To investigate the nature of the novel in the abstract would involve going back to the very origin of things. It would imply the recognition of a certain faculty of the mind, known as imagination; and of a certain fact in history, called art. Art and imagination are correlatives,--one implies the other. Together, they may be said to constitute the characteristic badge and vindication of human nature; imagination is the badge, and art is the vindication. Reason, which gets so much vulgar glorification, is, after all, a secondary quality. It is posterior to imagination,--it is one of the means by which imagination seeks to realize its ends. Some animals reason, or seem to do so: but the most cultivated ape or donkey has not yet composed a sonnet, or a symphony, or "an arrangement in green and yellow." Man still retains a few prerogatives, although, like Aesop's stag, which despised the legs that bore it away from the hounds, and extolled the antlers that entangled it in the thicket,--so man often magnifies those elements of his nature that least deserve it. But, before celebrating art and imagination, we should have a clear idea what those handsome terms mean. In the broadest sense, imagination is the cause of the effect we call progress. It marks all forms of human effort towards a better state of things. It embraces a perception of existing shortcomings, and an aspiration towards a loftier ideal. It is, in fact, a truly divine force in man, reminding him of his heavenly origin, and stimulating him to rise again to the level whence he fell. For it has glimpses of the divine Image within or behind the material veil; and its constant impulse is to tear aside the veil and grasp the image. The world, let us say, is a gross and finite translation of an infinite and perfect Word; and imagination is the intuition of that perfection, born in the human heart, and destined forever to draw mankind into closer harmony with it.