For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a
correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakespeare's faculty, I
should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under
that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were
distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination,
fancy, etc., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error.
Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral
nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart.
Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we
must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But
words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our
apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified
thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that
these divisions are at bottom but _names_; that man's spiritual nature,
the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible;
that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are
but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly
connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one
of them, we might know all of them.
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