glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

“activity,” the intelligence relives, recreates or combines the possibilities which are
known to it, and this is the imagination; in “passivity,” the intelligence registers and
preserves the data which present themselves to it. [FDH, Outline of a Spiritual
Anthropology]
Intelligence (Shariite view): Intelligence can be the essence of a Path provided there is a
contemplative mentality and a thinking that is fundamentally non-passional; an exoterism
could not, as such, constitute this Path but can, as in the case of Islam, predispose to it by
its fundamental perspective, its structure and its “climate.” From this strictly shariite
point of view, intelligence is reduced – for Islam – to responsibility; viewed thus, every
responsible person is intelligent; in other words a responsible person is defined in relation
to intelligence and not in relation to freedom of the will alone. [UI, The Path]
Intelligence / Concretism: If intelligence is the capacity to discern “substances” through
“accidents” or independently of them, “concretism” can only be described as a kind of
philosophical codifying of unintelligence. [LT, Abuse of the Ideas of the Concrete and
the Abstract]
Intelligence / Good Character: To the question of knowing whether it is better to have
intelligence or a good character, we reply: a good character. Why? Because, when this
question is asked, one is never thinking of integral intelligence, which essentially implies
self-knowledge; conversely, a good character always implies an element of intelligence,
obviously on condition that the virtue be real and not compromised by an underlying
pride, as is the case in the “zeal of bitterness.” Good character is open to the truth exactly
as intelligence faithful to its substance opens onto virtue; we could also say that moral
perfection coincides with faith, and thus could not be a social perfectionism devoid of
spiritual content. [RHC, On Intelligence]
Intelligence / Inwardness: Intelligence is to discern transcendent Reality; inwardness is
to unite oneself with immanent Reality; the one does not go without the other.
Discernment, by its nature, calls forth union; both elements imply virtue by way of
consequence and even a priori.
Discernment and union, we have said; analogously, we may distinguish between
“comprehension” and “concentration,” the latter referring to the “heart” or to “life,” and
the former to the “mind” or to “thought”; although there is also on the one hand a mental
concentration, and on the other, and even before thought, a cardiac comprehension,
namely intellection. [RHC, Pillars of Wisdom]
Intelligence / Virtue: In itself, intelligence is “pious” because its very substance is pure
discernment, and pure contemplation, of the Sovereign Good; a true intelligence is
inconceivable outside that already celestial quality that is the sense of the sacred; the love
of God being the very essence of virtue. In a word, intelligence, to the very extent that it
is faithful to its nature and its vocation, produces or favors the moral qualities;
conversely, virtue, with the same conditions, necessarily opens onto wholeness of mind,
hence onto knowledge of the Real. [THC, Intelligence and Character]
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