that being a non-reflective faculty, it cannot distinguish between a purely internal affection, and one coming from without. Since comparison, however inconsiderable it may be, always implies reflection, sensibility does not compare. Hence it happens that when the subject does nothing but feel, it cannot appreciate the differences of sensations, by calculating the degrees of their vividness, nor ever perceive the existence or want of order and constancy in their connection.
The faculty of feeling is perfectly blind to all but its determinate object; whatever it does not discover in this so far as it is its object, does in no manner exist for it. We can now see why, when left to itself, it will render its impressions objective, and believe itself intuitive by converting simple appearances into realities.
74. It is worthy of notice, that of the sensitive faculties, some would always be intuitive, that is, would always refer to an external object, if reflection did not accompany them; whilst others would never be intuitive, not even if separated from reflection, or unaccompanied by those which are by their nature intuitive. To the former class belong the representative faculties, properly so called, that is, those which affect the sensitive subject by presenting to it a form, the real or apparent image of an object. Such are those of sight and of touch, which can neither exist nor be conceived without this representation. Other sensations, on the contrary, offer no form to the sensitive subject; they are simple affections of the subject, although they proceed from an external cause; if we refer them to objects, this we do by reflection; and when this warns us that we have in attributing to the object not only the principle of causality, but also the sensation in itself, carried the reference too far, we easily recognize the illusion, and lay it aside. This does not occur in representative sensations; no one, no matter how great efforts he may make, will ever be able to persuade himself that beyond himself there is nothing real, nothing resembling the sensible representation in which objects are presented as extended.
75. When we say that some sensations would not be intuitive were they not accompanied by reflection, we do not mean to say that man refers them to an object, after explicit reflection, for we cannot forget what we have already said when explaining at length the instinctive way in which our faculties develop themselves prior to all reflection, in their relations with the corporeal world; but only that no necessary relation to an object as represented can be discovered in these sensations considered in themselves, and in perfect isolation; and that, probably, if a confused reflection be not mingled with the instinct which makes us render them objective, there at least enters some influence of other sensations, which are by their proper object representative.
CHAPTER XI.
TWO COGNITIONS: INTUITIVE AND DISCURSIVE
76. Now that I have explained sensible, I pass to intellectual intuition. There are two modes of knowing; the one is intuitive, the other discursive. Intuitive cognition is that in which the object is presented to the understanding, such as it is, and upon which the perceptive faculty has to exercise no function but that of contemplation; it is therefore called intuition, from intueri, to see.
77. This intuition may take place in two ways. It may either present the object itself to the perceptive faculty, and unite them without any intermediacy; or by the intervention of an idea or representation, capable of putting the perceptive faculty in action, so that it may, without the necessity of combination, see the object in this representation. The first requires the object perceived to be intelligible by itself, since otherwise there could be no union of the object understood with the subject understanding; the second needs a representation to supply the place of the object, and consequently it is not indispensable that this should be immediately intelligible.9
78. Discursive cognition is that in which the understanding does not have the object itself present, but forms it itself, so to speak, by uniting in one whole conception several partial conceptions, whose connection in one subject it has found out by ratiocination.
In order to render more apparent the difference between intuitive and discursive cognition, I will illustrate it by an example. "We see a man; his physiognomy is presented to us, such as it is; no combinations are necessary, none could possibly make him appear differently. We see his characteristic features, such as they are; but the collection of them is not a thing produced by our combinations; it is an object given to the perceptive faculty which has nothing to do but to perceive it." When an object is offered to our understanding in this way, the cognition we have of it will be intuitive.
We have said that the object of intellectual intuition may be united immediately to the perceptive faculty, or that it may be presented to it by a medium which acts the part of the object. Keeping in view the same example, we might say that these two classes of intuitions correspond to those of the man seen by himself, or in his portrait. There would be in both cases intuition of his physiognomy, but no combination would be necessary, and none could possibly form it.
But suppose some one to tell us of a person whom we have never seen, and whose portrait cannot be shown to us. He would be obliged, in order to give us an idea of his physiognomy, to enumerate one by one his characteristic features, by the union of which we shall form an idea of the likeness he has just described. To this imaginary representation may be compared discursive cognition, by which, although we do not see the object, we in some sense construct it, as it were, from the assemblage of those ideas which we have by means of discursion interlinked, and formed into one whole conception representing the object.
79. Kant, in his Critic of Pure Reason, speaks repeatedly of intuitive and discursive cognition; but he does not explain with perfect clearness the distinctive characteristics of these two classes of cognition. Let it not, however, be supposed that the discovery of these two ways of perceiving is due to the German philosopher. Many ages before him, the theologians had known them; nor could it be otherwise, since the distinction between intuition and discursion is intimately connected with one of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity.
It is well known that our religion admits the possibility and reality of a true cognition of God, even in this life. The sacred text tells us that we may know God by his works; that the invisible things of God are manifested to us by his visible creatures; that the heavens narrate his glory, and the firmament announces the works of his hands; that they who have thus known God are inexcusable, because they have not glorified him as they ought; but this same religion teaches us that the Blessed, in the life to come, will know him in a very different manner, will see him as he is, face to face. It was Christianity then that marked the difference between intuitive and discursive cognitions, between the cognition by which the understanding, proceeding from effects to their cause, and uniting in it the ideas of wisdom, omnipotence, goodness, holiness, and infinite perfection, rises to God; and the cognition in which the mind does not need to advance, drawing its conclusions by aid of discursion, from various conceptions, in order to force from them an idea of God, in which the Infinite Being will offer himself clearly to the eyes of the mind, not in a conception elaborated by reason, nor under the sublime mysteries of faith, but such as he is, in himself, as an object given immediately to the perceptive faculty, not as an object discovered by the force of discursion, or presented under august shadows. And here we find another proof of the great profoundness hidden under the dogmas of the Christian religion. This distinction is to be met with in the catechism, and yet who would have suspected that religion had taught us a doctrine so important to ideological science? If the child be asked, who is God, he replies by enumerating his perfections, and showing thereby that he knows him. If you ask this same child, to what end man has been created, he will answer, to see God, etc.
Here again is the distinction between discursive cognition, or by conceptions, and intuitive cognitions; with the former one is said, simply to know, with the latter to see.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SENSISM OF KANT
80. Kant
See what has been said concerning
