Reason in Paradise Lost

• it is their law
• can be tricked - flaw in the law?
• or is it because their minds can be tricked
• after fall they don't mention reason
• reason as defining humans
• even reason is fallible - only thing that remains constant is God's command
• beasts as devoid of it
• Human life based in reason - passion overswaying it
• mental reason vs physical 'appetite'
• Reason as happiness - as their law in prelapsarian world keeping them from straying
• God giving them power of judgement for selves
• Reason not necessarily connected to speech
• Ruler
• Satan as utilizing and reason as not limited to good things
• Ability to think and decide essential to free will
• Their minds governing them - God give them reason so that they can choose
• 
  

Quotes:

tasting of a certain Tree in the Garden he attain'd both to Speech and Reason

Of Growth, Sense, Reason, all summ'd up in Man.

smiles from Reason flow

He made us, and delight to Reason joyn'd

for what obeyes Reason, is free, and Reason he made right

Since Reason not impossibly may meet Some specious object by the Foe subornd, And fall into deception unaware

With thy permission then, and thus forewarned Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words Touched onely, that our trial, when least sought, May find us both perhaps far less prepared

To Beasts, whom God on thir Creation-Day
Created mute to all articulate sound;
The latter I demurre, for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions oft appears

ere long I might perceave
Strange alteration in me, to degree
Of Reason in my inward Powers, and Speech

we live
Law to our selves, our Reason is our Law

Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregn'd
With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;\

How dies the Serpent? hee hath eat'n and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discern

... Endu'd with human voice and human sense,

Reasoning to admiration

To sensual Appetite, who from beneath
Usurping over sovereign Reason claimed [ 1130 ]
Superior sway