The following is from George MacDonald's essay "The Fantastic Imagination," and it is meant as a postscript to yesterday's post:
A man's inventions may be stupid or clever, but if he does not hold by the laws of them, or if he makes one law jar with another, he contradicts himself as an inventor; he is no artist. He does not rightly consort his instruments, or he tunes them in different keys. The mind of man is the product of live Law: it thinks by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, therefore, can it alone work to any result. Inharmonious, unconsorting ideas will come to a man, but if he tries to use one of [them], his work will grow dull, and he will drop it from mere lack if interest. Law is the soil in which alone beauty will grow. Beauty is the only stuff in which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her....
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