Chapter 4: Of the Fancy: Its Offices to the Will and Reason

Now for the Imagination, the dignity thereof consists, either in the office, or in the latitude of it: Its office, is to be assistant both to the Understanding and the Will; its assistance to the Understanding, is principally in matter of Invention, readily to supply it with variety of objects whereon to work, as also to quicken and raise the Mind with a kind of heat and rapture proportionable in the inferior part of the Soul, to that which in the superior, Philosophers call [reconstructed: Ecstasy]; whereby it is possessed with such a strong delight in its [reconstructed: proper] object, as makes the motions thereof towards it, to be restless and impatient: And of this, is that of the Poet;

Est Deus in nobis agitante ealescimus ipso:

By Divine Raptures we aspire, And are inflamed with noble fire.

The office of the Imagination to the Will, is to quicken, allure, and sharpen its desire towards some convenient object: for it often comes to pass, that some plausible Fancy does more prevail with tender Wills, than a severe and sullen Argument, and has more powerful insinuations to persuade, than the peremptoriness of Reason has to command. And the reason thereof is, because liberty being natural to man's Will, that course must needs most of all gain upon it, which does offer least force to its liberty: Which is done rather by an Argument of delight, than of constraint; and best of all, when a rational and convincing Argument is so sweetened and tempered, to the delight of the hearer, that he shall be content to entertain Truth, for the very beauty and attire of it; so that you shall not know, whether it were the weight of the Reason that over-ruled, or the elegance that enticed him. A man can be well pleased, to look with delight on the picture of his enemy, when it is drawn with a skillful and curious hand. And therefore, in that great work of men's conversion to God, he is said to allure them, and to speak comfortably to them, to beseech, and to persuade them; to set forth Christ to the Soul, as altogether lovely, as the fairest [reconstructed: among] ten thousand, as the desire of the Nations, as [reconstructed: the] Riches of the World, that men might be inflamed to love the beauty of Holiness. That which must persuade the Will, must not only have [reconstructed: the] truth, but a worthiness in it: in which respect, the Principles of Knowledge are called [in non-Latin alphabet] worthy or honorable speeches: and the Gospel is not only called [in non-Latin alphabet], a true saying; but [in non-Latin alphabet], a worthy saying; and in that respect fitted for acceptation. It is true of the Will, which Seneca has observed of Princes; [reconstructed: Apud] Reges etiam quae prosunt ita tamen [reconstructed: ut] delectent su[reconstructed: nt] denda sunt: That to them even things profitable must be represented with the face rather of delight than of necessity; even as Physicians, when they minister a very wholesome Potion:

—Prius or as pocula circum Contingunt d[reconstructed: ulci] mellis flavoque liquore:

That they their Patients may both please and cure, With mixed-sweets their palates they allure.

And hence is that observation, that the first reformers and drawers of men into civil society and the practice of Virtue, worked upon the Will by the ministry rather of the Fancy, than of rigid Reason; not driving them thereinto by punctual Arguments, but alluring them by the sweetness of Eloquence; not pressing the necessity of Morality, by naked inferences, but rather secretly instilling it into the Will, that it might at last find itself reformed, and yet hardly perceive how it came to be so. And this was done by those Musical, Poetical, and Mythological persuasions; whereby men in their discourses, did as it were paint Virtues and Vices; giving to spiritual things Bodies and Beauties, such as might best affect the Imagination: Indeed, God himself has been pleased to honor this way of setting out higher Notions, in that we find some room in the holy Scriptures for Mythologies; as that of the Vine, the Fig-tree, and the Bramble, for Riddles, for Parables, Similitudes, and Poetical Numbers and Raptures, whereby heavenly Doctrines are shadowed forth, and do condescend to human frailties. And another reason hereof is, because the desires of men are fixed as well on pleasant as on profitable objects; so that those inducements must needs have most Authority, which have that happy mixture of [reconstructed: the pleasant] and dulce together; not only pressing necessity upon the Understanding, but pointing as it were and deciphering delight to the Fancy. And this reason Scaliger gives in his Inquiry, how false Things, such as Plato his Elysium, Homer's Fictions, Orpheus his Music, should delight wise men: Propterea quod exuperant vulgares limites veritatis, says he; because they are not exacted to the rigor and strictness of Reason, nor grounded on the severity of Truth, but are (as I may so speak) the Creation of the Fancy, having a kind of delightful liberty in them, wherewith they refresh and do as it were open and unbind the Thoughts, which otherwise, by a continual pressure in more exact and more massive reasonings, would easily tire and despair.

Concerning the latitude of this faculty, it has therein a double prerogative above others — one, in the multiplicity of operations; another, in the framing of objects. To the former of these, I reduce the thoughts; which, by reason of their quickness and volatility, and withal, their continual interchanges and successions, are the most numberless operations of the soul of man: where, by thoughts, I understand those springings and glances of the heart, grounded on the sudden representation of sundry different objects; for when the mind begins once to be fixed, and standing, I call that rather meditation than thought. This multiplicity of thoughts is grounded first upon the abundance of their objects; and next, upon the quickness and activity of apprehension; that is the matter, this the form of those thoughts which I now speak of. The abundance of objects is seen in this, that it includes all the varieties of species belonging to other faculties; as that knowledge which the schools call Philosophia prima, does within its own limits draw in, in some sort, all the several objects of particular sciences. There are thoughts belonging to the will, flying and pursuing thoughts, wishings, and loathings; and there are thoughts belonging to the understanding, assenting and dissenting thoughts, belief and disopinion: there are thoughts likewise proceeding from anger, fiery and vengeful thoughts; from envy, knowing and repining thoughts; from joy, sweet and refreshing thoughts; from conscience, comforting and frightful thoughts; and so in all other faculties. And for the quickness of working, the motions of the thoughts show it, in the concurrence of these two things, suddenness of journey, and vastness of way; while like lightning they are able to reach from one end of heaven to another, and in one light and imperceptible excursion, leave almost no part of the universe untravelled. Now, of these two grounds of multiplicity in thoughts, the former, namely, the abundance of objects, is ab extrinseco, and dispersed over things, (though they are not otherwise the objects of thought, than as the mind reflects on the Phantasmata or images of them in this faculty) but the latter, which is the quickness of apprehension, though it may seem to be the most peculiar work of reason, yet the imagination has indeed the greatest interest in it: for, though the act of apprehending be the proper work of the understanding, yet the form and quality of that act (which properly makes it a thought in that strict sense, wherein here I take it) namely, the lightness, volatility, and suddenness thereof, proceeds from the immediate restlessness of the imagination; as is plain, by the continual variety of dreams and other fancies, wherein the faculty is the principal worker. The next thing, is the latitude of imagination, in framing of objects, wherein it has a property of boldness beyond other faculties: for reason, and all other powers, have their fixed and determined limits in nature; and therefore they always frame themselves to the truth of things, yielding assent to nothing but what they find: but the imagination is a faculty boundless, and impatient of any imposed limits, save those which it itself makes. And hence it is, that in matter of persuasion and insinuation, poetry, mythology, and eloquence (the arts of rational fancy) have ever (as was observed) been more forcible than those which have been rigorously grounded on nature and reason; it being (as Scaliger observes) the natural infiniteness of man's soul. Aspernari certorum sinium praescriptionem, to disdain any bounds and confines in her operations.

Now, the liberty of the imagination in this particular, is three-fold; creation, as I may so speak, and new making of objects; composition, or new mixing them; and translation, or new placing them: to some of which three, will be reduced all poetical fictions, fabulous transmutations, high metaphors, and rhetorical allegories; things of excellent use, and ornament in speech.

Now, for the corruptions and diseases of this faculty, I conceive the principal to be these three, error, levity, and dull fixedness: the error of the imagination may be taken both actively, and passively; the error which it produces, and the error which it suffers: that the fancy is fruitful in producing error, is as manifest, as it is difficult to show the manner how it does it. Hence, those strange and yet strong delusions, whereby the mind of melancholy men (in whom this faculty has the most deep and piercing operation) have been peremptorily possessed: hence, those vanishing and shadowy assurances, hopes, fears, joys, visions, which the dreams of men (the immediate issues of this faculty) do produce: hence those ghastly apparitions, dreadful sounds, black thoughts, tremblings, and horrors, which the strong working of imagination does present to, or produce in men; disquieted either with the ugliness of their sins, or heaviness of their natures, making them to fear, where no fear is: which, whether it be done by affecting only the fancy, or by the impression of such forms and shapes upon the spirits, which go to the outward senses, as may thereby affect them with the same images (not by reception from without, but by impression and transfusion from within) it is manifest, not only by various relations, but by continual experience, what strong and strange effects those distempers have produced.

Neither are we to conceive this impossible when we see as admirable effects in another kind wrought by the same faculty, and, as is probable, by the same means; I mean, the impression of likeness of an infant in the womb, to the parents, or some other, who shall work a stronger conceit in the fancy: or if this be not ascribed to the working of this power, but rather to a secret real virtue intrinsical to the seed of the parents (as many do affirm) yet that other effect of stamping on the body the images and colors of some things, which had made any strong and violent immutation on the fancy, must needs be hereunto ascribed, as we see comes often to pass, in the longing of women; and in her, who having the picture of an Ethiopian in her chamber, brought forth a black child; and in the course which Jacob took, putting speckled rods before the cattle, when they were to conceive, that the fancy of them might make their lambs to be ring-straked and speckled.

The errors which are in the Fancy are usually of the same nature with those that are wrought by it: such was the error of that man, which would not be persuaded, but that he had on his head a great pair of horns, and for that reason would not move forth nor uncover his face to any. And the causes of these errors are by Francis Mirandula ascribed first to the variety of tempers in the body, with the predominance of those humors which give complexion thereto: secondly, to the imposture of the senses: thirdly, to the government of the will (though that, as is granted, has least power over this faculty) and lastly, to the ministry of evil angels, who can easily cast into the Fancy strange and false species, with such subtlety, as shall easily gain them plausible credit and admittance. And of this, we find an express example (as I conceive) in that evil spirit who promised to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's prophets. For the visions of such men being for the most part imaginary, the impression of that lying and deceitful persuasion was, in all probability, made upon the imagination. For, notwithstanding I confess, that prophets had events by diverse means revealed to them, as by true voices, by real access of angels, and by immediate illapse of truth into the understanding; yet because those two ways, by visions and by dreams, were (for ought that can be observed) the most usual means of revelation; it is not unlikely, that the Devil (who in such things strives, for the better advancement of his own ends, to imitate God's manner of working) did by this manner of imposture on the imagination, seek to possess the false prophets, and to delude the king.

And here, by the way from the three former, we may take occasion to observe the misery of man's corrupted nature; wherein those faculties which were originally ordained for mutual assistance, do now exercise a mutual imposture: and as man did join with a fellow-creature to dishonor, and if it had been possible, to deceive his Maker; so in the faculties of man, we may discover a joint conspiracy in the working of their own overthrow and reproach, and a secret joy, in one to be deluded by another.

The next corruption which I observed, is the levity and too much volubility of this power, proceeding from the over-hasty obtrusion of the species. For, notwithstanding I grant the quickness of its operations to be one principal part of the excellence thereof; yet I thereby understand the power, not the infirmity; the nature, not the disease of that faculty; the ability of having speedy recourse to variety of objects, treasured up in the memory; or of apprehending new, with dexterity; not that floating and inconstant humor, whereby it makes many needless excursions upon impertinent things, and thereby interrupts the course of the more needful and present operations of the soul. For, since it may fall out, that to the same faculty, from diversity of occasions, contrary operations may prove arguments of worth; a restraint to one manner of working, is an argument of weakness and defect, in that it straitens and defrauds the power of those advantages which it might receive, by a timely application of the other: there may be a time, when the Fancy may have liberty to expatiate; but again, some objects will require a more fixed and permanent act. And therefore, to have a vanishing and lightning Fancy, that knows not how to stay and fasten upon any particular, but as a hanging of diverse colors, shall in one view present to the understanding a heap of species, and so distract its intention; argues not sufficiency, but weakness and distemper in this faculty.

The last corruption observed, is in the other extreme; I mean, that heaviness and sluggish fixedness, whereby it is disabled from being serviceable to the understanding, in those actions which require dispatch, variety, and suddenness of execution: from which peremptory adhesion and too violent intension of the Fancy on some particular objects, does many times arise not only a dullness of mind, a syncope, and kind of benumbedness of the soul, but oftentimes madness, distraction, and torment: many examples of which kind of depravation of the Phantasy in melancholy men, we every where meet withal; some, thinking themselves turned into wolves, horses, or other beasts; others, pleasing themselves with conceits of great wealth and principalities; some, framing to themselves fears, and other hopes; being all but the delusions and waking dreams of a distempered Fancy.

His ego saepe Lupum fieri & se condere Sylvis Moerim, saepe animas imis exire [reconstructed: sepulcris], Atque salas alio vidi traducere messes: [reconstructed: Often] have I seen this Moeris work himself into a wolf, and into woods lurk; [reconstructed: Often] have I seen him raise up ghosts from hell, and growing corn translate by magic spell.

And upon this over-strong working and stay of the Fancy on some one or other object, it has oftentimes come to pass, that some men, out of depth of contemplation on some difficulties of learning (as is reported of Aristotle, in his meditation on the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea) others, out of some strong and predominant passion, as love, fear, despair, drawing all the intention of the mind to them, have attempted such strange practices on themselves, and others, as could not proceed but from a smothered and entangled reason. And thus much briefly shall suffice, touching the honor of man's common and inferior faculties.