efect in that hand which directs it. So
there is between the eye and the telescope, which comes to its aid, all
the distance that divides the faculty from the instrument which it
governs. Still the telescope joined to the eye communicates to it a
great power of vision; but the instrument arises from the failure of
the eye, which is nevertheless infinitely superior to it; for it is the
eye which sees, and not the telescope.

It is thus that we must understand the relations of reason and
intellect. Let us say, then, that the reason is to the intellect exactly
what the telescope is to the eye. This established, we can formulate the
following definition as well founded.

The intellect is the spiritual eye whose mysterious telescope reason
forms, or: reason is a necessary appendage of mental optics, or again:
reason is the glass used by the eye of a defective intellect.

But this is not all. St. Thomas provides us still elsewhere with the
means of making our analogy more striking. He says, indeed: reason is
given us to make clear that which is not evident. Is not this, as it
were, the seal of truth applied to our demonstration? Thus the eye uses
the telescope absolutely as the intellect employs the reason, to make
clear that which is not evident.

Of course it is plain that if the sight and the intellect answered
perfectly to their object, they could do without this adjunct which
betrays their imperfection. The intellect would thenceforth have no more
need of reason than the eye of glasses.

This explains the fact, so important to consider, that the clearer the
mental vision is the less one reasons. The angels do not reason; they
see clearly what is troubled and confused by our mind. No one reasons in
heaven, there is no logician there, no--Intelligence is immortal, but
reason, which serves it here below, will fade away in eternity with the
senses which like it do but form the conditions of time.

Divine reason alone will endure because it has nothing accidental, and
it is substantially united to the eternal word. It is that reason toward
which all blest intelligences will finally gravitate. Hence, we see that
what already partakes of the celestial life repels reasoning as a cause
of imperfection or infirmity. It is thus, by its exclusion of reasons,
that the Gospel supremely proves its celestial origin. It is, indeed, a
thing well worth remark, especially worthy of our admiration, that there
is not to be found, in the