laborious exertions fuit the former, the readier exertions, the latter; the fciences demand uncommon depth and force of reason, the arts need rather a certain quickness of discernment.

THE most remarkable difference between genius for science, and genius for the arts, in respect of the affiftance which they receive from judgment, is, that tafte, or the judgment of beauty, is effentially necessary to the latter, but enters not at all into the former. This is an article of fuch importance, that it will require a particular confideration; but some observations may be made for farther illuftrating the diftinction between the two kinds of genius, which are so much connected with what has been now faid, that it will be proper to make them, before we proceed to that,

SECT.

SECT. V.

The two Kinds of Genius farther compared and diftinguished.

T is a diftinction between genius for the

IT

arts, and genius for fcience, implied in what we have faid of the affiftance which they receive from judgment, or at least easily deducible from it, That in the arts, imagination in fome measure sketches the whole work; in fcience, it cannot. The plan of a poem or a picture may be conceived by the fole power of fancy. The affociating principles may fuggeft abundance of materials fuited to the defign. The fame principles will naturally give thefe materials different degrees of attraction, proportioned to their several degrees of relation to one another, by means of which the most nearly related will fall regularly into the fame member, and the whole will acquire, in a good measure, a proper order and arrangement. The exertion of judgment will no doubt contribute much to render the work, more complete; it will cut off redundancies, rectify disorders, and even fupply defects:

but ftill without it, a picture or a poem may acquire some degree of form. In science, on the contrary, imagination alone cannot pro duce even the rudest draught or the most imperfect sketch of an invention: it can only fuggeft the materials from which judgment may collect that invention; it must put them into the hands of judgment, and subject them to its scrutiny constantly as it suggests them; and it is judgment alone that applies them to use.

THIS leads us naturally to an observation which will give us an opportunity of examining and afcertaining fome fentiments and maxims concerning genius, which are fometimes expreffed without fufficient precision: the observation is, That genius for the arts holds more of imagination, than scientific genius. This observation is so obvious, that it has been often afferted, That imagination is neceffary only for productions in the arts, not at all for discoveries in fcience. In confequence of this received opinion, productions in the arts have been called exclufively, works of imagination. The opinion is not juft; but it would not have been adopted fo generally as it has been, if it had not, in appearance, a strong

a ftrong foundation. It was just now observed, that in the arts imagination goes farther towards perfecting its effects, than it can in fcience; this contributes to make its influence most confpicuous in the arts. In one view too, genius for the arts does require greater ftrength of imagination, than penetration requires; it implies a great delicacy and activity of the associating principles, fitting them for being affected by very slender relations: this alfo renders the operation of fancy more obvious and more ftriking. Befides, the affociating principles which are chiefly implied in brightness, are more commonly referred to the imagination, than those which are predominant in penetration. The cause of this seems to be, that the former are perceived without reasoning, are applied generally to the purpose of pleasing, and, even when they give rife to judgments, occafion not any process of argumentation, but only intuitive decisions, which give little exercise to the understanding, and are scarce taken notice of; but the latter cannot be perceived without the exercise of reason, they are principally used for deducing conclufions, and the .conclufions to which they lead, imply a continued,

may

tinued, often a laborious exercise of judgment, which cannot fail to be reflected on. Hence it is natural to regard the former as qualities which affect the imagination, and the latter as relations about which the judgment is employed; and confequently, if men do not think with great precifion, to refer only genius for the arts to imagination. It be added that genius for the arts makes use of a greater variety of associating principles than scientific genius, and employs them in a greater extent, and with less limitation: it avails itself of all the different forms and modifications of each of them, while very few forms of any of them can be rendered fubfervient to the investigation of truth; and it alone is influenced by the affociating power of the paffions. In all these respects, it may be afferted with reason, that genius for the arts holds more of imagination, than scientific genius, and that its effects may be termed peculiarly works of imagination. But it is not true, either that such genius is completed by imagination alone, or that it is the only kind that implies imagination.

SCIENTIFIC genius has been described with a like inaccuracy; it has been confidered