The latter, as St. Thomas says, implies an imperfection.  The former, on the contrary, beseems a perfect being.  It is, therefore, evident, adds the same profound thinker, that reasoning bears the same relation to knowledge that motion does to repose, or as acquisition to possession.  The one is of an imperfect nature, and the other of a perfect nature.  Boethius compares the intellect to eternity; reason, to time.

Yet human reason, according to the principle which illuminates it, offers three degrees of elevation which we will distinguish, for readier comprehension, by three special terms, namely:  first, tradition or the experience of another; second, personal experience; third, the reason of things.

Trained by tradition, reason is called common sense.  Trained by personal experience to the knowledge of principles, reason is called science.  Trained by the contemplation of principles to the perfection of the intellect, reason is called wisdom.

What we call practical reason is based upon the authority of tradition and the lessons of other people’s experience in regard to the customary and moral matters of life.

Speculative or discursive reason judges by the criterion of its own experience; thereby inferring consequences more or less in conformity with traditional teachings, and arriving by the logical order of its deductions and in virtue of the principles which it accepts and which it applies to its discoveries, at what we call science.

Transcendental reason pursues, in the effects which it examines, the investigation of their cause, and rises thence to the very reason of things.  Wherefore it silences reasoning, enters into a silent and persistent course of observation, consults the facts, examines, studies and questions the principles whence it sees them to be deduced; and, without yielding to the obscurity in which these principles are enveloped, pierces that obscurity by the penetrative force of unremitting attention.  Inspired by the standard of faith, it knows that the spirit of God exists at the root of these mysteries.  It clings thereto, unites itself thereto by contemplation, and finally draws from this union its strength, its light and its joy.

Such is the course of wisdom, and such are the inestimable advantages of faith to reason.  It is in fact by faith that reason is aggrandized and elevated to the height of the intellect whence it draws its certitude.

Reason believes because it desires to understand, and because it knows that faith is the next principle to knowledge.

Thus the grandeur of reason is proportioned to its humility; proportioned, I would say, to the efforts which it multiplies to forget itself when the truth addresses it.  But such is not the method of procedure of “strong minds.”  They have a horror of the mysteries toward which they are still urged by correct instincts.  The fact is, let us say it boldly, they fear lest they find God there.