The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1916. IMAGINATION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2902, 14 October 1916, Page 8

The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1916. IMAGINATION

Anyone • who has . sufficient imagination to form a true idea of the achievements of the explorative powers of the mind will not find it difficult to grasp what the Bishop of Wellington means when he tells lis that one of the greatest defects of modern education is lack of imagination. A vast amount of the world's knowledge is going to waste simply because our imagination is not keen enough to enable us to appreciate its value and bring it into touch witli our daily lives. We aro' embarrassed by the intellectual riches which surround • us. Knowledge is useless unless it is given a chance'to bear fruit and to broaden and deepen our understanding of things. Owing to our inability- to realise their possibilities, many great truths lio dormant in our minds and fail to develop.-their motive powers,' I The will or tne'; capacity'.'to. live up I'to what.we.krio.w is.lacking.. is,our mental."vision that we fail to, appropriate many of tlio blessings which science is holding out to us with both hands. Bishop Sprott says that if people-would only set their imagination to work upon some truth or fact which they know, thev would begin to realise it,'and then to act upon it. If the imagination of the British public and politicians had been keen enough to realise' the full meaning of the huge war machine which Germany has been building up for the past fifty years, and resolute enough to translate , their ideas into effective action, the present war might never have happened. And Germany might never have set Europe ablaze if her imagination had enabled her to form a true idea of the resources, the unity, the fighting qualities, and the staying powers of the British Empire. The majority of those who aro opposed to compulsory military service do not really prefer defeat to compulsion. They are suffering from narrowness of vision. Their imagination is too feeble to form a vivid mental picture of what would happen if Germany should win. They cannot se.e that if our enemies should triumph the British -Empire . would have to pull down its blinds, put up its shutters, and hear the pronouncement, of its Ichabod—"the.glory'has. departed." Napoleon was a very .practical person, and yet : ke'has put on record the opinion that imagination rules the .world.' .'Wordsworth says the same thing in different words. The soldier is' thinking mainly of the fighting value of imagination; the' poet of its ethical value as a means, of'enlarging, and enriching our ideals of .life and conduct. Like other good gifts, it may. be put to evil uses,-yet we feel that Dugald Stewart is right when he declares that the faculty of imagination-is the great spring of human activity and the principal source of human improvement. It keeps alive that divine discontent which is one of the most potent inspirations to progress. It spurs us on to the attainment of some ideal excellence. The imagination of i the possibility of better things prevents us from being satisfied with our present condition. Of course this spirit of mental adventure is not without its. dangers. Imagination has been compared to the mettled horse that may break the riders neck: It would bo safer for some people to ride on a. donkey than oh a thoroughbred. But imagination has always been worth all the risk, for without it man might never have risen above the level of the brutes, Shakespeare decribes imagination . as the power that "bodies forth the forms of things unknown." It has-also been, defined more, prosaically as the act of constructive intellect in grouping the materials of knowledge or thought into new and rational systems. It is the constructive or crea-. tive faculty, which finds scope- for its activity in ethics, philosophy, sciencc, art, and poetry, and indeed in every other sphere of human lifo and thought. Great, has been the fruitfulness of the scientific imagination. "There is in the human intellect,''- writes Tyndall, "a power of expansion, I might almost call it a power of creation, which is brought into play by simple brooding over lacts, -the--" spirit- .brooding over chaos.'" Tho" passage "from Newton's falling'"apple to a falling moon was, as Tyndall- remarks, a, stupen-

Sous leap of the imagination. The biographer of Lord Kelvin states that the imagination of that great scientist was so vivid that by the concentration of his -mind on facts the relations existing.- between the various phenomena seemed, to dawn upon him, and he saw them as if by some process of instinctive vision denied to others. "It is the gift' of the seer." ' Darwin tells us that he Jiappened to be reading Malthm oii Population, when tho thought struck him that in certain circumstances favourable variations in plants and animals would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed, Tho result would be the formation of new species. This gave him an illuminating idea tq work upon. The result-was his theory of evolution—one of the grandest discoveries of the scientific imagination. Never in the history of mankind has there been ..greater, need or greater opportunity for. the use of the imagination than at the present moment.' To the generation in which we live has been given the task of making a new world. The "world to come" must first be planned and created in our imagination before it can he-realised—before it can become an actual fact. .In the course of a striking speech recently delivered in Wales, Mr. Lloyd George warned his hearers, that w'lien tho war is over the nation may become -so engrossed in material things that nothing will count but machinery and output. The importance of these things can hardly be over-estimated; but what shall it profit> nation if It gain the world and lose its soul ? There is, said tho War Minister, nothing more fatal to a'people than that it should narrow its vision to the material needs of the hour. "National ideals without imagination are but as the thistles of the wilderness, fit neither for food nor fuel. A nation that depends upon them must perish." Mr. Xloyd George went on to say that when peace is restored wo shall need better workshops, but wo shall need more than ever before everything that will exalt the vision of tho people above and beyond the workshop and the counting house. This is well spoken. It is a timely reminder of.the creative work.in front of us..- Time will show whether the-British race has-imagin-ation-enough to conceive a new and better order of things;, requisite strength of purpose to "body it forth" and give it "a- local habitation and a name." Such an unexampled crisis as this should shake the_ nation out of-its hampering traditional grooves and inspire it to make big-adventures- of- .faith—to think greatly and act.greatly. Surely there is vision enough in our race to lift this conflict above the level of those "barren wars" by which nations "have laid waste their youth." The writer of Aunt Sarah- • and the ITar puts into the mouth of Captain Owen Tudor the declaration that if this war shall prove to be a barren one "the blood of these dead boys will cry to heaven for vengeance on tho politicians." But it would.not be fair to throw all the responsibility on the politicians. If the foundations of the new world are to be well and truly laid, every scction of the people, must assist in tho work. The vastness of the possibilities should act as a challenge to the intellectual, moral, ' and. imaginative forces of the nation. If as much' strength of body, brain, and spirit is put into the task of reconstruction as is being put into the unparalleled destruction . which is now. going on, the result will.surpass the biggest hopes of the most optimistic imagination in its highest flights.