that, the whole of which it represents', and sees in the silent and unconscious processes of nature 'the same power as that of reason-the same power in a lower dignity, and therefore a symbol established in the truth of things'. Thus the vital unity which the poet reads in the outward manifestations of nature, her apparently chance combinations of movement, form, and colour, the philosopher finds in her inward processes and organization; and in either case the unifying principle is the same. As the poet identifies his emotional self with nature, so the philosopher contemplates in the world of natural law the outward expression of man's rational life; for 'that which we find in ourselves is (gradu mutato) the sum and substance of all our knowledge'. The explanation, again, of this intimate sympathy and correspondence is for poet and philosopher the same: to both it appears as 'a mystery of which God is the only solution-God the one before all and of all, and through all!'1

It is thus evident in what sense, and what sense alone, Coleridge can consistently regard the imagination as the organ of philosophy. It is not the power of intellectual intuition (if by that we mean direct spiritual vision) but the faculty of the true apprehension of things sensible as the data and material of philosophical reflection: and herein lies the connecting link of poetry and philosophy. In poetry all effective speculation must begin, for experience must alway be interpreted in the light of an undemonstrable premise: and well for the philosopher, Coleridge would say, to whom imagination, and not fancy, supplies that premise; whose system, like the poet's ideal world, is constructed on 'the heaven descended' 'Know thyself', and on the intuition that in that knowledge he will find a key to the meaning of the universe. 'The genuine naturalist is dramatic poet in his own line.'1

1

1 First Lay Sermon. Appendix B.

Enough has been said to show that Coleridge's failure to complete his deduction of the imagination is not merely another instance of his habitual lethargy of purpose. How he would have completed it in accordance with his more mature convictions is a question not admitting of solution, for the attempt was never resumed. We are left with his definition of the primary imagination as 'an echo of the primary act of creation', and of the secondary as a more highly potentialized form of the primary and the meaning of this figurative language we have to unravel as we may. But of the primary act of creation, as Coleridge conceived it, we know that if it is an act of self-distinction, the subject of it is not to be conceived like Schelling's absolute as a dead identity, but as a spirit of life and love. 'Existence is an eternal and infinite self-rejoicing, self-loving, with a joy unfathomable, with a love all comprehensive.' It is, then, an analogous impulse which we are to look for in the activity of the human imagination, whether, in its primary form, it unconsciously draws all experience into relation with the self; or, in its secondary form, reflects that self more perfectly in an ideal world. The justice of this conception, as regards the artistic creation, will readily be conceded. If there is one motive common to all genuine poetic impulse, it is surely the desire to objectify, and in this object to know and love, all that in the individual experience has seemed worthy of detachment from the fleeting personal life. It is at least possible that such was Coleridge's meaning, both in the Biographia Literaria, and when, years before, he had spoken of the imagination 'as a dim analogue of creation'.

It cannot be said that for that other purpose which Coleridge had in view (the establishment of fundamental principles of criticism) the metaphysical disquisition of the first volume does all that was anticipated of it. At least it

Essay XI of The Friend (1818).

is true that Coleridge himself makes no direct application of the conclusions at which he had arrived. For the poetical criticism of the second part is based, not on the deductions of the metaphysician, but on the intuitive insight of the poet: and its author owes nothing to Schelling's system or another's, but everything to the teaching of his own inward experience, long ripened into settled convictions. Thus we find that his preliminary analysis of the poetic faculty in the early chapters of Volume II adds little to our knowledge of his philosophy of art. Much of it is, in all probability, a résume of the matter of earlier lectures. Hence it would be unprofitable for our purpose to consider, in detail, his exposition of the faults and virtues of Wordsworth's theory and practice in poetry. One passage, however, is instructive. In justifying the choice of rustic life in his poems, Wordsworth had spoken of the passions as 'incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of Nature'. To this Coleridge replies, that in the absence of a definite mental and moral condition, innate or acquired, natural forms must remain indifferent, or worse than indifferent, to those that dwell among them; and that 'the ancient mountains with all their terrors, and all their glories, are pictures to the blind, and music to the deaf'." Nor is it without reason that he introduces this criticism: to him, indeed, it seems to illustrate 'the point where all the lines of difference converge as to their common source and centre'. For he regards the influence of nature as among those accidents which 'poetry, as poetry, must avoid and exclude'; and

1 This, however, no doubt in part arises from (as it is an illustration of) the difficulty, if not impossibility, of applying philosophical theories of art to the criticism of any particular work of art a fact to which Schiller draws attention in reference to Schelling's own art-philosophy (Schiller's Correspondence with Goethe, ed. Cotta, No. 834).

2 So in 1803 (Anima Poetae, p. 28) he writes:-'A curious, and more than curious fact, that when the country does not benefit, it depraves.'

his protest is at once against a view of poetry which admits such accidents among its proper subjects, and a view of nature which regards her influence, not as an incidental circumstance, but as something essential to the growth of a complete and representative character. That Coleridge himself believed this view of nature to be Wordsworth's own, is hardly to be credited of him. But he was undoubtedly alive to the danger of a mistaken interpretation on the part of others, of the language in which Wordsworth's attitude to nature found expression; an interpretation which, if it did not identify nature with the object of man's highest spiritual needs, might yet hold her capable of supplying the full, if not the only, means to their satisfaction. But such an interpretation, which would find its psychological correlative in the elevation of imagination to the supreme place among the faculties, Coleridge could not but regard as a complete reversal of the true order of things.1

VII. THE ESSAY 'ON POESY OR ART',

In the year 1818, the necessity of delivering a fresh course of lectures gave a new impulse to Coleridge's waning interest in problems of aesthetic. Of these lectures (the subject, as announced in the prospectus, is 'Shakespeare and Poetic Literature') but a scanty record has been

1

Cp. Aids to Reflection (Bohn's ed., p. 271), where Coleridge distinguishes Wordsworth's language from his sense or purpose in the well-known lines

A sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused, &c. In a letter to Allsop, referring to this passage in the Biog. Lit., Coleridge speaks as if to interpret Wordsworth pantheistically were not to misinterpret. One prefers, however, to believe that Coleridge's real opinion is that expressed in the Aids lo Reflection. Yet from Anima Poetae (p. 35) we see that as early as 1803 Coleridge was not in entire sympathy with Wordsworth on this question.

left. In H. N. Coleridge's reproduction of the course in the Literary Remains1 there occurs under Lecture XIII an essay 'On Poesy or Art' which, whether it actually formed part of the course or not, must have been composed about the same period. This essay contains Coleridge's maturest utterance on the subject, though it bears the fragmentary and tentative character of all his speculation in the region of pure aesthetic. Coleridge's language is here again largely the language of Schelling;' and here, again, as in the Biographia Literaria, the point of divergence from Schelling is not clearly indicated, and must be gathered from other sources. The main object of the essay is to define the relation of the true artist to nature. 'If the artist copies the mere nature, the natura naturata' (we read), 'what idle rivalry! . . . Believe me, you must master the essence, the natura naturans, which presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of man.' And Coleridge thus explains the nature of this bond. The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man by the co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the thought and the plan are one, or are given at once; but there is no reflex act, and hence there is no moral responsibility. In man there is reflexion, freedom, and choice; he is therefore the head of the visible creation. In the objects of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible elements, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to self-consciousness, and therefore to full development of the intelligential act.' Hence there arises an analogy between the processes of nature and intelligence, which it is the business of the poet (in the widest sense) to interpret; for 'so to place these images, totalized, and fitted to the limits 1 Reprinted by T. Ashe (Lectures, &c.), pp. 169-487.

(

2 Coleridge's debt in this Essay to Schelling's Über das Verhältniss der bildenden Künste zur Natur is dealt with in the Appendix to Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare, edited by Sara Coleridge, 1849. See notes to present edition.