expounded, I must defer till I come to treat of the application of
principles. But before closing this chapter it may be needful to
examine some arguments which have a contrary tendency, and imply, or
seem to imply, that distinctness of Vision is very far from necessary.

At the outset we must come to an understanding as to this word "image,"
and endeavour to free the word "vision" from all equivoque. If these
words were understood literally there would be an obvious absurdity in
speaking of an image of a sound, or of seeing an emotion. Yet if by
means of symbols the effect of a sound is produced in us, or the
psychological state of any human being is rendered intelligible to us,
we are said to have images of these things, which the poet has
imagined. It is because the eye is the most valued and intellectual of
our senses that the majority of metaphors are borrowed from its
sensations. Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art
also can only affect us through symbols. If a phrase can summon a
terror resembling that summoned by the danger which it indicates, a man
is said to see the danger. Sometimes a phrase will awaken more vivid
images of danger than would be called up by the actual presence of the
dangerous object; because the mind will more readily apprehend the
symbols of the phrase than interpret the indications of unassisted
sense.

Burke in his "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," lays down the
proposition that distinctness of imagery is often injurious to the
effect of art. "It is one thing," he says, "to make an idea clear,
another to make it AFFECTING to the imagination. If I make a drawing of
a palace or a temple or a landscape, I present a very clear idea of
those objects; but then (allowing for the effect of imitation, which is
something) my picture can at most affect only as the palace, temple, or