as soon as sulphuric acid
is added, decomposition of the water takes place rapidly, though the
acid merely unites with oxide of zinc. The former explanation was, that
the affinity of the acid for oxide of zinc disposed the metal to unite
with oxygen, and thus enabled it to decompose water; that is, the oxide
of zinc was supposed to produce an effect previous to its existence. The
obscurity of this explanation arises from regarding changes as
consecutive, which are in reality simultaneous. There is no succession
in the process, the oxide of zinc is not formed previously to its
combination with the acid, but at the same instant. There is, as it
were, but one chemical change, which consists in the combination at one
and the same moment of zinc with oxygen, and of oxide of zinc with the
acid; and this change occurs because these two affinities, acting
together, overcome the attraction of oxygen and hydrogen for one
another."[52]

Now, if the imaginative artist will permit us, with all deference, to
represent his combining intelligence under the figure of sulphuric acid;
and if we suppose the fragment of zinc to be embarrassed among
infinitely numerous fragments of diverse metals, and the oxygen
dispersed and mingled among gases countless and indistinguishable, we
shall have an excellent type in material things of the action of the
imagination on the immaterial. Both actions are, I think, inexplicable,
for however simultaneous the chemical changes may be, yet the causing
power is the affinity of the acid for what has no existence. It is
neither to be explained how that affinity operates on atoms uncombined,
nor how the artist's desire for an unconceived whole prompts him to the
selection of necessary divisions.

Sec. 9. The grasp and dignity of imagination.

Now, this operation would be wonderful enough, if it were concerned with
two ideas only. But a powerfully imaginative mind seizes and combines
at the same instant, not only two, but all the important ideas of its
poem or picture, and while it works with any one of them, it is at the
same instant working with and modifying all in their relations to it,
never losing sight of their bearings on each other; as the motion of a
snake's body goes through all parts at once, and its volition acts at
the same instant in coils that go contrary ways.

This faculty is indeed something that looks as if man were made after
the image of God. It is inconceivable, admirable, altogeth