Understanding, Reasoning and Speech

Abstract

I do not plan to clarify here all the questions which could be raised about these three faculties but to say merely what their nature is insofar as that is necessary for knowledge of the human mind; for I am sure that there are no problems so difficult that they could not be resolved easily by what I have said so far. Besides, we have spoken enough about the understanding to know what it is and to know that it differs from the imagination as one mode or way of perceiving of the mind differs from another mode. However we could not deny that the mode of perceiving which is characteristic of the understanding belongs much more properly than that of the imagination to the nature of the mind, for the latter mode of perception depends on the body whereas the former is independent of it. Besides, whether you think of the understanding as a general faculty by which the mind perceives anything, whatever it is and in whatever way it does so, or whether you take it to be the special faculty of the mind for understanding and conceiving in a way which is different from that of the imagination, you will see that it is one which is inseparable from the mind.