How infinitely superior to our physical senses are those of the mind! The
spiritual eye sees not only rivers of water but of air. It sees the
crystals of the rock in rapid sympathetic motion, giving enthusiastic
obedience to the sun's rays, then sinking back to rest in the night. The
whole world is in motion to the center. So also sounds. We hear only
woodpeckers and squirrels and the rush of turbulent streams. But
imagination gives us the sweet music of tiniest insect wings, enables us to
hear, all around the world, the vibration of every needle, the waving of
every bole and branch, the sound of stars in circulation like particles in
the blood. The Sierra canyons are full of avalanche debris - we hear them
boom again, and we read the past sounds from present conditions. Again we
hear the earthquake rock-falls. Imagination is usually regarded as a
synonym for the unreal. Yet is true imagination healthful and real, no more
likely to mislead than the coarse senses. Indeed, the power of imagination
makes us infinite.
-- John Muir, American Naturalist (1838-1914)
