Elizabethan period. The Restoration era on the other hand
was one of cold, intellectual activity. With the exception
of Banyan, there is not a single figure who voices the imag
inative and emotional side of life.
As we pass on a few centuries in English literature we
are again shown the powerful contrast between two oppos
ing forces, classicism and romanticism, and in their inevitable
conflict we note the decided advantage in favor of the latter.
The romantic spirit from its very nature yearns for the un
seen, the uncommon, something that will give man a greater
breadth of view. The result of this conflict was that the
classicists were overthrown on account of their mere for
mal polish and lack of appreciation of nature, and we
have that sparkling age of Burns, Wordsworth, and Shelley.
The relation of imagination to science is more and more
coming to be seen, especially in our present age when every
thing is tending to be considered from an evolutionary point
of view. I cannot emphasize the value of imagination
any better than to use the words of Tyndall, when he says,
“we are gifted with the power of imagination and by this
power we can lighten the darkness which surrounds the
world of the senses. * * Bound and conditioned by co-oper
ant reason, imagination becomes the mightiest instrument of
the physical discoverer. Newton’s passage from the falling
apple to a falling moon was at the outset, a leap of the im
agination. ” And thus its relation might be considered to
art, ethics, and religion in the same way, but whatever may
be the defects of a fertile imagination, we must accord to it
a prominent place in the development of the world.