Originally all these faculties, will and understanding, reason and imagination, were harmoniously blended and united in the human consciousness; but since, at the fall of man, a dark spirit interposed its shadow betwixt him and the Sun of Righteousness, disorder and confusion have entered into his mind and soul, and troubled their several faculties. Thus the understanding often points out a course which the will refuses to follow; and the will, on the other hand, is often disposed to pursue the good and right path, were the blind or narrow understanding competent to direct it. Not only are will and understanding in frequent collision with one another, but each is at variance with itself. What the will resolves to-day it shrinks from to-morrow! How often does the understanding view the same subject in a different light at different times! How much do time, circumstance, and humour, place the same truth in a clearer or obscurer aspect! The same opposition is observable betwixt reason and imagination. Where fancy is the strongest in the house, how often doth she spurn the warnings of her more homely and unpretending sister--reason. Again, where reason has the ascendancy, what groundless aversion, and paltry jealousy does she not frequently evince at the superior nature of her brilliant sister! Or, to drop this figurative language, how often do we behold a man of lofty imagination very deficient in practical sense; and again, in your man of strong sense, how frequently dull and pedestrian is the fancy! In real life what a deplorable schism exists between poets and artists on the one hand, and men of business on the other! What mutual contempt and aversion do they not frequently exhibit! Well, this schism is nothing else than the external realization of the inward conflict between reason and imagination. With respect to the four secondary faculties--memory--conscience--the natural impulses--and the outward senses--faculties, which, as the author says, cannot from their importance be termed subordinate, but should rather be called subsidiary or assigned;--Schlegel shews that, as regards the first, the decay of the memory precedes the decline of the reason, and its sudden and entire loss brings about the extinction of the latter faculty. In the same way the deadness of the conscience argues the utmost depravity of the will. The conscience is the memory of the will, as the memory is the conscience of the understanding.