it were, from its higher standpoint in its intuition of form,
discriminates also the several elements which underlie it; but it
comprehends them in the same way as it comprehends that form itself,
which could be cognized by no other than itself. For it cognizes the
universal of Thought, the figure of Imagination, and the matter of
Sense, without employing Thought, Imagination, or Sense, but surveying
all things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash
of intuition. Thought also, in considering the universal, embraces
images and sense-impressions without resorting to Imagination or Sense.
For it is Thought which has thus defined the universal from its
conceptual point of view: "Man is a two-legged animal endowed with
reason." This is indeed a universal notion, yet no one is ignorant that
the _thing_ is imaginable and presentable to Sense, because Thought
considers it not by Imagination or Sense, but by means of rational
conception. Imagination, too, though its faculty of viewing and forming
representations is founded upon the senses, nevertheless surveys
sense-impressions without calling in Sense, not in the way of
Sense-perception, but of Imagination. See'st thou, then, how all things
in cognizing use rather their own faculty than the faculty of the things
which they cognize? Nor is this strange; for since every judgment is the
act of the judge, it is necessary that each should accomplish its task
by its own, not by another's power.'

SONG IV.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLACY.[R]

From the Porch's murky depths
Comes a doctrine sage,
That doth liken living mind
To a written page;
Since all knowledge comes through
Sense,
Graven by Experience.

'As,' say they, 'the pen its marks
Curiously doth trace
On the smooth unsullied white
Of the paper's face,
So do outer things impress
Images on consciousness.'

But if verily the mind
Thus all passive lies;
If no living power within
Its own force supplies;
If it but reflect again,
Like a glass, things false and vain--

Whence the wondrous faculty
That perceives and knows,
That in one fair ordered scheme
Doth the world dispose;
Grasps each whole that Sense presents,
Or breaks into elements?

So divides and recombines,
And in changeful wise
Now to low descends, and now
To the height doth rise;
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