If Mr. Coleridge's assertion were true, that the Understanding is the discursive and the Reason the fixed faculty, we should be justified in saying that The Understanding is the faculty by which we reason, and the Reason is the faculty by which we understand. But this is not so.
Nor is the Understanding of the nature of Instinct, nor does it approach nearer than the Reason to the nature of Instinct, but the contrary. The Instincts of animals bear a very obscure resemblance to any of man's speculative Faculties; but so far as there is any such resemblance, Instinct is an obscure image of Reason, not of Understanding. Animals are said to act as if they reasoned, rather than as if they understood. The verb understand is especially applied to man as distinguished from animals. Mr. Coleridge tells a tale from Huber, of certain bees which, to prevent a piece of honey from falling, balanced it by their weight, while they built a pillar to support it. They did this by Instinct, not understanding what they did; men, doing the same, would have understood what they were doing. Our Translation of the Scriptures, in making it the special distinction of man and animals, that he has Understanding and they have not, speaks quite consistently with good philosophy and good English.
Mr. Coleridge's object in his speculations is nearly the same as Plato's; namely, to declare that there is a truth of a higher kind than can be obtained by mere reasoning; and also to claim, as portions of this higher truth, certain fundamental doctrines of Morality. Among these, Mr. Coleridge places the Authority of Conscience, and Plato, the Supreme Good. Mr. Coleridge also holds, as Plato held, that the Reason of man, in its highest and most comprehensive form, is a portion of a Supreme and Universal Reason; and leads to Truth, not in virtue of its special attributes in each person, but by its own nature.
Many of the opinions which are combined with these doctrines, both in Plato and in Coleridge, are such as we should, I think, find it impossible to accept, upon a careful philosophical examination of them; but on these I shall not here dwell.
I will only further observe, that if any one were to doubt whether the term Νοῦς is rightly rendered Intuitive Reason, we may find proof of the propriety of such a rendering in the remarkable discussion concerning the Intellectual Virtues, which we have in the Sixth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics. It can hardly be questioned that Aristotle had in his mind, in writing that passage, the doctrines of Plato, as expounded in the passage just examined, and similar passages. Aristotle there says that there are five Intellectual Virtues, or Faculties by which the Mind aims at Truth in asserting or denying:—namely, Art, Science, Prudence, Wisdom, Nous. In this enumeration, passing over Art, Prudence, and Wisdom, as virtues which are mainly concerned from practical life, we have, in the region of speculative Truth, a distinction propounded between Science and Nous: and this distinction is further explained (c. 6) by the remarks that Science reasons with Principles; and that these Principles cannot be given by Science, because Science reasons from them; nor by Art, nor Prudence, for these are conversant with matters contingent, not with matters demonstrable; nor can the First Principles of the Reasonings of Science be given by Wisdom, for Wisdom herself has often to reason from Principles. Therefore the First Principles of Demonstrative Reasoning must be given by a peculiar Faculty, Nous. As we have said, Intuitive Reason is the most appropriate English term for this Faculty.
The view thus given of that higher kind of Knowledge which Plato and Aristotle place above ordinary Science, as being the Knowledge of and Faculty of learning First Principles, will enable us to explain some expressions which might otherwise be misunderstood. Socrates, in the concluding part of this Sixth Book of the Republic, says, that this kind of knowledge is "that of which the Reason (λόγος) takes hold, in virtue of its power of reasoning[348]." Here we are plainly not to understand that we arrive at First Principles by reasoning: for the very opposite is true, and is here taught;—namely, that First Principles are not what we reason to, but what we reason from. The meaning of this passage plainly is, that First Principles are those of which the Reason takes hold in virtue of its power of reasoning;—they are the conditions which must exist in order to make any reasoning possible:—they are the propositions which the Reason must involve implicitly, in order that we may reason explicitly;—they are the intuitive roots of the dialectical power.
In accordance with the views now explained, Plato's Diagram may be thus further expanded. The term ιδέα is not used in this part of the Republic; but, as is well known, occurs in its peculiar Platonic sense in the Tenth Book.
| Intelligible World. νοητον. | Visible World. ορατον. | |||
| Object | Ideas ἰδέαι | Conceptions διάνοια | Things ζῶα κ.τ.λ. | Images εἰκἰνες |
| Process | Intuition νἰησις | Demonstration ἐπιστήμη | Belief πίστις | Conjecture είκασία |
| Faculty | Intuitive Reason νοῦς | Discursive Reason λόγος | Sensation αἴσθησις | |