The deed illustrates well Herod's general char- acter for bloodthirsty cruelty and short-sighted follv. But all his eilorts to defeat the purposes of God with His people turn out to be vain. Joseph, warned in a dream by the angel, took Mary and the young child hastily down to Egypt, where they could calmly await the death of the tyrant. Heaven's vengeance soon fell on tlie blood-stained usurper, dyed with so many inhuman crimes, and lie jjassed away from earth'under the maledictions of his down-trodden people.
Literature.— Hastings' DB, art. 'Herod'; Schaff-Herzo;,', Encyc. of Rel. Knowl., art. 'Innocents' Day' ; Farrar, Chriist ni Art, p. 268 fl. ; C. Rossetti, Verses, p. 57.
D. M. W. LAIRI).
INSCRIPTION.-See Title on Ckos.s. INSECTS.— See Animals, p. 67^
INSIGHT, — In ordinary literary usage the word 'insight' is employed to sipnify tlie intellectual apprehension of thr i .uim' oi |.io.V->.', to which an object or event o\m> ii> oi iuin. ;i, .li-i niL:uished from the mere perception ,,i ihr ,,l,|,.-,i or rvcnt itself. Weget an insight into the wurking of a steam- engine, e.g., when we liave mastered the primiplo- of engineering; or into some great political < risi- when the various motives that acted \\\n<\\ iIk minds of the statesmen who took part in it ux,- revealed to us. Insight is also used to dc-iunalo the faculty that penetrates into the causes ihal Vw behind appearances. A man of practical iiisii^lit is a man of quick discernment of the principles that determine the appearance of the objects or events that are recurrent in the business or intercourse of life. A man of political insight is a man who in- stinctively understands what the community will think, desire, or do at any particular period or special conjunction of circumstances.
In the spiritual or metaphysical sphere, ' insight ' has the same double meaning. It is the immediate apprehension of the spiritual sig-niiicance of truths that can be stated as objective facts. It is also the faculty of the higher reason which intuitively grasps this spiritual significance. Goethe says : 'There are men who put their knowledge in the place of insight.' Here the word is used in the
first sense of intuitive apprehension of spiritual truth. 'Jealousy to resist metaphor,' says Francis Newman, 'does not testify to depth of insight.' Here it is the faculty that is referred to. The limits or even the jirecise nature of this faculty of insi"ht have never been adequately defined. It is used of those subtle processes of thought that elude the syllogistic reason, but with which all are more or less familiar in experience. It is used also to designate that higher faculty of the soul through which the mystic claims to attain to the immediate cognition of the Absolute in its pure being.
Generally it may be said that, in the religious meaning of the word, insight is direct perception of, or the faculty of the soul that perceives, the spiritual order that lies behind phenomena. Sight sees the visible, the phenomenal ; insight gi'asps the invisible, the noumenal. The very definition involves a theory. It implies that there is in the universe a spiritual order, of Mliich man is a con- stituent element, to perceive ; that tlie noumenal is real, and that what is called immediate cognition of it conveys genuine knowledge, knowledge that can be relied upon as a safe guide to action. It is clear that this theory cannot he proved by any of the ordinary [adiesses of reasoning, seeing it is the result of an iniinediate cognition which is valid only for tlio in'li\ iiliuil. Sight carries its own evi- dence ; and insight, wliich is the higher sight, must do the same. Truths which come to us through insight, and which press themselves home to the soul with irresistible conviction, must prove them- selves in experience by their power of explaining the facts and solving the problems of life. Ex- perience must be the ultimate test of reality. Truths of insight are the postulates of experience. The soul recognizes its immediate cognitions as corresponding with reality, because they are neces- sary to make its experience rational.
It is a characteristic of Jesus that with Him sight i> insinlif. The s]iiritual vision is to Him so clear lliai ii i^ uiDioi cs^aiy to designate the faculty or it^ ..l.ji'it l,y anoiliL-r term. Jesus is the only- lir-ott.-n Son wliich is in the bosom of the Father (Jn 1")— the l.o-o, wlii.h «as with God and which was God (v.'). .Ions mo- (io.l a- ni> man can see Hhn, for liumaii vision oi ( ;,h| r,ni only be through the light with whirl, 11,. illnniini's tli'o soul _(v.«). Because of this unique relation with the ultimate spiritual Reality, His insight into the nature of God is a clear and open vision. The claims He makes, therefore, as to His intimate union with God are the outcome of a jiersonal consciousness which is part of His essential being. It is similar to our own assurance of selfhood. When Jesus
T and the Fnthei
..1 ll„. fa,'t as wli
:o - l,~not' ,l,-il,M
are one' (10™), He is as ■„ w,. .av, -1 am I.' For
\\\n-,r ilio ,.l,jeet of con- ,ul aial i,araeted by the
,.-.j1 sense or the the spirit sees thi of pure Keality. what seems to lie.
li;.t,.itioii.-, of passion, but