discursist (diskersist)

[ Great discursists were apt to... dispute the Prince's resolution, and stir up the people. L. Add is on, Western Barbary (1671), Pref. discursive (dis-ker's iv), a. [= F. discursif = Pr. discursiu = Sp. Pg. It. discursivo, discursivus , discursus , pp. of discurrere , run to and fro, LL. speak at length: see dis Cf. discoursive.] 1. Relating to the understanding, or the active faculty of knowing or of forming conclusions; ratiocinative: opposed to intuitive . course. Whence the soul Reason receives, and reason is her being, Discursive or intuitive. Milton , P. L., v. 488. These four acts of acquisition, conservation, reproduction, and representation form a cla of faculties which we may call the subsidiary, as furnishing the materials to a. higher faculty, the function of which is to elaborate these materials. This elaborative or discursive faculty is comparison; for under comparison may be comprised all the acts of synthesis and analysis, generalization and abstraction, judgment and reasoning. Comparison, or the elabo All in Himselfe as in a gla e Hee sees, For from Him, by Him, through Him, all things bee: His sight is not discoursive, by degrees, But seeing the whole, each single part doth see. Sir J. Davies , Nosce Teipsum. ing; a dianoetic judgment. discursively (dis-ker's iv-li), adv. In a discursive manner. (a) Digre ively. (b) Argumentatively; by reasoning or argument. We do discursively and by way of ratiocination deduce one thing from another. Sir M. Hale, Orig. of Mankind, p. 22.