For John Henry Newman, religion is animated by an imaginative 'master vision' which 'supplies the mind with spiritual life and peace'. All his life, Newman reflected on this 'master vision'. His reflections on the moral imagination developed out of his understanding of practical wisdom, as characterized by Aristotle - the wisdom that 'the good man' has in living a good life. For Newman, the vision at the core of religion completes and perfects the intuitions of the conscience. John Henry Newman and the Imagination looks at how Newman's understanding of the moral and visionary imagination developed over the course of his life; and it relates his ideas about the imagination to his portrayals of religious experience, and vision, in his novels and poetry.

Bernard Dive is a freelance editor and writer; he edited Through the Year with Newman, an anthology of Newman's writings. He has degrees in English and Theology and a Ph.D in English from the University of Cambridge.

Part I: PERSONAL VISIONS: THE 1830sChapter 1: Faith, 'Practical Perception' and Phronesis
Chapter 2: Conscience and 'the Love of the Beautiful'
Part II: THE VISION OF THE CHURCH: THE 1830s AND 1840s
Chapter 3: 'A Work to Do in England'
Chapter 4: The 'Impression' of Christ
Chapter 5: The Pursuit of Truth
Part III: THE VIRTUE OF FAITH AND THE VIRTUES OF CIVILIZATION: THE 1840s AND 1850s
Chapter 6: The Virtue of Faith
Chapter 7: Faith and Civilization
Part IV: REAL VISIONS: THE 1860s AND 1870s
Chapter 8: The Imagination and the 'Metropolitan Intellect'
Chapter 9: Ex Umbris et Imaginibus in Veritatem