of the subject, and thus penetrating deeper into its nature; but also many things are retrenched or altered by judgment on a revisal, which it had not force enough to prevent fancy from exhibiting in the course of the invention. Association could not recal the idea of the design, in order to bring back fancy when it has wandered from it, if judgment did not inform us that it had wandered, by perceiving the tendency of the ideas which it has suggested. The finest imagination, totally destitute of assistance from judgment, would in some measure resemble a blind man, who may be very dexterous in groping the right road, but cannot know certainly, whether he continues in it, and has no means of recovering it, if he once stray.
(I.iv, pp. 81-2)