world as the good to the intellectual. When the sun shines the eye sees,
and in the intellectual world where truth is, there is sight and light.
Now that which is the sun of intelligent natures, is the idea of good, the
cause of knowledge and truth, yet other and fairer than they are, and
standing in the same relation to them in which the sun stands to light. O
inconceivable height of beauty, which is above knowledge and above truth!
('You cannot surely mean pleasure,' he said. Peace, I replied.) And this
idea of good, like the sun, is also the cause of growth, and the author not
of knowledge only, but of being, yet greater far than either in dignity and
power. 'That is a reach of thought more than human; but, pray, go on with
the image, for I suspect that there is more behind.' There is, I said; and
bearing in mind our two suns or principles, imagine further their
corresponding worlds--one of the visible, the other of the intelligible;
you may assist your fancy by figuring the distinction under the image of a
line divided into two unequal parts, and may again subdivide each part into
two lesser segments representative of the stages of knowledge in either
sphere. The lower portion of the lower or visible sphere will consist of
shadows and reflections, and its upper and smaller portion will contain
real objects in the world of nature or of art. The sphere of the
intelligible will also have two divisions,--one of mathematics, in which
there is no ascent but all is descent; no inquiring into premises, but only
drawing of inferences. In this division the mind works with figures and
numbers, the images of which are taken not from the shadows, but from the
objects, although the truth of them is seen only with the mind's eye; and
they are used as hypotheses without being analysed. Whereas in the other
division reason uses the hypotheses as stages or steps in the ascent to the
idea of good, to which she fastens them, and then again descends, walking
firmly in the region of ideas, and of ideas only, in her ascent as well as
descent, and finally resting in them. 'I partly understand,' he replied;
'you mean that the ideas of science are superior to the hypothetical,