Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality; it looks before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is in the higher reason, and it is efficient only as a servant of the will. Imagination, as it is too often misunderstood, is mere fantasy, the image-making power, common to all who have the gift of dreams.
James Russell Lowell (1888). “The English Poets Lessing: Rousseau”
![Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality; it looks before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is in the higher](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/james-russell-lowell/imagination-where-it-is-truly-creative-is-a-faculty-and-not-a-quality-it-looks-before-and-after-it-gives.jpg)