ABSTRACT
Hobbes appears to have been the first to use the word image to mean immediate object of visual perception. He denies that the Image in Vision' exists out there in the external world in Human Nature. It is observed that Hobbes admits that there are good prima facie reasons for confusing' the image and the qualities of the object itself. Addison's distinction between images and the qualities of objects serves in fact a rhetorical rather than a philosophical purpose: it is a way of focusing attention on his essential subject-matter namely, aesthetics. The primary meaning of imagery' and image' in Wordsworth's poetry is generally familiar enough viz. outward or inward picture' but the words often tug against these simple meanings in the direction of something more complicated and interesting. Wordsworth's poetry then has genuine affiliations with philosophy; but affiliations only.
