Definitions HQ

Imagination (n.) turned ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠on oneself varies only me: I fancy myself as if I were otherwise — I do not thereby fancy anyone else.

Imagination (n.) can ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠never reach a geometrical straight line: fantasy only turns sensible shapes into other sensible shapes, all of them more or less straight.

Imagination (n.) shadows ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠every kind of experience with an 'as-if' twin — as-if perceiving, as-if remembering — and so opens a science of pure possibilities.

Imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠a tool of exact description: it calls up the perceptions that would make the invisible side of a thing visible.

Imagination (n.) would ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠still give us an essence in person even if, by some psychological miracle, it dreamed up a sense-datum no one has ever had — though what is imagined is never real.

Imagination (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠free but not lawless: I may endow my fancied centaur with whatever properties I please, yet if it is to stay one thing I am bound by space — however I vary its form, one spatial shape will inevitably pass into another.