Chapter 37: Of the Faculty of Understanding — Knowledge, Ignorance, Curiosity, and Opinion

Now it follows to speak of the parts or principal powers of the Soul, which are the Understanding, and the Will. Concerning the Understanding, the dignity thereof, though it may partly be perceived in the latitude and excellent variety of its objects, being the whole world of things (for Ens & Intelligibile are reciprocal, & omnia intelligit, says Aristotle of the understanding) yet principally it proceeds from the operations of it both Ad extra in respect of the objects, and ad intra in respect of the Will. The one is a contemplative, the other a more practical office, whereby the speculations of the former are accommodated to any either moral or civil actions. Those which respect the objects, are either passive, or active operations. Passive I call those first perceptions and apprehensions of the Soul, whereby it receives the simple species of some object from immediate impression thereof by the ministry of the Soul; as when I understand one object to be a man, another a tree, by administration and assistance of the eye, which presents the species of either.

Another sort of passive operations (that is of such as are grounded on impressions received from objects) are mixed operations of compounding, dividing, collecting, concluding, which we call discourse. Of all which to speak according to their logical nature, would be impertinent. Their excellence chiefly stands in the end to which they move and serve, which is knowledge; of which, I shall therefore here speak a few things.

Knowledge is the assimilation of the understanding to the things which it understands, by those intelligible species which do [reconstructed: irradiate] it, and put the power of it into act. For as the beams of the sun shining on a glass, do there work the image of the sun: so the species and resemblances of things being conveyed on the understanding, do there work their own image. In which respect the philosopher says, That the intellect becomes all things by being capable of proper impressions from them: as in a painter's table, we call that a face, a hand, a foot, a tree, which is the lively image and representation of such things to the eye.

There is not any desire more noble, nor more natural to a man (who has not like Saul hid himself among the stuff, and lost himself in the low and perishing provisions for lust) than is this desire of knowledge. Nature dictating to every creature to be more intent upon its specific than upon its generic perfection. And hence it is that though man be the most perfect of all creatures, yet many do excel him in sensitive perfection. Some in exquisiteness of sight; others of hearing; others of taste, touch, and smell; others of swiftness and of strength; nature thereby teaching us to imitate her in perfecting, and supplying of our desires, not to terminate them there, where when we have made the best provision we can, many beasts will surpass us: but to direct our diligence most to the improving of our own specific and rational perfection, to wit, our understandings. Other faculties are tired, and will be apt to nauseate, and surfeit on their objects. But knowledge as knowledge, does never either burden or cloy the mind, no more than a covetous man is wearied with growing rich: and therefore the philosopher tells us that knowledge is the rest of the understanding, wherein it takes delight as a thing in its natural place.

And so great is this delight, that men have ventured on much trouble to procure it. As Pythagoras, [reconstructed: Plato], Democritus, travelled into remote countries to gather knowledge, as Solomon sent to Ophir for gold. And as it makes adventurous to undertake troubles, so it helps men to bear them. A true lover of knowledge will hardly be over-borne with any ordinary distress, if it does not violate, and restrain that particular appetite. If he may enjoy the delights of learning, he will be very moderately affected with his other restraints. Archimedes was not sensible of the loss of Syracuse, being wholly intent upon a mathematical demonstration. And [reconstructed: Demetrius Phalereus] deceived the calamity of his banishment by the sweetness of his studies. A man is never afflicted to the quick, but when he is punished in his most delightful affections, of all which the most predominant in rational men is this of knowledge.

And therefore as the first creature God formed was light (to show that all his works were made in wisdom, that they might set forth and manifest his glory) so the first motion of Adam after his creation was towards knowledge. By his exercise of knowledge he showed God's image in him, and by the ambition after more he lost it: as no man sins easier than in the thing which he best loves. And for this cause we may observe that Christ's most frequent miracles were shown in opening the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf and dumb. His mercies being perfect, extended themselves on those faculties which are the chief instruments of knowledge in men which they most love.

And this love of knowledge is seen evidently in this, that men had rather have sober calamities, than mad pleasures, and more freely choose clear intellectuals with misery, than disturbed with mirth. Many men better content themselves with but a frail body, for the fruition of their studies, than to purchase better health at so great a price as the loss of learning.

But the principal excellence of knowledge is this, That it guides the Soul to God; and so does all kind of right knowledge in diverse respects. For first, there is scarce any science properly so called, which has not its [reconstructed: arcana] to pose and amaze the understanding, as well as its more easy conclusions to satisfy it. Such as are in philosophy, those occult sympathies and antipathies, of which natural reason can render no account at all: which overcoming the utmost vigor of human disquisition, must needs enforce us to believe that there is an admirable wisdom that disposes, and an infinite knowledge that comprehends those secrets which we are not able to fathom.

Again, since the knowledge of things is either of their beings, or of their properties and operations: and nature abhors the motion of proceeding in infinitum: in either of these, it is necessary that the mind of man, tracing the footsteps of natural things, must by the act of logical resolution at last rise to him who is the fountain of all being, the first of all causes, the supreme over all movers, in whom all the rest have their beings and motions founded. And this the Lord in the prophet has delivered to us. I will hear the heavens, and the heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth the corn and wine, and they Jezreel. Jezreel cannot subsist without corn and wine; she cries to them to help it. These cannot help without the earth to produce them; they cry to that to be fruitful. The earth can bring forth nothing of itself without influence, benignity, and comfortable showers from the heavens; it cries to them for aid. The heavens cannot give rain nor warmth of themselves, without him who is the Father of rain, and the fountain of motion. So that here are three notable things to be observed: the connection and concatenation of all second causes to one another; the cooperation of them together for the good of the church; and the subordination of them all to God, to whom at length the more accurate inquiry into them does lead us. And this subordination stands in four things. First, all things are subordinate to God in being: he only has being per Essentiam, by absolute and original essence; all other things per participationem, by derivation and dependance on him. Second, in conservation: for God does not make his creatures as a carpenter does his house, which can after stand by itself alone; but having our very being from him, that being cannot be or continue without his support, as light in the house depends both in being and in continuance upon the sun. Third, in regard of governance and providence; for all things are by his wisdom guided to the ends of his glory. And even those creatures which fly out of the order of his precepts, do fall into the order of his providence. Lastly, in regard of operation: for in him we live and move, he works our works for us; second causes cannot put forth any causality till he be pleased to concur with them.

Again, since we find that all other creatures have, answerable to the instincts and appetitions which nature has grafted in them, proportionable objects of equal latitude in goodness to the faculties which are carried to them; it must needs be reasonable that that be not wanting to the most excellent of creatures, which all the rest do enjoy. Since then the supreme appetite of the reasonable soul is knowledge, and among all the creatures there never was yet any found able to fill and satisfy this desire; but that still there is both room for more knowledge and inquiry after it: and besides, all the knowledge of them is accompanied with unquietness and labor (as the beast first stirs the mud in the water with his feet before he drinks it with his mouth) — from this it infallibly follows that from these lesser objects, the soul be carried at the last to God, the adequate and ultimate end and object of all our desires, as Noah's dove was carried back to the ark, when she found no place for the sole of her foot to rest on.

Again, when we see things which have no knowledge, work so regularly toward an end, as if they knew all the way they were to go, we must needs conclude they are guided by a mighty wisdom and knowledge without them, as when an arrow flies directly to the mark, I am sure it was the hand of a skillful archer that directed it.

To the perfection of knowledge, after due and proper representation of objects in themselves, or in their causes, effects, principles, to the mind; there are in the subject three things requisite.

First, clearness of apprehension, to receive the right and distinct notion of the things represented, as the clearness of a glass serves for the admission of a more exact image of the face that looks upon it, whereas if it be soiled or dimmed, it renders either none, or an imperfect shape.

Secondly, solidity of judgment to try and weigh the particulars which we apprehend, that out of them we may sever for our use the precious from the vile; for knowledge lies in things as gold in a mine, or as corn in the straw; when by diligent inquiry after it, we have dug it up and threshed it out, we must then bring it to the fire and fan, to give it to us purified from dross and levity. And this in speculation answers to the general virtue of practical prudence in morality, whereby we weigh the several means to the true ends of life, and accordingly select and pursue the best.

Thirdly, fidelity of retention; for he is not likely to grow rich, who puts up his treasure as the Prophet speaks, into a bag with holes. For as nature has given to the bodies of men for the furtherance of corporeal strength, and nutriment, a retentive power to clasp and hold fast that which preserves it, until a thorough concoction be wrought; so proportionably is the faculty of memory given to reason, as a means to consolidate and enrich it. And fluxes, as in the body, so in the mind too, are ever arguments and authors of weakness. From where it comes to pass that in matter of learning many of us are forced to be day-laborers, and to live from hand to mouth, being not able to lay up anything. And therefore in the choice of fit persons to breed up to learning, we should take a like course as wise architects do in choice of fit timber for building. They choose first the straightest and that which has fewest knots, and flaws in it; which in the mind answers to clearness, and evenness of apprehension. For a clear mind, like straight and smooth timber, will work easiest. Next, they take the heart and strongest substance, and cut out the sap: because that is best able to bear the weight that shall be laid upon it: and this answers to maturity and firmness of judgment. Lastly, they do not take sally, or willow, or birch, and such other materials as are quickly apt to putrefy and wear away, but such timber as is lasting and retentive of its nature, as oak and elm, which may make the superstructure of the nature of the foundation, strong and lasting: and this answers to that excellent faculty of the mind, a rational memory: from which one particular (I think more than any other) do arise those vast differences of felicity and infelicity in the minds of men addicted to the search of knowledge. Strange was the unhappiness of Calvisius Sabinus in Seneca, who being at vast charges in matter of learning, was not yet able to retain fast the names of Achilles, or Ulysses: but, as his parasite would deridingly advise him, wanted a grammatical attendant to gather up the fragments which his memory let fall. And Curio the orator in Tully would when he had proposed three things in an oration, forget some one or other of them, or add a fourth; indeed Messala Corvinus forgot his own name, as Pliny tells us. And as wonderful on the other side has been the felicity of some others. Seneca the father could repeat two thousand words together in their order. Cyrus and Themistocles could call all their soldiers by their names, (by which one art of courtesy Otho aspired to the empire). Adrian could read a book which he never saw before, and after recite it by memory; and of the Emperor Julian it is said, that he had drunk Totum memoriae dolium, the whole vessel of memory. To say nothing of Simonides, and Apollonius Tyanlus, who in their old age, the one at 80, the other at 100 years old, were very famous for the exquisiteness of their memories; nor of Cyneas, Charmidas, Portius Latro, and diverse others, who have been admired for this happy quality. Now to this felicity does conduce, a methodical and orderly disposition of mind, to digest and lay up things in their proper places. It was easier for Cyrus to remember men in an army than in a throng. And hence has proceeded the art of memory invented as Pliny tells us by Simonides, and perfected by [reconstructed: Metrodorus] Sceptius, consisting in the committing of several heads of matter to distinct places, whereof Quintilian discourses in his Oratory Institutions.

Of knowledge there are several sorts, according to several considerations, with respect to the ends of it. Some is speculative for the improving of the mind, as physical, metaphysical, and mathematical knowledge. Others practical for fashioning, and guiding of the manners and conditions of men, as ethical, political, historical, military knowledge. Some mixed of both, as theological knowledge, consisting in the speculation of divine verities, and in the direction of divine duties. Some instrumental, being only subservient to others, as grammatical, rhetorical, dialectical learning. In regard of order, some superior, others subalternate, as music to arithmetic, optics to geometry. In regard of their original, some ingrafted, as the supreme principles of verity, and implanted notions of morality, which is called the law of nature, and written in the heart of all men (Romans 2:14-15). Other acquired, and by search and industry labored out of those principles, and the others which are taught us. Other revealed and divinely manifested to the faith of men, whereof the supreme principles are these two. 1. That God in his authority is infallible, who neither can be deceived, nor can deceive. 2. That the things delivered in Holy Scriptures, are the dictates, and truths, which that infallible authority has delivered to the Church to be believed, and therefore that every supernatural truth there plainly set down [reconstructed: in terminis], is an unquestionable principle; and every thing by evident consequence and deduction from there derived, is therefore an undoubted conclusion in theological and divine knowledge. In regard of the manner of acquiring, some is experimental, a knowledge of particulars; and some habitual, a general knowledge growing out of the reason of particulars. And those acquired either by invention from a man's industry, or by [reconstructed: Auscultation] and attendance to those that teach us. In regard of objects, some supreme, as the knowledge of principles and prime verities, which have their light in themselves, and are known by evidence of their own terms. Others derived and deduced by argumentation from those principles, which is the knowledge of conclusions. In regard of perfection, intuitive knowledge, as that of angels whereby they know things by the view; and discursive, as that of men, whereby we know things by ratiocination. In regard of order and method, synthetical, when we proceed in knowledge by a way of composition from the causes to the effects; and analytical, when we rise up from effects to their causes, in a way of resolution.

With this noble endowment of knowledge, was human nature greatly adorned in its first creation: so far forth as the necessity of a happy and honorable life, of the worship and communion with God, of the dominion and government over the creatures, of the acquaintance with himself, and of the instruction of his posterity, did require knowledge in him. For we may not think that God, who made man in a perfect stature of body, did give him but an infant stature of mind. God made all things exceeding good, and perfect; and therefore the perfection naturally belonging to the soul of man, was doubtless given to it, in its first creation. He made man right and straight; and the rectitude of the mind is in knowledge and light; and therefore the Apostle tells us, that our renovation in knowledge is after the image of him that created us (Colossians 3:10). Without knowledge he could not have given fit names, and suitable to the natures of all the creatures which for that purpose were brought to him. He could not have awed and governed so various, and so strong creatures, to preserve peace, order, and beauty among them. He could not have given such an account of the substance and original of Eve, of the end of her creation to be the mother of all living men as he did. Experimental knowledge he had not but by the exercise of his original light upon particular objects, as they should occur. Knowledge of future events he had not, it being not natural, nor investigable by innate light, but prophetic, and therefore not seen till revealed. Secret knowledge of the thoughts of men, or of the counsels of God he could not have, because secret things belong to the Lord. But so much light of divine knowledge as should fit him to have communion with God, and to serve him, and obtain a blessed life; so much of moral knowledge as should fit him to converse in love as a neighbor, in wisdom as a father, with other men; so much of natural knowledge as should dispose him for the admiring of God's glory, and for the governing of other creatures over which he had received dominion; so much we may not without notable injury to the perfection of God's workmanship, and to the beauty and rectitude of our first parent, deny to have been conferred upon our nature in him. The benefits of which singular ornament of knowledge, are exceeding great. Hereby we recover a largeness of heart, for which Solomon is commended (1 Kings 4:29): able to dispatch many businesses, to digest and order multitudes of motions, to have minds seasoned with generous and noble resolutions; for that disposition is by the Philosopher called [illegible], greatness of mind. Hereby we are brought to a just contempt of sordid and wormy affections. It is darkness which makes men grope, and pore, and look only on the things before them, as the Apostle intimates (2 Peter 1:9). Enlightened minds see a greater luster in knowledge than in the fine gold (Proverbs 3:14-15). The excellence of evangelical knowledge made Saint Paul esteem every thing in the world besides as [reconstructed: dung] (Philippians 3:8). As the light of the sun swallows up all the petty light of the stars: so the more noble and spacious the knowledge of men's minds is, the more does it dictate to them the contempt of those various and vulgar delights which bewitch the fancies of ignorant men. It disposes men for mutual communion, and helpful society: for without knowledge every man is ferae Naturae, like birds of prey, that fly always alone. Neither is it possible for a man to be sociable, or a member of any public body, any further than he has a proportion and measure of knowledge: since human society stands in the communicating of mutual notions to one another. Two men that are deaf, and dumb, and blind, destitute of all the faculties of gaining or deriving knowledge, may be together, but they cannot be said to have society one with another. To conclude, hereby we are brought nearer to God, to admire him for his wisdom, and power; to adore him for his greatness, and majesty; to desire him, and work towards the fruition of him, for his light and glory; because in the vision of him consists the beatitude of man.

This knowledge is corrupted four manner of ways. First, by the contempt of it in ignorance. Secondly, by the luxuriousness and wantonness of it in curiosity. Thirdly, by the defect and uncertainty of it in opinion. Fourthly, by contradiction and opposition to it in error.

There is a threefold ignorance with which the minds of men may be blinded and defaced. The one is a natural ignorance, which of divine things, so far forth as those things are spiritual, is in all men by nature; for the natural man neither receives with acceptance, nor with demonstration discerns the things of the Spirit of God; and the reason the Apostle gives, because they are spiritually discerned. For as the eye is fitted to discern light by the innate property of light and cognation which it has thereunto, without which the eye could no more perceive objects of light than it can of sounds: so the mind cannot otherwise receive spiritual objects, than as it has a similitude to those objects in a spiritual disposition itself; from which that expression of Saint John, we shall be like to him, for we shall see him as he is. Spiritual things exceed the weakness of reason, because they are above it, and so cannot be discerned; and they oppose the corruption of reason, because they are against it, and so cannot be received.

There is likewise in many men much natural ignorance, even in moral and natural things. For as in the Fall of Man our spirituals were lost, so were our naturals weakened too, as we find in the great dullness of many men in matters of learning, in so much that some have not been able to learn the names of the first letters or elements.

Again, there is a voluntary ignorance (of which we have before spoken) whereby men do willfully close their eyes against knowledge, and refuse it; and of this there may be a double ground. The one guile, in knowledge that pertains to the conscience, when a man chooses rather not to know his duty, than by the knowledge of it, to have his conscience disquieted with reproaches of despising it. The other out of sluggishness and apprehensions of difficulty in the obtaining of knowledge. When of two evils, undergoing of labor, or forfeiting of learning, a man esteems this the lesser.

Thirdly, there is a penal ignorance of which I shall not speak, because it differs not from the voluntary ignorance of spiritual things, save only in the relation that it has to the justice of God thereby provoked, who sometimes leaves such men to their blindness, that the thing which with respect to their own choice of it, is a pleasure, with respect to God's justice, may be a plague, and punishment to them. Thus the intellectual faculty is corrupted in many men by ignorance.

In others it is abused by curiosity, which may well be called the pride, and the wantonness of knowledge, because it looks after high things that are above us, and after hidden things that are denied us. And I may well put these two together, pride and luxury of learning. For I believe we shall seldom find the pride of knowledge more predominant than there where it arises out of the curious and conjectural inquiries of wit, and not out of scientific and demonstrative grounds. And I find the Apostle joining them together, when he tells us of some, who intruded themselves into things which they had not seen, and were vainly puffed up by a fleshly mind. And he himself complains of others, who were proud, and languished about needless questions; as it is ever a sign of a sick and ill-affected stomach to quarrel with usual and wholesome meat, and to long for and linger after delicacies which we cannot reach. When Manna will not go down without Quails, you may be sure the stomach is cloyed, and wants medicine to purge it. I will not here add more of this point, having lately touched it on a fitter occasion.

A third corruption of this faculty in regard of knowledge, is in the fluctuation, wavering, and uncertainty of assents, when the understanding is left floating, and as it were in aequilibrio, that it cannot tell which way to incline, or what resolutions to grow to; and this is that which in opposition to science, is called opinion. For science is ever cum certitudine, with evidence and unquestionable consequence of conclusions from necessary principles: but opinion is cum Formidine Oppositi, with a fear lest the contrary of what we assent to should be true. And so it imports a tender, doubtful, and infirm conclusion.

The causes of opinion, I conceive to be principally two: the first is a disproportion between the understanding and the object, when the object is either too bright and excellent, or too dark and base: the one dazzles the power, the other affects it not. Things too divine and abstracted, are to the understanding Tanquam lumen ad Vespertilionem, as light to a bat; which rather astonish than inform; and things too material and immersed, are like a mist to the eyes, which rather hinder, than affect it. And therefore, though whatever has truth in it, be the object of the understanding; yet the coexistence of the soul with the body, in this present estate, restrains and limits the latitude of the object, and requires in it, not only the bare nature and truth, but such a qualification thereof, as may make it fit for representation and impression by the conveyance of the sense. So that as in the true perception of the eye (especially of those Vespertiliones, to which Aristotle has compared the understanding in this estate of subsistence with the body) there is required a mixture of contraries in the air; it must not be too light, lest it weaken and too much disgregate or spread the sense; nor yet too dark, lest it contract and lock it up: but there must be a kind of middle temper; clearness of the medium for conveyance, and yet some degrees of darkness for qualification of the object. Even so also the objects of man's understanding must participate of the two contraries, abstraction and materiality. Abstraction first, in proportion to the [illegible] of the understanding, which is spiritual. And materiality too, in respect of the sense, on which the understanding depends in this estate, as on the medium of conveyance, and that is corporeal. So that wherever there is difficulty and uncertainty of operation in the understanding, there is a double defect and disproportion: first in the power, whose operations are restrained and limited for the most, by the body: and then in the object, which has not a sufficient mixture of those two qualities, which should proportion it to the power. This is plain by a familiar simile; an aged man is not able to read a small print, without the assistance of spectacles to make the letters by a refraction seem greater. Where first we may discern an imperfection in the organ; for if his eyes were as clear and well-disposed as a young man's, he would be able by his natural power, without art, to receive the species of small letters. And next, there is an imperfection and deficiency in the letters; for if they had the same magnitude and fitness in themselves, which they seem to have by refraction through the glass, the weakness of his power might perhaps have sufficient strength to receive them without those helps. So that always the uncertainty of opinion is grounded on the insufficiency of the understanding to receive an object, and on the disproportion of the object to the nature of the understanding.

The next cause of opinion and uncertainty in assents, may be acuteness and subtlety of wit, when men out of ability, like Carneades, to discourse probably on either side, and poising their judgments between an equal weight of arguments, are forced to suspend their assents, and so either to continue unresolved and equally inclinable to either part, or else, if to avoid neutrality, they make choice of something to avow (and that is properly opinion) yet it is rather an inclination, than an assertion, as being accompanied with fear, floating and inconstancy.

And this indeed, although it be in itself a defect of learning; yet considering the estate of man, and strict conditions of perfecting the understanding by continual inquiry (man being [reconstructed: bound] in this also to recover that measure of his [reconstructed: first] fullness, which is attainable in this [reconstructed: corrupted] estate, by sweat of brain, by labor and degrees, Paulatim extundere artes) I say in these considerations, irresolution in judgment (so it be not universal in all conclusions; for that argues more weakness, than choice of conceit; nor particular in things of faith and salvation, which is not modesty but infidelity) is both commendable and useful. Commendable, because it [reconstructed: prevents] all temper of heresy (whose nature is to be peremptory.) And both argues learning and modesty in the softness of judgment, which will not suffer itself to be captivated, either to its own conceits, or to such unenforceable reasons, in which it is able to descry weakness. And this is that which Pliny commends in his friend Titus Ariston, whose hesitancy and slowness of resolution in matter of learning proceeded not from any emptiness or unfurnishedness; but ex diversitate Rationum qua[illegible] acrimagnoque Iudicio ab origine Causasque primis repetit, discernit, expendit: out of a learned [reconstructed: cautiousness] of judgment, which made him so long suspend his assent, till he had weighed the several repugnancies of reasons, and by that means found out some truth whereon to settle his conceit. For (as the same Pliny elsewhere out of Thucydides observes) it is rawness and deficiency of learning that makes bold and peremptory: [illegible] demurs and fearfulness of resolution are commonly the companions of more able wits. And for the use of doubtings, first, they lessen the number of heresies, which are (as I said) always obstinate. And next it gives occasion of further inquiry after the truth, to those who shall find themselves best qualified for that service. But heresy coming under the shape of science, with shows of certainty, evidence, and resolution (especially if the inducements be quick and subtle) does rather settle the understanding, and possess it with false assents, than yield occasion of deeper search, unless it meet with a more piercing judgment, which can through confidence descry weakness. For questionless the errors of great men generally honored for their learning, when they are once wrapped up in the boldness of assertions, do either by possessing the judgment with prejudice of the author, make it also subscribe to the error; or if a more impartial eye see insufficiency in the ground, the authority of the man frightens and deters from the opposing of his conceit. Whereas when men's assents are proposed with a modest confession of distrust and uncertainty: the understanding is incited both to inquire after the reasons of diffidence, as also to find out means for a more settled confirmation and clearing of the truth.