ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the debate about the extent to which Coleridge's critical practice reflects or depends upon his critical theories. Coleridge's reservations stem from the nature of the reform proposed by Wordsworth, and he argues not only that it is based on a mistaken theory of poetry, but that it is belied by Wordsworth's own practice as a poet. Secondary imagination is the central and dominant poetic faculty in Coleridge's theory of Method in the Fine Arts, and it is behind it that he marshals his metaphysics. His views on the secondary imagination are reflected in his practical criticism of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, and in his study of the mental activity of audiences in theatres. The facts of observation, at best, can only achieve the Method of the Applied Sciences, based on the relation of Theory; and even then, it is not the facts themselves, but the acts of the mind upon them, which are to be esteemed.
