Delsarte System of Oratory

by Delaumosne

If reason arises from the failure of intellect it is doubtless to rectify the valuations of the ego. Now the compass, which is in itself very inferior to the hand which fashions it and appropriates it to its own use, nevertheless implies a defect in that hand which directs it. So there is between the eye and the telescope, which comes to its aid, all the distance that divides the faculty from the instrument which it governs. Still the telescope joined to the eye communicates to it a great power of vision; but the instrument arises from the failure of the eye, which is nevertheless infinitely superior to it; for it is the eye which sees, and not the telescope.

It is thus that we must understand the relations of reason and intellect. Let us say, then, that the reason is to the intellect exactly what the telescope is to the eye. This established, we can formulate the following definition as well founded.

The intellect is the spiritual eye whose mysterious telescope reason forms, or: reason is a necessary appendage of mental optics, or again: reason is the glass used by the eye of a defective intellect.

But this is not all. St. Thomas provides us still elsewhere with the means of making our analogy more striking. He says, indeed: reason is given us to make clear that which is not evident. Is not this, as it were, the seal of truth applied to our demonstration? Thus the eye uses the telescope absolutely as the intellect employs the reason, to make clear that which is not evident.

Of course it is plain that if the sight and the intellect answered perfectly to their object, they could do without this adjunct which betrays their imperfection. The intellect would thenceforth have no more need of reason than the eye of glasses.

This explains the fact, so important to consider, that the clearer the mental vision is the less one reasons. The angels do not reason; they see clearly what is troubled and confused by our mind. No one reasons in heaven, there is no logician there, no--Intelligence is immortal, but reason, which serves it here below, will fade away in eternity with the senses which like it do but form the conditions of time.

Divine reason alone will endure because it has nothing accidental, and it is substantially united to the eternal word. It is that reason toward which all blest intelligences will finally gravitate. Hence, we see that what already partakes of the celestial life repels reasoning as a cause of imperfection or infirmity. It is thus, by its exclusion of reasons, that the Gospel supremely proves its celestial origin. It is, indeed, a thing well worth remark, especially worthy of our admiration, that there is not to be found, in the four Gospels, a single piece of reasoning, any more than there is an interjection to be found.

Let us add that faith does not reason: which does not mean, as so many misbelievers feign, that faith is fulfilled by blindness or ignorance of the objects of its veneration. Quite the contrary. Faith dispenses with reason because of the perfection of its sight. It is, finally, because it is superior to reason and sees things from a higher plane. This is what so many short-sighted people cannot see; and, to return to our analogy, it seems to them able to see nothing save through the glasses of reason. It seems to them, I say, that any man who does not wear glasses must see crooked. Keep your glasses, my good souls! They suit short limits of sight. But we, who, thank God, have sound sight, are only troubled and clouded by them.

It is thus that reason, which is given us to make clear what is not evident, frequently obscures even the very evidence itself. We might confirm this declaration by a thousand examples. To cite but one, let us point out how plainly the spectacle of the universe of thought and the idea of a Divine Creator prove that no glasses are required to contemplate God in His works. Well! scientists have felt obliged to direct theirs upon these simple notions, and have thus, i.e., by force of reasoning, succeeded in confusing out of all recognition a question sparkling with evidence, so much so that they will fall into such a state of blindness that they can no longer see in this world any trace of the Supreme Intelligence which is yet manifested with glory in the least of His creatures. Consequently, they will bluntly deny the existence of God; but as they still must needs admit a creative cause, they have to that end invented moving atoms and have made from these strange corpuscles something so perfectly invisible that they can spare themselves the trouble of providing public curiosity with a living proof of their theory.

The scientist is born perverted, as was said of the Frenchman who created the vaudeville; and men, too strong-minded and above all too full of reason to give any credence to the mysteries taught by the church, have displayed a blind faith in respect to moving atoms. They think thus to set themselves free from what they call the prejudices of their fathers. They find no difficulty in attributing to invisible corpuscles both the plan and the execution of the beings who people the universe.