Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

A Great Aphorism

Blog and Mablog

Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2014  

By Douglas Wilson 

 

One of the reasons why Chesterton is such an encouragement to us is that he understands the role of imagination. This is not the same thing as understanding imagination itself — for no man understands that — but Chesterton does understand the important role that imagination must play. He understands it, and he practices what he understands.

So when Napoleon said that imagination rules the world — a great aphorism if ever there was one — he was simply giving us some material to work with. In what senses might this be true? In what senses might we get all tangled up in what we falsely think of as imagination?

There is a distinction between the throne of imagination—the human heart and mind—and the realm of imagination—everything else. One of the central reasons we are languishing in our public life is that we have allowed a divorce between the throne and the realm.