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"This difference must certainly proceed from the transforming power of Imagination, whose rays illuminate the objects we contemplate; and which, without the lustre shed on them by this faculty, would appear unornamented and undistinguished."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Author

An Essay on Original Genius

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly

Date

1767

Metaphor

"This difference must certainly proceed from the transforming power of Imagination, whose rays illuminate the objects we contemplate; and which, without the lustre shed on them by this faculty, would appear unornamented and undistinguished."

Metaphor in Context

We are now to shew the influence of these qualities on each other, and how they contribute by their mutual influence to the improvement and consummation of Genius. Before we proceed to this disquisition, it will be proper to recur to the definition of Taste, given in a preceding section, which, for the sake of precision, we shall here repeat." Taste is that internal sense, which, by its own exquisitely nice perception, without the assistance of the reasoning faculty, distinguishes and determines the various qualities of the objects submitted to its cognisance, pronouncing them, by its own arbitrary verdict, to be grand or mean, beautiful or ugly, decent or ridiculous." The simple principles of Taste are found in every man, but the degrees in which they exist, are as various as can well be imagined: in some persons they are weak and rude; in others, they are vigorous and refined. The external organs of sense, which are the original and fundamental principles of Taste, are indeed nearly the same in every one who possesses in the most ordinary degree the essential and constituent parts of the human frame; but the ideas which are excited in the minds of some persons by the influence of outward objects on the senses, or by the power of reflection, are very different from those excited in the minds of others. Thus two persons, the one endued with a just and elegant taste, the other almost destitute of this quality, contemplating a magnificent and well-proportioned building, that of St Peter's, for instance, at Rome, will be affected in the most different manner and degree imaginable. The latter, looking around him with ignorant and insipid curiosity, casts his eye on the altar and decorations of the church, which captivate his attention, and please his rude fancy, merely by their novelty and splendor; while he stares at the magnificence of the edifice with a foolish face of wonder. The former, surveying all the fabric together, is struck with admiration of the exact symmetry, and majestic grandeur of the whole. Or if we should suppose both to be presented, at the same time, with the prospect of a rich, beautiful, and diversified landscape, consisting of woods and vallies, of rocks and mountains, of cascades and rivers, of groves and gardens, blended together in sweet rural confusion; this inchanting scene would be contemplated by the one with indifference, or at least with very little emotion of pleasure, his thoughts being chiefly employed in computing the produce of so fertile a spot; while the view of such a group of delightful objects would throw the other into rapture. It is natural to ask, whence arises this amazing difference in their sensations? The outward organ, by which these sensations are conveyed, is supposed to be equally perfect in both; but the internal feeling is extremely different. This difference must certainly proceed from the transforming power of Imagination, whose rays illuminate the objects we contemplate; and which, without the lustre shed on them by this faculty, would appear unornamented and undistinguished.
(pp. 64-7)