characteristic definiteness, embody and personify for us the nature of the understanding, are free from the anguish of the heart, from the passions, the excesses of the man who has strong emotions; they are not passionately interested in any finite, i.e., particular object; they do not give themselves in pledge; they are free. (…) The understanding is that part of our nature which is … not to be bribed, not subject to illusions … . It is the categorical, impartial consciousness of the fact as fact, because it is itself of an objective nature. (…) Only by the understanding can man judge and act in contradiction with his dearest human, that is, personal feelings, when the God of the understanding – law, necessity, right, - commands it.” [48F-EOC: p. 34]
[49F-EOC: p. 35]
“The understanding is the power which has relation to species; the heart represents particular circumstances, individuals, - the understanding general circumstances, universals; i.e., it is the superhuman, i.e., the impersonal power in man. Only by and in the understanding has man the power of abstraction … from his subjective being, - of exalting himself to general ideas and relations, of distinguishing the object from the impressions which it produces on his feelings, of regarding it in and by itself without reference to human personality. Philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, in short, science in general, is the practical proof, because it is the product of this truly infinite and divine activity.” [49F-EOC: p. 35]
[50F-EOC: p. 36]
“Is not self-consciousness the enigma of enigmas?” [50F-EOC: p. 36]
[51F-EOC: p. 37]
“The understanding … inquires for the cause of all things … . (…) The understanding is thus the original, primitive being. (…) The understanding derives all things from god as the first cause; it finds the world, without an intelligent cause, given over to senseless, aimless chance; that is, it finds only in itself, in its own nature, the efficient and final cause of the world … . (…) And thus, the understanding posits its own nature as the causal, first, premundane existence – i.e., being in rank the first but in time the last, it makes itself the first in time also.” [51F-EOC: p. 37]
[52F-EOC: p. 39]
“Only he who thinks is free and independent.” [52F-EOC: p. 39]
[53F-EOC: p. 39]
[“It is only by the understanding that man reduces the things around and beneath him to mere means of his own existence.” [53F-EOC: p. 39]
