Atherton. Gower says no; and the failures of mysticism powerfully support his position. I agree with him. I think we have all within us what I may call Intuition, the poetical, and Understanding, the practical man; but that each of the two is the better for close fellowship with his brother. Let not Intuition disdain common-sense, and think irrationality a sign of genius. And you, Gower, would be the last to give the reins to logic only, and live by expediency, arithmetic, and mensuration.
Mrs. Atherton. Thank you.
Willoughby. But there was occasion, surely, for Coleridge’s exhortation to rise above the dividual particular notions we have gathered about us, to the higher region of the Universal Reason.
Atherton. By all means, let us clear our minds of prejudice, and seek the True for its own sake.
Lowestoffe. But I do not find that those who profess to have ascended to the common ground of Universal Reason, are one whit more agreed among themselves, than those who are disputing in the lists of logic about evidence.
Willoughby. They are not, I grant. They would attribute their want of unanimity, however, to the fact that some of them have not sufficiently purged their intuitional eyesight from everything personal and particular.
Lowestoffe. Who is to be judge in the matter? Who will say how much purging will suffice to assure a man that he has nowhere mistaken a ‘wholesome Prejudice’ for a divine intuition?
Willoughby. He must exercise his judgment——
Gower. Exactly so; his critical, sifting faculty—his understanding. But that is contrary to the theory in question, which represents Understanding as utterly incapable in the Intuitional sphere. According to Jacobi, it is the instinct of the logical faculty to contradict the intuitional—as the bat repudiates the sunshine.
Atherton. If the Christianity of mere logic hardens into a formula, the Christianity of mere intuition evaporates in a phantom.