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]
[9] See what has been said concerning _representation_, _immediate
intelligibility_, and _representation of causality and ideality_, in
Chapters X., XI., XII., and XIII., of Book I. of this work.
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_.