Wesley Corpus

I. 1. First, then, reason is sometimes taken for argument. So, "Give me a reason for your assertion." So in Isaiah: "Bring forth your strong reasons;" that is, your strong arguments. We use the word nearly in the same sense, when we say, "He has good reasons for what he does." It seems here to mean, He has sufficient motives; such as ought to influence a wise man. But how is the word to be understood in the celebrated question concerning the "reasons of things" particularly when it is asked, An rationes rerum sint aeternae "Whether the reasons of things are eternal" Do not the "reasons of things" here mean the relations of things to each other But what are the eternal relations of temporal things of things which did not exist till yesterday Could the relations of these things exist before the things themselves had any existence Is not then, the talking of such relations a flat contradiction Yea, as palpable a one as can be put into words. 2. In another acceptation of the word, reason is much the same with understanding. It means a faculty of the human soul; that faculty which exerts itself in three ways; -- by simple apprehension, by judgement, and by discourse. Simple apprehension is barely conceiving a thing in the mind; the first and most simple act of understanding. Judgment is the determining that the things before conceived either agree with or differ from each other. Discourse, strictly speaking, is the motion or progress of the mind from one judgment to another. The faculty of the soul which includes these three operations I here mean by the term reason.