Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

374 nREASON.
More limited meaning of thle word. - By some philosophers,
the meaning of the word has been of late restricted still further;
to the power by which we distingteis truth from falsehood, ana
combine means for the accomplishment of our purposes;- the
capacity of distinguishing right and wrong being referred to a
separate principle or faculty, to which different names have
been assigned in different ethical theories. The following passage from Mr. Hume contains one of the most explicit state.
ments of this limitation which I can recollect: " Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily
ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and
falsehood; the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, -vice and virtue. Reason, being cool and disengaged, is
no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from
appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining
happiness or avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or
pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes a
motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and
volition."
Reason distinguished from reasoning. - Another ambiguity
in the word Reason, it is of still greater consequence to point
out at present; an ambiguity which leads us to confound our
rational powers in general, with that particular branch of them
known among logicians by the name of t/he discursive faculty.
The affinity between the words reason and reasoning sufficiently
accounts for this inaccuracy in common and popular language;
than of speculative truth and falsehood; nor can there be a doubt that,
when he speaks of truth as the object of natural Reason, it was principally,
if not wholly, moral truth, which he had in his view; 1" Reason is natural
revelation, whereby the eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid
within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason,
enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately,
which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives
that they come from God. So that he who takes away reason to make
way for revelation, puts out the light of both, and does much the same
as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive
the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope."