INTRODUCTION

ON THE IMAGINATIVE QUALITY

The power of imagination is essential to supreme statesmanship. Indeed, no really originative genius in any domain of the mind can succeed without it. In literature it reigns paramount. Of art it is the soul. Without it the historian is a mere registrar of sequence, and no interpreter of characters. In science it decides the end towards which the daring of a Verulam, a Newton, a Herschel, a Darwin, can travel. On the battle-field, in both elements, it enabled Marlborough, Nelson, and Napoleon to revolutionise tactics. In the law its influence is perhaps less evident; but even here a masterful insight into the spirit of precedent marks the creative judge. By lasting imagination, far more than by the colder weapon of shifting reason, the world is governed. “Even Mormon,” wrote Disraeli, “counts more votaries than Bentham.” For imagination is a vivid, intellectual, half-spiritual sympathy, which diverts the flood of human passion into fresh channels to fertilise the soil; just as fancy again is the play of intellectual emotion. Whereas reason, the measure of which varies from age to age, can only at best dam or curb the deluge for a time. Reason educates and criticises, but Imagination inspires and creates. The magnetic force which is felt is really the spell of personal influence and the key of public opinion. It solves problems by visualising them, and kindles enthusiasm from its own fascinating fires. And more: Imagination is in the truest sense prophetic. Could one only grasp with a perfect view the myriad provinces of suffering, enterprise, and aspiration with which the Leader is called upon to grapple, not only would the expedients to meet them suggest themselves as by a divine flash, but their inevitable relations and meanings would start into vision. For what the herd call the Present, is only theliteralfact, the shell, of environment. Itsspiritis the Future; and the highest imagination in seeing it foresees. Imagination, once more, is the mainspring of spontaneity. Its vigour enables the will to beget circumstance, instead of being the creature of surroundings; “for Imagination ever precedeth voluntary motion,” says Bacon. It empowers the will of one to sway and mould the wills of many. And it is the very source of that capacity for idealism which alone distinguishes man from the brute. Viewing in 1870 the general purport of his message, Disraeli wrote with truth that it “... ran counter to the views which had long been prevalent in England, and which may be popularly, though not altogether accurately, described as utilitarian;” that it “recognised imagination in the government of nations as a quality not less important than reason;” that it “trusted to a popular sentiment which rested on an heroic tradition, and was sustained by the high spirit of a free aristocracy;” that its “economical principles were not unsound,” but that it “looked upon the health and knowledge of the multitude as not the least precious part of the wealth of nations;” that “in asserting the doctrine of race,” it “was entirely opposed to the equality of man, and similar abstract dogmas, which have destroyed ancient society without creating a satisfactory substitute;” that “resting on popular sympathies and popular privileges,” it “held that no society could be durable unless it was built upon the principles of loyalty and religious reverence.”

How comes it, then, that, in the art of governing a free people, this imaginative fellowship with unseen ideas, this power which men call Genius, “to make the passing shadow serve thy will,” is so constantly suspected and mistrusted; thatuncommon sense, until it triumphs, is a stone of stumbling to the common sense of the average man? That Cromwell was called a self-seeking maniac for his vision of Theocracy; William of Orange, a cold-blooded monster for his quest after union and empire; Bolingbroke, a charlatan for his fight against class-preponderance, and on behalf of united nationality; Chatham, an actor for his dramatic disdain of shams; Canning, by turns a charlatan and buffoon,