THE OFFICE OF THE REASON

I. Current objections to the Reason as a source of insight.

Intuition vs. Reason. Reason vs. Experience. Usual

view of the reason as "abstract" and as "analytic" in

its procedure 80

II. But, in common usage, the words "reason" and "reasonable"

often refer to something which does not wholly

depend upon "abstract thinking" and mere "analysis."

The "rule of reason." The concrete use of the reason.

Reason as a survey of the connections of experience, as

synthetic, and as involving broader intuitions. The

alternative: "Either inarticulate intuition or else barren

abstract reasoning," is falsely stated. The antithesis:

"Either experience or else reason," also involves failure

to see how both may be combined. Abstract thinking

as a means to an end. This end is the attainment of a

new and broader intuition. Relation between "becoming

as a little child" and "putting away childish things" 84

III. Examples of the synthetic use of the reason. The

fecundity of deductive reasoning. Novelties discovered by

the purely deductive sciences. Reason and insight in

their general relations 93

IV. The reason and the "religious paradox." The "paradox"

as not peculiar to religion. Common sense as an

appeal to standards which are in some sense superhuman.

No human individual personally experiences or verifies

what "human experience," in its conceived character as

an integral whole, is supposed to confirm. The concepts

{xii}

of truth and error are dependent upon the concept of an

appeal to an insight which no human individual ever

possesses. This latter concept cannot be limited to the

mere world of "common sense," but must be universalised.

The whole real world as the object of an all-seeing

comprehension of facts as they are. Otherwise our

opinions about the world cannot even be false. Resulting

synthetic insight of the reason. The world as the object

present to the divine wisdom 102

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