Word; and imagination is the intuition of that perfection, born in the
human heart, and destined forever to draw mankind into closer harmony with
it.

In common speech, however, imagination is deprived of this broader
significance, and is restricted to its relations with art. Art is not
progress, though progress implies art. It differs from progress chiefly in
disclaiming the practical element. You cannot apply a poem, a picture, or
a strain of music, to material necessities; they are not food, clothing,
or shelter. Only after these physical wants are assuaged, does art
supervene. Its sphere is exclusively mental and moral. But this definition
is not adequate; a further distinction is needed. For such things as
mathematics, moral philosophy, and political economy also belong to the
mental sphere, and yet they are not art. But these, though not actually
existing on the plane of material necessities, yet do exist solely in
order to relieve such necessities. Unlike beauty, they are not their own
excuse for being. Their embodiment is utilitarian, that of art is
aesthetic. Political economy, for example, shows me how to buy two drinks
for the same price I used to pay for one; while art inspires me to
transmute a pewter mug into a Cellini goblet. My physical nature, perhaps,
prefers two drinks to one; but, if my taste be educated, and I be not too
thirsty, I would rather drink once from the Cellini goblet than twice from
the mug. Political economy gravitates towards the material level; art
seeks incarnation only in order to stimulate anew the same spiritual
faculties that generated it. Art is the production, by means of
appearances, of the illusion of a loftier reality; and imagination is the
faculty which holds that loftier reality up for imitation.

The disposition of these preliminaries brings us once more in sight of the
goal of our pilgrimage. The novel, despite its name, is no new thing, but