his character, of all the joy in imagination which he can receive
from the conception of his lady's--now no more mortal--beauty. She is
indeed transfigured before him; but the truth of the transfiguration
is greater than that of the lightless aspect she bears to others. When
therefore, in my next lecture, I speak of the Pleasures of Truth,
as distinct from those of the Imagination,--if either the limits
or clearness of brief title had permitted me, I should have said,
_untransfigured_ truth;--meaning on the one side, truth which we have
not heart enough to transfigure, and on the other, truth of the lower
kind which is incapable of transfiguration. One may look at a girl
till one believes she is an angel; because, in the best of her, she
_is_ one; but one can't look at a cockchafer till one believes it is a
girl.

With this warning of the connection which exists between the honest
intellect and the healthy imagination; and using henceforward the
shorter word 'Fancy' for all inventive vision, I proceed to consider
with you the meaning and consequences of the frank and eager exertion
of the fancy on Religious subjects, between the twelfth and sixteenth
centuries.

Its first, and admittedly most questionable action, the promotion
of the group of martyr saints of the third century to thrones of
uncontested dominion in heaven, had better be distinctly understood,
before we debate of it, either with the Iconoclast or the Rationalist.
This apotheosis by the Imagination is the subject of my present
lecture. To-day I only describe it,--in my next lecture I will discuss
it.

Observe, however, that in giving such a history of the mental