Aesops Fables | Page 9

to intuitive knowledge in
ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate
acknowledgment in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists
a very ancient science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all
without discussion, namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge
is timidly and with difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge
has appropriated the lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and
devour her companion, yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little
place of maidservant or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive
knowledge without the light of intellective knowledge? It is a servant
without a master; and though a master find a servant useful, the master
is a necessity to the servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood.
Intuition is blind; Intellect lends her eyes.

[Sidenote] Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge.
Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive
knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does
not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes
of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with
intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a
mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a
moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a
cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a
sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in
ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of
intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and
admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the
intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet
remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive.
Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions,
are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused,
for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been
concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition. The
philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy or
of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of
characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a
painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the physicists,
but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole it is that
determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be full of
philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater abundance and
they may be there even more profound than in a philosophical
dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to overflowing with
descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all these concepts it
may contain, the result of the work of art is an intuition; and
notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the philosophical
dissertation is a concept. The Promessi Sposi contains copious ethical
observations and distinctions, but it does not for that reason lose in its
total effect its character of simple story, of intuition. In like manner the
anecdotes and satirical effusions which may be found in the works of a
philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not remove from those works their

character of intellective treatises. The difference between a scientific
work and a work of art, that is, between an intellective fact and an
intuitive fact lies in the result, in the diverse effect aimed at by their
respective authors. This it is that determines and rules over the several
parts of each.
[Sidenote] Intuition and perception.
But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not
suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error arises
among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make
intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures
and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently
understood the perception or knowledge of actual reality, the
apprehension of something as real.
Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I
am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I
am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of
my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all intuitions.
But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me writing in
another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and ink, is also
an intuition. This means that the distinction between reality and
non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of intuition. If
we assume the existence of a human mind which should have intuitions