ledge in view of any particular object that constitutes our aesthetic consciousness of that object. Thus Coleridge, however little he might agree with Kant's account of either of these functions, was yet led from this time to regard the faculty in a twofold aspect-as the common property of all minds, and also, in its highest potency, as the gift of a few.

In the distinction of fancy and imagination, it is unlikely that Coleridge was helped much by his study of the critical philosophy. For the ground of that distinction (that the deliverances of fancy are subjective, those of the imagination objective) could not be conceded by Kant.' For him the freedom of the imagination in its highest form of activity is formal only, its creations are arbitrary and contingent: it can tell us nothing of the real nature of things. And this for the reason that, as regards the material of its intuitions, it is passive and dependent; determined from without, not determining from within. Thus, like the intellect, it combines the particulars of sense merely as particulars, and not by the bond of an underlying unity, to which indeed it can never penetrate. But the unifying power, which Coleridge assigns to the faculty, springs from this very penetration, which itself exists only in virtue of the common spiritual nature of the human mind and the universe which it contemplates. And the free creativeness of the imagination embraces the material, as well as the form of its objects; or, conversely, the imagination is creative in virtue of the sensuous, not merely of the intelligent within itself. And thus we are brought again to the root of Coleridge's difference with Kant-his denial of the essential passivity of our sensible and emotional nature.

It is not, however, to be assumed that Coleridge from

1 See p. lvii infra.

2 Thus where Kant regards beauty as a symbol of the moral order, it is a formal symbol only.

the first adopted this critical attitude towards Kant, or definitely formulated his grounds of difference. For a time at least he seems to have lain entirely under the spell of Kant's intellect, and, especially in the sphere of aesthetic, to have adopted Kant's phraseology, his distinctions and definitions, without clearly asking himself how far they were in accordance with his own metaphysical convictions. But his utterances at a later date show where the fundamental diversity lay:1 and meantime, even while immersed in the study of Kant, he was pursuing independently the reflections more intimate to his genius.

Thus it is that he continues to hold fast to his belief in the creative power of the imagination. In January, 1804, shortly before the close of this period of his life, he writes to a friend that the imagination, in the highest sense of the word, is 'a dim analogue of creation, not all that we can believe, but all that we can conceive of creation'.2 What Coleridge meant precisely by these words, it is perhaps useless to conjecture, but written as they were before any close study of Fichte and Schelling, their anticipation of the final definition of the faculty in the Biographia Literaria is at least significant and noteworthy. For his theory of the imagination, as he held it in these earlier years, was assuredly the growth of his own mind.

During the years at Keswick, Coleridge consoled himself in his inactivity by planning the execution of important works. Besides the essay 'Concerning Poetry, and the Pleasures to be derived from it,' we hear in 1803 of an Organum vere organum, or, 'An Instrument of practical

1 Cp. letter to Green, Dec. 1817, 'I reject Kant's Stoic principle,' &c. (Letters, ii. 681): and manuscript note in Green's copy of Kant's Rechtlehre, 'I do not believe that love is a mere "Sache der Empfindung

2 Letters, ii. 450.

999

The primary Imagination is a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the Infinite I AM. Biog. Lit. i. 202.

Reasoning in the business of real life,' a title expanded later into 'Consolations and Comforts from the exercise and right application of the Reason, the Imagination, and the Moral Feeling, especially addressed to those in sickness, adversity, or distress of mind, from speculative gloom, &c.' Whether this work (whose title anticipates the prospectus of The Friend) would have thrown light on his conception of the imagination, must be left to conjecture: for he left England with his schemes unrealized. But the title suggests that his chief interest lay not in the direction of pure aesthetic, and is characteristic of a mind which could not devote itself exclusively to any special department of knowledge, and remain indifferent to its wider, above all to its human, significance. In the same year, 1803, a letter to Godwin alludes to a yet more ambitious work, which subject is nothing less than 'the omne scibile, what we are and how we become what we are--so as to solve the two grand problems how, being acted upon, we shall act'. But the execution of these tasks, problematic, perhaps, in itself, received a definite check in the visit to Malta, which Coleridge undertook in the spring of 1804.

IV. MALTA.

Coleridge remained abroad for something more than two years. It was a dark period in his life. The bodily maladies, to escape which had been a primary motive of his visit to Malta, pursued him even there, and were aggravated by the growing sense of domestic trouble and personal isolation. In Malta he threw himself into public affairs, becoming first the private secretary to Sir Robert Ball and afterwards public secretary in the island. The duties imposed by these offices were heavy, and left him little leisure for more congenial tasks. But his note-books show us that in his spare moments he was busy with the abstrusest psychological problems. His chief studies were

probably still in Kant. With Fichte's writings he had made some acquaintance before he left Malta;' but of Schelling he probably made no serious study until a later date. Among the intellectual gains of these years is to be reckoned a deeper insight into the nature of the fine arts, of which, as he declared, he learned more during the three months at Rome than he would have acquired in England in twenty years. Religious questions, too, must have occupied him deeply. Shortly after his return to England we find that he has fully accepted the Trinitarian position. To give to this creed a philosophical expression, or at least to demonstrate its harmony with a true philosophy, became afterwards his most absorbing task.

2

V. LECTURES AND THE FRIEND'.

On his return to England, Coleridge seems at first to have settled down as assistant to Stuart. But he found journalism less to his taste than ever; and being in pressing need of money, he turned his thoughts to lecturing. Already in 1806 he contemplated delivering a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, on the subject of 'Taste', but they were not actually given till the winter of 1807-8, and the title finally chosen was not 'Taste', but the 'Principles of Poetry'. Of these lectures only the scantiest record has been preserved in the notes taken by Crabb Robinson." This is the more to be regretted, seeing that, according to Coleridge, the opinions they embodied were substantially the same as those of the lectures of 1812, delivered after Coleridge had become acquainted with Schlegel's lectures. In a letter to

4

1 Already in 1804 he speaks of the affinities between Fichte and himself. Anima Poetae, p. 106.

2 Cottle, Remin. 314-25;

3

Diary, &c. 1872, vol. i. p. 140.

Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, delivered 1808, pub. 1809. See note to Biog. Lit. i. 21 f. n.

Mrs. Clarkson, Crabb Robinson speaks of Coleridge as having 'adopted in all respects the German doctrines'. What these doctrines may have been is not stated; but no doubt Coleridge drew largely on Kant's analysis of beauty. Thus Robinson speaks of him as 'working in Kant's admirable definition of the Naiv '.'

In the autumn of 1808 Coleridge took up his abode in Grasmere, where he was soon busy planning the publication of The Friend. Of this work Dorothy Wordsworth wrote, 'I have little doubt that it will be well executed if his health does not fail him; but on that score... I have many fears.' These fears were unhappily only too well-founded. Of the subjects proposed for discussion in the Prospectus, that which has most value for our purpose, 'The principles common to the Fine Arts,' was never dealt with. Moreover the aim of the publication, as the title indicates, was didactic rather than speculative,' and we should look in vain for a definite statement of aesthetic or philosophic doctrine. The influence of Kant is evident throughout; but the distinction of reason and understanding is extended by Coleridge in accordance with his own preconceptions. Reason is the supreme faculty, the organ of the highest and the most certain knowledge. The ultimate ground of this certainty lies, it is true, in our moral being, but its significance is not therefore merely ethical; for the ideas of reason have speculative, as well as practical, validity.*

1 See letter printed in Sara Coleridge's edition of the Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare, Appendix.

2 See Biog. Lit. ch. x., and notes.

Reason and conscience are practically identified in The Friend. Conscience 'commands us to attribute Reality and actual Existence, to those Ideas, and those only, without which the conscience itself would be baseless and contradictory'. And Reason is itself called the Mother of Conscience, of Language, of Tears and of Smiles'. The Friend, Nos. 5 and 9. Cp. The Excursion, iv. 236.

Coleridge condemned the rigid distinction of practical and speculative reason as 'arbitrary, and a hypostasizing of mere