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 Shakspeare'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, &c., 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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