I found certain
great primal Intuitions of Human Nature, which depend on no
logical process of demonstration, but are rather facts of
consciousness given by the instinctive action of human nature
itself. I will mention only the three most important which
pertain to Religion. 1. The Instinctive Intuition of the Divine,
the consciousness that there is a God. 2. The Instinctive
Intuition of the Just and Right, a consciousness that there is a
Moral Law, independent of our will, which we ought to keep. 3.
The Instinctive Intuition of the Immortal, a consciousness that
the Essential Element of man, the principle of Individuality,
never dies."
This passage dates from 1859, and readers of Bergson may like to
compare it with the contemporary Frenchman's saying: "The
analytical faculties can give us no realities."
Let us next hear Emerson himself, first in an early letter to his
brother Edward: "Do you draw the distinction of Milton,
Coleridge, and the Germans between Reason and Understanding? I
think it a philosophy itself, and, like all truth, very
practical.
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