_In so far as God's creatures have faculties and capacities in common with him, in so far do they know him positively; but in all matters to which their peculiarities as creatures pertain, they only know him negatively;_ i. e. _they know that he is the opposite of themselves._ That passage which was quoted in a former page, simply to prove that Sir William Hamilton denied the reality of the Reason as distinct from the Understanding, requires and will now receive a particular examination. He says: "In the Kantian philosophy, both faculties perform the same function; both seek the one in the many;--the Idea (Idee) is only the Concept (Begriff) sublimated into the inconceivable; Reason only the Understanding which has 'overleaped itself.'" In this sentence, and the remarks which follow it, the logician shows that he neither comprehends the assigned function and province of the Reason, nor possesses any accurate knowledge of the mental phenomena upon which he passes judgment. A diagnosis could not well be more thoroughly erroneous than his. For "both faculties" do _not_ "perform the same function." Only the Understanding seeks "the one in the many." The Reason seeks _the many in the one_. The functions and modes of activity of the two faculties are exactly opposite. The Understanding runs about through the universe, and gathers up what facts it may, and concludes truth therefrom. The Reason sees the truth _first_, as necessary _a priori_ law, and holding it up as standard, measures facts by it, or uses the Sense to find the facts in which it inheres. Besides, the author, in this assertion, is guilty of a most glaring _petitio principii_. For, the very question at issue is, whether "both faculties" do "perform the same function"; whether "both" do "seek the one in the many." In order not to leave the hither side of the question built upon a bare assertion, it will be proper to revert to a few of those proofs adduced heretofore. The Reason sees the truth first. Take now the assertion, Malice is criminal. Is this primarily learned by experience; or is it an intuitive conviction, which conditions experience. Or, in more general terms, does a child need to be taught what guilt is, before it can feel guilty, as it is taught its letters before it can read; or does the feeling of guilt arise within it spontaneously, upon a breach of known law. If the latter be the true experience, then it can only be accounted for upon the ground that an idea of right and wrong, as an _a priori_ law, is organic in man; and, by our definition, the presentation of this law to the attention in consciousness is the act of the Reason. Upon such a theory the one principle was not sought, and is not found, in the many acts, but the many acts are compared with, and judged by, that one standard, which was seen _first_, and as necessarily true. Take another illustration. All religions, in accounting for the universe, have one common point of