Pagina 271 di 1391

for the use of the word faith or belief, (Greek), Timaeus),

contrasting equally with the vagueness of the perception of

shadows (Greek) and the higher certainty of understanding (Greek)

and reason (Greek).

The difference between understanding and mind or reason (Greek)

is analogous to the difference between acquiring knowledge in the

parts and the contemplation of the whole. True knowledge is a

whole, and is at rest; consistency and universality are the tests

of truth. To this self-evidencing knowledge of the whole the

faculty of mind is supposed to correspond. But there is a

knowledge of the understanding which is incomplete and in motion

always, because unable to rest in the subordinate ideas. Those

ideas are called both images and hypotheses-images because they

are clothed in sense, hypotheses because they are assumptions

only, until they are brought into connexion with the idea of

good.