We assume, then, his point of view. Growth,--our eyes are given us that we may see this as the end, all else as material and means. Prices and kingdoms may rise or fall; we are not indifferent; but the immortal architectures of man's spirit are priceless, and here the sceptres are indeed held by divine right. What, now,--every one will hasten to question,--what are the chief forces that induce or regulate growth? What is their typical order in appearance and combination? What is the complete result? To these questions _Wilhelm Meister_ is Goethe's answer. The first place in the list of producing forces is given by him to Imagination. He makes Wilhelm describe, with elaborate and lingering detail, a puppet-show which in childhood enchanted him, and whose mechanism he afterwards possessed and managed with enduring fascination. Mariana yawns in listening; the lounging novel-reader will yawn too. But under this tedious triviality, as the reader of stock-novels will deem it, lurks a meaning serious enough to entice all save those who are indeed trivial. It indicates the play-instinct in children as the first fountain of growth. Nature justifies Goethe. How grave and absorbed are children at their play! With what touching implicit faith do they assume this as something that pays for its costs! Crabtree scowls; Moneybags pooh-poohs; but Nature is too strong for them, and the children play on. It is significant. In truth, a child's faculty for play, that is, for imaginative engagement, is the prime measure of his capacity for growth. Follow his play, you who would know him,--follow it with studious, sympathetic eye; for in the range and depth of imaginative interest it displays you read the promise of his being. The child that is not fascinated by his fancies is of a meagre nature, and will come to nothing great. _Why_ is imagination so concerned in growth? That I call a delightful question, and could run with rejoicing to answer it; but here, not without effort, I must pass it by. There is more to be said upon it than we have space for now: some other day. Enough now that imagination _is_ so concerned with growth; enough that Nature, by the being of every child born into the world, makes oath to the fact.