Chase.] i-O-i [Feb. 7, 



all departments of knowledge, we may designate its three primary subdi- 

 visions as Pure Reason, Practical Reason, and Logical Reason. 



Pure Reason corresponds pretty satisfactorily to Kant's Heine Vernunft, 

 in so far as it is the faculty of the highest intuitions. It holds all the di- 

 rect revelations of faith, all positive or a priori certainty, all absolute and 

 incontrovertible knowledge. Of absolute knowledge we have examples 

 in pure mathematics, and in every axiom or proposition which carries with 

 itself the perception of its necessary and universal validity. From the 

 decisions of pure reason there can be no appeal. No professed infallibility, 

 of pope or conclave or synod or man or body of men, can shake the assur- 

 ance with which we accept the decisions of self-evidence. Others may 

 think us in error, either through want of the clear insight which we enjoy, 

 or through misunderstanding some of the details or bearings of our deci- 

 sion. Whatever we know to be true, no one else can know to be false, 

 however much he may doubt it or however absurd he may think it. The 

 Christian philosopher ranks among the most valuable portions of his abso- 

 lute knowledge the facts of his own religious experience ; the certainty of 

 spiritual being ; the self evidence of a SELP-evident source and authority 

 for self-evidence ; the necessary Being of a Planner and Lawgiver to pre- 

 pare the plans and enact the laws of the universe. 



Practical Reason is nearly represented by Kant's Praktische Vernunft. 

 It works in the field of morality, for the formation of character ; furnish- 

 ing motives for the guidance of the will ; fitted, under the divine sanctifi- 

 cation of desire, for the inauguration of noble purposes ; giving the real 

 knowledge which makes by far the largest portion of our intellectual at- 

 tainments. Real knowledge embraces every fact which we are compelled 

 to believe by the constitution of our minds, but of which we do. not per- 

 ceive the absolute necessity. Absolute and real knowledge are often so 

 closely united that it is difficult, especially for persons who have not been 

 thoroughly trained in habits of nice discrimination, to tell where the ab- 

 solute ends and the relative begins. For all practical purposes, the au- 

 thority of a truth, which is valid under all the relations by which it is 

 surrounded in our apprehension, is just as binding as the authority of a 

 truth which is valid under all possible relations. Moral certainty is as 

 much the gift of God, and therefore as obligatory, as self-evidence. Both 

 physically and spiritually, the absolute knowledge of others may become 

 our real knowledge, provided we are satisfied of their truthfulness. By 

 practical reason we learn that we are surrounded on every side by limita- 

 tions which we cannot overleap ; that we are, to some extent, the creatures 

 of circumstance; but that, within our bounds and under all possible cir- 

 cumstances there are such things as right and wrong, duty and responsi- 

 bility ; that we must, therefore, have so much freedom of choice and ac- 

 tion as is necessary for the exercise of our responsibility. God lias provided 

 for the satisfaction of our needs by giving us a real knowledge of what 

 will elevate our character, as well as by giving us an absolute knowledge 

 of what will elevate our thoughts. 



