_To Reasoning._--In like manner it differs from _reasoning_, which also has to do with truths, facts--has for its object to ascertain and state those facts or principles; its sole and simple inquiry being, what is _true_? Imagination concerns itself with no such inquiry, admits of no such limitation. Its thought is not what _did_ actually occur, but what in given circumstances _might_ occur. Its question is not what really _was_, or _is_, or _will be_, but what _may_ be; what may be _conceived_ as possible or probable under such or such contingencies. Reasoning, moreover, reaches only such truths as are involved in its premises, and may fairly be deduced as conclusions from those premises. It furnishes no new material, but merely evolves and unfolds what lies wrapped up in the admitted premises. Imagination lies under no such restriction. There is no necessary connection between the wrath of Achilles, and the consequences that are made to result from it in the unfolding of the epic. _To Taste._--Imagination and _taste_ are by no means identical. The former may exist in a high degree where the latter is essentially defective. In such a case the conceptions of the imagination are, it may be, too bold, passing the limits of probability, or, it may be, offensive to delicacy, wanting in refinement and beauty, or in some way deficient in the qualities that please a cultivated mind. This is not unfrequently the case with the productions of the poet, the painter, the orator. There is no lack of imagination in their works, while, at the same time, they strike us as deficient in taste. Taste is the regulating principle, whose office is to guide and direct the imagination, sustaining to it much the same relation that conscience does to free moral action. It is a lawgiver and a judge. _To Knowledge._--Still more widely does imagination differ from simple knowledge. There may be great learning and no imagination, and the reverse is equally true. We know that which is--the actual; we imagine that which is not--the ideal. Learning enlarges and quickens the mind, extends the field of its vision, augments its resources, expands its sphere of thought and action; in this way its powers are strengthened, its conceptions multiplied and vivified. There is furnished, consequently, both more and better material for the creative faculty to work upon. Further than this, the imagination is little indebted to learning.