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consciousness. Some such violent interruption or rent in the inward memory of self-consciousness is invariably to be found in madness, and is a leading symptom of it. And here I would merely call upon you to observe a further illustration of what has been already more than once pointed out. The triple principle of body, soul, and spirit is again repeated and manifested even in this sad state of mental alienation, and in all its different forms and species. In true lunacy or monomania—which is generally harmless and quiet—a radically false but fixed idea is often associated, and is not inconsistent with an extraordinary shrewdness on all other points. Nevertheless, this fixed erroneous idea, being made the center of all other thoughts and of the whole consciousness, produces that confusion and that disorganization of the mind which characterizes this form of a disordered intellect. But in true madness, or frenzy, the seat of the disease is in the soul, which, having broken loose from all the ties and restraints of reason and rational habit, appears to have fallen a prey to some hostile, wild, and raging force of nature. In idiotcy, lastly, especially where it is inborn and conjoined with the perfection of the external organs of sense, we must assume the existence of some faulty organization, some defect in the brain, or whatever else is the unknown but higher organ both of thought and life. The source of the last is altogether physical and corporeal, whereas moral causes often co-operate in the highest degree to the production of the former two. The deaf and dumb, if left wholly to themselves, would, in all probability, belong always to the third class, since, with the loss of speech they are simultaneously deprived of a leading condition of rationality. And, accordingly, the first object with those who undertake the difficult task of training these unfortunate beings is to furnish them with another language, by means of signs, instead of the ordinary audible speech of which the accident of birth has deprived them. This instance, therefore, is only a further confirmation of what I have already advanced, that the intellectual character is, in every respect, most intimately dependent on the faculty of speech. A more minute examination of these matters belongs to physical science. Nevertheless, our passing remark on the triple character of this psychological evil, or misfortune, will not, I hope, be found inappropriate here, as affording, even in this narrow and special sphere of a disordered intellect, a further illustration of the general principle of our theory of the human consciousness.

      Now, the outer and especially the higher senses may, by reason of the supremacy of the fancy, to which they are subordinate, be termed, with propriety, so many applied faculties of imagination. In the same way we might give the same designation to the inclinations and impulses—the good as well as the evil—if, perhaps, it would not be more accurate to name them an imagination passed into life. In a similar way the memory may be considered as an applied reason which in the application has become quite mechanical and habitual; for unquestionably the logical arrangement is the chief quality in memory. From this it derives both its value and scientific utility. On the other hand, there are certain acquired mental aptitudes which, though originally they can not be formed without the voluntary exercise of memory, become at last a completely unconscious and mechanical operation—the facility, for instance, of learning by heart, or the acquisition of foreign languages, or catching up of musical tunes. In all these the reason has become an instinct, just as the instinct of animals, their artistic impulse and skill, may be designated an unconscious analogy of reason.

      In this subordinate faculty of the memory, the reason, agreeably to its specific character, exhibits itself as a useful and ministering agent. In conscience, on the contrary, as its highest function, it assumes a somewhat negative character. But in both relations, whether as a ministerial or negative faculty of thought, the reason, in its place, is of the highest value. If occasionally we have seemed to detract from and to limit its importance, such remarks have been called forth by the undue and overweening authority which the present age would claim for the reason. This is the sole end and meaning of our opposition, which is directed exclusively against that spurious reason which claims to be supreme, and arrogates to itself a productive power; whereas, in truth, it ought not to be the one, and can never be the other. The thought which distinguishes, divides, and analyzes, and that also which combines, infers, and concludes—which, as such, make up the faculty of reason—may be so carried on in indefinite and infinite process, as ultimately to get entirely rid of its object-matter. It is this endless thinking, without a correspondent object, that is the source of scientific error, which, as in all cases it arises solely out of this vacuum in thinking, can only lead to a thinking of nothing—a cogitation absolutely null and false. Far different is the case where a memory, stored with the rich materials of intellectual experience, forms the useful basis of man’s studies and pursuits, or where, as is the case with the apperception of the conscience, the object, even while it is less extensive and manifold, is the more highly and more intensely important. Now, as the reason generally is not only a combining and connecting, but also a distinguishing faculty of thought, so likewise the conscience is a similar power of drawing distinctions in the thought and in the internal consciousness, though in a higher and special degree, and also in a different form from that which, in all other instances, is discursive reason. For it is by a simple feeling and immediate perception that the conscience, in obedience to the voice within man, draws between right and wrong, or good and evil, the greatest of all distinctions. This voice of conscience, while it makes itself heard among all nations, nevertheless, under the ever and widely-varying influence of ruling ideas of the age, and of education, and of custom, speaks in different times and places, in differing tones and dialects. But these differences extend only to subordinate matters. The primary and essential point remains unchanged and never to be mistaken; the same dominant tone and key-note sounds through all these variations—the common tongue and language of human nature and of an untaught and innate fear of God. This fact has led many to regard the conscience as the principal source of all higher and divine truth; with whom I can readily concur, so long as they do not mean thereby that it is the only source, to the exclusion of every other.

      Now it is surely significant that in German—and all languages furnish numerous instances of such significant allusions—the word and the name of reason[17] is derived from that internal perception of the conscience which constitutes its highest function. What, then, it may be asked, is perceived by this wonderful perception, that before it the will inwardly retires and withdraws even its earlier and most cherished wishes? The warning voice it is called, in every age and nation. It is, as it were, one who within us warns and remonstrates. It is not, therefore, our own Me, but as it were another, and, as a vague feeling would suggest, of a higher and a different nature. And now by its light that earlier and retiring will appears in like manner as another self—a lower false and seducing Ego—an alien power which would hurry away ourselves and our proper Me. But between the two—this higher warning voice on the one hand, and this constraining, compelling force on the other—there stands a power which is free to decide between them. And this, as soon as the decomposing process is finished, which in the as yet undecided will, or its mixed states, separates and distinguishes between the good voice and the evil inclination—remains to us as our own Ego and our proper self. This inward voice, and the immediate perception of it, is an anchor on which the vessel of man’s existence rides safely on the stormy sea of life, and the ebb and the flow of the will. In other words, it is a divine focus, or a sacred stay of truth. But further, it must be observed, that the understanding of this inner perception, as I have just painted it, does not belong to the reason, to which alone the perceiving can itself be ascribed. The true intelligence thereof—its higher interpretation, and explanation, which adds to it, or recognizes in it a reference to the divine—must, even because it is an intellectual act, be ascribed to the understanding.

      The present, therefore, is the place for a close and accurate investigation of the difference between reason and understanding—a question of the highest importance for the whole theory of the consciousness, and its true philosophical interpretation, as well as absolutely for every branch of science. For this purpose I shall follow a line of thought somewhat unusual, perhaps, but which on that account is even the more likely to carry us quickly to the desired end, and to place the distinction in a full and clear light. I lately employed the somewhat hypothetical comparison between man and a superior order of intelligences, as a means of illustrating the faculty of the fancy as the peculiar property of the human consciousness. And now I would go a step higher, and from the acknowledged characteristics of the divine intelligence, derive the means of determining the different functions of the human consciousness, and of

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