Opening the text

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2Hallam, Henry

History

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2

Name: Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2
Author: Hallam, Henry

Hallam, Henry

Literature, Modern -- History and criticism

24. Our faculties are as numerous as the differences of things; and
thus it is, that the world corresponds by perfect analogy to the human
soul, degrees of perception being as much distinct from one another as
different modes of it. All our powers may however be reduced to four
heads; natural instinct, internal perception, external sensation, and
reason. What is not known by one of these four means cannot be known
at all. Instinctive truths are proved by universal consent. Here he
comes to his general basis of religion, maintaining the existence of
κοιναι εννοιαι [koinai ennoiai] or common notions of mankind, on that
subject, principles against which no one can dispute, without
violating the laws of his nature.[174] Natural instinct he defines to
be an act of those faculties existing in every man of sane mind, by
which the common notions as to the relations of things not perceived
by the senses, (rerum internarum) and especially such as tend to the
conversation of the individual, of the species, and of the whole, are
formed without any process of reasoning. These common notions, though
excited in us by the objects of sense, are not conveyed to us by them;
they are implanted in us by nature, so that God seems to have imparted
to us not only a part of his image, but of his wisdom.[175] And
whatever is understood and perceived by all men alike deserves to be
accounted one of these notions. Some of them are instinctive, others
are deduced from such as are. The former are distinguishable by six
marks; priority, independence, universality, certainty; so that no man
can doubt them without putting off as it were his nature, necessity,
that is, usefulness for the preservation of man; lastly, intuitive
apprehension, for these common notions do not require to be
inferred.[176]

     [174] Principia illa sacrosancta, contra quæ disputare nefas.
     p. 44. I have translated this in the best sense I could give it;
     but to use _fas_ or _nefas_, before we have defined their
     meaning, or proved their existence, is but indifferent logic.

     [175] P. 48.

     [176] P. 60.

|Internal perceptions.|

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2Hallam, Henry

History

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2

Hallam, Henry

Literature, Modern -- History and criticism

24. Our faculties are as numerous as the differences of things; and
thus it is, that the world corresponds by perfect analogy to the human
soul, degrees of perception being as much distinct from one another as
different modes of it. All our powers may however be reduced to four
heads; natural instinct, internal perception, external sensation, and
reason. What is not known by one of these four means cannot be known
at all. Instinctive truths are proved by universal consent. Here he
comes to his general basis of religion, maintaining the existence of
κοιναι εννοιαι [koinai ennoiai] or common notions of mankind, on that
subject, principles against which no one can dispute, without
violating the laws of his nature.[174] Natural instinct he defines to
be an act of those faculties existing in every man of sane mind, by
which the common notions as to the relations of things not perceived
by the senses, (rerum internarum) and especially such as tend to the
conversation of the individual, of the species, and of the whole, are
formed without any process of reasoning. These common notions, though
excited in us by the objects of sense, are not conveyed to us by them;
they are implanted in us by nature, so that God seems to have imparted
to us not only a part of his image, but of his wisdom.[175] And
whatever is understood and perceived by all men alike deserves to be
accounted one of these notions. Some of them are instinctive, others
are deduced from such as are. The former are distinguishable by six
marks; priority, independence, universality, certainty; so that no man
can doubt them without putting off as it were his nature, necessity,
that is, usefulness for the preservation of man; lastly, intuitive
apprehension, for these common notions do not require to be
inferred.[176]

     [174] Principia illa sacrosancta, contra quæ disputare nefas.
     p. 44. I have translated this in the best sense I could give it;
     but to use _fas_ or _nefas_, before we have defined their
     meaning, or proved their existence, is but indifferent logic.

     [175] P. 48.

     [176] P. 60.

|Internal perceptions.|

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2

Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 2

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