Intelligible being

“ Intelligence also pertains to, or has the intelligible for its object; but what is visible is the object of sight. And intellect indeed knows the intelligible; but the eye knows that which is visible. ”

“ Since he who rises to the contemplation of the intelligible world, and who conceives the beauty of true intelligence, can also, as we have pointed out, by intuition grasp the superior Principle,203 the Father of Intelligence, let us, so far as our strength allows us, try to understand and explain to ourselves how it is possible to contemplate the beauty of Intelligence and of the intelligible world. ”

“ The doctrine had been continually gaining ground, either per incuriam, or by design, that the senses were to some extent intellectual, were capable of cognition, or were competent to place intelligible data before the mind. But if sense can act as intellect, what is the use of intellect—why any intellect at all? If sense can intelligently apprehend anything, why can it not intelligently apprehend everything? Let man diligently cultivate his senses, and his advances in knowledge shall be immense. ”

“ A fuller intelligence will render all the mysteries and miseries of life intelligible. For whatever is in the past, you are, with others, responsible. Now waste no more brain-substance in grief, shame or wrath, but conserve all your nervous force for your work. Assume the motherhood which you presumed upon. Your mind is crowded with artificial distinctions. A few simple principles, held to amiably, will make all your life sweet and intelligent, even now.
“You love purity. ”

“ As the Soul proceeds from Intelligence, she is intelligible; and the manifestation of her intellectual power is discursive reason. From Intelligence the Soul derives her perfection, as well as her existence; only in comparison with Intelligence does the Soul seem imperfect. ”

“ Can the qualities seen in the sense-world, and those that exist in the intelligible world, be classified together in one kind? This question demands an answer from those270 who claim that there are also qualities in the intelligible world. ”

“ Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible. ”

“ Appeal to him on any plain subject, and you find him gifted with quick perception, possessed with ready judgment, and with his mind sparkling with intelligence. Now, mix a dozen such men together, and intellect instantly begins to coagulate ”

“ From the Lord God of Hosts, and you derived your intelligence from the same source. Where did any man that exists or breathes the breath of life throughout this whole universe get any intelligence he has? ”

“ Nothing is calculated to satisfy the mind of an intelligent being only to obtain principles that will preserve him in his identity, to enable him to increase in wisdom, power, knowledge, and perfection. ”

“ But have we to-day such well-rounded intellects, such finished personalities, where the mind and the soul are equally developed, where a sheer joy in knowledge is sought and held out as the highest and noblest of all attainments? We have nowadays what might be called, either a hothouse intellect endowed with an adamant will, or a naturally powerful intellect debased by a vulgar soul. ”

“ But that which par excellence is termed knowledge, bears the impress of judgment and reason, in the exercise of which there will be rational cognitions alone, applying purely to objects of thought, and resulting from the bare energy of the soul. ”

“ Now as intelligence is the very essence of personality, distinction of intelligence must be the distinction of personality. Therefore the Divine Intelligence is the Divine Person, and the human intelligence, is the human person. ”

“ But if vain Man will pretend to Wisdom, let him first learn to know the length of his own line.
Tho the Human Intellect has a large extent, yet being limited as we have already said, this Limitation is the Cause of those different Modes of 76 Thinking, which for distinction sake we call Faith, Science and Opinion. ”

“ Intellect lies behind genius, which is intellect constructive. Intellect is the simple power anterior to all action or construction. Gladly would I unfold in calm degrees a natural history of the intellect, but what man has yet been able to mark the steps and boundaries of that transparent essence? The first questions are always to be asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child. How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? ”

“ How could we, by these reasonings, to Intelligence reduce our soul which recognizes that it is the image of Intelligence, which considers its life a faithful imitation of the life of Intelligence, which thinks that, when it thinks, it assumes an intellectual and divine form? ”

“ Being " as appearance the twisting round of values: appearance was that which conferred the values. Knowledge in itself in a world of Becoming is impossible; how can knowledge be possible at all, then? ”

“ Is not my essence thought?' 'You ought to know your own essence best,' all creation will reply. 'I am confident,' says one, 'that I never do cease to think,—not even in the soundest sleep.' 'You do, for a long time, every night of your life,' exclaims another, equally confident and equally ignorant. ”

“ His varied experience in contact with all classes of society, of every shade of opinion, and all creeds of religious faith, had taught him to search farther than mere professions for the true life of the soul; and he learned to regard every human being, however degraded in person or erroneous in theory, as a spark of the divine intelligence, whose absolute sovereignty in all matters of thought none can question. ”

“ Intellect, insight, is the discernment of order in disorder; it is the discovery of the will of Nature, of God's will; the beginning of the capability to walk according to that. With perfect intellect, were such possible without perfect morality, the world would be perfect ”

“ That intellect is to be invigorated only to enlighten conscience—that conscience is to be enlightened only to act on details—that accomplishments and graces are to be cultivated only, or chiefly, to adorn obscurity;—a list of somewhat paradoxical propositions indeed, and hard to be received ”

“ So much beauty and but one sense with which to possess it: but weak mortal eyes and an imperfect vision, inferior even to that of many an animal! To feel within oneself the intellect, the power to conceive the creations of a God, and to know that one’s ignorance was still as vast as the field of knowledge offered ... ”

“ Are they not rife with all the useful reasoning—the philosophic intelligence—the happiness of application, that cultivated man could devise for the assistance of untutored intellect?
From the logic of the sage we learn, by a spirit of imitation natural to human beings, to quicken our own powers of reasoning. The perspicuity of arrangement and expression, so admirable in our master, becomes gradually a part of our own style. ”

“ We found ourselves in possession of bodies, mental faculties, and reasoning powers. In a word, we found ourselves intelligent beings, with minds capable of recalling the past and launching into the unborn future with lightning speed ”

“ It was so in my training. We seek to silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, in fact, in order to Know. We postulate, of course, a center of Spontaneous Knowledge, or Genius, above the mind. ”

“ Those who are wise in mind have a certain attribute of nature peculiar to themselves; and they who have shown themselves capable, receive from the Supreme Wisdom a spirit of perception in double measure. ”

“ I saw him as no man ever saw him who had not the desire and patience to observe, the sympathy to understand, and the intelligence to communicate his observations to those who would really like to understand him. ”

“ But he will have to add the thought of an Intelligence, for which the Thing is to be; while, on the contrary, the Intelligence is self-sufficient and requires no additional thought. By thinking it as the Intelligence you include already that for which it is to be. ”

“ And as I have often thought over the cause of this fault, it seems to me that we must conclude that the spirit which directs and governs everybody is that which forms our intellect, or rather, it is our intellect itself. ”

“ And, among the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not intelligence,—men, e.g., above cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal such as the angels, above the mortal, such as men. ”

“ But such adaptations, says a thoughtful writer, "indicate contrivance for a given purpose, and contrivance is the evidence of intelligence, and intelligence is the attribute of mind, and the intelligent mind that built the [32] stupendous universe is God." ”

“ Such do I see Intelligence in those who possess it; such do I feel it, on some delightful occasions, in myself. Such also I frequently notice it failing to make itself agreeable to some kinds of persons. Those who take a just pride in Reason or Logic are often a little ruffled; or else, as Wagner said of Mozart, they find Intelligence just a little frivol. But in the long run they recognize an ally; and their conscious superiority makes them indulgent. ”

“ He possessed an instinct so keen that it amounted almost to intuition in his understanding of men, a business ability amounting almost to genius, and a philosophic turn of mind which permitted him to apply his knowledge with almost unerring judgment. ”

“ First, he should be as complete an animal as possible. Then he should develop himself as a being capable of thinking, of knowing. How many men are there that take possession of the intellectual realm that lies around them on every hand? ”

“ But I raise this question merely to ask another—When the wise man brings his list of our genuine admirations, will intelligence be one of them? We might seem to be well within the old ideal of modesty if we claimed the virtue of intelligence. But before we claim the virtue, are we convinced that it is a virtue, not a peril? ”

“ I do most fully believe that some true proposition of the form ‘Intelligence is good and intelligence alone is good’ can be found; if none could be found, our definition of the good would be impossible. ”

“ The first who came for intelligence about himself was a philosopher, renowned for his virtues, and for the number and probity of his disciples. He said the study of his life had been to know himself, and he believed that nothing remained for him to discover, but he had come to have his judgment confirmed. I desired him to stand before the mirror, in which he would immediately see his whole character. "But," said he, "how am I to distinguish the qualities of my mind by the eye? I can reason about them, but I know not any one of [363] them by sight. How can a virtue have shape or colour?" ”

“ You thus perceive that the question regarding our competency to attain to absolute truth resolves itself into the new question, Is there in the mind of man a universal part—that is, a part which in all intelligences is essentially of the same character? Intelligence itself seems to constrain us to answer this question in the affirmative. ”

“ Slight them by preoccupation of mind,—slight them, as you can well afford to do, by high and universal aims, and they instantly feel that you have right, and that it is in lower places that they must shine. They also feel your right; for they, with you, are open to the influx of the all-knowing spirit, which annihilates before its broad noon the little shades and gradations of intelligence in the compositions we call wiser and wisest. ”

“ Granted that Intelligence rids us of dangerous superstitions, and rids us, moreover, of the habit of superstition, which is a matter less of what than of how one believes; granted that along with lucidity Intelligence brings also intellectual equity, cleanness and dignity ”

“ There was, therefore, no necessity for imagining such a oneness of intellect as Averrhoes held, in order to give objective certainty to human knowledge. The intellect of each man has its own powers, and is the image of the Everlasting Wisdom ”

“ Next, came that unintelligible contradictory phrase, a "blind intelligence;" a thing called a mind, that goes it knows not whither, and moves it knows not why. From this thing, immersed in the darkest ignorance, and unconscious even of its own existence, we were asked to believe that arrangement, harmony, excellence, beauty, were the productions. ”

“ Intelligence turns to whichever side the light comes from, adjusting itself, in discursive, often desultory fashion, to all manner of directions and distances, comparing and measuring with unabashed slovenliness, extracting the qualities which strike it and hastening on to connect them with something it was struck by before. Being thus rapidly responsive, Intelligence may often, I admit, seem on the pounce, and more so than politeness warrants. ”

“ I would be glad to know your lordship’s opinion, whether, when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after, the same materials are again fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being—whether, I say, that being will be me; or if two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain, whether they will all be me, and consequently be all one and the same intelligent being. ”

“ It is tantamount to believing that it is possible to enlighten his intelligence, to change his heart, and to persuade him to mend his behaviour. It is displaying ignorance of the necessity governing his immutable wisdom. ”

“ Shouldst thou make the mirror of heart pure and clear from the dust of prejudice, thou wilt comprehend all the symbols in the sayings of the perfect Word of Divinity in every Manifestation and be informed of the mysteries of Knowledge. But unless thou destroyest with the fire of Severance the veils of learning which are conventional among the servants, thou wilt not attain to the brilliant morn of the Ideal Knowledge. ”

“ Intellect being the distinguishing characteristic of the philosopher and the indispensable means of holding a mirror up to nature, he exhibits a constant tendency to substitute the part for the whole and to exalt it into the sole and only true reality. ”