Chapter XII - XIII Summary and Analysis

Coleridge continues his discussion of different philosophers. He mentions Plato and says that he is ignorant of Plato's understanding. The mind must be concerned with ideas of 'matter, spirit, soul, body action, passiveness, time, space cause and effect, consciousness, perceptions, memory and habit' (Chapter II, pg. 136.) Man then analyzes other notions within the framework of these ideas. Analyzing these different ideas does not and to knowledge.

According to Coleridge, man's spirit in free. He is incomprehensible to himself and to others. According to Leibniz, philosophy collects and explains fragments of truth. Philosophy is not like geometry and must use other methods of analysis.

Coleridge is exploring man's nature and says that positive knowledge is the result of what is conscious and unconscious. The act of knowledge is both subjective and objective at the same time...