and xl.); this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind.

Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition.

This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.

I will illustrate all three kinds of knowledge by a single example.
Three numbers are given for finding a fourth, which shall be to the third as the second is to the first.

Tradesmen without hesitation multiply the second by the third, and divide the product by the first; either because they have not forgotten the rule which they received from a master without any proof, or because they have often made trial of it with simple numbers, or by virtue of the proof of the nineteenth proposition of the seventh book of Euclid, namely, in virtue of the general property of proportionals.
But with very simple numbers there is no need of this.