CHAPTER IX.

INTUITION.

INTUITION implies immediate mental perception. Some things are known without being proved, their proof being in themselves. They only require to be stated to be known. Intuition is the power of knowing these things. It may therefore be defined, that power by which the mind infallibly perceives, without any admonition of the senses, and without any process of reasoning. It suggests nothing; its office is higher, to know. It does this, and nothing more. It goes not from home; it never commutes its office, but remains eternally in the same positionthe mental eye ever open, piercing, sure. We are therefore justified in considering it the power of immediately knowing whatever falls within its sphere.

REASONS FOR USING THE TERM INTUITION.

As the term intuition has been generally used in relation to matters of proof, and especially in connection with mathematical demonstrations, reasons may be demanded for using it here.* The term being generic, it respects knowledge in general. Logicians and mathematicians have made a specific use of it. Still, the term

*INTUITION is nearly synonymous with REASON, as the latter term is used in the metaphysical school. The distinction made by German philosophers between reason and understanding is, in many respects, the same as that made by the Scotch and English between intuition and reasoning or discursive faculties. The former allow, however, a much wider field to reason than the latter do to intuition.

properly be used in its original and generic sense. expresses what needs to be here expressed, and what no other term expresses so exactly. Let us see: suppose we take suggestion, the term sometimes used to denote mental phenomena, some of which we call intuitions. The mind suggests something; that something is true, or false, or doubtful. Suppose it false.

It may be said, that to know a falsehood is real knowledge, as well as to know a truth. So be it. But then the mind does not yet know that it is a falsehood. The man is conscious of having a suggestion or conjecture in his mind respecting the thing in question, but no knowledge.* Nor, until some other power than that of mere suggestion is brought to bear, can he be said to have any knowledge respecting it. That other power needed is intuition. The thing suggested is intuitively perceived to be either true or false. If perceived to be true, the mind has thus obtained the knowledge of a truth; if seen to be false, the knowledge of a falsehood.

If it be said that a mere conjecture, doubt, query, rising in the mind as such, or a mere suggestion, indicating something not yet certainly known as either true or false, real or unreal, is all that is meant by the knowledge in question, it is only necessary for me to say, that this is not what I understand and intend to designate by primary knowledge. The term here is always meant to indicate an entity known known as a truth, a falsehood, an absurdity, a reality, a conjecture, or whatever it is. And for this knowledge, in the present case,† we fall back on intuition.

As explicitness is very important here, the following particulars should be noticed:

1. Although the power of intuition, like all others, is gradually developed, yet there are no degrees of assur

* If we adopt the mode of designating mental phenomena favored by Brown, we should say the man is conscious of having his mind in a state of conjecture, not in a state of knowledge, respecting the thing in question. He considers ideas mere states of mind, and not any thing distinct from the mind itself..

I say in the present case, because, in numerous other cases, suggestion puts the mind on the track to knowledge obtained by a process of reasoning. It is a handmaid to knowledge of all kinds.

ance in its decision. The intuitions of the child, so far as they go, are precisely the same as those of the adult. Years of study and thought cannot change or modify them. The child and the adult, the untaught and the philosopher, are herein alike; so far as their intuitions reach, their knowledge is equally certain.

2. All intuitive, as well as all sensuous knowledge, is acquired. The mind has no more knowledge of intuitive truths than it has of any others, until intuition has been exercised upon them. There is a susceptibility to them, requiring only that they be suggested, or in some way brought before the mind, to be at once recognized as truths. This is what D'Alembert meant by the remark, that "all intuitive knowledge is but the mind's recognition of what it previously knew." To the same intent, we sometimes hear a person say, when a self-evident truth is suggested to him, "I knew that before, but never before thought of it." In strict truth, he did not know it before; for a man cannot be said to know what was never in his thoughts; but he only needed to think of it to know it. To know a thing by only thinking of it, is intuition.

3. Intuitive truths admit of no proof. They are above all proof, their witness being in themselves. Any thing that can be proved is not a subject of pure intuition. All attempts to prove intuitive truths are but a begging of the question, or a running round in a circle. Some have supposed, for example, the existence of God an intuitive truth; but if it is demonstrable by a process of reasoning, it ceases to be strictly intuitive. Although the chain of argument have but two or three links, something more than intuition is demanded.

4. The teachings of intuition are irresistible. They take the mind by force. Every man must believe what it teaches him. Any thing that a man can willingly avoid knowing is not a subject of intuition; for willingly to avoid knowing a thing implies that he has thought of it; and whatever intuitive truth he has thought of, he already knows. Suppose, for instance, a man undertake to be ignorant of the truth that there is a moral distinction between right and wrong. His undertaking to be igno

rant of it implies that it is in his thoughts; and its being in his thoughts, makes him already know it. He has only to think of it, and he irresistibly knows it.

5. Subjects of intuition being facts, which cannot be proved, philosophy has only to define them, leaving their proof with every individual. What every man knows by only thinking of it, needs only to be stated. Volumes have been written, essaying to prove intuitive truths, which have served no other purpose than to show the folly of attempting to do what the Creator has already done for us.

But great care must be exercised on this point, not to admit as intuitive any thing not strictly so. Intuitive knowledge is quite limited, but of the highest importance. Its great value is in the fact that it is one of the essential elements in all mental acquisitions.

I. MATHEMATICAL AXIOMS.

To know

All mathematical axioms, strictly so called, are subjects of intuitive knowledge. They cannot be proved, for they are proved already as soon as they are stated. them is to prove them. So soon, for example, as a child is mature enough to understand you, if you say to him, "The whole of any thing is more than any one of its parts," he intuitively perceives it to be so. Or if you say, "The half of any thing is equal to the whole of it," he intuitively perceives it not to be so. The falseness of the one statement and the truth of the other require no proof. Could you prove them a thousand times, you could not make them more certain to his mind. But you cannot prove them. In attempting to do so, you must assume as proved what remains to be proved; you must, indeed, beg at every step.

It is only by availing ourselves of the knowledge furnished by intuition that we can demonstrate the simplest proposition; for every result is dependent on a chain of demonstration, more or less extended, every link of which is an intuition. It is intuition that holds the

several parts of the demonstration together, by perceiving their fitness and relations.

The number of mathematical axioms may be more or less extended, but a list of them does not belong to this place. The reader is referred to mathematical works.

II. MORAL AXIOMS.

There are self-evident truths in moral science as truly as in mathematical. Moral axioms may not be clearly understood at so early a period as mathematical; but when they are understood, the mind embraces them with the same assurance. Coleridge makes this distinction between mathematical and moral axioms, that the former are what every mind must believe, the latter what every good mind will believe.

The apparent reason for this distinction is in the fact, that through moral obliquity men are often more ready to do violence to their moral than to their mathematical intuitions. Men may make themselves fools, if they will, on every subject. All our powers of rational, as well as of sensuous knowledge, may be outraged and destroyed. When philosophy speaks of the mental powers, she has respect to their legitimate use.

ILLUSTRATION.

When a mathematical axiom is first clearly apprehended by a person, he knows it to be true. He may afterwards speculate upon it, and, through a desire to be original or obstinate, finally prevail upon himself to think otherwise. There is, however, still a conviction at the bottom of his mind that he is not true to himself; in fact, he really knows better. But as the motives to such folly, in relation to mathematical truths, are comparatively few, such instances of folly are proportionably rare, although not wholly wanting.

So, when a person first clearly apprehends a moral axiom, he instantly knows it to be true. But through