George McDonald
The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture
First published 1867 in a Dish of Orts
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"To inquire into what God has made is the main function of the imagination. It is aroused by facts, is nourished by facts, seeks for higher and yet higher laws in those facts; but refuses to regard science as the sole interpreter of nature, or the laws of science as the only region of discovery... .... Lord Bacon tells us that a prudent question is the half of knowledge. Whence comes this prudent question? we repeat. And we answer, From the imagination. It is the imagination that suggests in what direction to make the new inquiry--which, should it cast no immediate light on the answer sought, can yet hardly fail to be a step towards final discovery. Every experiment has its origin in hypothesis; without the scaffolding of hypothesis, the house of science could never arise. And the construction of any hypothesis whatever is the work of the imagination. The man who cannot invent will never discover. The imagination often gets a glimpse of the law itself long before it is or can be ascertained to be a law."
George McDonald The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture First published 1867 in a Dish of Orts
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AuthorSemi-Retired Civil Engineer currently a student of Philosophy, Literature and Art in the context of a Great Books Curriculum at Gutenberg College Categories
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