Ritual

Intellect And Intelligence

Intellect was seen to denote cognition—the rational mental processes that constitute ‘knowing’: the ability to identify and analyze, memorize, and categorize… the physical characteristics and implications of whatever thing or event is perceived by the senses, thus bringing one to comprehend the objective facts of the external situation. Intelligence, however, was regarded as a mental faculty in its own right – a function of consciousness taking one beyond the facts as such, to suggest meaning or purpose, and determine the course of action to be taken.

It is a level of consciousness that is triggered by the arousal of Feeling: the psychological phenomenon that accompanies every act of cognition – the ‘felt-thoughts’ that bring to mind one’s latent emotions and sensibilities that accompany not only every sensory experience of the external world… but also attend those moments when internally generated abstract ideas and thoughts take over consciousness. It is the way we feel, and the strength of feeling, that determines how we evaluate the facts of life and how we are driven to respond to them. ‘Feeling-attitudes’ motivate the actions we take: they may stir little or no interest or engage a questing curiosity; give rise to enthusiasms and passions demanding creative (intelligent) responses; or provoke apprehension, fear and a negative retreat.

Intellect (Fact) and Intelligence (Feeling) determine the existential course of one’s journey through life. Here is a relatively mundane illustration of how they work together:

You are about to step off the sidewalk and cross the road as a car is bearing down. You visually recognize it as such; register its color, size, make, estimate its speed, the distance between yourself and it, and the time factor involved in crossing safely to the other side: (Intellect—the Cognitive factor.) Immediately, a ’Feeling’ response sets in, allowing one to be confident, apprehensive, or even fearful about crossing the road (the Intelligence, or Affective factor). And the combination of these two modes of consciousness will determine the nature of your actions: whether you stand still, stroll across the street, hurry across, or run like a scalded cat (the Action of Conation factor).

You could take this mundane illustration as a simplistic analogy for Life itself. A life dominated by Intellect, given to living by Facts alone, is a pretty limited kind of existence. To live devoid of Feeling is to go through life permanently bemused –  wandering… with little drive as to direction or purpose.

Seeing is believing, but feeling’s the naked truth.