Brutes gaze on sights, they are arrested by sounds; and what they see and what they hear are sights and sounds only. The intellect of man, on the contrary, energises as well as his eye or ear, and perceives in sights or sounds something beyond them. It seizes and unites what the senses present to it; it grasps and forms what need not be seen or heard except in detail. It discerns in lines and colors, or in tones, what is beautiful and what is not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them with an idea.
ATTRIBUTION:
John Henry Newman (1801–1890), British clergyman, theologian. “The Scope and Nature of University Education,” The Idea of a University (1852).
