CHAPTER VIII

OF REASON.

I. On the vagueness and ambiguity of the common philosophical language relative to this part of our constitution. — The power of Reason, of which I am now to treat, is unquestionably the most important by far of those which are comprehended under the general title of intellectual. It is on the right use of this power, that our success in the pursuit both of knowledge and of happiness depends; and it is by the exclusive possession of it, that man is distinguished, in the most essential respects, from the lower animals. It is, indeed, from their subserviency to its operations, that the other faculties, which have been hitherto under our consideration, derive their chief value.

Popular meaning of the word Reason. Some remarkable instances of vagueness and ambiguity in the employment of words, occur in that branch of my subject of which I am now to treat. The word Reason, itself, is far from being precise in its meaning. In common and popular discourse, it denotes that power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and right from wrong; and by which we are enabled to combine means for the attainment of particular ends. Whether these different capacities are, with strict logical propriety, referred to the same power, is a question which I shall examine in another part of my work; but that they are all included in the idea which is generally annexed to the word Reason, there can be no doubt; and the case, so far as I know, is the same with the corresponding term in all languages whatever. The fact probably is, that this word was first employed to comprehend the principles, whatever they are, by which man is distinguished from the brutes; and afterwards came to be somewhat limited in its meaning, by

the more obvious conclusions concerning the nature of that distinction, which present themselves to the common sense of mankind. It is in this enlarged meaning that it is opposed to instinct by Pope:

"And reason raise o'er instinct as you can;

In this 'tis God directs, in that 't is man."

It was thus, too, that Milton plainly understood the term, when he remarked, that smiles imply the exercise of Reason:"Smiles from Reason flow,

and still more explicitly in these noble lines:—

"There wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who, not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of Reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing; and from thence,
Magnanimous, to correspond with heaven;
But, grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes,
Directed in devotion, to adore

And worship God Supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works."

Among the various characteristics of humanity, the power of devising means to accomplish ends, together with the power of distinguishing truth from falsehood, and right from wrong, are obviously the most conspicuous and important; and accordingly it is to these that the word Reason, even in its most comprehensive acceptation, is now exclusively restricted.*

*This, I think, is the meaning which most naturally presents itself to common readers, when the word Reason occurs in authors not affecting to aim at any nice logical distinctions; and it is certainly the meaning which must be annexed to it, in some of the most serious and important arguments in which it has ever been employed. In the following passage, for example, where Mr. Locke contrasts the light of Reason with that of Revelation, he plainly proceeds on the supposition, that it is competent to appeal to the former, as affording a standard of right and wrong, not less

More limited meaning of the word. By some philosophers, the meaning of the word has been of late restricted still further; to the power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and combine means for the accomplishment of our purposes ; the capacity of distinguishing right and wrong being referred to a separate principle or faculty, to which different names have been assigned in different ethical theories. The following passage from Mr. Hume contains one of the most explicit statements of this limitation which I can recollect: "Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity,vice and virtue. Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and volition."

Reason distinguished from reasoning. — Another ambiguity in the word Reason, it is of still greater consequence to point out at present; an ambiguity which leads us to confound our rational powers in general, with that particular branch of them known among logicians by the name of the discursive faculty. The affinity between the words reason and reasoning sufficiently accounts for this inaccuracy in common and popular language;

than of speculative truth and fulsehood; nor can there be a doubt that, when he speaks of truth as the object of natural Reason, it was principally, if not wholly, moral truth, which he had in his view; "Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God. So that he who takes away reason to make way for revelation, puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope."

although it cannot fail to appear obvious, on the slightest reflection, that, in strict propriety, reasoning only expresses one of the various functions or operations of Reason; and that an extraordinary capacity for the former by no means affords a test, by which the other constituent elements of the latter may be measured." ""* Nor is it to common and popular language that this inaccuracy is confined. It has extended itself to the systems of some of our most acute philosophers, and has, in various instances, produced an apparent diversity of opinion, where there was little or none in reality.

In the use which I make of the word Reason, in the title of the following disquisitions, I employ it in a manner to which no philosopher can object, to denote merely the power by which we distinguish truth from falsehood, and combine means for the attainment of our ends; omitting, for the present, all consideration of that function which many have ascribed to it, of distinguishing right from wrong; without, however, presuming to call in question the accuracy of those by whom the term has been thus explained. Under the title of Reason, I shall consider also whatever faculties and operations appear to be more immediately and essentially connected with the discovery of truth, or the attainment of the objects of our pursuit, more particularly the power of reasoning or deduction; but distinguishing, as carefully as I can, our capacity of carrying on this logical

* "The two most different things in the world,” says Locke, “are, a logical chicaner, and a man of reason." The adjective reasonable, as employed in our language, is not liable to the same ambiguity with the substantive from which it is derived. It denotes a character in which Reason, (taking that word in its largest acceptation,) possesses a decided ascendant over the temper and the passions; and implies no particular propensity to a display of the discursive power, if, indeed, it does not exclude the idea of such a propensity. In the following stanza, Pope certainly had no view to the logical talents of the lady whom he celebrates:

"I know a thing that's most uncommon,

(Envy, be silent and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend."

process, from those more comprehensive powers which Reason is understood to imply.*

Various meanings of the word Understanding. - Another instance of the vagueness and indistinctness of the common language of logicians, in treating of this part of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, occurs in the word Understanding. In its popular sense, it seems to be very nearly synonymous with

* [Kant, and the later German metaphysicians, together with some of the French school, assign very different functions to the Reason and the Understanding. Indeed, the distinction between these two faculties is the key-note of German transcendental philosophy. According to Kant, Reason is the faculty which evolves our ideas of all that transcends the sphere of the senses and the limitations of experience, of all which is not subject to the conditions of space and time, but is infinite and absolute. In one word, Reason is the faculty of the Unconditioned; it is the soul itself, in the highest exercise of its activity, forming for itself ideas, to which there are no corresponding realities in the world of sense or in the cognitions of the understanding. "Reason," says Krug, one of the ablest expounders of the Kantian philosophy, "is the noblest jewel of humanity, the true image of God, whereby alone man can raise himself from one stage of perfection to another. It rests, therefore, upon the perfectibility of our race, so that we are always striving after the Ideal, without ever obtaining it in all its fulness. Consequently, Reason is the only characteristic which distinguishes man from the other beasts of the earth; these resemble him more or less in all other respects, they even surpass him in some, but show no trace of Reason, because they neither strive after the Ideal, nor are they able to perfect themselves by their own power." But it must be remembered, that no knowledge, properly so called, can be constructed out of these Ideas which are evolved by Reason, since there is no object corresponding to them in the whole circle of experience. The Reason ceaselessly strives after a knowledge of God, of the Universe, of the Immortality and Freedom of the Soul; and from these vain efforts, ́constantly renewed and constantly defeated, have arisen all the doctrines and systems of metaphysics. We cannot either prove or disprove the reality of the supersensual objects corresponding to these ideas of the Reason. The arguments for and against any conclusion respecting them are equally valid, and thus confute each other. Thus Kant is led to affirm, that no metaphysical science is possible, and that the doctrines of ontology and speculative theology are self-contradictory and absurd.

This account of the Reason coincides very nearly with a doctrine attributed by Cudworth to the ancient philosophers, when he says, " We have all of us, by nature, μavτεvμá тɩ (as both Plato and Aristotle call it), a cer