AN ESSAY
IN AID OF
A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT
AN ESSAY
IN AID OF
A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT
JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN
Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum
ST. AMBROSE
NEW IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
19*3
TO
EDWARD BELLASIS,
SERJEANT AT LAW,
|
IN REMEMBRANCE
OF A LONG, EQUABLE, SUNNY FRIENDSHIP,
IN GRATITUDE
FOR CONTINUAL KINDNESSES SHOWN TO ME;
FOR AN UNWEARIED ZEAL IN MY BEHALF,
FOR A TRUST IN ME WHICH HAS NEVER WAVERED,
AND A PROMPT, EFFECTUAL SUCCOUR AND SUPPORT
IN TIMES OF SPECIAL TRIAL,
FROM HIS AFFECTIONATE
J. H. N.
Ftbtuary at, 1870.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
ASSENT AND APPREHENSION
CHAPTER I.
PAOE
Modes of holding and apprehending Propositions , 3
§ 1. Modes of holding Propositions . . £" f ,' 8
§ 2. Modes of apprehending Propositions 9
CHAPTER II.
Assent considered as Apprehensive • "."'• • . . / .13
CHAPTER III.
The Apprehension of Propositions . , 19
CHAPTER IV.
Notional and Real Assent . , . . „• , , . 36
§ 1. Notional Assents . . . . . • . . 42
§ 2. Real Assents 75
§ 3. Notional and Real Assents contrasted , . . 89
CHAPTER* V.
Apprehension and Assent in the matter of Religion ... 98
§ 1. Belief iii one God . ........ 101
§ 2. Belief in the Holy Trinity . .... 122
§ 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology . 142
viii Contents.
PART II.
A.SSENT AND INPEEBNCB.
CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
Assent considered as Unconditional ..,,,• 157
§ 1. Simple Assent . r .»...« 169
§ 2. Complex Assent . . , . . . , .188
CHAPTER VII.
Certitude . 210
§ 1. Assent and Certitude contrasted , . , ,210
§ 2. Indefectibility of Certitude . ... 221
CHAPTER VIII.
Inference . . 259
§ 1. Formal Inference 259
§ 2. Informal Inference ...„,,. 288
§ 3. Natural Inference . „ 330
CHAPTER IX.
The Illative Sense ,343
§ 1. The Sanction of the Illative Sense , , , .346
§ 2. The Nature of the Illative Sense 353
§ 3. The Range of the Illative Sense , , . . .360
CHAPTER X.
Inference and Assent in the matter of Religion .... 384
§ 1. Natural Religion . 389
§ 2. Revealed Religion 409
NOTES :—
1. On Hooker and Chillingworth 493
2. On the alternative intellectually between Atheism and
Catholicity . . 495
3. Oa the punishment of the wicked having no termi-
nation 50J
PART I.
ASSENT AND APPREHENSION.
CHAPTER I.
MODES OF HOLDING AND APPREHENDING PROPOSITIONS.
§ 1. MODES OP HOLDING PROPOSITIONS.
1. PROPOSITIONS (consisting of a subject and predicate
united by the copula) may take a categorical, conditional,
or interrogative form.
(1) An interrogative, when they ask a Question,
(e. g. Does Free- trade benefit the poorer classes ?) and
imply the possibility of an affirmative or negative
resolution of it.
(2) A conditional, when they express a Conclusion
(e. g. Free-trade therefore benefits the poorer classes) ,
and at once imply, and imply their dependence on,
other propositions.
(3) A categorical, when they simply make an Asser-
tion (e. g. Free-trade does benefit), and imply the
absence of any condition or reservation of any kind,
looking neither before nor behind, as resting in them-
selves and being intrinsically complete.
These three modes of shaping a proposition, distinct
as they are from each other, follow each other in natural
aequence. A proposition, which starts with being a
B 2
4 Modes of holding Propositions.
Question, may become a Conclusion, and then be changed
into an Assertion ; but it has of course ceased to be a
question, so far forth as it has become a conclusion, and
has rid itself of its argumentative form — that is, has
ceased to be a conclusion, — so far forth as it has become
an assertion. A question has not yet got so far as to
be a conclusion, though it is the necessary preliminary
of a conclusion ; and an assertion has got beyond being
a mere conclusion, though it is the natural issue of a
conclusion. Their correlation is the measure of their
distinction one from another.
No one is likely to deny that a question is distinct
both from a conclusion and from an assertion ; and an
assertion will be found to be equally distinct from a
conclusion. For, if we rest our affirmation on argu-
ments, this shows that we are not asserting ; and, when
we assert, we do not argue. An assertion is as distinct
from a conclusion, as a word of command is from a per-
suasion or recommendation. Command and assertion,
as such, both of them, in their different ways, dispense
with, discard, ignore, antecedents of any kind, though
antecedents may have been a sine qua non condition of
their being elicited. They both carry with them the
pretension of being personal acts.
In insisting on the intrinsic distinctness of these
three modes of putting a proposition, I am not main-
taining that they may not co- exist as regards one and
the same subject. For what we have already concluded,
we may, if we will, make a question of ; and what we
are asserting, we may of course conclude over again.
We may assert, to one man, and conclude to another,
Modes of holding Propositions. 5
and ask of a third ; still when we assert, we do not
conclude, and, when we assert or conclude, we do not
question.
2. The internal act of holding propositions is for the
most part analogous to the external act of enunciating
them ; as there are three ways of enunciating, so are
there three ways of holding them, each corresponding
to each. These three mental acts are Doubt, Inference,
and Assent. A question is the expression of a doubt ;
a conclusion is the expression of an act of inference ;
and an assertion is the expression of an act of assent.
To doubt, for instance, is not to see one's way to hold,
that Free- trade is or that it is not a benefit; to infer,
is to hold on sufficient grounds that Free-trade may,
must, or should be a benefit ; to assent to the proposition,
is to hold that Free-trade is a benefit.
Moreover, propositions, while they are the material of
these three enunciations, are also the objects of the three
corresponding mental acts; and as without a proposition
there cannot be a question, conclusion, or assertion, so
without a proposition there is nothing to doubt about,
nothing to infer, nothing to assent to. Mental acts of
whatever kind presuppose their objects.
And, since the three enunciations are distinct from
each other, therefore the three mental acts also, Doubt,
Inference, and Assent, are, with reference to one and
the same proposition, distinct from each other ; else,
why should their several enunciations be distinct ?
And indeed it is very evident, that, so far forth as
we infer, we do not doubt, and that, when we assent,
6 Modes of holding Propositions.
we are not inferring, and, when we doubt, we cannot
assent.
And in fact, these three modes of entertaining pro-
positions,— doubting them, inferring them, assenting to
them, are so distinct in their action, that, when they
are severally carried out into the intellectual habits of
an individual, they become the principles and notes of
three distinct states or characters of mind. For instance,
in the case of Revealed Eeligion, according as one or
other of these is paramount within him, a man is a
sceptic as regards it ; or a philosopher, thinking it more
or less probable considered as a conclusion of reason ; or
he has an unhesitating faith in it, and is recognized as
a believer. If he simply disbelieves, or dissents, then
he is assenting to the contradictory of the thesis, viz.
to the proposition that there is no Revelation.
Many minds of course there are, which are not under
the predominant influence of any one of the threo. Thus
men are to be found of irreflectivc, impulsive, unsettled,
or again of acute minds, who do not know w hat they
believe and what they do not, and who may be by turns
sceptics, inquirers, or believers; who doubt, assoiit, infer,
and doubt again, according to the circumstances of the
season. Nay further, in all minds there is a certain co-
existence of these distinct acts ; that is, of two of them,
for we can at once infer and assent, though we cannot at
once either assent or infer and also doubt. Indeed, in
a multitude of cases we infer truths, or apparent truths,
before, and while, and after we assent to them.
Lastly, it cannot be denied that these three acts are
all natural to the mind ; I mean, that, in exercising
Modes of holding Propositions. 7
them, we are not violating the laws of our nature, as
if they were in themselves an extravagance or weakness,
but are acting according to it, according to its legiti-
mate constitution. Undoubtedly, it is possible, it is
common, in the particular case, to err in the exercise of
Doubt, of Inference, and of Assent ; that is, we may be
withholding a judgment about propositions on which
we have the means of coming to some definite conclu-
sion ; or we may be assenting to propositions which we
ought to receive only on the credit of their premisses,
or again to keep ourselves in suspense about ; but such
errors of the individual belong to the individual, not to
his nature, and cannot avail to forfeit for him his natural
right, under proper circumstances, to doubt, or to infei^
or to assent. We do but fulfil our nature in doubting,
inferring, and assenting ; and our duty is, not to abstain
from the exercise of any function of our nature, but to
do what is in itself right rightly.
3. So far in general : — in this Essay I treat of pro-
positions only in their bearing upon concrete matter,
and I am mainly concerned with Assent ; with In-
ference, in its relation to Assent, and only such inference
as is not demonstration ; with Doubt hardly at all, I
dismiss Doubt with one observation. I have here spoken
of it simply as a suspense of mind, in which sense of the
word, to have " no doubt " about a thesis is equivalent
to one or other of the two remaining acts, either to
inferring it or else assenting to it. However, the word
is often taken to mean the deliberate recognition of a
thesis as being uncertain; in this sense Doubt is nothing
8 Modes of holding Propositions.
else than an assent, viz. an assent to a proposition
at variance with the thesis, as I have already noticed
in the case of Disbelief.
Confining myself to the subject of Assent and In-
ference, I observe two points of contrast between
them.
The first I have already noted. Assent is uncon-
ditional ; else, it is not really represented by assertion.
Inference is conditional, because a conclusion at least
implies the assumption of premisses, and still more,
because in concrete matter, on which I am engaged,
demonstration is impossible.
The second has regard to the apprehension necessary
for holding a proposition. We cannot assent to a pro-
position, without some intelligent apprehension of it;
whereas we need not understand it at all in order to
infer it. We cannot give our assent to the proposition
that {f x is z," till we are told something about one or
other of the terms ; but we can infer, if " x is y, and
y is z, that x is z," whether we know the meaning of
x and z or no.
These points of contrast and their results will come
before us in due course : here, for a time leaving the
consideration of the modes of holding propositions, I
proceed to inquire into what is to be understood by
apprehending them.
Modes of apprehending Propositions.
§ 2. MODES OF APPREHENDING PROPOSITIONS.
BY our apprehension of propositions I mean our imposi-
tion of a sense on the terms of which they are composed.
Now what do the terms of a proposition, the subject and
predicate, stand for ? Sometimes they stand for certain
ideas existing in our own minds, and for nothing
outside of them ; sometimes for things simply external
to us, brought home to us through the experiences and
informations we have of them. All things in the exterior
world are unit and individual, and are nothing else ; but
the mind not only contemplates those unit realities, as
they exist, but has the gift, by an act of creation, of
bringing before it abstractions and generalizations,
which have no existence, no counterpart, out of it.
Now there are propositions, in which one or both of
the terms are common nouns, as standing for what is
abstract, general, and non-existing, such as " Man is an
animal, some men are learned, an Apostle is a creation
of Christianity, a line is length without breadth, to
err is human, to forgive divine/' These I shall call
notional propositions, and the apprehension with which
we infer or assent to them, notional.
And there are other propositions, which are composed
of singular nouns, and of which the terms stand for
1O Modes of apprehending Propositions.
things external to us, unit and individual, as " Philip
was the father of Alexander/' " the earth goes round
the sun," " the Apostles first preached to the Jews •"
and these I shall call real propositions, and their
apprehension real.
There are then two kinds of apprehension or inter-
pretation to which propositions may be subjected,
notional and real.
Next I observe, that the same proposition may admit
of both of these interpretations at once, having a notional
sense as used by one man, and a real as used by another.
Thus a schoolboy may perfectly apprehend, and construe
with spirit, the poet's words, " Dum Capitolium scandet
cum tacita Virgine Pontifex ;" he has seen steep hills,
flights of steps, and processions; he knows what enforced
silence is ; also he knows all about the Pontifex Maxi-
mus, and the Vestal Virgins ; he has an abstract hold
upon every word of the description, yet without the
words therefore bringing before him at all the living
image which they would light up in the mind of a con-
temporary of the poet, who had seen the fact described,
or of a modern historian who had duly informed himself
in the religious phenomena, and by meditation had
realized the Roman ceremonial, of the age of Augustus.
Again, " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," is a
mere common-place, a terse expression of abstractions
in the mind of the poet himself, if Philippi is to be the
index of his patriotism, whereas it would be the record
of experiences, a sovereign dogma, a grand aspiration,
inflaming the imagination, piercing the heart, of a
Wallace or a TelL
Modes of apprehending Propositions. 1 1
As the multitude of common nouns have originally
been singular, it is not surprising that many of them
should so remain still in the apprehension of particular
individuals. In the proposition " Sugar is sweet/' the
predicate is a common noun as used by those who have
compared sugar in their thoughts with honey or glyce-
rine; but it may be the only distinctively sweet thing
in the experience of a child, and may be used by him as
a noun singular. The first time that he tastes sugar,
if his nurse says, " Sugar is sweet " in a notional sense,
meaning by sugar, lump-sugar, powdered, brown, and
candied, and by sweet, a specific flavour or scent which
is found in many articles of food and many flowers, he
may answer in a real sense, and in an individual pro-
position " Sugar is sweet/' meaning " this sugar is this
sweet thing/
Thirdly, in the same mind and at the same time, the
same proposition may express both what is notional and
what is real. When a lecturer in mechanics or chemistry
shows to his class by experiment some physical fact, he
and his hearers at once enunciate it as an individual
thing before their eyes, and also as generalized by their
minds into a law of nature. When Virgil says, " Yarium
et mutabile semper foemina," he both sets before his
readers what he means to be a general truth, and at the
same time applies it individually to the instance of Dido.
He expresses at once a notion and a fact.
Of these two modes of apprehending propositions,
notional and real, real is the stronger ; I mean by
stronger the more vivid and forcible. It is so to be
accounted for the very reason that it is concerned with
1 2 Modes of apprehending Propositions.
what is either real or is taken for real ; for intellectual
ideas cannot compete in effectiveness with the expe-
rience of concrete facts. Various proverbs and maxims
sanction me in so speaking, such as, " Facts are
stubborn things/' " Experientia docet," " Seeing is
believing ; " and the popular contrast between theory
and practice, reason and sight, philosophy and faith.
Not that real apprehension, as such, impels to action,
any more than notional ; but it excites and stimulates
the affections and passions, by bringing facts home
to them as motive causes. Thus it indirectly brings
about what the apprehension of large principles, of
general laws, or of moral obligations, never could
effect.
Reverting to the two modes of holding propositions,
conditional and unconditional, which was the subject of
the former Section, that is, inferences and assents, I
observe that inferences, which are conditional acts, are
especially cognate to notional apprehension, and assents,
which are unconditional, to real. This distinction, too,
will come before us in the course of the following
chapters.
And now I have stated the main subjects of which I
propose to treat ; viz. the distinctions in the use of
propositions, which I have been drawing out, and the
questions which those distinctions involve.
CHAPTER U.
ASSENT CONSIDERED AS APPREHENSIVE.
I HAVE already said of an act of Assent, first, that it is
in itself the absolute acceptance of a proposition without
any condition; and next that, in order to its being made,
it presupposes the condition, not only of some previous
inference in favour of the proposition, but especially of
some concomitant apprehension of its terms. I proceed
to the latter of these two subjects ; that is, of Assent
considered as apprehensive, leaving the discussion of
Assent as unconditional for a later place in this Essay.
By apprehension of a proposition, I mean, as I have
already said, the interpretation given to the terms of
which it is composed. When we infer, we consider a
proposition in relation to other propositions ; when we
assent to it, we consider it for its own sake and in its
intrinsic sense. That sense must be in some degree
known to us ; else, we do but assert the proposition,
we in no wise assent to it. Assent I have described
to be a mental assertion ; in its very nature then it is
of the mind, and not of the lips. We can assert with-
out assenting ; assent is more than assertion just by
this much, that it is accompanied by some apprehen-
1 4 Assent considered as apprehensive.
sion of the matter asserted. This is plain ; and the only
question is, what measure of apprehension is sufficient.
And the answer to this question is equally plain : —
it is the predicate of the proposition which must be ap-
prehended. In a proposition one term is predicated of
another ; the subject is referred to the predicate, and the
predicate gives us information about the subject; — there-
fore to apprehend the proposition is to have that infor-
mation, and to assent to it is to acquiesce in it as true.
Therefore I apprehend a proposition, when I apprehend
its predicate. The subject itself need not be apprehended
per se in order to a genuine assent : for it is the very
thing which the predicate has to elucidate, and therefore
by its formal place in the proposition, so far as it is the
subject, it is something unknown, something which the
predicate makes known ; but the predicate cannot make
it known, unless it is known itself. Let the question
be, " What is Trade ? " here is a distinct profession of
ignorance about " Trade ;" and let the answer be,
" Trade is the interchange of goods ;" — trade then need
not be known, as a condition of assent to the proposi-
tion, except so far as the account of it which is given in
answer, ' ' the interchange of goods/' makes it known ;
and that must be apprehended in order to make it
known. The very drift of the proposition is to tell us
something about the subject ; but there is no reason
why our knowledge of the subject, whatever it is, should
go beyond what the predicate tells us about it. Further
than this the subject need not be apprehended : as far
as this it must ; it will not be apprehended thus far,
unless we apprehend the predicate ,
Assent considered as apprehensive. 1 5
If a child asks, " What is Lucern ? " and is answered,
" Lucern is medicago sativa, of the class Diadelphia
and order Decandria ;" and henceforth says obediently,
" Lucern is medicago sativa, &c.," he makes no act of
assent to the proposition which he enunciates, but
speaks like a parrot. But, if he is told, " Lucern is food
for cattle, n and is shown cows grazing in a meadow,
then, though he never saw lucern, and knows nothing
at all about it, besides what he has learned from the
predicate, he is in a position to make as genuine an
assent to the proposition " Lucern is food for cattle/'
on the word of his informant, as if he knew ever so
much more about lucern. And as soon as he has got
as far as this, he may go further. He now knows
enough about lucern, to enable him to apprehend pro-
positions which have lucern for their predicate, should
they come before him for assent, as, " That field is sown
with lucern," or " Clover is not lucern/'
Yet there is a way, in which the child can give an
indirect assent even to a proposition, in which he under-
stood neither subject nor predicate. He cannot indeed
in that case assent to the proposition itself, but he can
assent to its truth. He cannot do more than assert that
"Lucern is medicago sativa," but he can assent to the
proposition, " That lucern is medicago sativa is true."
For here is a predicate which he sufficiently apprehends,
what is inapprehensible in the proposition being confined
to the subject. Thus the child's mother might teach
him to repeat a passage of Shakespeare, and when he
asked the meaning of a particular line, such as " The
quality of mercy is not strained," or "Virtue itself
1 6 Assent considered as apprehensive.
turns vice, being misapplied/' she might answer him,
that he was too young to understand it yet, but that
it had a beautiful meaning, as he would one day know :
and he, in faith on her word, might give his assent to
Buch a proposition, — not, that is, to the line itself which
he had got by heart, and which would be beyond him,
but to its being true, beautiful, and good.
Of course I am speaking of assent itself, and its in-
trinsic conditions, not of the ground or motive of it.
Whether there is an obligation upon the child to trust
his mother, or whether there are cases where such trust
is impossible, are irrelevant questions, and I notice
them in order to put them aside. I am examining the
act of assent itself, not its preliminaries, and I have
specified three directions, which among others the
assent may take, viz. assent immediately to a proposi-
tion itself, assent to its truth, and assent both to its
truth and to the ground of its being true, — " Lucern
is food for cattle/' — " That lucern is medicago sativa
is true/' — and " My mother's word, that lucern is medi-
cago sativa, and is food for cattle, is the truth." Now
in each of these there is one and the same absolute ad-
hesion of the mind to the proposition, on the part of the
child ; he assents to the apprehensible proposition, and
to the truth of the inapprehensible, and to the veracity
of his mother in her assertion of the inapprehensible.
I say the same absolute adhesion, because unless he did
assent without any reserve to the proposition that lucern
was food for cattle, or to the accuracy of the botanical
name and description of it, he would not be giving an
unreserved assent to his mother's word : yet, though
Assent considered as apprehensive. i j
these assents are all unreserved, still they certainly differ
in strength, and this is the next point to which I wish
to draw attention. It is indeed plain, that, though the
child assents to his mother's veracity, without perhaps
being conscious of his own act, nevertheless that par-
ticular assent of his has a force and life in it which the
other assents have not, insomuch as he apprehends the
proposition, which is the subject of it, with greater
keenness and energy than belongs to his apprehension
of the others. Her veracity and authority is to him no
abstract truth or item of general knowledge, but is
bound up with that image and love of her person which
is part of himself, and makes a direct claim on him for
his summary assent to her general teachings.
Accordingly, by reason of this circumstance of his
apprehension he would not hesitate to say, did his years
admit of it, that he would lay down his life in defence
of his mother's veracity. On the other hand, he would
not make such a profession in the case of the proposi-
tions, " Lucern is food for cattle/' or " That lucern is
medicago sativa is true ;" and yet it is clear too, that,
if he did in truth assent to these propositions, he would
have to die for them also, rather than deny them, when
it came to the point, unless he made up his mind to
tell a falsehood. That he would have to die for all
three propositions severally rather than deny them,
shows the completeness and absoluteness of assent in its
very nature ; that he would not spontaneously challenge
so severe a trial in the case of two out of the three
particular acts of assent, illustrates in what sense one
assent may be stronger than another.
1 8 Assent considered as apprehensive.
It appears then, that, in assenting to propositions,
an apprehension in some sense of their terms is not
only necessary to assent, as such, but also gives a
distinct character to its acts. If therefore we would
know more about Assent, we must know more about
the apprehension which accompanies it. Accordingly
to the subject of Apprehension I proceed.
CHAPTER III.
f
THE APPREHENSION OF PROPOSITIONS.
I HAVE said in these Introductory Chapters that there
can be no assent to a proposition, without some sort of
apprehension of its terms ; next that there are two modes
of apprehension, notional and real ; thirdly, that, while
assent may be given to a proposition on either appre-
hension of it, still its acts are elicited more heartily and
forcibly, when they are made upon real apprehension
which has -things for its objects, than when they are
made in favour of notions and with a notional apprehen-
sion. The first of these three points I have just been
discussing j now I will proceed to the second, viz. the
two modes of apprehending propositions, leaving the
third for the Chapters which follow.
I have used the word apprehension, and not under-
standing, because the latter word is of uncertain mean-
ing, standing sometimes for the faculty or act of
conceiving a proposition, sometimes for that of com-
prehending it, neither of which come into the sense of
apprehension. It is possible to apprehend without un-
derstanding. I apprehend what is meant by saying
that John is Richard's wife's father's aunt's husband,
c 2
20 The apprehension of Propositions.
but, if I am unable so to take in these successive rela*
tionships as to understand the upshot of the whole, viz.
that John is great-uncle-in-law to Richard, I cannot be
said to understand the proposition. In like manner, I
may take a just view of a man's conduct, and therefore
apprehend it, and yet may profess that I cannot under-
stand it ; that is, I have not the key to it, and do not
see its consistency in detail : I have no just conception
of it. Apprehension then is simply an intelligent ac-
ceptance of the idea, or of the fact which a proposition
enunciates. " Pride will have a fall ;" " Napoleon died
at St. Helena;" I have no difficulty in entering into
the sentiment contained in the former of these, or into
the fact declared in the latter ; that is, I apprehend
them both.
Now apprehension, as I have said, has two subject-
matters : — according as language expresses things ex-
ternal to us, or our own thoughts, so is apprehension
real or notional. It is notional in the grammarian, it
is real in the experimentalist. The grammarian has to
determine the force of words and phrases ; he has to
master the structure of sentences and the composition of
paragraphs; he has to compare language with language,
to ascertain the common ideas expressed under different
idiomatic forms, and to achieve the difficult work of re-
casting the mind of the original author in the mould of
a translation. On the other hand, the philosopher or
experimentalist aims at investigating, questioning, as-
certaining facts, causes, effects, actions, qualities : these
are things, and he makes his words distinctly subordi-
nate to these, as means to an end. The primary duty of
The apprehension of Propositions. 2 1
a literary man is to have clear conceptions, and to be
exact and intelligible in expressing them ; but in a
philosopher it is a merit even to be not utterly vague,
inchoate and obscure in his teaching, and if he fails
even of: this low standard of language, we remind
ourselves that his obscurity perhaps is owing to his
depth. No power of words in a lecturer would be suffi-
cient to make psychology easy to his hearers ; if they
are to profit by him, they must throw their minds into
the matters in discussion, must accompany his treatment
of them with an active, personal concurrence, and inter-
pret for themselves, as he proceeds, the dim suggestions
and adumbrations of objects, which he has a right to
presuppose, while he uses them, as images existing in
their apprehension as well as in his own.
In something of a parallel way it is the least pardon-
able fault in an Orator to fail in clearness of style, and
the most pardonable fault of a Poet.
So again, an Economist is dealing with facts ; what-
ever there is of theory in his work professes to be
founded on facts, by facts alone must his sense be inter-
preted, and to those only who are well furnished with
the necessary facts does he address himself; yet a clever
schoolboy, from a thorough grammatical knowledge of
both languages, might turn into English a French trea-
tise on national wealth, produce, consumption, labour,
profits, measures of value, public debt, and the circu-
lating medium, with an apprehension of what it was
that his author was stating sufficient for making it clear
to an English reader, while he had not the faintest con-
ception himself what the treatise, which he was trans-
22 The apprehension of Propositions.
lating, really determined. The man uses language as
the vehicle of things, and the boy of abstractions.
Hence in literary examinations, it is a test of good
scholarship to be able to construe aright, without the
aid of understanding the sentiment, action, or historical
occurrence conveyed in the passage thus accurately ren-
dered, let it be a battle in Livy, or some subtle train of
thought in Virgil or Pindar. And those who have
acquitted themselves best in the trial, will often be dis-
posed to think they have most notably failed, for the
very reason that they have been too busy with the gram-
mar of each sentence, as it came, to have been able, as
they construed on, to enter into the facts or the feelings,
which, unknown to themselves, they were bringing out
of it.
To take a very different instance of this contrast be-
tween notions and facts ; — pathology and medicine, in
the interests of science, and as a protection to the prac-
titioner, veil the shocking realities of disease and physical
suffering un der a notional phraseology, under the abstract
terms of debility, distress, irritability, paroxysm, and a
host of Greek and Latin words. The arts of medicine
and surgery are necessarily experimental; but for
writing and conversing on these subjects they require
to be stripped of the association of the facts from which
they are derived.
Such are the two modes of apprehension. The terms
of a proposition do or do not stand for things. If they
do, then they are singular terms, for all things that are,
are units. But if they do not stand for things they must
stand for notions, and are common terms. Singular
The apprehension of Propositions. 23
nouns come from experience, common from abstraction.
The apprehension of the former I call real, and of the
latter notional. Now let us look at this difference
between them more narrowly.
1. Real Apprehension, is, as I have said, in the first
instancean experience or information about theconcrete.
Now, when these informations are in fact presented to
us, (that is, when they are directly subjected to our
bodily senses or our mental sensations, as when we say,
" The sun shines," or " The prospect is charming," or
indirectly by means of a picture or even a narrative,)
then there is no difficulty in determining what is meant
by saying that our enunciation of a proposition concern-
ing them implies an apprehension of things; because
we can actually point out the objects which they
indicate. But supposing those things are no longer
before us, supposing they have passed beyond our field
of view, or the book is closed in which the description of
them occurs, how can an apprehension of things be said
to remain to us ? Yes, it remains on our minds by means
of the faculty of memory. Memory consists in a present
imagination of things that are past ; memory retains
the impressions and likenesses of what they were when
before us ; and when we make use of the proposition
which refers to them, it supplies us with objects by
which to interpret it. They are things still, as being
the reflections of things in a mental mirror.
Hence the poet calls memory " the mind's eye." I
am in -a foreign country among unfamiliar sights; at
will I am able to conjure up before me the vision of my
home, and all that belongs to it, its rooms and their fur-
24 The apprehension of Propositions.
niture, its books, its inmates, their countenances, looks
and movements. I see those who once were there and
are no more; past scenes, and the very expression of the
features, and the tones of the voices, of those who took
part in them, in a time of trial or difficulty. I create
nothing ; I see the facsimiles of facts j and of these
facsimiles the words and propositions which I use
concerning them are from habitual association the
proper or the sole expression.
And so again, I may have seen a celebrated painting,
or some great pageant, or some public man ; and I have
on my memory stored up and ready at hand, but latent,
an impress more or less distinct of that experience. The
words " the Madonna di S. Sisto," or " the last Corona-
lion," or " the Duke of Wellington," have power to
revive that impress of it. Memory has to do with indi-
vidual things and nothing that is not individual. And
my apprehension of its notices is conveyed in a collec-
tion of singular and real propositions.
I have hitherto been adducing instances from (for the
most part) objects of sight ; but the memory preserves
the impress, though not so vivid, of the experiences
which come to us through our other senses also. The
memory of a beautiful air, or the scent of a particular
flower, as far as any remembrance remains of it, is the
continued presence in our minds of a likeness of it, which
its actual presence has left there. I can bring before
me the music of the Adeste Fideles, as if I were actually
hearing it ; and the scent of a clematis as if I were in
my garden ; and the flavour of a peach as if it were in
season; and the thought I have of all these is as of some-
The apprehension of Propositions. 25
thing individual and from without, — as much as the
things themselves, the tune, the scent, and the flavour,
are from without, — though, compared with the things
themselves, these images (as they may be called) are
faint and intermitting.
Nor need such an image be in any sense an abstrac-
tion; though I may have eaten a hundred peaches
in times past, the impression, which remains on my
memory of the flavour, may be of any of them, of the
ten, twenty, thirty units, as the case may be, not a
general notion, distinct from every one of them, and
formed from all of them by a fabrication of my mind.
And so again the apprehension which we have of our
past mental acts of any kind, of hope, inquiry, effort,
triumph, disappointment, suspicion, hatred, and a hun-
dred others, is an apprehension of the memory of those
definite acts, and therefore an apprehension of things ;
not to say that many of them do not need memory, but
are such as admit of being actually summoned and re-
peated at our will. Such an apprehension again is
elicited by propositions embodying the notices of our
history, of our pursuits and their results, of our friends,
of our bereavements, of our illnesses, of our fortunes,
which remain imprinted upon our memory as sharply
and deeply as is any recollection of sight. Nay, and
such recollections may have in them an individuality and
completeness which outlives the impressions made by
sensible objects. The memory of countenances and of
places in times past may fade away from the mind; but
the vivid image of certain anxieties or deliverances never.
And by means of these particular and personal expe-
26 The apprehension of Propositions.
riences, thus impressed upon us, we attain an apprehen-
sion of what such things are at other times when we
have not experience of them ; an apprehension of sights
and sounds, of colours and forms, of places and persons,
of mental acts and states, parallel to our actual expe-
riences, such, that, when we meet with definite proposi-
tions expressive of them, our apprehension cannot be
called abstract and notional. If I am told " there is a
raging fire in London," or " London is on fire," "fire "
need not be a common noun in my apprehension more
than ' ' London. " The word may recall to my memory
the experience of a fire which I have known elsewhere,
or of some vivid description which I have read. It is of
course difficult to draw the line and to say where the
office of memory ends, and where abstraction takes its
place ; and again, as 1 said in my first pages, the same
proposition is to one man an image, to another a notion;
but still there is a host of predicates, of the most various
kinds, " lovely," " vulgar," " a conceited man," " a
manufacturing town," *' a catastrophe/' and any num-
ber of others, which, though as predicates they would
be accounted common nouns, are in fact in the mouths
of particular persons singular, as conveying images of
things individual, as the rustic in Yirgil says, —
" Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi,
Stultus ego, huic nostrae similem."
And so the child's idea of a king, as derived from his
picture-book, will be that of a fierce or stern or vener-
able man, seated above a flight of steps, with a crown on
his head and a sceptre in his hand. In these two in-
stances indeed the experience does but mislead, when
The apprehension of Propositions. 27
applied to the unknown ; but it often happens on the
contrary, that it is a serviceable help, especially when a
man has large experiences and has learned to distinguish
between them and apply them duly, as in the instance
of the hero " who knew many cities of men and many
minds."
Further, we are able by an inventive faculty, or, as
I may call it, the faculty of composition, to follow the
descriptions of things which have never come before
us, and to form, out of such passive impressions as ex-
perience has heretofore left on our minds, new images,
which, though mental creations, are in no sense abstrac-
tions, and though ideal, are not notional. They are
concrete units in the minds both of the party describing
and the party informed of them. Thus I may never
have seen a palm or a banana, but I have conversed
with those who have, or I have read graphic accounts
of it, and, from my own previous knowledge of other
trees, have been able with so ready an intelligence to
interpret their language, and to light up such an image
of it in my thoughts, that, were it not that I never was
in the countries where the tree is found, I should fancy
that I had actually seen it. Hence again it is the very
praise we give to the characters of some great poet or
historian that he is so individual. I am able as it
were to gaze on Tiberius, as Tacitus draws him, and to
figure to myself our James the First, as he is painted
in Scott's Romance. The assassination of Ca3sar, his
" Et tu, Brute '( " his collecting his robes about him,
and his fall under Pompey's statue, all this becomes a
fact to me and an object of real apprehension. Thus
28 The apprehension of Propositions.
it is that we live in the past and in the distant ; by
means of our capacity of interpreting the statements of
others about former ages or foreign climes by the lights
of our own experience. The picture, which historians
are able to bring before us, of Caesar's death, derives
its vividness and effect from its virtual appeal to the
various images of our memory.
This faculty of composition is of course a step beyond
experience, but we have now reached its furthest point ;
it is mainly limited as regards its materials, by the sense
of sight. As regards the other senses, new images can-
not well be elicited and shaped out of old experiences.
No description, however complete, could convey to my
mind an exact likeness of a tune or an harmony, which
I have never heard ; and still less of a scent, which I
have never smelt. Generic resemblances and meta-
phorical substitutes are indeed producible ; but I should
not acquire any real knowledge of the Scotch air
" There's nae luck " by being told it was like " Auld
lang syne/' or " Kobin Gray ;" and if I said that
Mozart's melodies were as a summer sky or as the
breath of Zephyr, I should be better understood by
those who knew Mozart than by those who did not.
Such vague illustrations suggest intellectual notions,
not images.
And quite as difficult is it to create or to apprehend
by description images of mental facts, of which we
have no direct experience. I may indeed, as T have
already said, bring home to my mind so complex a fact
as an historical character, by composition out of my
experiences about character generally ; Tiberius, James
The apprehension of Propositions. 29
the First, Louis the Eleventh, or Napoleon ; but who
is able to infuse into me, or how shall I imbibe, a sense
of the peculiarities of the style of Cicero or Yirgil, if
I have not read their writings ? or how shall I gain a
shadow of a perception of the wit or the grace ascribed
to the conversation of the French salons, being myself
an untravelled John Bull ? And so again, as regards
the affections and passions of our nature, they are sui
generis respectively, and incommensurable, and must.be
severally experienced in order to be apprehended really.
I can understand the rabbia of a native of Southern
Europe, if I am of a passionate temper myself; and
the taste for speculation or betting found in great
traders or on the turf, if I am fond of enterprise or
games of chance ; but on the other hand, not all the
possible descriptions of headlong love will make me
comprehend the delirium, if I never have had a fit of
it ; nor will ever so many sermons about the inward
satisfaction of strict conscientiousness create in my
mind the image of a virtuous action and its attendant
sentiments, if I have been brought up to lie, thieve
and indulge my appetites. Thus we meet with men of
the world who cannot enter into the very idea of devo-
tion, and think, for instance, that, from the nature of
the case, a life of religious seclusion must be either
one of unutterable dreariness or abandoned sensuality,
because they know of no exercise of the affections but
what is merely human ; and with others again, who,
living in the home of their own selfishness, ridicule
as something fanatical and pitiable the self-sacrifices
of generous high-mindedness and chivalrous honour.
3O The apprehension of Propositions.
They cannot create images of these things, any more
tfian children on the contrary can of vice, when they
ask whereabouts and who the bad men are ; for they
have no personal memories, and have to content them-
selves with notions drawn from books or from what
others tell them.
So much on the apprehension of things and on the
real in our use of language ; now let us pass on to
the notional sense.
2. Experience tells us only of individual things, and
these things are innumerable. Our minds might have
been so constructed as to be able to receive and retain
an exact image of each of these various objects, one by
one, as it came before us, but only in and for itself,
without the power of comparing it with any of the
others. But this is not our case : on the contrary, to
compare and to contrast are among the most prominent
and busy of our intellectual functions. Instinctively,
even though unconsciously, we are ever instituting
comparisons between the manifold phenomena of the
external world, as we meet with them, criticizing, re-
ferring to a standard, collecting, analysing them. Nay,
as if by one and the same action, as soon as we perceive
them, we also perceive that they are like each other or
unlike, or rather both like and unlike at once. We
apprehend spontaneously, even before we set about
apprehending, that man is like man, yet unlike ; and
unlike a horse, a tree, a mountain, or a monument, yet
in some, though not the same respects, like each of
them. And in consequence, as I have said, we are ever
grouping and discriminating, measuring and sounding,
The apprehension of Propositions. 31
framing cross classes and cross divisions, and thereby
rising from particulars to generals, that is from images
to notions.
In processes of this kind we regard things, not as
they are in themselves, but mainly as they stand in
relation to each other. We look at nothing simply
for its own sake ; we cannot look at any one thing
without keeping our eyes on a multitude of other
things besides. " Man " is no longer what he really
is, an individual presented to us by our senses, but as
we read him in the light of those comparisons and
contrasts which we have made him suggest to us. He
is attenuated into an aspect, or relegated to his place
in a classification. Thus his appellation is made to
suggest, not the real being which he is in this or that
specimen of himself, but a definition. If I might use
a harsh metaphor, I should say he is made the loga-
rithm of his true self, and in that shape is worked
with the ease and satisfaction of logarithms.
It is plain what a different sense language will bear
in this system of intellectual notions from what it has
when it is the representative of things : and such a
use of it is not only the very foundation of all science,
but may be, and is, carried out in literature and in the
ordinary intercourse of man with man. And thus it
comes to pass that individual propositions about the
concrete almost cease to be, and are diluted or starved
into abstract notions. The events of history and the
characters who figure in it lose their individuality.
States and governments, society and its component
parts, cities, nations, even the physical face of the
32 The apprehension of Propositions.
country, things past, and things contemporary, all that
fulness of meaning which I have described as accruing
to language from experience, now that experience is
absent, necessarily becomes to the multitude of men
nothing but a heap of notions, little more intelligible
than 'the beauties of a prospect to the short-sighted,
or the music of a great master to a listener who has
no ear.
I suppose most men will recollect in their past years
how many mistakes they have made about persons,
parties, local occurrences, nations and the like, of
which at the time they had no actual knowledge of
their own : how ashamed or how amused they have
since been at their own gratuitous idealism when they
came into possession of the real facts concerning them.
They were accustomed to treat the definite Titus or
Sempronius as the quidam homo, the individuum
vagum of the logician. They spoke of his opinions,
his motives, his practices, as their traditional rule for
the species Titus or Sempronius enjoined. In order to
find out what individual men in flesh and blood were,
they fancied that they had nothing to do but to refer
to commonplaces, alphabetically arranged. Thus they
were well up with the character of a Whig statesman
or Tory magnate, a Wesley an, a Congregationalist, a
parson, a priest, a philanthropist, a writer of controversy,
a sceptic ; and found themselves prepared, without the
trouble of direct inquiry, to draw the individual after
the peculiarities of his type. And so with national
character; the late Duke of Wellington must have
been impulsive, quarrelsome, witty, clever at repartee,
The apprehension of Propositions. 33
for he was an Irishman ; in like manner, we must have
cold and selfish Scots, crafty Italians, vulgar Americans,
and Frenchmen, half tiger, half monkey. As to the
French, those who are old enough to recollect the
wars with Napoleon, know what eccentric notions were
popularly entertained about them in England ; how it
was even a surprise to find some military man, who
was a prisoner of war, to be tall and stout, because it
was a received idea that all Frenchmen were under-
sized and lived on frogs.
Such again are the ideal personages who figure in
romances and dramas of the old school ; tyrants, monks,
crusaders, princes in disguise, and captive damsels ; or
benevolent or angry fathers, and spendthrift heirs ; like
the symbolical characters in some of Shakespeare's
plays, " a Tapster," or " a Lord Mayor/' or in the stage
direction " Enter two murderers."
What I have been illustrating in the case of persons,
might be instanced in regard to places, transactions
physical calamities, events in history. Words which
are used by an eye-witness to express things, unless
he be especially eloquent or graphic, may only convey
general notions. Such is, and ever must be, the popular
and ordinary mode of apprehending language. On
only few subjects have any of us the opportunity of
realizing in our minds what we speak and hear about ;
and we fancy that we are doing justice to individual
men and things by making them a mere synthesis of
qualities, as if any number whatever of abstractions
would, by being fused together, be equivalent to one
concrete
D
34 The apprehension of Propositions.
Here then we have two modes of thought, both using
the same words, both having one origin, yet with nothing
in common in their results. The informations of sense
and sensation are the initial basis of both of them ; but
in the one we take hold of objects from within them, and
in the other we view them from outside of them ; we
perpetuate them as images in the one case, we transform
them into notions in the other. And natural to us as
are both processes in their first elements and in their
growth, however divergent and independent in their
direction, they cannot really be inconsistent with each
other ; yet no one from the sight of a horse or a dog
would be able to anticipate its zoological definition, nor
from a knowledge of its definition to draw such a picture
as would direct the eye to the living specimen.
Each use of propositions has its own excellence and
serviceableness, and each has its own imperfection. To
apprehend notionally is to have breadth of mind, but to
be shallow ; to apprehend really is to be deep, but to be
narrow-minded. The latter is the conservative principle
of knowledge, and the former the principle of its advance-
ment. Without the apprehension of notions, we should
for ever pace round one small circle of knowledge ;
without a firm hold upon things, we shall waste our-
selves in vague speculations. However, real apprehen-
sion has the precedence, as being the scope and end
and the test of notional ; and the fuller is the mind's
hold upon things or what it considers such, the more
fertile is it in its aspects of them, and the more prac-
tical in its definitions.
Of course as these two are not inconsistent with each
The apprehension of Propositions. 35
other, they may co-exist in the same mind. Indeed
there is no one who does not to a certain extent exercise
both the one and the other. Viewed in relation to
Assent, which has led to my speaking of them, they do
not in any way affect the nature of Assent itself, which
is in all cases absolute and unconditional ; but they
give it an external character corresponding respectively
to their own : so much so, that at first sight it might
seem as if Assent admitted of degrees, on account of
the variation of vividness in these different apprehen-
sions. As notions come of abstractions, so images come
of experiences ; the more fully the mind is occupied by
an experience, the keener will be its assent to it, if it
assents, and on the other hand, the duller will be its
assent and the less operative, the more it is engaged
with an abstraction; and thus a scale of assents is
conceivable, either in the instance of one mind upon
different subjects, or of many minds upon one subject,
varying from an assent which looks like mere inference
up to a belief both intense and practical, — from the
acceptance which we accord to some accidental news
of the day to the supernatural dogmatic faith of the
Christian.
It follows to treat of Assent tinder this double aspect
of its subject-matter, — assent to notions, and assent to
things.
D 2
CHAPTER IV.
NOTIONAL AND EEAL ASSENT.
1. I HAVE said that our apprehension of a proposition
varies in strength, and that it is stronger when it is
concerned with a proposition expressive to us of things
than when concerned with a proposition expressive of
notions; and I have given this reason for it, viz. that
what is concrete exerts a force and makes an impression
on the mind which nothing abstract can rival. That
is, I have argued that, because the object is more
powerful, therefore so is the apprehension of it.
I do not think it unfair reasoning thus to take the
apprehension for its object. The mind is ever stimulated
in proportion to the cause stimulating it. Sights, for
instance, sway us, as scents do not ; whether this be
owing to a greater power in the thing seen, or to a
greater receptivity and expansiveness in the sense of
seeing, is a superfluous question. The strong object
would make the apprehension strong. Our sense of
seeing is able to open to its object, as our sense of smell
cannot open to its own. Its objects are able to awaken
the mind, take possession of it, inspire it, act through it*
Notional and Real Assent. 37
with an energy and variousness which is not found in
the case of scents and their apprehension. Since we
cannot draw the line between the object and the act, I
am at liberty to say, as I have said, that, as is the thing
apprehended, so is the apprehension.
And so in like manner as regards apprehension of
mental objects. If an image derived from experience or
information is stronger than an abstraction, conception,
or conclusion — if I am more arrested by our LoikPs
bearing before Pilate and Herod than by the " Justum et
tenacem " &c. of the poet, more arrested by His Voice
saying to us, " Give to him that asketh thee," than by
the best arguments of the Economist against indiscrimi-
nate almsgiving, it does not matter for my present
purpose whether the objects give strength to the
apprehension or the apprehension gives large admit-
tance into the mind to the object. It is in human
nature to be more affected by the concrete than by the
abstract; it may be the reverse with other beings.
The apprehension, then, may be as fairly said to possess
the force which acts upon us, as the object apprehended.
2. Eeal apprehension, then, may be pronounced
stronger than notional, because things, which are its
objects, are confessedly more impressive and affective
than notions, which are the objects of notional. Experi-
ences and their images strike and occupy the mind, as
abstractions and their combinations do not. Next, pass-
ing on to Assent, I observe that it is this variation in
the mind's apprehension of an object to which it
assents, and not any incompleteness in the assent itself,
that leads us to speak of strong and weak assents, as
38 Notional and Real Assent.
if Assent itself admitted of degrees. In either mode of
apprehension, be it real or be it notional, the assent
preserves its essential characteristic of being uncondi-
tional. The assent of a Stoic to the " Justum et tena-
cem" &c. may be as genuine an assent, as absolute
and entire, as little admitting of degree or variation, as
distinct from an act of inference, as the assent of a
Christian to the history of our Lord's Passion in the
GofpeL
3. However, characteristic as it is of Assent, to be
thus in its nature simply one and indivisible, and
thereby essentially different from Inference, which is
ever varying in strength, never quite at the same pitch
in any two of its acts, still it is at the same time true
that it may be difficult in fact, by external tokens, to
distinguish given acts of assent from given acts of
inference. Thus, whereas no one could possibly con-
fuse the real assent of a Christian to the fact of our
Lord's crucifixion, with the notional acceptance of it, as
a point of history, on the part of a philosophical hea-
then (so removed from each other, toto ccelo, are the
respective modes of apprehending it in the two cases,
though in both the assent is in its nature one and the
same), nevertheless it would be easy to mistake the
Stoic's notional assent, genuine though it might be, to
the moral nobleness of fche just man " struggling in
the storms of fate," for a mere act of inference resulting
from the principles of his Stoical profession, or again
for an assent merely to the inferential necessity of the
nobleness of that struggle. Nothing, indeed, is more
common than to praise men for their consistency to
Notional and Real Assent. 39
their principles, whatever those principles are, that is,
bo praise them on an inference, without thereby imply-
ing any assent to the principles themselves.
The cause of this resemblance between acts so distinct
is obvious. Resemblance exists only in cases of notional
assents ; when the assent is given to notions, then indeed
it :s possible to hesitate in deciding whether it is assent
or inference, whether the mind is merely without doubt
or whether it is actually certain. And the reason is
this : notional Assent seems like Inference, because the
apprehension which accompanies acts of Inference is
notional also, — because Inference is engaged for the
most part on notional propositions, both premiss and
conclusion. This point, which I have implied through-
out, I here distinctly record, and shall enlarge upon
hereafter. Only propositions about individuals are not
notional, and these are seldom the matter of inference.
Thus, did the Stoic infer the fact of our Lord's death
instead of assenting to it, that proposition as inferred
would have been as much an abstraction to him as the
" Justum," &c. ; nay further, the " Justus et tenax" was
at least a notion in his mind, but " Jesus Christ " would^
in the schools of -Athens or of Rome, have stood for less,
for an unknown being, the x or y of a formula. Except
then in some of the cases of singular conclusions, in-
ferences are employed on notions, unless, I say, they are
employed on mere symbols ; and, indeed, when they are
symbolical, then are they clearest and most cogent, as I
shall hereafter show. The next clearest are such as
carry out the necessary results of previous classifica-
tions., and therefore may be called definitions or con-
4O Notional and Real Assent.
elusions, as we please. For instance, having divided
beings into their classes, the definition of man is in-
evitable.
4. We may call it then the normal state of Inference
to apprehend propositions as notions; and we may
call it the normal state pf Assent to apprehend pro-
positions as things. If notional apprehension is most
congenial to Inference, real apprehension will be the
most natural concomitant on Assent. An act of Infe-
rence includes in its object the dependence of its thesis
upon its premisses, that is, upon a relation, which is
an abstraction ; but an act of Assent rests wholly on
the thesis as its object, and the reality of the thesis is
almost a condition of its unconditionality.
5. I am led on to make one remark more, and it
shall be my last.
An act of assent, it seems, is the most perfect and
highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions,
which are apprehended as experiences and images,
that is, which stand for things ; and, on the other hand,
an act of inference is the most perfect and highest of
its kind, when it is exercised on propositions which
are apprehended as notions, that is, which are creations
of the mind. An act of inference indeed may be made
with either of these modes of apprehension ; so may
an act of assent ; but when inferences are exercised on
things, they tend to be conjectures or presentiments,
without logical force ; and when assents are exercised
on notions, they tend to be mere assertions without
any personal hold on them on the part of those who
make them. If this be so, the paradox is true, that,
Notional and Real Assent. 4 it
when Inference is clearest, Assent may be least forcible,
and, when Assent is most intense, Inference may be
least distinct ; — for, though acts of assent require pre-
vious acts of inference, they require them, not as
adequate causes, but as sine qua non conditions ; and,
while the apprehension strengthens Assent, Inference
often weakens the apprehension.
42 Notional Assents.
§ I. NOTIONAL ASSENTS.
I shall consider Assent made to propositions which
express abstractions or notions under five heads ; which
I shall call Profession, Credence, Opinion, Presumption,
and Speculation.
1. Profession
There are assents so feeble and superficial, as to be
little more than assertions. I class them all together
under the head of Profession. Such are the assents
made upon habit and without reflection ; as when a man
calls himself a Tory or a Liberal, as having been brought
up as such ; or again, when he adopts as a matter of
course the literary or other fashions of the day, admiring
the poems, or the novels, or the music, or the personages,
or the costume, or the wines, or the manners, which
happen to be popular, or are patronized in the higher
circles. Such again are the assents of men of wavering
restless minds, who take up and then abandon beliefs
so readily, so suddenly, as to make it appear that they
had no view (as it is called) on the matter they pro-
fessed, and did not know to what they assented or why.
Profession. 43
Then, again, when men say they have no doubt of a
thing, this is a case, in which it is difficult to determine
whether they assent to it, infer ifc, or consider it highly
probable. There are many cases, indeed, in which it
is impossible to discriminate between assent, inference,
and assertion, on account of the otiose, passive, inchoate
character of the act in question. If I say that to-
morrow will be fine, what does this enunciation mean ?
Perhaps it means that it ought to be fine, if the glass
tells truly ; then it is the inference of a probability.
Perhaps it means no more than a surmise, because it is
fine to-day, or has been so for the week past. And
perhaps it is a compliance with the word of another, in
which case it is sometimes a real assent, sometimes a
polite assertion or a wish.
Many a disciple of a philosophical school, who talks
fluently, does but assert, when he seems to assent to the
dicta of his master, little as he may be aware of it.
Nor is he secured against this self-deception by know-
ing the arguments on which those dicta rest, for he may
learn the arguments by heart, as a careless schoolboy
gets up his Euclid. This practice of asserting simply
on authority, with the pretence and without the reality
of assent, is what is meant by formalism. To say " I
do not understand a proposition, but I accept it on
authority," is not formalism, but faith ; it is not a direct
assent to the proposition, still it is an assent to the
authority which enunciates it ; but what I here speak
of is professing to understand without understanding.
It is thus that political and religious watchwords are
created; first one man of name and then another
44 Notional Assents.
adopts them, till their use becomes popular, and then
every one professes them, because every one else does.
Such words are "liberality," "progress/' "light," "civi-
lization /' such are " justification by faith only," " vital
religion." " private judgment/' " the Bible and nothing
but the Bible/' Such again are " Rationalism/' " Galli-
canism," " Jesuitism/' "Ultramontanism" — all of which,
in the mouths of conscientious thinkers, have a definite
meaning, but are used by the multitude as war-cries,
nicknames, and shibboleths, with scarcely enough of the
scantiest grammatical apprehension of them to allow of
their being considered in truth more than assertions.
Thus, instances occur now and then, when, in conse-
quence of the urgency of some fashionable superstition
or popular^delusion, some eminent scientific authority is
provoked to come forward, and to set the world right
by his " ipse dixit." He, indeed, himself knows very
well what he is about ; he has a right to speak, and his
reasonings and conclusions are sufficient, not only for his
own, but for general assent, and, it may be, are as
simply true and impregnable, as they are authoritative ;
but an intelligent hold on the matter in dispute, such as
he has himself, cannot be expected in the case of men
in general. They, nevertheless, one and all, repeat and
retail his arguments, as suddenly as if they had not to
study them, as heartily as if they understood them,
changing round and becoming as strong antagonists of
the error which their master has exposed, as if they had
never been its advocates. If their word is to be taken,
it is not simply his authority that moves them, which
would be sensible enough and suitable in them, both
Profession. 45
apprehension and assent being in that case grounded
on the maxim " Cuique in arte sua credendum," but so
far forth as they disown this motive,, and claim to judge
in a scientific question of the worth of arguments which
require some real knowledge, they are little better, not
of course in a very serious matter, than pretenders and
formalists.
Not only authority, but Inference also may impose on
us assents which in themselves are little better than as-
sertions, and which, so far as they are assents, can only
be notional assents, as being assents, not to the propo-
sitions inferred, but to the truth of those propositions.
For instance, it can be proved by irrefragable calcula-
tions, that the stars are not less than billions of miles
distant from the earth ; and the process of calculation,
upon which such statements are made, is not so difficult
as to require authority to secure our acceptance of both
it and of them ; yet who can say that he has any real,
nay, any notional apprehension of a billion or a trillion ?
We can, indeed, have some notion of it, if we analyze it
into its factors, if we compare it with other numbers, or
if we illustrate it by analogies or by its implications ;
but I am speaking of the vast number in itself. We
cannot assent to a proposition of which it is the
predicate ; we can but assent to the truth of it.
This leads me to the question, whether belief in a
mystery can be more than an assertion. I consider it
can be an assent, and my reasons for saying so are as
follows : — A mystery is a proposition conveying incom-
patible notions, or is a statement of the inconceivable.
Now we can assent to propositions (and a mystery is a
46 Notional Assents.
proposition), provided we can apprehend them ; therefore
we can assent to a mystery, for, unless we in some sense
apprehended it, we should not recognize it to be a mys-
tery, that is, a statement uniting incompatible notions.
The same act, then, which enables us to discern that the
words of the proposition express a mystery, capacitates
us for assenting to it. Words which make nonsense, do
not make a mystery. No one would call Warton's line —
"Revolving swans proclaim the welkin near" — an
inconceivable assertion. It is equally plain, that the
assent which we give to mysteries, as such, is notional
assent ; for, by the supposition, it is assent to proposi-
tions which we cannot conceive, whereas, if we had had
experience of them, we should be able to conceive them,
and without experience assent is not real.
But the question follows, Can processes of inference
end in a mystery ? that is, not only in what is incom-
prehensible, that the stars are billions of miles from each
other, but in what is inconceivable, in the co-existence
of (seeming) incompatibilities ? For how, it may be
asked, can reason carry out notions into their contra-
dictories ? since all the developments of a truth must
from the nature of the case be consistent both with it
and with each other. I answer, certainly processes of
inference, however accurate, can end in mystery ; and I
solve the objection to such a doctrine thus : — oar notion
of a thing may be only partially faithful to the original ;
it may be in excess of the thing, or it may represent it
incompletely, and, in consequence, it may serve for it,
it may stand for it, only to a certain point, in certain
cases, but no further. After that point is reached, the
Profession. 47
notion and the thing part company ; and then the
notion, if still used as the representative of the thing,
will work out conclusions, not inconsistent with itself,
but with the thing to which it no longer corresponds.
This is seen most familiarly in the use of metaphors.
Thus, in an Oxford satire, which deservedly made a
sensation in its day, it is said that Vice "from its hard-
ness takes a polish too." I Whence we might argue,
that, whereas Caliban was vicious, he was therefore
polished ; but politeness and Caliban are incompatible
notions. Or again, when some one said, perhaps to Dr.
Johnson, that a certain writer (say Hume) was a clear
thinker, he made answer, "All shallows are clear/'
But supposing Hume to be in fact both a clear and a
deep thinker, yet supposing clearness and depth are in-
compatible in their literal sense, which the objection
seems to imply, and still in their full literal sense were
to be ascribed to Hume, then our reasoning about his
intellect has ended in the mystery, " Deep Hume is
shallow ;" whereas the contradiction lies, not in the
reasoning, but in the fancying that inadequate notions
can be taken as the exact representations of things.
Hence in science we sometimes use a definition or a
formula, not as exact, but as being sufficient for our
purpose, for working out certain conclusions, for a
practical approximation, the error being small, till a
certain point is reached. This is what in theological
investigations I should call an economy.
A like contrast between notions and the things which
« -The Oxford Spy," 1818; b* J. S. Boone, p. 107.
48 Notional Assents.
they represent is the principle of suspense and curiosity
in those enigmatical sayings which were frequent in the
early stage of human society. In them the problem
proposed to the acuteness of the hearers, is to find some
real thing which may unite in itself certain conflicting
notions which in the question are attributed to it : " Out
of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong
came forth sweetness •" or, " What creature is that,
which in the morning goes on four legs, at noon on two,
and on three in the evening?" The answer, which
names the thing, interprets and thereby limits the
notions under which it has been represented.
Let us take an example in algebra. Its calculus is
commonly used to investigate, not only the relations of
quantity generally, but geometrical facts in particular.
Now it is at once too wide and too narrow for such a
purpose, fitting on to the doctrine of lines and angles
with a bad fit, as the coat of a short and stout man
might serve the needs of one who was tall and slim.
Certainly it works well for geometrical purposes up to
a certain point, as when it enables us to dispense with
the cumbrous method of proof in questions of ratio and
proportion, which is adopted in the fifth book of Euclid ;
but what are we to make of the fourth power of a,
when it is to be translated into geometrical language ?
If from this algebraical expression we determined that
space admitted of four dimensions, we should be
enunciating a mystery, because we should be applying
to space a notion which belongs to quantity. In this
case algebra is in excess of geometrical truth. Now let
us take an instance in which it falls short of geometry,
Profession. 49
- — VVhat is the meaning of the square root of minus a ?
Here the mystery is on the side of algebra ; and, in
accordance with the principle which I am illustrating,
it has sometimes been considered as an abortive effort
to express, what is really beyond the capacity of alge-
braical notation, the direction and position of lines in
the third dimension of space, as well as their length
upon a plane. When the calculus is urged on by the
inevitable course of the working to do what it cannot
do, it stops short as if in resistance, and protests by
an absurdity.
Our notions of things are never simply commensurate
with the things themselves ; they are aspects of them,
more or less exact, and sometimes a mistake ab initio.
Take an instance from arithmetic: — We are accustomed
to subject all that exists to numeration; but, to be
correct, we are bound first to reduce to some level of
possible comparison the things which we wish to num-
ber. We must be able to say, not only that they are ten,
twenty, or a hundred, but so many definite somethings.
For instance, we could not without extravagance throw
together Napoleon's brain, ambition, hand, soul, smile,
height, and age at Marengo, and say that there were
seven of them, though there are seven words ; nor will
it even be enough to content ourselves with what may
be called a negative level, viz. that these seven are a
non-existing or a departed seven. Unless numeration is
to issue in nonsense, it must be conducted on conditions.
This being the case, there are, for what we know,
collections of beings, to whom the notion of number
cannot be attached, except catachrestically , because,
$O Notional Assents.
taken individually, no positive point of real agree-
ment can be found between them, by which to call
them. If indeed we can denote them by a plural noun,
then we can measure that plurality ; but if they agree
in nothing, they cannot agree in bearing a common
name, and to say that they amount to a thousand these
or those, is not to number them, but to count up a
certain number of names or words which we have
written down.
Thus, the Angels have been considered by divines to
have each of them a species to himself ; and we may
fancy each of them so absolutely sui similis as to be
like nothing else, so that it would be as untrue to
speak of a thousand Angels as of a thousand Hannibala
or Ciceros. It will be said, indeed, that all beings but
One at least will come under the notion of creatures,
and are dependent upon that One ; but that is true of
the brain, smile, and height of Napoleon, which no one
would call three creatures. But, if all this be so, much
more does it apply to our speculations concerning the
Supreme Being, whom it may be unmeaning, not only
to number with other beings, but to subject to number
in regard to His own intrinsic characteristics. That
is, to apply arithmetical notions to Him may be as un-
philosophical as it is profane. Though He is at once
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the word « Trinity "
belongs to those notions of Him which are forced on
us by the necessity of our finite conceptions, the real
and immutable distinction which exists between Person
and Person implying in itself no infringement of His
real and numerical Unity. And if it be asked how,
Profession. 5 1
if We cannot properly speak of Him as Three, we can
speak of Him as One, I reply that He is not One
in the way in which created things are severally units ;
for one, as applied to ourselves, is used in contrast to
two or three and a whole series of numbers ; but of the
Supreme Being- it is safer to use the word " monad "
than unit, for He has not even such relation to His
creatures as to allow, philosophically speaking, of our
contrasting Him with them.
Coming back to the main subject, which I have illus-
trated at the risk of digression, I observe that an alleged
fact is not therefore impossible because it is incon.
ceivable ; for the incompatible notions, in which consists
its inconceivableness, need not each of them really be-
long to it in that fulness which would involve their being
incompatible with each other. It is true indeed that I
deny the possibility of two straight lines enclosing a
space, on the ground of its being inconceivable ; but 1
do so because a straight line is a notion and nothing
more, and not a thing to which I may have attached a
notion more or less unfaithful. I have denned a straight
line in my own way at my own pleasure ; the ques-
tion is not one of facts at all, but of the consistency
with each other of definitions and their logical conse-
quences.
" Space is not infinite, for nothing but the Creator is
such :"— starting from this thesis as a theological infor-
mation to be assumed as a fact, though not one of ex-
perience, we arrive at once at an insoluble mystery ; for
if space be not infinite, it is finite, and finite space is a
contradiction in notions, space, as such, implying the
B 2
5$ Notional Assents.
absence of boundaries. Here again it is our notion that
carries us beyond the fact, and in opposition to it, show-
ing that from the first what we apprehend of space
does not in all respects correspond to the thing, of
which indeed we have no image.
This, then, is another instance in which the juxta-
position of notions by the logical faculty lands us in
what are commonly called mysteries. Notions are but
aspects of things ; the free deductions from one of these
aspects necessarily contradict the free deductions from
another. After proceeding in our investigations a cer-
tain way, suddenly a blank or a maze presents itself be-
fore the mental vision, as when the eye is confused by the
varying slides of a telescope. Thus, we believe in the
infinitude of the Divine Attributes, but we can have no
experience of infinitude as a fact ; the word stands for a
definition or a notion. Hence, when we try how to
reconcile in the moral world the fulness of mercy with
exactitude in sanctity and justice, or to explain that
the physical tokens of creative skill need not suggest
any want of creative power, we feel we are not masters
of our subject. We apprehend sufficiently to be able
to assent to these theological truths as mysteries ; did
we not apprehend them at all, we should be merely
asserting ; though even then we might convert that
assertion into an assent, if we wished to do so, as I
have already shown, by making it the subject of a
proposition, and predicating of it that it is true.
Credence. 53
2. Credence.
What I mean by giving credence to propositions is
pretty much the same as having t( no doubt " about
them. It is the sort of assent which we give to those
opinions and professed facts which are ever presenting
themselves to us without any -effort of ours, and which
we commonly take for granted, thereby obtaining a
broad foundation of thought for ourselves,and a medium
of intercourse between ourselves and others. This form
of notional assent comprises a great variety of subject-
matters ; and is, as I have implied, of an otiose and pas-
sive character, accepting whatever comes to hand, from
whatever quarter, warranted or not, so that it convey
nothing on the face of it to its own disadvantage. From
the time that we begin to observe, think and reason, to
the final failure of our powers, we are ever acquiring
fresh and fresh informations by means of our senses,
and still more from others and from books. The friends
or strangers whom we fall in with in the course of the
day, the conversations or discussions to which we are
parties, the newspapers, the light reading of the season,
our recreations, our rambles in the country, our foreign
tours, all pour their contributions of intellectual matter
into the storehouses of our memory ; and, though much
may be lost, much is retained. These informations,
thus received with a spontaneous assent, constitute the
furniture of the mind, and make the difference between
its civilized condition and a state of nature. They are
its education, as far as general knowledge can so be
called j; and, though education is discipline as well as
54 Notional Assents.
learning, still, unless the mind implicitly welcomes the
truths, real or ostensible, which these informations
supply, it will gain neither formation nor a stimulus
for its activity and progress. Besides, to believe frankly
what it is told, is in the young an exercise of teach-
ableness and humility.
Credence is the means by which, in high and low, in
the man of the world and in the recluse, our bare and
barren nature is overrun and diversified from without
with a rich and living clothing. It is by such un-
grudging, prompt assents to what is offered to us so
lavishly, that we become possessed of the principles,
doctrines, sentiments, facts, which constitute useful, and
especially liberal knowledge. These various teachings,
shallow though they be, are of a breadth which secures
us against those lacunas of knowledge which are apt to
befall the professed student, and keep us up to the mark
in literature, in the arts, inhistory, and in public matters.
They give us in great measure our morality, our
politics, our social code, our art of life. They supply
the elements of public opinion, the watchwords of pa-
triotism, the standards of thought and action ; they are
our mutual understandings, our channels of sympathy,
our means of co-operation, and the bond of our civil
union. They become our moral language; we learn
them as we learn our mother tongue ; they distinguish
us from foreigners ; they are, in each of us, not indeed
personal, but national characteristics.
This account of them implies that they are received
with a notional, not a real assent ; they are too manifold
to be received in any other way. Even the most prac-
Credence. 55
tised and earnest minds must needs be superficial in the
greater part of their attainments. Tney know just
enough on all subjects, in literature, history, politics,
philosophy, and art, to be able to converse sensibly on
them, and to understand those who are really deep in
one or other of them. This is what is called, with a
special appositeness, a gentleman's knowledge, as con-
trasted with that of a professional man, and is neither
worthless nor despicable, if used for its proper ends; but
it is never more than the furniture of the mind, as I
have called it ; it never is thoroughly assimilated with
it. Yet of course there is nothing to hinder those who
have even the largest stock of such notions from de-
voting themselves to one or other of the subjects to
which those notions belong, and mastering it with a
real apprehension ; and then their general knowledge
of all subjects may be made variously useful in the
direction of that particular study or pursuit which
they have selected.
I have been speaking of secular knowledge ; but re-
ligion may be made a subject of notional assent also,
and is especially so made in our own country. Theology,
as such, always is notional, as being scientific : religion,
as being personal, should be real ; but, except within a
small range of subjects, it commonly is not real in Eng-
land. As to Catholic populations, such as those of medi-
eval Europe, or the Spain of this day, or quasi- Catholic
as those of Russia, among them assent to religious
objects is real, not notional. To them the Supreme
Being, our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, Angels and Saints,
hearen and hell, are as present as if they were objects of
56 Notional Assent.
sight ; bat such a faith does not suit the genius of
modern England. There is in the literary world just
now an affectation of calling religion a " sentiment ;"
and it must be confessed that usually it is nothing more
with our own people, educated or rude. Objects are
barely necessary to it. I do not say so of old Calvinism
or Evangelical Eeligion ; I do not call the religion of
Leigh ton, Beveridge, Wesley, Thomas Scott, or Cecil
a mere sentiment ; nor do I so term the high Angli-
canism of the present generation. But these are
only denominations, parties, schools, compared with
the national religion of England in its length and
breadth. " Bible Eeligion " is both the recognized
title and the best description of English religion.
It consists, not in rites or creeds, but mainly in
having the Bible read in Church, in the family, and
in private. Now I am far indeed from undervaluing
that mere knowledge of Scripture which is imparted
to the population thus promiscuously. At least in Eng-
land, it has to a certain point made up for great and
grievous losses in its Christianity. The reiteration
again and again, in fixed course in the public service,
of the words of inspired teachers under both Covenants,
and that in grave majestic English, has in matter of
fact been to our people a vast benefit. It has attuned
their minds to religious thoughts ; it has given them
a high moral standard ; it has served them in asso-
ciating religion with compositions which, even humanly
considered, are among the most sublime and beautiful
ever written ; especially, it has impressed upon them
the series of Divine Providences in behalf of man from
Credence. 57
his creation to his end, and, above all, ^ne words,
deeds, and sacred sufferings of Him in whom all the
Providences of God centre.
So far the indiscriminate reading of Scripture has
been of service ; still, much more is necessary than the
benefits which I have enumerated, to answer to the
idea of a religion ; whereas our national form professes
to be little more than thus reading the Bible and living
a correct life. It is not a religion of persons and things,
of acts of faith and of direct devotion ; but of sacred
scenes and pious sentiments. It has been comparatively
careless of creed and catechism ; and has in conse-
quence shown little sense of the need of consistency in
the matter of its teaching. Its doctrines are not so
much facts, as stereotyped aspects of facts ; and it is
afraid, so to say, of walking round them. It induces
its followers to be content with this meagre view of
revealed truth ; or, rather, it is suspicious and protests,
or is frightened, as if it saw a figure in a picture move
out of its frame, when our Lord, the Blessed Virgin,
or the Holy Apostles, are spoken of as real beings,
and really such as Scripture implies them to be I
am not denying that the assent which it inculcates
and elicits is genuine as regards its contracted range
of doctrine, but it is at best notional. What Scripture
especially illustrates from its first page to its last, is
God's Providence ; and that is nearly the only doctrine
held with a real assent by the mass of religious English-
men. Hence the Bible is so great a solace and refuge
to them in trouble. I repeat, I am not speaking of
particular schools and parties in England, whether of
58 Notional Assents.
the High Church or the Low, but of the mass of
piously-minded and well-living people in all ranks of
the community.
3. Opinion.
That class of assents which I have called Credence,
being a spontaneous acceptance of the various informa-
tions, which are by whatever means conveyed to our
minds, sometimes goes by the name of Opinion. When
we speak of a man's opinions, what do we mean, but the
collection of notions which he happens to have, and does
not easily part with, though he has neither sufficient
proof nor firm grasp of them ? This is true ; however,
Opinion is a word of various significations, and I prefer
to use it in my own. Besides standing for Credence, it
is sometimes taken to mean Conviction, as when we
speak of the " variety of religious opinions," or of being
" persecuted for religious opinions," or of our having
" no opinion on a particular point," or of another having
" no religious opinions." And sometimes it is used in
contrast with Conviction, as synonymous with a light
and casual, though genuine assent ; thus, if a man was
every day changing his mind, that is, his assents, we
might say, that he was very changeable in his opinions.
I shall here use the word to denote an assent, but an
assent to a proposition, not as true, but as probably
true, that is, to the probability of that which the pro-
position enunciates ; and, as that probability may vary in
strength without limit, so may the cogency and moment
of the opinion. This account of Opinion may seem to
confuse it with Inference ; for the strength of an infe-
Opinion. 59
rence varies with its premisses, and is a probability ; but
the two acts of mind are really distinct Opinion, as
being an assent, is independent of premisses. We have
opinions which we never think of defending by argu-
ment, though, of course, we think they can be so de-
fended. We are even obstinate in them, or what is
called " opinionated/' and may say that we have a right
to think just as we please, reason or no reason ; whereas
Inference is in its nature and by its profession con-
ditional and uncertain. To say that ' ' we shall have a
fine hay-harvest if the present weather lasts/' does not
come of the same state of mind as, " I am of opinion
that we shall have a fine hay-harvest this year."
Opinion, thus explained, has more connection with
Credence than with Inference. It differs from Credence
in these two points, viz. that, while Opinion explicitly
assents to the probability of a given proposition,
Credence is an implicit assent to its truth. It differs
from Credence in a third respect, viz. in being a reflex
act; — when we take a thing for granted, we have
credence in it; when we begin to reflect upon our
credence, and to measure, estimate, and modify it, then
we are forming an opinion.
It is in this sense that Catholics speak of theological
opinion, in contrast with faith in dogma. It is much
more than an inferential act, but it is distinct from an
act of certitude. And this is really the sense which
Protestants give to the word when they interpret it by
Conviction ; for their highest opinion in religion is,
generally speaking, an assent to a probability — as even
Butler has been understood or misunderstood to teach,
60 Notional Assents.
— and therefore consistent with toleration of its con-
tradictory.
Opinion, being such as I have described, is a notional
assent, for the predicate of the proposition, on which
it is exercised, is the abstract word " probabla"
4. Presumption.
By Presumption I mean an assent to first principles ;
and by first principles I mean the propositions with
which we start in reasoning on any given subject-matter.
They are in consequence very numerous, and vary in
great measure with the persons who reason, according
to their judgment and power of assent, being received
by some minds, not by others, and only a few of them
received universally. They are all of them notions, not
images, because they express what is abstract, not
what is individual and from direct experience.
1. Sometimes our trust in our powers of reasoning
and memory, that is, our implicit assent to their telling
truly, is treated as a first principle; but we cannot
properly be said to have any trust in them as faculties.
At most we trust in particular acts of memory and
reasoning. We are sure there was a yesterday, and
that we did this or that in it; we are sure that three
times six is eighteen, and that the diagonal of a square
is longer than the side. So far as this we may be said
to trust the mental act, by which the object of our
assent is verified; but, in doing so, we imply no recog-
nition of a general power or faculty, or of any capability
or affection of our minds, over and above the particular
Presumption. 6 1
act. We know indeed that we have a faculty by which
we remember, as we know we have a faculty by which
we breathe ; but we gain this knowledge by abstraction
or inference from its particular acts, not by direct ex-
perience. Nor do we trust in the faculty of memory
or reasoning as such, even after that we have inferred
its existence ; for its acts are often inaccurate, nor do
we invariably assent to them.
However, if I must speak my mind, I have another
ground for reluctance to speak of our trusting memory
or reasoning, except indeed by a figure of speech. It
seems to me unphilosophical to speak of trusting our-
selves. We are what we are, and we use, not trust our
faculties. To debate about trusting in a case like this, is
parallel to the confusion implied in wishing I had had
a choice if I would be created or no, or speculating
what I should be like, if I were born of other parents.
" Proximus sum egomet mini." Our consciousness of
self is prior to all questions of trust or assent. We act
according to our nature, by means of ourselves, when we
remember or reason. We are as little able to accept or
reject our mental constitution, as our being. We have
not the option ; we can but misuse or mar its functions.
We do not confront or bargain with ourselves ; and
therefore I cannot call the trustworthiness of the facul-
ties of memory and reasoning one of our first principles.
2. Next, as to the proposition, that there are things
existing external to ourselves, this I do consider a first
principle, and one of universal reception. It is founded
on an instinct ; I so call it, because the brute creation
possesses it. This instinct is directed to wards individual
6i Notional Assents.
phenomena, one by one, and has nothing of the character
of a generalization ; and, since it exists in brutes, the
gift of reason is not a condition of its existence, and it
may justly be considered an instinct in man also. What
the human mind does is what brutes cannot do, viz. to
draw from our ever-recurring experiences of its testi-
mony in particulars a general proposition, and, because
this instinct or intuition acts whenever the phenomena
of sense present themselves, to lay down in broad terms,
by an inductive process, the great aphorism, that there
is an external world, and that all the phenomena of
sense proceed from it. This general proposition, to
which we go on to assent, goes (extensive, though not
intensive) far beyond our experience, illimitable as that
experience may be, and represents a notion.
3. I have spoken, and I think rightly spoken, of in-
stinct as a force which spontaneously impels us, not only
to bodily movements, but to mental acts. It is instinct
which leads the quasi-intelligent principle (whatever it
is) in brutes to perceive in the phenomena of sense a
something distinct from and beyond those phenomena.
It is instinct which impels the child to recognize in the
smiles or the frowns of a countenance which meets his
eyes, not only a being external to himself, but one whose
looks elicit in him confidence or fear. And, as he in-
stinctively interprets these physical phenomena, as
tokens of things beyond themselves, so from the sensa-
tions attendant upon certain classes of his thoughts and
actions he gains a perception of an external being, who
reads his mind, to whom he is responsible, who praises
and blames, who promises and threatens. As I am only
Presumption. 63
illustrating a general view by examples, I shall take this
analogy for granted here. As then we have our initial
knowledge of the universe through sense, so do we in
the first instance begin to learn about its Lord and God
from conscience ; and, as from particular acts of that
instinct, which makes experiences, mere images (as they
ultimately are) upon the retina, the means of our per-
ceiving something real beyond them, we go on to draw
the general conclusion that there is a vast external world,
so from the recurring instances in which conscience acts,
forcing upon us importunately the mandate of a Superior,
we have fresh and fresh evidence of the existence of a
Sovereign Ruler, from whom those particular dictates
which we experience proceed ; so that, with limitations
which cannot here be made without digressing from my
main subject, we may, by means of that induction from
particular experiences of conscience, have as good a
warrant for concluding the Ubiquitous Presence of One
Supreme Master, as we have, from parallel experience
of sense, for assenting to the fact of a multiform and
vast world, material and mental.
However, this assent is notional, because we gene-
ralize a consistent, methodical form of Divine Unity and
Personality with Its attributes, from particular expe-
riences of the religious instinct, which are themselves,
only intensive, not extensive, and in the imagination,
not intellectually, notices of Its Presence; though at the
same time that assent may become real of course, as may
the assent to the external world, viz. when we apply our
general knowledge to a particular instance of that know-
ledge, as, according to a former remark, the general
64 Notional Assents.
" varium et mutabile " was realized in Dido. And in
thus treating the origin of these great notions, I am not
forgetting the aid which from our earliest years we
receive from teachers, nor am I denying the influence of
certain original forms of thinking or formative ideas,
connatural with our minds, without which we could not
reason at all. I am only contemplating the mind as it
moves in fact, by whatever hidden mechanism ; as a
locomotive engine could not move without steam, but
still, under whatever number of forces, it certainly does
start from Birmingham and does arrive in London.
4. And so again, as regards the first principles
expressed in such propositions as " There is a right
and a wrong," " a true and a false," " a just and an
unjust/1 a " beautiful and a deformed/' they are
abstractions to which we give a notional assent in
consequence of our particular experiences of qualities in
the concrete, to which we give a real assent. As we
form our notion of whiteness from the actual sight of
snow, milk, a lily, or a cloud, so, after experiencing the
sentiment of approbation which arises in us on the sight
of certain acts one by one, we go on to assign to that
sentiment a cause, and to those acts a quality, and we
give to this notional cause or quality the name of virtue,
which is an abstraction not a thing. And in like
manner, when we have been affected by a certain specific
admiring pleasure at the sight of this or that concrete
object, we proceed by an arbitrary act of the mind to
give a name to the hypothetical cause or quality in the
abstract, which excites it. We speak of it as beautiful-
ness, and henceforth, when we call a thing beautiful, we
Presumption. 65
mean by the word a certain quality of things which
creates in us this special sensation.
These so-called first principles, I say, are really con-
clusions or abstractions from particular experiences ;
and an assent to their existence is not an assent to
things or their images, but to notions, real assent being
confined to the propositions directly embodying those
experiences. Such notions indeed are an evidence
of the reality of the special sentiments in particular
instances, without which they would not have been
formed ; but in themselves they are abstractions from
facts, not elementary truths prior to reasoning.
I am not of course dreaming of denying the objective
existence of the Moral Law, nor our instinctive recogni-
tion of the immutable difference in the moral quality of
acts, as elicited in us by one instance of them. Even
one acfc of cruelty, ingratitude, generosity, or justice
reveals to us at once intensive the immutable distinc-
tion between those qualities and their contraries ; that
is, in that particular instance and pro hac vice. From
such experience — an experience which is ever recurring
— we proceed to abstract and generalize ; and thus the
abstract proposition " There is a right and a wrong,"
as representing an act of inference, is received by the
mind with a notional, not a real assent. However, in
proportion as we obey the particular dictates which are
its tokens, so are we led on more and more to view it
in the association of those particulars, which are real,
and virtually to change our notion of it into the image
of that objective fact, which in each particular case it
undeniably is.
66 Notional Assents.
5. Another of these presumptions is the belief in
causation. It is to me a perplexity that grave authors
seem to enunciate as an intuitive truth, that every thing
must have a cause. If this were so, the voice of nature
would tell false ; for why in that case stop short at One,
who is Himself without cause ? The assent which we
give to the proposition, as a first principle, that nothing
happens without a cause, is derived, in the first instance,
from what we know of ourselves ; and we argue ana-
logically from what is within us to what is external to
us. One of the first experiences of an infant is that of
his willing and doing ; and, as time goes on, one of the
first temptations of the boy is to bring home to himself
the fact of his sovereign arbitrary power, though it be
at the price of waywardness, mischievousness, and dis-
obedience. And when his parents, as antagonists of
this wilfulness, begin to restrain him, and to bring his
mind and conduct into shape, then he has a second
series of experiences of cause and effect, and that upon
a principle or rule. Thus the notion of causation is one
of the first lessons which he learns from experience,
that experience limiting it to agents possessed of intelli-
gence and will. It is the notion of power combined
with a purpose and an end. Physical phenomena, as
such, are without sense ; and experience teaches us
nothing about physical phenomena as causes. Accord-
ingly, wherever the world is young, the movements and
changes of physical nature have been and are spontane-
ously ascribed by its people to the presence and will of
hidden agents, who haunt every part of it, the woods,
the mountains and the streams, the air and the stars,
Presumption. 67
for good or for evil ; — just as children again, by beating
the ground after falling, imply that what has bruised
them has intelligence; — nor is there anything illogical
in such a belief. It rests on the argument from analogy.
As time goes on, and society is formed, and the idea
of science is mastered, a different aspect of the physical
universe presents itself to the mind. Since causation
implies a sequence of acts in our own case, and our
doing is always posterior, never contemporaneous or
prior, to our willing, therefore, when we witness invari-
able antecedents and consequents, we call the former
the cause of the latter, though intelligence is absent,
from the analogy of external appearances. At length
we go on to confuse causation with order ; and, because
we happen to have made a successful analysis of some
complicated assemblage of phenomena, which experience
has brought before us in the visible scene of things,
and have reduced them to a tolerable dependence on
each other, we call the ultimate points of this analysis,
and the hypothetical facts in which the whole mass of
phenomena is gathered up, by the name of causes,
whereas they are really only the formula under which
those phenomena are conveniently represented. Thus
the constitutional formula, "The king can do no wrong,"
is not a fact, or a cause of the Constitution, but a happy
mode of bringing out its genius, of determining the
correlations of its elements, and of grouping or regulat-
ing political rules and proceedings in a particular direc-
tion and in a particular form. And in like manner, that
all the particles of matter throughout the universe are
attracted to each other with a force varying inversely
F 2
68 Notional Assents.
with the square of their respective distances, is a pro-
found idea, harmonizing the physical works of the
Creator; but even could it be proved to be a universal
fact, and also to be the actual cause of the movements
of all bodies in the universe, still it would not be an
experience, any more than is the mythological doctrine
of the presence of innumerable spirits in those same
physical phenomena.
Of these two senses of the word " cause/' viz. that
which brings a thing to be, and that on which a thing
under given circumstances follows, the former is that
of which our experience is the earlier and more intimate,
being suggested to us by our consciousness of willing
and doing. The latter of the two requires a discrimi-
nation and exactness of thought for its apprehension,
which implies special mental training ; else, how do we
learn to call food the cause of refreshment, but day never
the cause of night, though night follows day more surely
than refreshment follows food ? Starting, then, from ex-
perience, I consider a cause to bean effective will; and, by
the doctrine of causation, I mean the notion, or first prin-
ciple, that all things come of effective will ; and the re-
ception or presumption of this notion is anotional assent.
6. As to causation in the second sense (viz. an ordi-
nary succession of antecedents and consequents, or what
is called the Order of Nature), when so explained, it falls
under the doctrine of general laws; and of this I proceed
to make mention, as another first principle or notion,
derived by us from experience, and accepted with what
1 have called a presumption. By natural law I mean
the fact that things happen uniformly according to
Presumption. 69
certain circumstances, and not without them and at
random : that is, that they happen in an order ; and, as
all things in the universe are unit and individual, order
implies a certain repetition, whether of things or like
things, or of their affections and relations. Thus we
have experience, for instance, of the regularity of our
physical functions, such as the beating of the pulse and
the heaving of the breath ; of the recurring sensations
of hunger and thirst ; of the alternation of waking and
sleeping, and the succession <of youth and age. In like
manner we have experience of the great recurring pheno-
mena of the heavens and earth, of day and night, sum-
mer and winter. Also, we have experience of a like
uniform succession in the instance of fire burning, water
choking, stones falling down and not up, iron moving
towards a magnet, friction followed by sparks and crack-
ling, an oar looking bent in the stream, and compressed
steam bursting its vessel. Also, by scientific analysis,
we are led to the conclusion that phenomena, which
seem very different from each other, admit 01 being
grouped together as modes of the operation of one hypo-
thetical law, acting under varied circumstances. For
instance, the motion of a stone falling freely, of a pro-
jectile, and of a planet, may be generalized as one and
the same property, in each of them, of the particles of
matter ; and this generalization loses its character of
hypothesis, and becomes a probability, in proportion as
we have reason for thinking on other grounds that the
particles of all matter really move and act towards each
other in one certain way in relation to space and time,
and not in half a dozen ways ; that is, that nature acts
7O Notional Assents.
by uniform laws. And thus we advance to the general
notion or first principle of the sovereignty of law
throughout the universe.
There are philosophers who go farther, and teach, not
only a general, but an invariable, and inviolable, and
necessary uniformity in the action of the laws of nature
holding that every thing is the result of some law or
laws, and that exceptions are impossible ; but I do not
see on what ground of experience or reason they take up
this position. Our experience rather is adverse to
such a doctrine, for what concrete fact or phenomenon
exactly repeats itself? Some abstract conception of
it, more perfect than the recurrent phenomenon itself,
is necessary, before we are able to say that it has
happened even twice, and the variations which accom-
pany the repetition are of the nature of exceptions.
The earth, for instance, never moves exactly in the same
orbit year by year, but is in perpetual vacillation. It
will, indeed, be replied that this arises from the inter-
action of one law with another, of which iae actual
orbit is only the accidental issue, that the earth is under
the influence of a variety of attractions from cosmical
bodies, and that, if it is subject to continual aberrations
in its course, these are accounted for accurately or suffi-
ciently by the presence of those extraordinary and vari-
able attractions : — science, then, by its analytical pro-
cesses sets right the primd facie confusion. Of course ;
still let us not by our words imply that we are appeal-
ing to experience, when really we are only accounting,
and that by hypothesis, for the absence of experience.
The confusion is a fact, the reasoning processes are not
Presumption. 7 1
facts. The extraordinary attractions assigned to ac-
count for our experience of that confusion are not them-
selves experienced phenomenal facts, but more or less
probable hypotheses, argued out by means of an assumed
analogy between the cosmical bodies to which those
attractions are referred and falling bodies on the earth.
I say "assumed," because that analogy (in other words,
the unfailing uniformity of nature) is the very point
which has to be proved. It is true, that we can make
experiment of the law of attraction in the case of bodies
on the earth; but, I repeat, to assume from analogy
that, as stones do fall to the earth, so Jupiter, if let
alone, would fall upon the earth and the earth upon
Jupiter, and with certain peculiarities of velocity on
either side, is to have recourse to an explanation which
is not necessarily valid, unless nature is necessarily
uniform. Nor, indeed, has it yet been proved, nor
ought it to be assumed, even that the law of velocity of
falling bodies on the earth is invariable in its operation;
for that again is only an instance of the general propo-
sition, which is the very thesis in debate. It seems
safer then to hold that the order of nature is not
necessary, but general in its manifestations.
But, it may be urged, if a thing happens once, it must
happen always ; for what is to hinder it ? Nay, on the
contrary, why, because one particle of matter has a cer-
tain property, should all particles have the same ? Why,
because particles have instanced the property a thousand
times, should the thousand and first instance it also ?
It is primd facie unaccountable that an accident should
happen twice, not to speak of its happening always. If
7 2 Notional Assents.
we expect a thing to happen twice, it is because we think
it is not an accident, but has a cause. What has brought
about a thing once, may bring it about twice. What is
to hinder its happening ? rather, What is to make it
happen ? Here we are thrown back from the question
of Order to that of Causation. A law is not a cause,
but a fact ; but when we come to the question of cause,
then, as I have said, we have no experience of any cause
but Will If, then, I must answer the question, What
is to alter the order of nature ? I reply, That which
willed it ; — That which willed it, can unwill it ; and the
in variableness of law depends on the unchangeableness
of that Will.
And here I am led to observe that, as a cause implies
a will, so order implies a purpose. Did we see flint celts,
in their various receptacles all over Europe, scored
always with certain special and characteristic marks,
even though those marks had no assignable meaning or
final cause whatever, we should take that very repeti-
tion, which indeed is the principle of order, to be a proof
of intelligence. The agency then which has kept up
and keeps up the general laws of nature, energizing at
once in Sirius and on the earth, and on the earth in its
primary period as well as in the nineteenth century,
must be Mind, and nothing else, and Mind at least as
wide and as enduring in its living action, as the im-
measurable ages and spaces of the universe on which
that agency has left its traces.
In these remarks I have digressed from my imme-
diate subject, but they have some bearing on points
which will subsequently come into discussion.
Speculation. 73
5. Speculation.
Speculation is one of those words which, in the ver-
nacular, have so different a sense from what they bear
in philosophy. It is commonly taken to mean a con-
jecture, or a venture on chances ; but its proper meaning
is mental sight, or the contemplation of mental opera-
tions and their results as opposed to experience, experi-
ment, or sense, analogous to its meaning in Shakspeare's
line, " Thou hast no speculation in those eyes." In this
sense I use it here.
And I use it in this sense to denote those notional
assents which are the most direct, explicit, and perfect of
their kind, viz. those which are the firm, conscious ac-
ceptance of propositions as true. This kind of assent
includes the assent to all reasoning and its conclusions,
to all general propositions, to all rules of conduct, to all
proverbs, aphorisms, sayings, and reflections on men
and society. Of course mathematical investigations and
truths are the subjects of this speculative assent. So are
legal judgments, and constitutional maxims, as far as
they appeal to us for assent. So are the determinations of
science; so are the principles, disputations, and doctrines
of theology. That there is a God, that He has certain
attributes, and in what sense He can be said to have
attributes, that He has done certain works, that He has
made certain revelations of Himself and of His will, and
what they are, and the multiplied bearings of the parts
of the teaching, thus developed and formed, upon each
other, all this is the subject of notional assent, and of
74 Notional Assents.
that particular department of it which I have called
Speculation. As far as these particular subjects can
be viewed in the concrete and represent experiences,
they can be received by real assent also ; but as ex-
pressed in general propositions they belong to notional
apprehension and assent.
Real Assents. 75
§ 2. KEAL ASSENTS.
I HAVE in a measure anticipated the subject of Real
Assent by what I have been saying about Notional. In
comparison of the directness and force of the apprehen-
sion, which we have of an object, when our assent is to
be called real, Notional Assent and Inference seem to be
thrown back into one and the same class of intellectual
acts, though the former of the two is always an uncon-
ditional acceptance of a proposition, and the latter is an
acceptance on the condition of an acceptance of its
premisses. In its notional assents as well as in its
inferences, the mind contemplates its own creations
instead of things ; in real, it is directed towards things,
represented by the impressions which they have left on
the imagination. These images, when assented-to,
have an influence both on the individual and on society,
which mere notions cannot exert.
I have already given various illustrations of Real
Assent ; I will follow them up here by some instances
of the change of Notional Assent into Real.
1. For instance : boys at school look like each other,
and pursue the same studies, some of them with greater
success than others ; but it will sometimes happen, that
76 Real Assent.
those who acquitted themselves but poorly in class,
when they come into the action of life, and engage in
some particular work, which they have already been
learning in its theory and with little promise of pro-
ficiency, are suddenly found to have what is called an
eye for that work — an eye for trade matters, or for en-
gineering, or a special taste for literature — which no one
expected from them at school, while they were engaged
on notions. Minds of this stamp not only know the
received rules of their profession, but enter into them,
and even anticipate them, or dispense with them, or
substitute other rules instead. And when new questions
are opened, and arguments are drawn up on one side
and the other in long array, they with a natural ease
and promptness form their views and give their decision,
as if they had no need to reason, from their clear appre-
hension of the lie and issue of the whole matter in dis-
pute, as if it were drawn out in a map before them.
These are the reformers, systematizers, inventors, in
various departments of thought, speculative and practi-
cal ; in education, in administration, in social and politi-
cal matters, in science. Such men indeed are far from
infallible ; however great their powers, they sometimes
fall into great errors, in their own special department,
while second-rate men who go by rule come to sound
and safe conclusions. Images need not be true ; but I
am illustrating what vividness of apprehension is, and
what is the strength of belief consequent upon it.
2. Again : — twenty years ago, the Duke of Wellington
wrote his celebrated letter on the subject of the national
defences. His authority gave it an immediate circula-
Real Assents. 77
tion among all classes of the community; none questioned
what he said, nor as if taking his words on faith merely,
but as intellectually recognizing their truth ; yet few
could be said to see or feel that truth. His letter lay,
so to say, upon the pure intellect of the national mind,
and nothing for a time came of it. But eleven years
afterwards, after his death, the anger of the French
colonels with us, after the attempt upon Louis Napo-
leon's life, transferred its facts to the charge of the
imagination. Then forthwith the national assent became
in various ways an operative principle, especially in its
promotion of the volunteer movement. The Duke,
having a special eye for military matters, had realized
the state of things from the first ; but it took a course
of years to impress upon the public mind an assent to
his warning deeper and more energetic than the recep-
tion it is accustomed to give to a clever article in a
newspaper or a review.
3. And so generally: great truths, practical or ethical,
float on the surface of society, admitted by all, valued
by few, exemplifying the poet's adage, " Probitas lau-
datur et alget," until changed circumstances, accident,
or the continual pressure of their advocates, force them
upon its attention. The iniquity, for instance, of the
slave-trade ought to have been acknowledged by all men
from the first; it was acknowledged by many, but it
needed an organized agitation, with tracts and speeches
innumerable, so to affect the imagination of men as
to make their acknowledgment of that iniquitousness
operative.
In like manner, when Mr. Wilber force, after succeeding
78 Real Assents.
in the slave question, nrged the Duke of Wellington
to use his great influence in discountenancing duelling,
he could only get from him in answer, "A relic of
barbarism, Mr. Wilberf orce •" as if he accepted a notion
without realizing a fact : at length, the growing intelli-
gence of the community, and the shock inflicted upon it
by the tragical circumstances of a particular duel, were
fatal to that barbarism. The governing classes were
roused from their dreamy acquiescence in an abstract
truth, and recognized the duty of giving it practical
expression.
4. Let us consider, too, how differently young and old
are affected by the words of some classic author, such as
Homer or Horace. Passages, which to a boy are but
rhetorical common-places, neither better nor worse than
a hundred others which any clever writer might supply,
which he gets by heart and thinks very fine, and
imitates, as he thinks, successfully, in his own flowing
versification, at length come home to him, when long
years have passed, and he has had experience of life, and
pierce him, as if he had never before known them, with
their sad earnestness and vivid exactness. Then he
comes to understand how it is that lines, the birth of
some chance morning or evening at an Ionian festival,
or among the Sabine hills, have lasted generation after
generation, for thousands of years, with a power over
the mind, and a charm, which the current literature of
his own day, with all its obvious advantages, is utterly
unable to rival. Perhaps this is the reason of the
medieval opinion about Virgil, as if a prophet or magi-
cian ; his single words and phrases, his pathetic half
Real Assents. 79
lines, giving utterance, as the voice of Nature herself,
to that pain and weariness, yet hope of better things,
which is the experience of her children in every time.
5. And what the experience of the world effects for
the illustration of classical authors, that office the reli-
gious sense, carefully cultivated, fulfils towards Holy
Scripture. To the devout and spiritual, the Divine Word
speaks of things, not merely of notions. And, again, to
the disconsolate, the tempted, the perplexed, the suffer-
ing, there comes, by means of their very trials, an
enlargement of thought, which enables them to see in it
what they never saw before. Henceforth there is to
them a. reality in its teachings, which they recognize as
an argument, and the best of arguments, for its divine
origin. Hence the practice of meditation on the Sacred
Text ; so highly thought of by Catholics. Beading, as
we do, the Gospels from our youth up, we are in danger
of becoming so familiar with them as to be dead to their
force, and to view them as a mere history. The purpose,
then, of meditation is to realize them ; to make the facts
which they relate stand out before our minds as objects,
such as may be appropriated by a faith as living as the
imagination which apprehends them.
It is obvious to refer to the unworthy use made of the
more solemn parts of the sacred volume by the mere
popular preacher. His very mode of reading, whether
warnings or prayers, is as if he thought them to be
little more than fine writing, poetical in sense, musical
in sound, and worthy of inspiration. The most awful
truths are to him but sublime or beautiful conceptions,
and are adduced and used by him, in season and out of
8o Real Assents.
season, for his own purposes, for embellishing his style
or rounding his periods. But let his heart at length be
ploughed by some keen grief or deep anxiety, and Scrip-
ture is a new book to him. This is the change which so
often takes place in what is called religious conversion,
and it is a change so far simply for the better, by what-
ever infirmity or error it is in the particular case
accompanied. And it is strikingly suggested to us, to
take a saintly example, in the confession of the patriarch
Job, when he contrasts his apprehension of the Almighty
before and after his afflictions. He says he had indeed
a true apprehension of the Divine Attributes before
as well as after; but with the trial came a great
change in the character of that apprehension: — "With
the hearing of the ear," he says, " I have heard Thee,
but now mine eye seeth Thee; therefore I reprehend
myself, and do penance in dust and ashes."
Let these instances suffice of real Assent in its rela-
tion to Notional ; they lead me to make three remarks
in further illustration of its character.
1. The fact of the distinctness of the images, which are
required for real assent, is no warrant for the existence
of the objects which those images represent. A propo-
sition, be it ever so keenly apprehended, may be true or
may be false. If we simply put aside all inferential
information, such as is derived from testimony, from
general belief, from the concurrence of the senses, from
common sense, or otherwise, we have no right to con-
sider that we have apprehended a truth, merely because
of the strength of our mental impression of it. Hence
Real Assents* 8 1
the proverb, " Front! nulla fides/' An image, with the
characters of perfect veracity and faithfulness, may be
ever so distinct and eloquent an object presented before
the mind (or, as it is sometimes called, an " objectum
internum," or a " subject-object ") ; but, nevertheless,
there may be no external reality in the case, correspond-
ing to it, in spite of its impressiveness. One of the
most remarkable instances of this fallacious impressive-
ness is the illusion which possesses the minds of able
men, those especially who are exercised in physical in-
vestigations, in favour of the inviolability of the laws of
nature. Philosophers of the school of Hume discard the
very supposition of miracles, and scornfully refuse to
hear evidence in their behalf in given instances, from
their intimate experience of physical order and of the
ever-recurring connexion of antecedent and consequent.
Their imagination usurps the functions of reason ; and
they cannot bring themselves even to entertain as a hypo-
thesis (and this is all that they are asked to do) a thought
contrary to that vivid impression of which they are the
victims, that the uniformity of nature, which they witness
hour by hour, is equivalent to a necessary, inviolable law.
Yet it is plain, and I shall take it for granted here,
that when I assent to a proposition, I ought to have
some more legitimate reason for doing so, than the
brilliancy of the image of which that proposition is
the expression. That I have no experience of a thing
happening except in one way, is a cause of the intensity
of my assent, if I assent, but not a reason for my assent-
ing. In saying this, I am not disposed to deny the pre-
sence in some men of an idiosyncratic sagacity, which
G
82 Real Assents.
really and rightly sees reasons in impressions which
common men cannot see, and is secured from the peril
of confusing truth with make-belief ; but this is genius,
and beyond rule. I grant too, of course, that acciden-
tally impressiveness does in matter of fact, as in the
instance which I have been giving, constitute the motive
principle of belief ; for the mind is ever exposed to the
danger of being carried away by the liveliness of its
conceptions, to the sacrifice of good sense and conscien-
tious caution, and the greater and the more ra-re are its
gifts, the greater is the risk of swerving from the line of
reason and duty ; but here I am not speaking of trans-
gressions of rule any more than of exceptions to it, but
of the normal constitution of onr minds, and of the
natural and rightful effect of acts of the imagination
upon us, and this is, not to create assent, but to
intensify it.
2. Next, Assent, however strong, and accorded to
images however vivid, is not therefore necessarily prac-
tical. Strictly speaking, it is not imagination that
causes action ; but hope and fear, likes and dislikes,
appetite, passion, affection, the stirrings of selfishness
and self-love. What imagination does for us is to find
a means of stimulating those motive powers ; and it
does so by providing a supply of objects strong enough
to stimulate them. The thought of honour, glory, duty,
self -aggrandisement, gain, or on the other hand of
Divine Goodness, future reward, eternal life, perse-
veringly dwelt upon, leads us along a course of action
corresponding to itself, but only in case there be that
in our minds which is congenial to it. However, when
Real Assents. 83
there is that preparation of mind, the thought does lead
to the act. Hence it is that the fact of a proposition
being accepted with a real assent is accidentally an
earnest of that proposition being carried out in conduct,
and the imagination may be said in some sense to be of
a practical nature, inasmuch as it leads to practice indi-
rectly by the action of its object upon the affections.
3. There is a third remark suggested by the view
which I have been taking of real assents, viz. that they
are of a personal character, each individual having his
own, and being known by them. It is otherwise with
notions ; notional apprehension is in itself an ordinary
act of our common nature. All of us have the power of
abstraction, and can be taught either to make or to enter
into the same abstractions ; and thus to co-operate in
the establishment of a common measure between mind
and mind. And, though for one and all of us to assent
to the notions which we thus apprehend in common, is
a further step, as requiring the adoption of a common
stand-point of principle and judgment, yet this too
depends in good measure on certain logical processes of
thought, with which we are all familiar, and on facts
which we all take for granted. But we cannot make
sure, for ourselves or others, of real apprehension and
assent, because we have to secure first the images which
are their objects, and these are often peculiar and special.
They depend on personal experience; and the experience
of one man is not the experience of another. Real
assent, then, as the experience which it presupposes, is
proper to the individual, and, as such, thwarts rather
than promotes the intercourse of man with man. It
a 2
84 Real Assents.
shuts itself up, as it were, in its own home, or at least it
is its own witness and its own standard ; and, as in the
instances above given, it cannot be reckoned on, anti-
cipated, accounted for, inasmuch as it is the accident
of this man or that.
I call the characteristics of an individual accidents, in
spite of the universal reign of law, because they are
severally the co-incidents of many laws, and there are
no laws as yet discovered of such coincidence. A man
who is run over in the street and killed, in one sense
suffers according to rule or law ; he was crossing, he was
short-sighted or pre-occupied in mind, or he was looking
another way; he was deaf, lame, or flurried; and the cab
came up at a great pace. If all this was so, it was by a
necessity that he was run over ; it would have been a
miracle if he had escaped. So far is clear ; but what is
not clear is how all these various conditions met together
in the particular case, how it was that a man, short-
sighted, hard of hearing, deficient in presence of mind,
happened to get in the way of a cab hurrying along to
catch a train. This concrete fact does not come under
any law of sudden deaths, but, like the earth's yearly
path which I spoke of above, is the accident of the
individual
It does not meet the case to refer to the law of
averages, for such laws deal with percentages, not with
individuals, and it is about individuals that I am speak-
ing. That this particular man out of the three millions
congregated in the metropolis, was to have the expe-
rience of this catastrophe, and to be the select victim to
appease that law of averages, no statistical tables could
Real Assents. 85
foretell, even though they could determine that it was
in the fates that in that week or day some four persons
in the length and breadth of London should be run over.
And in like manner that this or that person should have
the particular experiences necessary for real assent on
any point, that the Deist should become a Theist, the
Erastian a Catholic, the Protectionist a Free-trader, the
Conservative a Legitimist, the high Tory an out-and-out
Democrat, are facts, each of which may be the result of
a multitude of coincidences in one and the same indi-
vidual, coincidences which we have no means of deter-
mining, and which, therefore, we may call accidents.
For—
" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will."
Such accidents are the characteristics of persons, as
differ 'entice and properties are the characteristics of
species or natures.
That a man dies when deprived of air, is not an
accident of his person, but a law of his nature ; that he
cannot live without quinine or opium, or out of the
climate of Madeira, is his own peculiarity. If all men
everywhere usually had the yellow fever once in their
lives, we should call it (speaking according to our
knowledge) a law of the human constitution; if the
inhabitants of a particular country commonly had it,
we should call it a law of the climate ; if a healthy man
has a fever in a healthy place, in a healthy season, we
call it an accident, though it be reducible to the coin-
cidence'of laws, because there is no known law of their
coincidence. To be rational, to have speech, to pass
86 Real Assents.
through successive changes of mind and body from
infancy to death, belong to man's nature; to have a
particular history, to be married or single, to have
children or to be childless, to live a given number of
years, to have a certain constitution, moral tempera-
ment, intellectual outfit, mental formation, these and
the like, taken altogether, are the accidents which
make up our notion of a man's person, and are the
ground-work or condition of his particular experiences.
Moreover, various of the experiences which befall
this man may be the same as those which befall that,
although those experiences result each from the com-
bination of its own accidents, and are ultimately trace-
able each to its own special condition or history. That
is, images which are possessed in common, with their
apprehensions and assents, may nevertheless be per-
sonal characteristics. If two or three hundred men are
to be found, who cannot live out of Madeira, that
inability would still be an accident and a peculiarity of
each of them. Even if in each case it implied delicacy of
lungs, still that delicacy is a vague notion, comprehend-
ing under it a great variety of cases in detail. If " five
hundred brethren at once " saw our risen Lord, that
common experience would not be a law, but a personal
accident which was the prerogative of each. And so
again in this day the belief of so many thousands in
His Divinity, is not therefore notional, because it is
common, but may be a real and personal belief, being
produced in different individual minds by various ex-
periences and disposing causes, variously combined;
such as a warm or strong imagination, great sensibility,
Real Assents. 87
compunction and horror at sin, frequenting the Mass
and other rites of the Church, meditating on the con-
tents of the Gospels, familiarity with hymns and re-
ligious poems, dwelling on the Evidences, parental
example and instruction, religious friends, strange pro-
vidences, powerful preaching. In each case the image
in the mind, with the experiences out of which it is
formed, would be a personal result ; and, though the
same in all, would in each case be so idiosyncratic in
its circumstances, that it would stand by itself, a special
formation, unconnected with any law ; though at the
same time it would necessarily be a principle of sym-
pathy and a bond of intercourse between those whose
minds had been thus variously wrought into a common
assent, far stronger than could follow upon any multi-
tude of mere notions which they unanimously held.
And even when that assent is not the result of con-
current causes, if such a case is possible, but has one
single origia, as the study of Scripture, careful teach-
ing, or a religious temper, still its presence argues a
special history, and a personal formation, which an
abstraction does not. For an abstraction can be made
at will, and may be the work of a moment; but the
moral experiences which perpetuate themselves in
images, must be sought after in order to be found, and
encouraged and cultivated in order to be appropriated.
I have now said all that occurs to me on the subject
of Eeal Assents, perhaps not without some risk of
subtlety and minuteness. They are sometimes called
beliefs, convictions, certitudes ; and, as given to moral
88 Real Assents.
objects, they are perhaps as rare as they are powerful.
Till we have them, in spite of a full apprehension and
assent in the field of notions, we have no intellectual
moorings, and are at the mercy of impulses, fancies,
and wandering lights, whether as regards personal
conduct, social and political action, or religion. These
beliefs, be they true or false in the particular case, form
the mind out of which they grow, and impart to it a
seriousness and manliness which inspires in other minds
a confidence in its views, and is one secret of persua-
siveness and influence in the public stage of the world.
They create, as the case may be, heroes and saints,
great leaders, statesmen, preachers, and reformers, the
pioneers of discovery in science, visionaries, fanatics,
knight-errants, demagogues, and adventurers. They
have given to the world men of one idea, of immense
energy, of adamantine will, of revolutionary power.
They kindle sympathies between man and man, and
knit together the innumerable units which constitute
a race and a nation. They become the principle of its
political existence ; they impart to it homogeneity of
thought and fellowship of purpose. They have given
form to the medieval theocracy and to the Mahometan
superstition ; they are now the life both of " Holy
Russia, " and of that freedom of speech and action
which is the special boast of Englishmen.
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 89
§ 3. NOTIONAL AND REAL ASSENTS CONTRASTED.
IT appears from what lias been said, that, though Real
Assent is not intrinsically operative, it accidentally and
indirectly affects practice. It is in itself an intellectual
act, of which the object is presented to it by the imagi-
nation ; and though the pure intellect does not lead to
action, nor the imagination either, yet the imagination
has the means, which pure intellect has not, of stimu-
lating those powers of the mind from which action
proceeds. Real Assent then, or Belief, as it may be
called, viewed in itself, that is, simply as Assent, does
not lead to action ; but the images in which it lives,
representing as they do the concrete, have the power of
the concrete upon the affections and passions, and by
means of these indirectly become operative. Still this
practical influence is not invariable, nor to be relied on ;
for given images may have no tendency to affect given
minds, or to excite them to action. Thus, a philosopher
or a poet may vividly realize the brilliant rewards of
military genius or of eloquence, without wishing either
to be a commander or an orator. However, on the
whole, broadly contrasting Belief with Notional Assent
and with Inference, we shall not, with this explanation,
90 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
be very wrong in pronouncing that acts of Notional
Assent and of Inference do not affect our conduct,
and acts of Belief, that is, of Real Assent, do (not
necessarily, but do) affect it.
I have scarcely spoken of Inference since my Intro-
ductory Chapter, though I intend, before I conclude, to
consider it fully ; but I have said enough to admit of
my introducing it here in contrast with Real Assent or
Belief, and that contrast is necessary in order to com-
plete what I have been saying about the latter. Let
me then, for the sake of the latter, be allowed here to
repeat, that, while Assent, or Belief, presupposes some
apprehension of the things believed, Inference requires
no apprehension of the things inferred j that in conse-
quence, Inference is necessarily concerned with surfaces
and aspects ; that it begins with itself, and ends with
itself ; that it does not reach as far as facts ; that it is
employed upon formulas ; that, as far as it takes real
objects of whatever kind into account, such as motives
and actions, character and conduct, art, science, taste,
morals, religion, it deals with them, not as they are, but
simply in its own line, as materials of argument or in-
quiry, that they are to it nothing more than major and
minor premisses and conclusions. Belief, on the other
hand, being concerned with things concrete, not ab-
stract, which variously excite the mind from their moral
and imaginative properties, has for its objects, not only
directly what is true, but inclusively what is beautiful,
useful, admirable, heroic ; objects which kindle devotion,
rouse the passions, and attach the affections j and thus it
leads the way to actions of every kind, to the establish-
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.. 9 1
ment of principles, and the formation of character, and
is thus again intimately connected with what is indi-
vidual and personal.
I insisted on this marked distinction between Beliefs
on the one hand, and Notional Assents and Inferences
on the other, many years ago in words which it will be
to my purpose to use now.1 I quote them, because, over
and above their appositeness in this place, they present
the doctrine on which I have been insisting, from a
second point of view, and with a freshness and force
which I cannot now command, and, moreover, (though
they are my own, nevertheless, from the length of time
which has elapsed since their publication), almost with
the cogency of an independent testimony.
They occur in a protest which I had occasion to write
in February, 1841, against a dangerous doctrine main-
tained, as I considered, by two very eminent men of
that day, now no more — Lord Brougham and Sir Robert
Peel. That doctrine was to the effect that the claims
of religion could be secured and sustained in the mass of
men, and in particular in the lower classes of society, by
acquaintance with literature and physical science, and
through the instrumentality of Mechanics' Institutes
and Reading Rooms, to the serious disparagement, as it
seemed to me, of direct Christian instruction. In the
course of my remarks is found the passage which I shall
here quote, and which, with whatever differences in
terminology, and hardihood of assertion, befitting the
1 Vide " Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects," art. 4.
92 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
circumstances of its publication, nay, as far as words go,
inaccuracy of theological statement, suitably illustrates
the subject here under discussion. It runs thus : —
" People say to me, that it is But a dream to suppose
that Christianity should regain the organic power in
human society which once it possessed. I cannot help
that ; I never said it could. I am not a politician ; I
am proposing no measures, but exposing a fallacy and
resisting a pretence. Let Benthamism reign, if men
have no aspirations ; but do not tell them to be romantic
and then solace them with ' glory : ' do not attempt by
philosophy what once was done by religion. The
ascendency of faith may be impracticable, but the reign
of knowledge is incomprehensible. The problem for
statesmen of this age is how to educate the masses, and
literature and science cannot give the solution. . . .
" Science gives us the grounds or premisses from
which religious truths are to be inferred ; but it does not
set about inferring them, much less does it reach the
inference — that is not its province. It brings before us
phenom3na, and it leaves us, if we will, to call them
works of design, wisdom, or benevolence ; and further
still, if we will, to proceed to confess an Intelligent
Creator. We have to take its facts, and to give them a
meaning, and to draw our own conclusions from them.
First comes knowledge, then a view, then reasoning,
and then belief. This is why science has so little of a
religious tendency ; deductions have no power of per-
suasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through
the reason, but through the imagination, by means of
direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events,
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 93
by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices
melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a
man will live and die upon a dogma : no man will be a
martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion;
it is not a thing which is, but which we are ' quite sure
about;' and it has of ten been observed, that we never say
we are sure and certain without implying that we doubt.
To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not
be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations : he
dies for realities. This is why a literary religion is so
little to be depended upon ; it looks well in fair weather j
but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to suffer
for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them
at its hearth. And this again is the secret of the distrust
and raillery with which moralists have been so commonly
visited. They say and do not. Why ? Because they
are contemplating the fitness of things, and they live
by the square, when they should be realizing their high
maxims in the concrete. Now Sir Eobert Peel thinks
better of natural history, chemistry, and astronomy
than of such ethics ; but these too, what are they more
than divinity in posse ? He protests against ' contro-
versial divinity •/ is inferential much better ?
" I have no confidence, then, in philosophers who can-
not help being religious, and are Christians by implica-
tion. They sit at home, and reach forward to distances
which astonish us ; but they hit without grasping, and
are sometimes as confident about shadows as about reali-
ties. They have worked out by a calculation the lie of a
country which they never saw, and mapped it by means
of a gazetteer ; and, like blind men, though they nan
94 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
put a stranger on his way, they cannot walk straight
themselves, and do not feel it quite their business to
walk at all.
" Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude;
first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of
converting by a syllogism. Tell men to gain notions of
a Creator from His works, and, if they were to set about
it (which nobody does) they would be jaded and wearied
by the labyrinth they were tracing. Their minds would
be gorged and surfeited by the logical operation. Logi-
cians are more set upon concluding rightly, than on right
conclusions. They cannot see the end for the process.
Few men have that power of mind which may hold fast
and firmly a variety of thoughts. We ridicule ( men of
one idea / but a great many of us are born to be such,
and we should be happier if we knew it. To most men
argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful,
and considerably less impressive. After all, man is not a
reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating,
acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and
precise. It is very well to freshen our impressions and
convictions from physics, but to create them we must go
elsewhere. Sir Robert Peel ' never can think it possible
that a mind can be so constituted, that, after being
familiarized with the wonderful discoveries which have
been made in every part of experimental science, it can
retire from such contemplations without more enlarged
conceptions of God's providence, and a higher reverence
for His Name.' If he speaks of religious mind, he perpe-
trates a truism ; if of irreligious, he insinuates a paradox.
u Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences ;
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 95
we shall never "have done beginning, if we determine
to begin with proof. We shall ever be laying our
foundations; we shall turn theology into evidences,
and divines into textuaries. We shall never get at
onr first principles. Resolve to believe nothing, and
you must prove your proofs and analyze your ele-
ments, sinking farther and farther, and finding rin
the lowest depth a lower deep,' till you come to the
broad bosom of scepticism. I would rather be bound
to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Chris-
tianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral govern-
ance from the physical world. Life is for action. If
we insist on proofs for every thing, we shall never
come to action: to act you must assume, and that
assumption is faith.
"Let no one suppose, that in saying this I am
maintaining that all proofs are equally difficult, and all
propositions equally debatable. Some assumptions
are greater than others, and some doctrines involve
postulates larger than others, and more numerous. I
only say, that impressions lead to action, and that
reasonings lead from it. Knowledge of premisses,
and inferences upon them, — this is not to live. It is
very well as a matter of liberal curiosity and of
philosophy to analyze our modes of thought : but
let this come second, and when there is leisure for
it, and then our examinations will in many ways
even be subservient to action. But if we commence
with scientific knowledge and argumentative proof,
or lay any great stress upon it as the basis of personal
Christianity, or attempt to make man moral and
96 Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
religious by libraries and museums, let us in con-
sistency take chemists for our cooks, and mineralogists
for our masons.
" Now I wish to state all this as matter of fact, to
be judged by the candid testimony of any persons
whatever. Why we are so constituted that faith,
not knowledge or argument, is our principle of action,
is a question with which I have nothing to do ; but
I think it is a fact, and, if it be such, we must
resign ourselves to it as best we may, unless we
take refuge in the intolerable paradox, that the mass
of men are created for nothing, and are meant to
leave life as they entered it.
" So well has this practically been understood in
all ages of the world, that no religion yet has been a
religion of physics or of philosophy. It has ever
been synonymous with revelation. It never has been
a deduction from what we know ; it has ever been an
assertion of what we are to believe. It has never
lived in a conclusion ; it has ever been a message, a
history, or a vision. No legislator or priest ever
dreamed of educating our moral nature by science or
by argument. There is no difference here between
true religion and pretended. Moses was instructed
not to reason from the creation, but to work miracles.
Christianity is a history supernatural, and almost
scenic : it tells us what its Author is, by telling us
what He has done. . . .
" Lord Brougham himself has recognized the force
of this principle. He has not left his philosophical
religion to argument; he has committed it to the
Notional and Real Assents Contrasted. 97
keeping of the imagination. Why should he depict a
great republic of letters, and an intellectual pantheon,
except that he feels that instances and patterns, not
logical reasonings, are the living conclusions which
alone have a hold over the affections or can form the
character ? "
CHAPTER V.
APPREHENSION Atti) ASSENT IN THE MATTER OF
RELIGION.
WE are now able to determine what a dogma of faith
is, and what it is to believe it. A dogma is a propo-
sition ; it stands for a notion or for a thing ; and to
believe it is to give the assent of the mind to it, as it
stands for the one or for the other. To give a real
assent to it is an act of religion ; to give a notional,
is a theological act. It is discerned, rested in, and
appropriated as a reality, by the religious imagination ;
it is held as a truth, by the theological intellect.
Not as if there were in fact, or could be, any line of
demarcation or party-wall between these two modes of
assent, the religious and the theological. As intellect
is common to all men as well as imagination, every
religious man is to a certain extent a theologian, and
no theology can start or thrive without the initiative
and abiding presence of religion. As in matters of
this world, sense, sensation, instinct, intuition, supply
us with facts, and the intellect uses them ; so, as re-
gards our relations with the Supreme Being, we get our
facts from the witness, first of nature, then of re vela-
Apprehension and Assent in Religion. 99
tion, and our doctrines, in which they issue, through
the exercise of abstraction and inference. This is
obvious ; but it does not interfere with holding that
there is a theological habit of mind, and a religious,
each distinct from each, religion using theology, and
theology using religion. This being understood, I
propose to consider the dogmas of the Being of a God,
and of the Divine Trinity in Unity, in their relation
to assent, both notional and real, and principally to
real assent ; — however, I have not yet finished all I
have to say by way of introduction.
Now first, my subject is assent, and not inference.
I am not proposing to set forth the arguments which
issue in the belief of these doctrines, but to investigate
what it is to believe in them, what the mind does, what
it contemplates, when it makes an act of faith. It is
true that the same elementary facts which create an
object for an assent, also furnish matter for an inference:
and in showing what we believe, I shall unavoidably be
in a measure showing why we believe ; but this is the
very reason that makes it necessary for me at the outset
to insist on the real distinction between these two con-
curring and coincident courses of thought, and to pre-
mise by way of caution, lest I should be misunderstood,
that I am not considering the question that there is a
God, but rather what God is.
And secondly, I mean by belief, not precisely faith,
because faith, in its theological sense, includes a belief,
not only in the thing believed, but also in the ground of
believing ; that is, not only belief in certain doctrines,
but belief in them expressly because God has revealed
H 2
loo Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
them ; but here I am engaged only with what is called
the material object of faith, — with the thing believed,
not with the formal. The Almighty witnesses to Himself
in Revelation; we believe that He is One and that He is
Three, because He says so. We believe also what He
tells us about His Attributes, His providences and dis-
pensations, His determinations and acts, what He has
done and what He will do. And if all this is too much
for us, whether to bring at one time before our minds
from its variety, or even to apprehend at all or enunciate
from our narrowness of intellect or want of learning,
then at least we believe m globo all that He has revealed
to us about Himself, and that, because He has revealed
it. However, this " because He says it " does not enter
into the scope of the present inquiry, but only the truths
themselves, and these particular truths, " He is One,"
" He is Three ;" and of these two, both of which are
in Revelation, I shall consider " He is One," not as a
revealed truth, but as, what it is also, a natural truth,
the foundation of all religion. And with it I begin.
Belief in One God, 101
§ 1. BELIEF IN ONE GOD.
THERE is one GOD, such and such in Nature and
Attributes.
I say c< such and such," for, unless I explain what I
mean by " one God/' I use words which may mean any
thing or nothing. I may mean a mere anima mundi ;
or an initial principle which once was in action and now
is not ; or collective humanity. I speak then of the God
of the Theist and of the Christian: a God who is
numerically One, who is Personal ; the Author, Sus-
tainer, and Finisher of all things, the life of Law and
Order, the Moral Governor; One who is Supreme and
Sole; like Himself, unlike all things besides Himself
which all are but His creatures; distinct from, inde-
pendent of them all; One who is self-existing, absolutely
infinite, who has ever been and ever will be, to whom
nothing is past or future ; who is all perfection, and the
fulness and archetype of every possible excellence, the
Truth Itself, Wisdom, Love, Justice, Holiness; One who
is All-powerful, All-knowing, Omnipresent, Incompre-
hensible. These are some of the distinctive prerogatives
which I ascribe unconditionally and unreservedly to the
great Being whom I call God.
This being what Theists mean when they speak of
IO2 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
God, their assent to this truth admits without difficulty
of being what I have called a notional assent. It is an
assent following upon acts of inference, and other purely
intellectual exercises ; and it is an assent to a large de-
velopment of predicates, correlative to each other, or at
least intimately connected together, drawn out as if on
paper, as we might map a country which we had never
seen, or construct mathematical tables, or master the
methods of discovery of Newton or Davy, without being
geographers, mathematicians, or chemists ourselves.
So far is clear ; but the question follows, Can I attain
to any more vivid assent to the Being of a God, than
that which is given merely to notions of the intellect ?
Can I enter with a personal knowledge into the circle
of truths which make up that great thought. Can I
rise to what I have called an imaginative apprehension
of it ? Can I believe as if I saw ? Since such a high
assent requires a present experience or memory of the
fact, at first sight it would seem as if the answer must
be in the negative ; for how can I assent as if I saw;
unless I have seen ? but no one in this life can see Godn
Yet I conceive a real assent is possible, and I proceed
to show how.
When it is said that we cannot see God, this is unde-
niable ; but still in what sense have we a discernment of
His creatures, of the individual beings which surround
us ? The evidence which we have of their presence lies
in the phenomena which address our senses, and our
warrant for taking these for evidence is our instinctive
certitude that they are evidence. By the law of our
nature we associate those sensible phenomena or iin- '
Belief in One God. 103
pressions with certain units, individuals, substances,
whatever they are to be called, which are outside and
out of the reach of sense, and we picture them to our-
selves in those phenomena. The phenomena are
as if pictures ; but at the same time they give us no
exact measure or character of the unknown things
beyond them; — for who will say there is any uni-
formity between the impressions which two of us
would respectively have of some third thing, sup-
posing one of us had only the sense of touch, and the
other only the sense of hearing ? Therefore, when we
speak of our having a picture of the things which are
perceived through the senses, we mean a certain repre-
sentation, true as far as it goes, but not adequate.
And so of those intellectual and moral obiects which
are brought home to us through our senses ; — that they
exist, we know by instinct ; that they are such and such,
we apprehend from the impressions which they leave
upon our minds. Thus the life and writings of Cicero
or Dr. Johnson, of St. Jerome or St. Chrysostom, leave
upon us certain impressions of the intellectual and moral
character of each of them,sm generis, and unmistakable.
We take up a passage of Chrysostom or a passage of
Jerome; there is no possibility of confusing the one with
the other ; in each case we see the man in his language-
And so of any great man whom we may have known:
that he is not a mere impression on our senses, but a real
being, we know by instinct ; that he is such and such,
we know by the matter or quality of that impression.
Now certainly the thought of God, as Theists enter-
tain it, is not gained by an instinctive association of His
IO4 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
presence with any sensible phenomena ; but the office
which the senses directly fulfil as regards creation that
devolves indirectly on certain of our mental phenomena
as regards the Creator. Those phenomena are found
in the sense of moral obligation. As from a multitude
of instinctive perceptions, acting in particular instances,
of something beyond the senses, we generalize the
notion of an external world, and then picture that world
in and according to those particular phenomena from
which we started, so from the perceptive power which
identifies the intimations of conscience with the rever-
berations or echoes (so to say) of an external admo-
nition, we proceed on to the notion of a Supreme Ruler
and Judge, and then again we image Him and His
attributes in those recurring intimations, out of which,
as mental phenomena, our recognition of His existence
was originally gained. And, if the impressions which
His creatures make on us through our senses oblige us
to regard those creatures as sui generis respectively, it
is not wonderful that the notices, which He indirectly
gives us through our conscience, of His own nature
are such as to make us understand that He is like
Himself and like nothing else.
I have already said I am not proposing here to
prove the Being of a God ; yet I have found it impos-
sible to avoid saying where I look for the proof of it.
For I am looking for that proof in the same quarter as
that from which I would commence a proof of His
attributes and character, — by the same means as those
by which I show how we apprehend Him, not merely as a
notion, but as a reality. The last indeed of these three
Belief in One God. 105
investigations alone concerns me here, but I cannot
altogether exclude the two former from my considera-
tion. However, I repeat, what I am directly aiming
at, is to explain how we gain an image of God and give
a real assent to the proposition that He exists. And
next, in order to do this, of course I must start from
some first principle ; — and that first principle, which I
assume and shall not attempt to prove, is that which
I should also use as a foundation in those other two
inquiries, viz. that we have by nature a conscience.
I assume, then, that Conscience has a legitimate place
among our mental acts ; as really so, as the action of
memory, of reasoning, of imagination, or as the sense of
the beautiful ; that, as there are objects which, when
presented to the mind, cause it to feel grief, regret, joy,
or desire, so there are things which excite in us approba-
tion or blame, and which we in consequence call right or
wrong ; and which, experienced in ourselves, kindle in
us that specific sense of pleasure or pain, which goes
by the name of a good or bad conscience. This being
taken for granted, I shall attempt to show that in this
special feeling, which follows on the commission of
what we call right or wrong, lie the materials for the
real apprehension of a Divine Sovereign and Judge.
The feeling of conscience (being, I repeat, a certain
keen sensibility, pleasant or painful, — self-approval and
hope, or compunction and fear, — attendant on certain
of our actions, which in consequence we call right or
wrong) is twofold : — it is a moral sense, and a sense
of duty ; a judgment of the reason and a magisterial
dictate. Of course its act is indivisible; still it has
io6 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
these two aspects, distinct from each other, and admit-
ting of a separate consideration. Though I lost my
sense of the obligation which I lie under to abstain
from acts of dishonesty, I should not in consequence
lose my sense that such actions were an outrage offered
to my moral nature. Again; though I lost my sense
of their moral deformity, I should not therefore lose my
sense that they were forbidden to me. Thus conscience
has both a critical and a judicial office, and though its
promptings, in the breasts of the millions of human
beings to whom it is given, are not in all cases correct,
that does not necessarily interfere with the force of its
testimony and of its sanction : its testimony that there
is a right and a wrong, and its sanction to that testimony
conveyed in the feelings which attend on right or wrong
conduct. Here I have to speak of conscience in the
latter point of view, not as supplying us, by means of
its various acts, with the elements of morals, such as
may be developed by the intellect into an ethical code,
but simply as the dictate of an authoritative monitor
bearing upon the details of conduct as they come before
us, and complete in its several acts, one by one.
Let us then thus consider conscience, not as a rule of
right conduct, but as a sanction of right conduct. This
is its primary and most authoritative aspect ; it is the
ordinary sense of the word. Half the world would be
puzzled to know what was meant by the moral sense ;
but every one knows what is meant by a good or bad
conscience. Conscience is ever forcing on us by threats
and by promises that we must follow the right and
avoid the wrong ; so far it is one and the same in the
Belief in One God. 107
mind of every one, whatever be its particular errors in
particular minds as to the acts which it orders to be
done or to be avoided ; and in this respect it corre-
sponds to our perception of the beautiful and deformed.
As we have naturally a sense of the beautiful and grace-
ful in nature and art, though tastes proverbially differ,
so we have a sense of duty and obligation, whether we
all associate it with the same certain actions in particular
or not. Here, however, Taste and Conscience part
company : for the sense of beautifuiness, as indeed the
Moral Sense, has no special relations to persons, but
contemplates objects in themselves ; conscience, on the
other hand, is concerned with persons primarily, and
with actions mainly as viewed in their doers, or rather
with self alone and one's own actions> and with others
only indirectly and as if in association with self. And
farther, taste is its own evidence, appealing to nothing
beyond its own sense of the beautiful or the ugly, and
enjoying the specimens of the beautiful simply for their
own sake ; but conscience does not repose on itself, but
vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and
dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its deci-
sions, as is evidenced in that keen sense of obligation
and responsibility which informs them. And hence it
is that we are accustomed to speak of conscience as a
voice, a term which we should never think of applying
to the sense of the beautiful ; and moreover a voice, or
the echo of a voice, imperative and constraining, like
no other dictate in the whole of our experience.
And again, in consequence of this prerogative of
dictating and commanding, which is of its essence,
ro8 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
Conscience has an intimate bearing on our affections
and emotions, leading ns to reverence and awe, hope
and fear, especially fear, a feeling which is foreign for
the most part, not only to Taste, but even to the Moral
Sense, except in consequence of accidental associations.
No fear is felt by any one who recognizes that his
conduct has not been beautiful, though he may be
mortified at himself, if perhaps he has thereby forfeited
some advantage; but, if he has been betrayed into
any kind of immorality, he has a lively sense of
responsibility and guilt, though the act be no offence
against society, — of distress and apprehension, even
though it may be of present service to him, — of com-
punction and regret, though in itself it be most
pleasurable, — of confusion of face, though it may
have no witnesses. These various perturbations of
mind which are characteristic of a bad conscience,
and may be very considerable, — self-reproach, poignant
shame, haunting remorse, chill dismay at the prospect
of the future, — and their contraries, when the con-
science is good, as real though less forcible, self-
approval, inward peace, lightness of heart, and the
like, — these emotions constitute a specific difference
between conscience and our other intellectual senses,
— common sense, good sense, sense ^ of expedience,
taste, sense of honour, and the like, — as indeed they
would also constitute between conscience and the
moral sense, supposing these two were not aspects of
one and the same feeling, exercised upon one and the
game subject-matter.
So much for the characteristic phenomena, which
Belief in One God. 109
conscience presents, nor is it difficult to determine
what they imply. I refer once more to our sense of
the beautiful. This sense is attended by an intellec-
tual enjoyment, and is free from whatever is of the
nature of emotion, except in one case, viz. when it is
excited by personal objects ; then it is that the tranquil
feeling of admiration is exchanged for the excitement
of affection and passion. Conscience too, considered
as a moral sense, an intellectual sentiment, is a sense
of admiration and disgust, of approbation and blame :
but it is something more than a moral sense; it is
always, what the sense of the beautiful is only in cer-
tain cases ; it is always emotional. No wonder then
that it always implies what that sense only sometimes
implies ; that it always involves the recognition of a
living object, towards which it is directed. Inanimate
things cannot stir our affections j these are correlative
with persons. If, as is the case, we feel responsibility,
are ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice
of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom
we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed,
whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong,
we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which
overwhelms us on hurting a mother ; if, on doing right,
we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same
soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our
receiving praise from a father, we certainly have within
us the image of some person, to whom our love and
veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness,
for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our
pleadings, in whose anger we are troubled and waste
no Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
away. These feelings in us are such as require for
their exciting cause au intelligent being : we are not
affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame
before a horse or a dog ; we have no remorse or com-
punction on breaking mere human law : yet, so it is,
conscience excites all these painful emotions, confusion,
foreboding, self-condemnation ; and on the other hand
it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a
resignation, and a hope, which there is no sensible, no
earthly object to elicit. " The wicked flees, when no
one pursueth ; " then why does he flee ? whence his
terror ? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in dark-
ness, in the hidden chambers of his heart ? If the
cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible
world, the Object to which his perception is directed
must be Supernatural and Divine; and thus the
phenomena of Conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress
the imagination with the picture1 of a Supreme
Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing,
retributive, and is the creative principle of religion,
as the Moral Sense is the principle of ethics.
And let me here refer again to the fact, to which I
have already drawn attention, that this instinct of the
mind recognizing an external Master in the dictate of
conscience, and imaging the thought of Him in the
definite impressions which conscience creates, is parallel
to that other law of, not only human, but of brute
nature, by which the presence of unseen individual
beings is discerned under the shifting shapes and
colours of the visible world. Is it by sense, or by
1 On the Formation of Images, vide suprt ch. iii. 1, pp. 27, 28.
Belief in One God. 1 1 1
reason, that; brutes understand the real unities,
material and spiritual, which are signified by the
lights and shadows, the brilliant ever-changing cali-
doscope, as it may be called, which plays upon their
retina ? Not by reason, for they have not reason ; not
by sense, because they are transcending sense ; there-
fore it is an instinct. This faculty on the part of
brutes, unless we were used to it, would strike us as a
great mystery. It is one peculiarity of animal natures
to be susceptible of phenomena through the channels
of sense; it is another to have in those sensible
phenomena a perception of the individuals to which
this or that group of them belongs. This perception
of individual things, amid the maze of shapes and
colours which meets their sight, is given to brutes
in large measures, and that, apparently from the
moment of their birth. It is by no mere physical
instinct, such as that which leads him to his mother
for milk, that the new-dropped lamb recognizes each
of his fellow lambkins as a whole, consisting of many
parts bound up in one, and, before he is an hour old,
makes experience of his and their rival individualities.
And much more distinctly do the horse and dog
recognize even the personality of their master. How
are we to explain this apprehension of things, which
are one and individual, in the midst of a world of
pluralities and transmutations, whether in the instance
of brutes or again of children ? But until we account
for the knowledge which an infant has of his mother or
his nurse, what reason have we to take exception at
the doctrine, as strange and difficult, that in the dictate
H2 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
of conscience, without previous experiences or analo-
gical reasoning, he is able gradually to perceive the
voice, or the echoes of the voice, of a Master, living,
personal, and sovereign ?
I grant, of course, that we cannot assign a date, ever
so early, before which he had learned nothing at all,
and formed no mental associations, from the words and
conduct of those who have the care of him. But still,
if a child of five or six years old, when reason is at
length fully awake, has already mastered and appro-
priated thoughts and beliefs, in consequence of their
teaching, in such sort as to be able to handle and
apply them familiarly, according to the occasion, as
principles of intellectual action, those beliefs at the
very least must be singularly congenial to his mind, if
not connatural with its initial action. And that such
a spontaneous reception of religious truths is common
with children, I shall take for granted, till I am con-
vinced that I am wrong in so doing. The child keenly
understands that there is a difference between right
and wrong ; and when he has done what he believes
to be wrong, he is conscious that he is offending One
to whom he is amenable, whom he does not see, who
sees him. His mind reaches forward with a strong
presentiment to the thought of a Moral Governor,
sovereign over him, mindful, and just. It comes to
him like an impulse of nature to entertain it.
It is my wish to take an ordinary child, but still one
who is safe from influences destructive of his religious
instincts. Supposing he has offended his parents, he
will all alone and without effort, as if it were the most
Belief in One God. 113
natural of acts, place himself in the presence of God,
and beg of Him to set him right with them. Let us
consider how much is contained in this simple act.
First, it involves the impression on his mind of an
unseen Being with whom he is in immediate relation,
and that relation so familiar that he can address
Him whenever he himself chooses ; next, of One
whose goodwill towards him he is assured of, and
can take for granted — nay, who loves him better, and
is nearer to him, than his parents ; further, of One
who can hear him, wherever he happens to be, and
who can read his thoughts, for his prayer need not be
vocal ; lastly, of One who can effect a critical change
in the state of feeling of others towards him. That
is, we shall not be wrong in holding that this child
has in his mind the image of an Invisible Being, who
exercises a particular providence among us, who
is present every where, who is heart-reading, heart-
changing, ever-accessible, open to impetration. What
a strong and intimate vision of God must he have
already attained, if, as I have supposed, an ordinary
trouble of mind has the spontaneous effect of leading
him for consolation and aid to an Invisible Personal
Power !
Moreover, this image brought before his mental vision
is the image of One who by implicit threat and promise
commands certain things which he, the same child coin-
cidently, by the same act of his mind, approves ; which
receive the adhesion of his moral sense and judgment, as
right and good. It is the image of One who is good,
inasmuch as enjoining and enforcing what is right and
114 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
good, and who, in consequence, not only excites in the
child hope and fear, — nay (it may be added), gratitude
towards Him, as giving a law and maintaining it by
reward and punishment, — but kindles in him love to-
wards Him, as giving him a good law, and therefore as
being good Himself, for it is the property of goodness
to kindle love, or rather the very object of love is good-
ness ; and all those distinct elements of the moral law,
which the typical child, whom I am supposing, more or
less consciously loves and approves, — truth, purity, jus-
tice, kindness, and the like, — are but shapes and aspects
of goodness. And having in his degree a sensibility
towards them all, for the sake of them all he is moved
to love the Lawgiver, who enjoins them upon him.
And, as he can contemplate these qualities and their
manifestations under the common name of goodness,
he is prepared to think of them as indivisible, corre-
lative, supplementary of each other in one and the
same Personality, so that there is no aspect of goodness
which God is not; and that the more, because the
notion of a perfection embracing all possible excellences,
both moral and intellectual, is especially congenial to
the mind, and there are in fact intellectual attributes,
as well as moral, included in the child's image of God,
as above represented.
Such is the apprehension which even a child may
have of his Sovereign Lawgiver and Judge ; which is
possible in the case of children, because, at least, some
children possess it, whether others possess it or no ;
and which, when it is found in children, is found to act
promptly and keenly, by reason of the paucity of their
Belief in One God. 115
ideas. It is an image of the good God, good in
Himself, good relatively to the child, with whatever
incompleteness ; an image, before it has been reflected
on, and before it is recognized by him as a notion.
Though he cannot explain or define the word " God,"
when told to use it. his acts show that to him it is
far more than a word. He listens, indeed, with
wonder and interest to fables or tales ; he has a dim,
shadowy sense of what he hears about persons and
matters of this world; but he has that within him
which actually vibrates, responds, and gives a deep
meaning to the lessons of his first teachers about the
will and the providence of God.
How far this initial religious knowledge comes
from without, and how far from within, how much
is natural, how much implies a special divine aid
which is above nature, we have no means of deter-
mining, nor is it necessary for my present purpose to
determine. I am not engaged in tracing the image
of God in the mind of a child or a man to its first
origins, but showing that he can become possessed
of such an image, over and above all mere notions of
God, and in what that image consists. Whether its
elements, latent in the mind, would ever be elicited
without extrinsic help is very doubtful; but whatever
be the actual history of the first formation of the
divine image within us, so far at least is certain, that,
by informations external to ourselves, as time goes
on, it admits of being strengthened and improved.
It is certain too, that, whether it grows brighter
and stronger, or, on the other hand, is dimmed,
T 2
1 1 6 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
distorted, or obliterated, depends on each of us
individually, and on his circumstances. It is more
than probable that, in the event, from neglect,
from the temptations of life, from bad companions,
or from the urgency of secular occupations, the light
of the soul will fade away and die out. Men trans-
gress their sense of duty, and gradually lose those
sentiments of shame and fear, the natural supple-
ments of transgression, which, as I have said, are
the witnesses of the Unseen Judge. And, even were
it deemed impossible that those who had in their
first youth a genuine apprehension of Him, could
ever utterly lose it, yet that apprehension may
become almost undistinguishable from an inferential
acceptance of the great truth, or may dwindle into
a mere notion of their intellect. On the contrary,
the image of God, if duly cherished, may expand,
deepen, and be completed, with the growth of their
powers and in the course of life, under the varied
lessons, within and without them, which are brought
home to them concerning that same God, One and
Personal, by means of education, social intercourse,
experience, and literature.
To a mind thus carefully formed upon the basis
of its natural conscience, the world, both of nature
and of man, does but give back a reflection of those
truths about the One Living God, which have been
familiar to it from childhood. Good and evil meet
us daily as we pass through life, and there are
those who think it philosophical to act towards the
manifestations of each with some sort of impartiality,
Belief in One God. j 1 7
as if evil had as much right to be there as good,
or even a better, as having more striking triumphs
and a broader jurisdiction. And because the course
of things is determined by fixed laws, they con-
sider that those laws preclude the present agency
of the Creator in the carrying out of particular
issues. It is otherwise with the theology of a religious
imagination. It has a living hold on truths which are
really to be found in the world, though they are not
upon the surface. It is able to pronounce by antici-
pation, what it takes a long argument to prove — that
good is the rule, and evil the exception. It is able to
assume that, uniform as are the laws of nature, they are
consistent with a particular Providence. It interprets
what it sees around it by this previous inward teaching,
as the true key of that maze of vast complicated dis-
order ; and thus it gains a more and more consistent
and luminous vision of God from the most unpromising
materials. Thus conscience is a connecting principle
t between the creature and his Creator ; and the firmest
hold of theological truths is gained by habits of per-
sonal religion. When men begin all their works with
the thought of God, acting for His sake, and to fulfil
His will, when they ask His blessing on themselves and
their life, pray to Him for the objects they desire, and
see Him in the event, whether it be according to their
prayers or not, they will find everything that happens
tend to confirm them in the truths about Him which
live in their imagination, varied and unearthly as those
truths may be. Then they are brought into His pre-
sence as that of a Living Person, and are able to hold
1 1 8 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
converse with Him, and that with a directness and sim-
plicity, with a confidence and intimacy, mutatis mutan-
dis, which we use towards an earthly superior \ so that
it is doubtful whether we realize the company of our
fellow-men with greater keenness than these favoured
minds are able to contemplate and adore the Unseen,
Incomprehensible Creator.
This vivid apprehension of religious objects, on which
I have been enlarging, is independent of the written
records of Revelation ; it does not require any know-
ledge of Scripture, nor of the history or the teaching of
the Catholic Church. It is independent of books. Bat
if so much may be traced out in the twilight of Natural
Religion, it is obvious how great an addition in fulness
and exactness is made to our mental image of the
Divine Personality and Attributes, by the light of
Christianity. And, indeed, to give us a clear and
sufficient object for our faith, is one main purpose of
the supernatural Dispensations of Religion. This pur-
pose is carried out in the written Word, with an effec-
tiveness which inspiration alone could secure, first, by
the histories which form so large a portion of the Old
Testament ; and scarcely less impressively in the pro-
phetical system, as it is gradually unfolded and per-
fected in the writings of those who were its ministers
and spokesmen. And as the exercise of the affections
strengthens our apprehension of the object of them, it
is impossible to exaggerate the influence exerted on the
religious imagination by a book of devotions so sub-
lime, so penetrating, so full of deep instruction as the
Psalter, to say nothing of other portions of the Hagio-
Belief in One God. 119
. grapha. And then as regards the New Testament ; the
Gospels, from their subject, contain a manifestation of
the Divine Nature, so special, as to make it appear
from the contrast as if nothing were known of God,
when they are unknown. Lastly, the Apostolic Epis-
tles, the long history of the Church, with its fresh
and fresh exhibitions of Divine Agency, the Lives of
the Saints, and the reasonings, internal collisions,
and decisions of the Theological School, form an
extended comment on the words and works of our
Lord.
I think I need not say more in illustration of the
subject which I proposed for consideration in this Sec-
tion. I have wished to trace the process by which the
mind arrives, not only at a notional, but at an imaginative
or real assent to the doctrine that there is One God, that
is, an assent made with an apprehension, not only of
what the words of the proposition mean, but of the
object denoted by them. Without a proposition or
thesis there can be no assent, no belief, at all ; any more
than there can be an inference without a conclusion.
The proposition that there is One Personal and Present
God may be held in either way ; either as a theological
truth, or as a religious fact or reality. The notion and
the reality assented-to are represented by one and the
same proposition, but serve as distinct interpretations
of it. When the proposition is apprehended for the
purposes of proof, analysis, comparison, and the like
intellectual exercises, it is used as the expression of a
notion; when for the purposes of devotion, it is the
image of a reality. Theology, properly and directly,
1 20 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
deals with notional apprehension; religion with ima-
ginative.
Here we have the solution of the common mistake of
supposing that there is a contrariety and antagonism
between a dogmatic creed and vital religion. People
urge that salvation consists, not in believing the pro-
positions that there is a God, that there is a Saviour,
that our Lord is God, that there is a Trinity, but in
believing in God, in a Saviour, in a Sanctifier ; and
they object that such propositions are but a formal and
human medium destroying all true reception of the
Gospel, and making religion a matter of words or of
logic, instead of its having its seat in the heart. They
are right so far as this, that men can and sometimes do
rest in the propositions themselves as expressing intel-
lectual notions ; they are wrong, when they maintain
that men need do so or always do so. The propositions
may and must be used, and can easily be used, as the
expression of facts, not notions, and they are necessary
to the mind in the same way that language is ever
necessary for denoting facts, both for ourselves as
individuals, and for our intercourse with others. Again,
they are useful in their dogmatic aspect as ascertaining
and making clear for us the truths on which the
religious imagination has to rest. Knowledge must
ever precede the exercise of the affections. We feel
gratitude and love, we feel indignation and dislike, when
we have the informations actually put before us which
are to kindle those several emotions. We love our
parents, as our parents, when we know them to be our
parents j we must know concerning God, before we can
Belief in One God,. 121
feel love, fear, hope, or trust towards Him. Devotion
must have its objects ; those objects, as being super-
natural, when not represented to our senses by material
symbols, must be set before the mind in propositions.
The formula, which embodies a dogma for the theo»
logian, readily suggests an object for the worshipper.
It seems a truism to say, yet it is all that I have been
saying, that in religion the imagination and affections
should always be under the control of reason. Theo-
logy may stand as a substantive science, though it be
without the life of religion ; but religion cannot main-
tain its ground at all without theology. Sentiment,
whether imaginative or emotional, falls back upon the
intellect for its stay, when sense cannot be called into
exercise ; and it is in this way that devotion falls
back upon dogma.
1 2 2 Apprehension ana A ssetit in Religion.
§ 2. BELIEF IN THE HOLT TRINITY,
OF course I cannot hope to carry all inquiring minds
with me in what I have been laying down in the fore-
going- Section. I have appealed to the testimony
given implicitly by our conscience to the Divine Being
and His Attributes, and there are those, I know,
whose experience will not respond to the appeal : —
doubtless; but are there any truths which have
reality, whether of experience or of reason, which are
not disputed by some schools of philosophy or some
bodies of men ? If we assume nothing but what has
universal reception, the field of our possible discussions
will suffer much contraction ; so that it must be con-
sidered sufficient in any inquiry, if the principles or
facts assumed have a large following. This condition
is abundantly fulfilled as regards the authority and
religious meaning of conscience ; — that conscience is
the voice of God has almost grown into a proverb.
This solemn dogma is recognized as such by the great
mass both of the young and of the uneducated, by
the religious few and the irreligious many. It is
proclaimed in the history and literature of nations ;
it has had supporters in all ages, places, creeds,
forms of social life, professions., and classes. It has held
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 123
its ground under great intellectual and moral disad-
vantages; it has recovered its supremacy, and
ultimately triumphed in the minds of those who had
rebelled against it. Even philosophers, who have been
antagonists on other points, agree in recognizing
the inward voice of that solemn Monitor, personal,
peremptory, un argumentative, irresponsible, minatory,
definitive. This I consider relieves me of the necessity
of arguing with those who would resolve our sense of
right and wrong into a sense of the Expedient or the
Beautiful, or would refer its authoritative suggestions to
the effect of teaching or of association. There are those
who can see and hear for all the common purposes of life,
yet have no eye for colours or their shades, or no ear for
music ; moreover, there are degrees of sensibility to
colours and to sounds, in the comparison of man with
man, while some men are stone-blind or stone-deaf.
Again, all men, as time goes on, have the prospect of
losing that keenness of sight and hearing which they
possessed in their youth ; and so, in like manner, we
may lose in manhood and in age that sense of a Supreme
Teacher and Judge which was the gift of our first years ;
and that the more, because in most men the imagina-
tion suffers from the lapse of time and the experience
of life, long before the bodily senses fail. And this
accords with the advice of the sacred writer to
" remember our Creator in the days of our youth/'
while our moral sensibilities are fresh, "before the sun
and the light and the moon and the stars be darkened,
and the clouds return after the rain." Accordingly, if
there be those who deny that the dictate of conscience
124 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
is ever more than a taste, or an association, it is a less
difficulty to me to believe that they are deficient either
in the religious sense or in their memory of early years,
than that they never had at all what those around
them without hesitation profess, in their own case, to
have received from nature.
So much on the doctrine of the Being and Attri-
butes of God, and of the real apprehension with which
we can contemplate and assent to it : — now I turn to
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, with the purpose of
investigating in like manner how far it belongs to
theology, how far to the faith and devotion of the
individual; how far the propositions enunciating it
are confined to the expression of intellectual notions,
and how far they stand for things also, and admit of
that assent which we give to objects presented to us
by the imagination. And first I have to state what
our doctrine is.
No one is to be called a Theist, who does not believe
in a Personal God, whatever difficulty there may be in
defining the word " Personal." Now it is the belief
of Catholics about the Supreme Being, that this
essential characteristic of His Nature is reiterated in
three distinct ways or modes; so that the Almighty
God, instead of being One Person only, which is the
teaching of Natural Religion, has Three Personalities,
and is at once, according as we view Him in the one or
the other of them, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
— a Divine Three, who bear towards Each Other the
several relations which those names indicate, and are
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 125
m
in that respect distinct from Each Other, and in that
alone.
This is the teaching of the Athanasian Creed ; viz.
that the One Personal God, who is not a logical or phy-
sical unity, but a Living Monas, more really one even
than an individual man is one — He (" unus," not
"unum," because of the inseparability of His Nature and
Personality), — He at once is Father, is Son, is Holy
Ghost, Each of whom is that One Personal God in the
fulness of His Being and Attributes ; so that the Father
is all that is meant by the word "God," as if we knew
nothing of Son, or of Spirit ; and in like manner the
Son and the Spirit are Each by Himself all that is
meant by the word, as if the Other Two were un-
known ; moreover, that by the word " God " is meant
nothing over and above what is meant by " the Father,"
or by " the Son," or by " the Holy Ghost ;" and that
the Father is in no sense the Son, nor the Son the
Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father. Such is
the prerogative of the Divine Infinitude, that that One
and Single Personal Being, the Almighty God, is
really Three, while He is absolutely One.
Indeed, the Catholic dogma may be said to be summed
up in this very formula, on which St. Augustine lays so
much stress, t€ Tres et Unus," not merely " Unurn ;"
hence that formula is the key-note, as it may be called,
of the Athanasian Creed. In that Creed we testify to
the Unus Increatus, to the Unus Immensus, Omnipo-
tens, Deus, and Dominus ; yet Each of the Three also
is by Himself Increatus, Immensus, Omnipotens, for
Each is that One God, though Each is not the Other;
126 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
Each, as is intimated by Unus Increatus, is the One
Personal God of Natural Religion.
That this doctrine, thus drawn out, is of a notional
character, is plain ; the question before me is whether
in any sense it can become the object of real apprehen-
sion, that is, whether any portion of it may be con-
sidered as addressed to the imagination, and is able to
exert that living mastery over the mind, which is
instanced as I have shown above, as regards the
proposition, " There is a God."
" There is a God," when really apprehended, is the
object of a strong energetic adhesion, which works a
revolution in the mind ; but when held merely as a
notion, it requires but a cold and ineffective acceptance,
though it be held ever so unconditionally. Such in its
character is the assent of thousands, whose imaginations
are not at all kindled, nor their hearts inflamed, nor
their conduct affected, by the most august of all con-
ceivable truths. I ask, then, as concerns the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity, such as I have drawn it out to be, is it
capable of being apprehended otherwise than notionally?
Is it a theory, undeniable indeed, but addressed to the
student, and to no one else ? Is it the elaborate, subtle,
triumphant exhibition of a truth, completely developed,
and happily adjusted, and accurately balanced on its
centre, and impregnable on every side, as a scientific
view, "totus, teres, atque rotundus," challenging all
assailants, or, on the other hand, does it come to the
unlearned, the young, the busy, and the afflicted, as a
fact which is to arrest them, penetrate them, and to sup-
port and animate them in their passage through life ?
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 127
That is, does it admit of being held in the imagination,
and being embraced with a real assent ? I maintain it
does, and that it is the normal faith which every
Christian has, on which he is stayed, which is his
spiritual life, there being nothing in the exposition of
the dogma, as I have given it above, which does not
address the imagination, as well as the intellect.
Now let us observe what is not in that exposition ; —
there are no scientific terms in it. I will not allow that
€( Personal " is such, because it is a word in common
use, and though it cannot mean precisely the same
when used of God as when it is used of man, yet it is
sufficiently explained by that common use, to allow of
its being intelligibly applied to the Divine Nature.
The other words, which occur in the above account of
the doctrine, — Three, One, He, God, Father, Son,
Spirit, — are none of them words peculiar to theology,
have all a popular meaning, and are used according to
that obvious and popular meaning, when introduced
into the Catholic dogma. No human words indeed
are worthy of the Supreme Being, none are adequate ;
but we have no other words to use but human, and those
in question are among the simplest and most intelli-
gible that are to be found in language.
There are then no terms in the foregoing exposition
which do not admit of a plain sense, and they are there
used in that sense ; and, moreover, that sense is what I
have called real, for the words in their ordinary use
stand for things. The words, Father, Son, Spirit, He,
One, and the rest, are not abstract terms, but concrete,
and adapted to excite images. And these words thus
128 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
simple and clear, are embodied in simple, clear, brief,
categorical propositions. There is nothing abstruse
either in the terms themselves, or in their setting. It
is otherwise of course with formal theological treatises
on the subject of the dogma. There we find such words
as substance, essence, existence, form, subsistence, no-
tion, circumincession ; and, though these are far easier
to understand than might at first sight be thought,
still they are doubtless addressed to the intellect, and
can only command a notional assent.
It will be observed also that not even the words
" mysteriousness " and " mystery " occur in the expo-
sition which I have above given of the doctrine ; I
omitted them, because they are not parts of the Divine
Verity as such, but in relation to creatures and to the
human intellect ; and because they are of a notional
character. It is plain of course even at first sight that
the doctrine is an inscrutable mystery, or has an in-
scrutable mysteriousness ; few minds indeed but have
theology enough to see this ; and if an educated man,
to whom it is presented, does not perceive that myste-
riousness at once, that is a sure token that he does not
rightly apprehend the propositions which contain the
doctrine. Hence it follows that the thesis " the doc-
trine of the Holy Trinity in Unity is mysterious " is in-
directly an article of faith. But such an article, being
a reflection made upon a revealed truth in an inference,
expresses a notion, not a thing. It does not relate to
the direct apprehension of the object, but to a judgment
of our reason upon the object. Accordingly the mys-
teriousness of the doctrine is not, strictly speaking,
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 129
intrinsical to it, as it is proposed to the religious appre-
hension, though in matter of fact a devotional mind, on
perceiving that mysteriousness, will lovingly appro-
priate it, as involved in the divine revelation ; and, as
such a mind turns all thoughts which come before it to
a sacred use, so will it dwell upon the Mystery of the
Trinity with awe and veneration, as a truth befitting,
so to say, the Immensity and Incomprehensibility of
the Supreme Being.
However, I do not put forward the mystery as the
direct object of real or religious apprehension; nor
again, the complex doctrine (when it is viewed, per
modum unius, as one whole), in which the mystery lies.
Let it be observed, it is possible for the mind to hold a
number of propositions either in their combination as
one whole, or one by one ; one by one, with an intelli-
gent perception indeed of all, and of the general direc-
tion of each towards the rest, yet of each separately from
the rest, for its own sake only, and not in connexion
and one with the rest. Thus I may know London
quite well, and find my way from street to street in any
part of it without difficulty, yet be quite unable to draw
a map of it. Comparison, calculation, cataloguing,
arranging, classifying, are intellectual acts subsequent
upon, and not necessary for, a real apprehension of the
things on which they are exercised. Strictly speaking
then, the dogma of the Holy Trinity, as a complex
whole, or as a mystery, is not the formal object of re-
ligious apprehension and assent ; but as it is a number
of propositions, taken one by one. That complex whole
also is the object of assent, but it is the notional object 3
130 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
and when presented to religious minds, it is received by
them notionally \ and again implicitly, viz. in the real
assent which they give to the word of Grod as conveyed
to them through the instrumentality of His Church.
On these points it may be right to enlarge.
Of course, as I have been saying, a man of ordinary
intelligence will be at once struck with the apparent
contrariety between the propositions one with another
which constitute the Heavenly Dogma, and, by reason
of his spontaneous activity of mind and by an habitual
association, he will be compelled to view the Dogma in
the light of that contrariety, — so much so, that to hold
one and all of these separate propositions will be to such
a man all one with holding the mystery, as a mystery ;
and in consequence he will so hold it ; — but still, I say,
so far he will hold it only with a notional apprehension.
He will accurately take in the meaning of each of the
dogmatic propositions in its relation to the rest of them,
combining them into one whole and embracing what he
cannot realize, with an assent, notional indeed, but as
genuine and thorough as any real assent can be. But
the question is whether a real assent to the mystery, as
such, is possible ; and I say it is not possible, because,
though we can image the separate propositions, we can-
not image them altogether. We cannot, because the
mystery transcends all our experience; we have no
experiences in our memory which we can put together,
compare, contrast, unite, and thereby transmute into an
image of the Ineffable Verity ; — certainly ; but what is
in some degree a matter of experience, what is presented
for the imagination, the affections, the devotion, the
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 131
spiritual life of the Christian to repose upon with a real
assent, what stands for things, not for notions only, is
each of those propositions taken one by one, and that,
not in the case of intellectual and thoughtful minds only,
but of all religious minds whatever, in the case of a
child or a peasant, as well as of a philosopher.
This is only one instance of a general principle which
holds good in all such real apprehension as is possible
to us, of Grod and His Attributes. Not only do we see
Him at best only in shadows, but we cannot bring even
those shadows together, for they flit to and fro, and are
never present to us at once. We can indeed combine
the various matters which we know of Him by an act
of the intellect, and treat them theologically, but such
theological combinations are no objects for the imagina-
tion to gaze upon. Our image of Him never is one,
but broken into numberless partial aspects, independent
each of each. As we cannot see the whole starry fir-
mament at once, but have to turn ourselves from east
to west, and then round to east again, sighting first one
constellation and then another, and losing these in order
to gain those, so it is, and much more, with such real
apprehensions as we can secure of the Divine Nature.
We know one truth about Him and another truth, —
bat we cannot image both of them together ; we cannot
bring them before us by one act of the mind ; we drop
the one while we turn to take irj) the other. None of
them are fully dwelt on and enjoyed, when they are
viewed in combination. Moreover, our devotion is tried
and confused by the long list of propositions which
theology is obliged to draw up, by the limitations,
K 2
132 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
explanations, definitions, adjustments, balancing*,
cautions, arbitrary prohibitions, which are imperatively
required by the weakness of human thought and the
imperfections of human languages. Such exercises of
reasoning indeed do but increase and harmonize our
notional apprehension of the dogma, but they add
little to the luminousness and vital force with which
its separate propositions come home to our imagina-
tion, and if they are necessary, as they certainly are,
they are necessary not so much for faith, as against
unbelief.
Break a ray of light into its constituent colours, each
is beautiful, each may be enjoyed ; attempt to unite
them, and perjiaps you produce only a dirty white. The
pure and indivisible Light is seen only by the blessed
inhabitants of heaven; here we have but such faint
reflections of it as its diffraction supplies ; but they are
sufficient for faith and devotion. Attempt to combine
them into one, and you gain nothing but a mystery,
which you can describe as a notion, but cannot depict as
an imagination. And this, which holds of the Divine
Attributes, holds also of the Holy Trinity in Unity.
And hence, perhaps, it is that the latter doctrine is never
spoken of as a Mystery in the sacred book, which is ad-
dressed far more to the imagination and affections than
to the intellect. Hence, too, what is more remarkable,
in the Creeds the dogtilais not called a mystery; not in
the Apostles' nor theNicene, nor even in the Athanasian^
The reason seems to be, that the Creeds have a place in
the Ritual ; they are devotional acts, and of the nature
«£ prayers, addressed to God ; and, in such addresses, to
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 133
speak of intellectual difficulties would be out of place.
It must be recollected especially that the Athanasian
Creed has sometimes been called the " Psalmus Qui-
cunque." It is not a mere collection of notions, however
momentous. It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of
confession, and of profound, self -prostrating homage,
parallel to the canticles of the elect in the Apocalypse.
It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the
intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we
warn first ourselves, then each other, and then all
those who are within its hearing, and the hearing of
the Truth, who our God is, and how we must worship
Him, and how vast our responsibility will be, if we
know what to believe, and yet believe not. It is
" The Psalm that gathers in one glorious lay
All chants that e'er from heaven to earth found way ;
Creed of the Saints, and Anthem of the Blest,
And calm-breathed warning of the kindliest love
That ever heaved a wakeful mother's breast,"
For myself, I have ever felt it as the most simple
and sublime, the most devotional formulary to which
Christianity has given birth, more so even than the
Veni Creator and the Te Deum. Even the antithetical
form of its sentences, which is a stumbling-block to
so many, as seeming to force, and to exult in forcing
a mystery upon recalcitrating minds, has to my appre-
hension, even notionally considered, a very different
drift. It is intended as a check upon our reasonings,
lest they rush on in one direction beyond the limits of
the truth, and it turns them back into the opposite
direction. Certainly it implies a glorying in the
134 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
•
Mystery; but it is not simply a statement of the Mystery
for the sake of its mysteriousness.
What is more remarkable still, a like silence as to
the mysteriousness of the doctrine is observed in the
successive definitions of the Church concerning it.
Confession after confession, canon after canon is
drawn up in the course of centuries; Popes and
Councils have found it their duty to insist afresh upon
the dogma; they have enunciated it in new or
additional propositions ; but not even in their most
elaborate formularies do they use the word (f mystery/'
as far as I know. The great Council of Toledo
pursues the scientific ramifications of the doctrine*
with the exact diligence of theology, at a length four
times that of the Athanaeian Creed; the fourth
Lateran completes, by a final enunciation, the develop-
ment of the sacred doctrine after the mind of St.
Augustine; the Creed of Pope Pius IV. prescribes the
general rule of faith against the heresies of these
latter times ; but in none of them do we find either
the word M mystery," or any suggestion of mysterious-
ness.
Such is the usage of the Church in its dogmatic
statements concerning the Holy Trinity, as if fulfilling
the maxim, " Lex orandi, lex credendi." I suppose
it is founded on a tradition, because the custom is
otherwise as regards catechisms and theological
treatises. These belong to particular ages and places,
and are addressed to the intellect. In them, certainly,
the mysteriousness of the doctrine is almost uniformly
insisted on. But, however this contrast of usage is
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 135
to be explained, the Creeds are enough to show that
the dogma may be taught in its fulness for the pur-
poses of popular faith and devotion without directly
insisting on that mysteriousness, which is necessarily
involved in the combined view of its separate pro-
positions. That systematized whole is the object of
notional assent, and its propositions, one by one, are
the objects of real.
To show this in fact, I will enumerate the separate
propositions of which the dogma consists. They are
nine, and stand as follows : —
1. There are Three who give testimony in heaven,
the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2. From the Father is, and ever has been, the Son.
3. From the Father and Son is, and ever has been, the
Spirit.
4. The Father is the One Eternal Personal God.
5. The Son is the One Eternal Personal God. 6. The
Spirit is the One Eternal Personal God.
7. The Father is not the Son. 8. The Son is not
the Holy Ghost. 9. The Holy Ghost is not the
Father.
Now I think it is a fact, that, whereas these nine
propositions contain the Mystery, yet, taken, not as
a whole, but separately, each by itself, they are not
only apprehensible, but admit of a real apprehension. •
Thus, for instance, if the proposition " There is One
who bears witness of Himself/' or " reveals Himself,"
would admit of a real assent, why does not also the
proposition " There are Three who bear witness " ?
Again, if the word " God " may create an image in
136 Apprehension ami Assent tn Religion.
our mmas, wny may not tne proposition "The Fatnet
is God " ? or again, " The Son/' or " The Holy Ghost
is God"?
Again, to say that " the Son is other than the Holy
Ghost," or " neither Son nor Holy Ghost is the Father/'
is not a simple negative, but also a declaration that
Each of the Divine Three by Himself is complete in
Himself, and simply and absolutely God as though the
Other Two were not revealed to us.
Again, from our experience of the works of man, we
accept with a real apprehension the proposition " The
Angels are made by God/' correcting the word " made/'
as is required in the case of a creating Power, and a
spiritual work : — why then may we not in like manner
refine and elevate the human analogy, yet keep the
image, when a Divine Birth is set before us in terms
which properly belong to what is human and earthly ?
If our experience enables us to apprehend the essential
fact of sonship, as being a communication of being and
of nature from one to another, why should we not there-
by in a certain measure realize the proposition " The
Word is the Son of God"?
Again, we have abundant instances in nature of the
general law of one thing coming from another or from
others : — as the child issues in the man as his quasi
successor, and the child and the man issue in the old
man, like them both, but not the same, so different as
almost to have a fresh personality distinct from each,
so we may form some image, however vague, of the
procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son.
This is what I should say of the propositions which I
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 137
have numbered two and three, which are the least
susceptible of a real assent out of the nine.
So much at first sight ; but the force of what I have
been saying will be best understood, by considering
what Scripture and the Ritual of the Church witness
in accordance with it. In referring to these two great
store-houses of faith and devotion, I must premise, as
when I spoke of the Being of a God, that I am not
proving by means of them the dogma of the Holy
Trinity, but using the one and the other in illustra-
tion of the action of the separate articles of that
dogma upon the imagination, though the complex
truth, in which, when combined, they issue, is not
in sympathy or correspondence with it, but altogether
beyond it ; and next of the action and influence of
those separate articles, by means of the imagination,
upon the affections and obedience of Christians, high
and low.
This being understood, I ask what chapter of St.
John or St. Paul is not full of the Three Divine Names,
introduced in one or other of the above nine proposi-
tions, expressed or implied, or in their parallels, or in
parts or equivalents of them ? What lesson is there
given us by these two chief writers of the New Testa-
ment, which does not grow out of Their Persons and
Their Offices ? At one time we read of the grace of the
Second Person, the love of the First, and the commu-
nication of the Third; at another we are told by the
Son, " I will pray the Father, and He will send you
another Paraclete;" and then, " All that the Father
hath are Mine • the Paraclete shall receive of Mine/
138 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
Then again we read of "the foreknowledge of the
Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, the Blood of
Jesus Christ •" and again we are to " pray in the Holy
Ghost, abide in the love of God, and look for the mercy
of Jesus." And so, in like manner, to Each, in one
passage or another, are ascribed the same titles and
works : Each is acknowledged as Lord; Each is eternal;
Each is Truth ; Each is Holiness ; Each is all in all ;
Each is Creator; Each wills with a supreme Will:
Each is the Author of the new birth ; Each speaks in
His ministers ; Each is the Revealer ; Each is the Law-
giver ; Each is the Teacher of the elect ; in Each the
elect have fellowship ; Each leads them on ; Each raises
them from the dead. What is all this, but " the Father
Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal;
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Omnipotent ; the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost God," of the Athanasian
Creed ? And if the New Testament be, as it con-
fessedly is, so real in its teaching, so luminous, so
impressive, so constraining, so full of images, so
sparing in mere notions, whence is this but because,
in its references to the Object of our supreme wor-
ship, it is ever ringing the changes (so to say) on
the nine propositions which I have set down, and
on the particular statements into which they may be
severally resolved ?
Take one of them as an instance, viz. the dog-
matic sentence " The Son is God." What an illus-
tration of the real assent which can be given to this
proposition, and its power over our affections and
emotions, is the first half of the first chapter of St.
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 139
John's gospel ! or again the vision of our Lord in
the first chapter of the Apocalypse ! or the first
chapter of St. John's first Epistle ! Again, how
burning are St. Paul's words when he speaks of our
Lord's crucifixion and death I what is the secret of
that flame, but this same dogmatic sentence, "The
Son is God " ? why should the death of the Son be
more awful than any other death, except that He
though man, was God ? And so, again, all through
the Old Testament, what is it which gives an inter-
pretation and a persuasive power to so many pas
sages and portions, especially of the Psalms and the
Prophets, but this same theological formula, "The
Messias is God," a proposition which never could
thus vivify in the religious mind the letter of the
sacred text, unless it appealed to the imagination, and
could be held with a much stronger assent than any
that is merely notional.
This same power of the dogma may be illustrated
from the Eitual. Consider the services for Christmas
or Epiphany ; for Easter, Ascension, and (I may say)
pre-eminently Corpus Christi; what are these great
Festivals but comments on the words, "The Son is
God " ? Yet who will say that they have the subtlety,
the aridity, the coldness of mere scholastic science?
Are they addressed to the pure intellect, or to the
imagination ? do they interest our logical faculty, or
excite our devotion ? Why is it that personally we
often find ourselves so ill-fitted to take part in them,
except that we are not good enough, that in our case
the dogma is far too much a theological notion, far too
140 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
little an image living within us ? And so again, as to
the Divinity of the Holy Ghost : consider the breviary
offices for Pentecost and its Octave, the grandest, per-
haps in the whole year ; are they created out of mere
abstractions and inferences, or what are sometimes
called metaphysical distinctions, or has not the cate-
gorical proposition of St. Athanasius, " The Holy
Ghost is God/' such a place in the imagination and the
heart, as suffices to give birth to the noble Hymns,
Veni Creator, and Veni Sancte Spiritus ?
I sum up then to the same effect as in the preceding
Section. Religion has to do with the real, and the real
is the particular; theology has to do with what is
notional, and the notional is the general and syste-
matic. Hence theology has to do with the Dogma of
the Holy Trinity as a whole made up of many propo-
sitions; but Religion has to do with each of those
separate propositions which compose it, and lives and
thrives in the contemplation of them. In them it finds
the motives for devotion and faithful obedience ; while
theology on the other hand forms and protects them
by virtue of its function of regarding them, not merely
one by one, but as a system of truth.
One other remark is in place here. If the separate
articles of the Athanasian Creed are so closely con-
nected with vital and personal religion as I have shown
them to be, if they supply motives on which a man may
act, if they determine the state of mind, the special
thoughts, affections, and habits, which he carries with
him from this world to the next, is there cause to
wonder, that the Creed should proclaim aloud, that
Belief in the Holy Trinity. 141
those who are not internally such as Christ, by means
of it, came to make them, are not capable of the
heaven to which He died to bring them ? Is not the
importance of accepting the dogma the very explana-
tion of that careful minuteness with which the few
simple truths which compose it are inculcated, are
reiterated, in the Creed? And shall the Church of
God, to whom "the dispensation" of the Gospel is
committed, forget the concomitant obligation, (f Woe
is unto me if I preach not the Gospel " ? Are her
ministers by their silence to bring upon themselves the
Prophet's anathema, " Cursed is he that doth the work
of the Lord deceitfully " ? Can they ever forget the
lesson conveyed to them in the Apostle's protestation,
" God is faithful, as our preaching which was among
you was not Yea and Nay. . . . For we are a good
odour of Christ unto God in them that are in the way
of salvation, and in them that are perishing. For we
are not as the many, who adulterate the word of God ;
but with sincerity, but as from God, in the presence of
God, so speak we in Christ " ? 3
* Vide Note II. at the end of the volume.
142 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
§ 8. BELIEF IN DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.
IT is a familiar charge against the Catholic Church m
the mouths of her opponents, that she imposes on her
children as matters of faith, not only such dogmas as
have an intimate bearing on moral conduct and
character, but a great number of doctrines which none
but professed theologians can understand, and which
in consequence do but oppress the mind, and are the
perpetual fuel of controversy. The first who made
this complaint was no less a man than the great
Constantine, and on no less an occasion than the rise
of the Arian heresy, which he, as yet a catechumen,
was pleased to consider a trifling and tolerable error.
So deciding the matter, he wrote at once a letter to
Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and to Arius, who
was a presbyter in the same city, exhorting them
to drop the matter in dispute, and to live in peace
with one another. He was answered by the meet-
ing of the Council of Nicaea, and by the insertion
of the word " Consubstantial " into the Creed of the
Church.
What the Emperor thought of the controversy itself,
that Bishop Jeremy Taylor thought of the insertion of
the " Consubstantial," viz. that it was a mischievous
affair, and ought never to have taken place. He thus
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 143
quoteo and comments on the Emperor's letter : " The
Epistle of Constantino to Alexander and Arias tells the
truth, and chides them both for commencing the ques-
tion, Alexander for broaching it, Arius for taking it up.
And although this be true, that it had been better for
the Church it had never begun, yet, being begun, what
is to be done with it ? Of this also, in that admirable
epistle, we have the Emperor's judgment (I suppose not
without the advice and privity of Hosius), ... for first
he calls it a certain vain piece of a question, ill begun and
more unadvisedly published, — a question which no law
or ecclesiastical canon defineth ; a fruitless contention ;
the product of idle brains ; a matter so nice, so obscure,
so intricate, that it was neither to be explicated by the
clergy nor understood by the people; a dispute of
words, a doctrine 'inexplicable, but most dangerous
when taught, lest it introduce discord or blasphemy ;
and, therefore, the objector was rash, and the answer
unadvised, for it concerned not the substance of faith
or the worship of God, nor the chief commandment of
Scripture ; and, therefore, why should it be the matter
of discord ? for though the matter be grave, yet,
because neither necessary nor explicable, the conten-
tion is trifling and toyish. ... So that the matter
being of no great importance, but vain and a toy in
respect of the excellent blessings of peace and charity
it were good that Alexander and Arius should leave
contending, keep their opinions to themselves, ask
each other forgiveness, and give mutual toleration." l
Moreover, Taylor is of opinion that " they both did
1 Liberty of Prophesying, § 2.
144 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
believe One God, and the Holy Trinity ;" an opinion in
the teeth of historical fact. Also he is of opinion, that
" that faith is best which hath greatest simplicity, and
that it is better in all cases humbly to submit, than
curiously to inquire and pry into the mystery under the
cloud, and to hazard our faith by improving know-
ledge." He is, further, of opinion, that " if the Nicene
Fathers had done so too, possibly the Church would
never have repented it." He also thinks that their
insertion of the " Consubstantial " into the Creed was
a bad precedent.
Whether it was likely to act as a precedent or not, it
has not been so in fact, for fifteen hundred years have
passed since the Nicene Council, and it is the one
instance of a scientific word having been introduced
into the Creed from that day to this. And after all,
the word in question has a plain meaning, as the
Council used it, easily stated and intelligible to all ; for
" consubstantial with the Father," means nothing more
than " really one with the Father," being adopted to
meet the evasion of the Arians. The Creed then remains
now what it was in the beginning, a popular form of
faith, suited to every age, class, and condition. Its
declarations are categorical, brief, clear, elementary, of
the first importance, expressive of the concrete, the
objects of real apprehension, and the basis and rule of
devotion. As to the proper Nicene formula itself,
excepting the one term " Consubstantial," it has not a
word which does not relate to the rudimental facts of
Christianity. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and the
various ante-Nicene Symbols, of which the Apostles'
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 145
is one, add summarily one or two notional articles, such
as " the communion of Saints/' and " the forgiveness of
sins," which, however, may be readily converted into
real propositions. On the other hand, one chief dogma,
which is easy to popular apprehension, is necessarily
absent from all of them, the Real Presence ; but the
omission is owing to the ancient " Disciplina Arcani,"
which withheld the Sacred Mystery from catechumens
and heathen, to whom the Creed was known. .
So far the charge which Taylor brings forward has
no great plausibility ; but it is not the whole of his
case. I cannot deny that a large and ever-increasing
collection of propositions, abstract notions, not concrete
truths, become, by the successive definitions of Councils,
a portion of the credenda, and have an imperative claim
upon the faith of every Catholic ; and this being the
case, it will be asked me how I am borne out by facts
in enlarging, as I have done, on the simplicity and
directness, on the tangible reality, of the Church's
dogmatic teaching.
I will suppose the objection urged thus : — why has
not the Catholic Church limited her credenda to
propositions such as those in her Creed, concrete and
practical, easy of apprehension, and of a character to
win assent ? such as " Christ is God ;" " This is My
Body;" "Baptism gives life to the soul;" "The
Saints intercede for us ;" " Death, judgment, heaven,
hell, the four last things ;" " There are seven gifts of
the Holy Ghost," " three theological virtues," " seven
capital sins," and the like, as they are found in her
catechisms. On the contrary, she makes it imperative
L
146 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
on every one, priest and layman, to profess as revealed
truth all the canons of the Councils, and innumerable
decisions of Popes, propositions so various, so notional,
that but few can know them, and fewer can understand
them. What sense, for instance, can a child or a
peasant, nay, or any ordinary Catholic, put upon the
Tridentine Canons, even in translation ? such as,
" Siquis dixerit homines sine Christi justitia, per quam
nobis meruit, justificari, aut per earn ipsam formaliter
justos esse, anathema sit •" or <f Siquis dixerit justifi-
catum peccare, dum intuitu seternse mercedis bene
operatur, anathema sit." Or again, consider the very
anathematism annexed by the Nicene Council to its
Creed, the language of which is so obscure, that even
theologians differ about its meaning. It runs as
follows : — " Those who say that once the Son was not,
and before He was begotten He was not, and that He
was made out of that which was not, or who pretend
that He was of other hypostasis or substance, or that
the Son of God is created, mutable, or alterable, the
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes/'
These doctrinal enunciations are de fide ; peasants are
bound to believe them as well as controversialists, and
to believe them as truly as they believe that our Lord
is God. How then are the Catholic credenda easy and
within reach of all men ?
I begin my answer to this objection by recurring to
what has already been said concerning the relation of
theology with its notional propositions to religious and
devotional assent. Devotion is excited doubtless by
the plain, categorical truths of revelation, such as the
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 147
articles of the Creed ; on these it depends ; with these
it is satisfied. It accepts them one by one ; it is care-
less about intellectual consistency ; it draws from each
of them the spiritual nourishment which it was in-
tended to supply. Far different, certainly, is the
nature and duty of the intellect. It is ever active,
inquisitive, penetrating; it examines doctrine and
doctrine ; it compares, contrasts, and forms them into
a science; that science is theology. Now theological
science, being thus the exercise of the intellect upon
the credenda of revelation, is, though not directly
devotional, at once natural, excellent, and necessary.
It is natural, because the intellect is one of our highest
faculties ; excellent, because it is our duty to use our
faculties to the full ; necessary, because unless we apply
our intellect to revealed truth rightly, others will exer-
cise their minds upon it wrongly. Accordingly, the
Catholic intellect makes a survey and a catalogue of
the doctrines contained in the depositum of revelation,
as committed to the Church's keeping; it locates,
adjusts, defines them each, and brings them together
into a whole. Moreover, it takes particular aspects or
portions of them ; it analyzes them, whether into first
principles really such, or into hypotheses of an
illustrative character. It forms generalizations, and
gives names to them. All these deductions are true,
if rightly deduced, because they are deduced from
what is true ; and therefore in one sense they are a
portion of the depositum of faith or credenda, while
in another sense they are additions to it: however,
additions or not* they have, I readily grant, the
L 2
1 48 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
characteristic disadvantage of being abstract and
notional statements.
Nor is this all : the disavowal of error is far more
fruitful in additions than the enforcement of truth.
There is another set of deductions, inevitable also, and
also part or not part of the revealed credenda, accord-
ing as we please to view them. If a proposition is
true, its contradictory is false. If then a man believes
that Christ is God, he believes also, and that neces-
sarily, that to say He is not God is false, and that those
who so say are in error. Here then again the prospect
opens upon us of a countless multitude of propositions,
which in their first elements are close upon devotional
truth, — of groups of propositions, and those groups
divergent, independent, ever springing into life with
an inexhaustible fecundity, according to the ever-
germinating forms of heresy, of which they are
the antagonists. These too have their place in theo-
logical science.
Such is theology in contrast to religion; and as
follows from the circumstances of its formation, though
some of its statements easily find equivalents in the
language of devotion, the greater number of them are
more or less unintelligible to the ordinary Catholic, as
law-books to the private citizen. And especially those
portions of theology which are the indirect creation, not
of orthodox, but of heretical thought, such as the repu-
diations of error contained in the Canons of Councils,
of which specimens have been given above, will ever
be foreign, strange, and hard to the pious but uncontro-
versial mind ; for what have good Christians to do, in
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 1 49
the ordinary course of things, with the subtle halluci-
nations of the intellect ? This is manifest from the
nature of the case ; but then the question recurs, why
should the refutations of heresy be our objects of faith ?
if no mind, theological or not, can believe what it can-
not understand, in what sense can the Canons of
Councils and other ecclesiastical determinations be in-
cluded in those credenda which the Church presents to
every Catholic as if apprehensible, and to which every
Catholic gives his firm interior assent ?
In solving this difficulty I wish it first observed,
that, if it is the duty of the Church to act as "the
pillar and ground of the Truth/' she is manifestly
obliged from time to time, and to the end of time,
to denounce opinions incompatible with that truth,
whenever able and subtle minds in her communion
venture to publish such opinions. Suppose certain
Bishops and priests at this day began to teach that
Islamism or Buddhism was a direct and immediate
revelation from God, she would be bound to use the
authority which God has given her to declare that
such a proposition will not stand with Christianity,
and that those who hold it are none of hers; and
she would be bound to impose such a declaration on
that very knot of persons who had committed them-
selves to the novel proposition, in order that, if they
would not recant, they might be separated from her
communion, as they were separate from her faith. In
such a case, her masses of population would either not
hear of the controversy, or they would at once take
part with her, and without effort take any test, which
150 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
secured the exclusion of the innovators ; and she on
the other hand would feel that what is a rule for some
Catholics must be a rule for all. Who is to draw the
line between who are to acknowledge that rule, and
who are not ? It is plain, there cannot be two rules
of faith in the same communion, or rather, as the case
really would be, an endless variety of rules, coming
into force according to the multiplication of heretical
theories, and to the degrees of knowledge and varieties
of sentiment in individual Catholics. There is but
one rule of faith for all ; and it would be a greater
difficulty to allow of an uncertain rule of faith, than
(if that was the alternative, as it is not), to impose
upon uneducated minds a profession which they cannot
understand.
But it is not the necessary result of unity of pro-
fession, nor is it the fact, that the Church imposes
dogmatic statements on the interior assent of those who
cannot apprehend them. The difficulty is removed
by the dogma of the Church's infallibility, and of the
consequent duty of " implicit faith " in her word. The
" One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church " is an
article of the Creed, and an article, which, inclusive
of her infallibility, all men, high and low, can easily
master and accept with a real and operative assent.
It stands in the place of all abstruse propositions in a
Catholic's mind, for to believe in her word is virtually
to believe in them all. Even what he cannot under-
stand, at least he can believe to be true; and he
believes it to be true because he believes in the
Church.
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 151
The rationale of this provision for unlearned devo-
tion is as follows : — It stands to reason that all of us,
»
learned and unlearned, are bound to believe the whole
revealed doctrine in all its parts and in all that it
implies according as portion after portion is brought
home to our consciousness as belonging to it ; and it
also stands to reason, that a doctrine, so deep and so
various, as the revealed depositum of faith, cannot be
brought home to us and made our own all at once. No
mind, however large, however penetrating, can directly
and fully by one act understand any one truth, however
simple. What can be more intelligible than that
" Alexander conquered Asia," or that " Veracity is a
duty " ? but what a multitude of propositions is in-
cluded under either of these theses ! still, if we profess
either, we profess all that it includes. Thus, as regards
the Catholic Creed, if we really believe that our Lord
is God, we believe all that is meant by such a belief ;
or, else, we are not in earnest, when we profess to
believe the proposition. In the act of believing it at
all, we forthwith commit ourselves by anticipation to
believe truths which at present we do not believe,
because they have never come before us ; — we limit
henceforth the range of our private judgment in pros-
pect by the conditions, whatever they are, of that
dogma. Thus the Arians said that they believed in
our Lord's divinity, but when they were pressed to
confess His eternity, they denied it : thereby showing
in fact that they never had believed in His divinity at
all. In other words, a man who really believes in our
Lord's proper divinity, believes implicite in His eternity.
1 52 Apprehension and Assent in Religion.
And so, in like manner, of the whole deposition of
faith, or the revealed word : — If we believe in the
revelation, we believe in what is revealed, in all that is
revealed, however it may be brought home to us, by
reasoning or in any other way. He who believes that
Christ is the Truth, and that the Evangelists are truth-
ful, believes all that He has said through them, though
he has only read St. Matthew and has not read St.
John. He who believes in the depositum of Revela-
tion, believes in all the doctrines of the depositum ;
and since he cannot know them all at once, he knows
some doctrines, and does not know others ; he may
know only the Creed, nay, perhaps only the chief por-
tions of the Creed ; but, whether he knows little or
much, he has the intention of believing all that there
is to believe whenever and as soon as it is brought
home to him, if he believes in Revelation at all. All
that he knows now as revealed, and all that he shall
know, and all that there is to know, he embraces it all
in his intention by one act of faith ; otherwise, it is but
an accident that he believes this or that, not because
it is a revelation. This virtual, interpretative, or pro-
spective belief is called a believing implicite ; and it
follows from this, that, granting that the Canons of
Councils and the other ecclesiastical documents and con-
fessions, to which I have referred, are really involved
in the depositum or revealed word, every Catholic, in
accepting the depositum, does implicite accept those
dogmatic decisions.
I say, ' ( granting these various propositions are vir-
tually contained in the revealed word/' for this is the
Belief in Dogmatic Theology. 153
only question left ; and that it is to be answered in the
affirmative, is clear at once to the Catholic, from the
fact that the Church declares that they really belong
to it. To her is committed the care and the interpre-
tation of the revelation. The word of the Church is
the word of the revelation. That the Church is the
infallible oracle of truth is the fundamental dogma of
the Catholic religion ; and " I believe what the Church
proposes to be believed" is an act of real assent,
including all particular assents, notional and real ; and,
while it is possible for unlearned as well as learned, it
is imperative on learned as well as unlearned. And
thus it is, that by believing the word of the Church
implicite, that is, by believing all that that word does
or shall declare itself to contain, every Catholic, accord-
ing to his intellectual capacity, supplements the short-
comings of his knowledge without bluntiDg his real
assent to what is elementary, and takes upon himself
from the first the whole truth of revelation, progress-
ing from one apprehension of it to another according
to his opportunities of doing so.
PART II.
ASSENT AND INFERENCE.
CHAPTER VI.
ASSENT CONSIDERED AS UNCONDITIONAL.
I HAVE now said as much as need be said about the
relation of Assent to Apprehension ; and shall turn to
the consideration of the relation existing between
Assent and Inference.
As apprehension is a concomitant, so inference is
ordinarily the antecedent of assent ; — on this surely I
need not enlarge ; — but neither apprehension nor infer-
ence interferes with the unconditional character of the
assent, viewed in itself. The circumstances of an act,
however necessary to it, do not enter into the act;
assent is in its nature absolute and unconditional,
though it cannot be given except under certain con-
ditions.
This is obvious ; but what presents some difficulty
is this, how it is that a conditional acceptance of a
proposition, — such as is an act of inference, — is able to
lead as it does, to an unconditional acceptance of it, —
such as is assent ; how it is that a proposition which is
not, and cannot be, demonstrated, which at the highest
can only be proved to be truth-like, not true, such as
158 Assent considered as Unconditional.
"I shall die," nevertheless claims and receives our
unqualified adhesion. To the consideration of this
paradox, as it may be called, I shall now proceed;
that is, to the consideration, first, of the act of assent
to a proposition, which act is unconditional; next, of
the act of inference, which goes before the assent and
is conditional ; and, thirdly, of the solution of the
apparent inconsistency which is involved in holding
that an unconditional acceptance of a proposition can
be the result of its conditional verification.
Simple Assent. 159
§ 1. SIMPLE ASSENT.
THE doctrine which I have been enunciating requires
such careful explanation, that it is not wonderful that
writers of great ability and name are to be found who
have put it aside in favour of a doctrine of their own ;
but no doctrine on the subject is without its difficulties,
and certainly not theirs, though it carries with it a show
of common sense. The authors to whom I refer wish
to maintain that there are degrees of assent, and that,
as the reasons for a proposition are strong or weak, so is
the assent. It follows from this that absolute assent
has no legitimate exercise, except as ratifying acts of
intuition or demonstration. What is thus brought home
to us is indeed to be accepted unconditionally ; but, as
to reasonings in concrete matters, they are never more
than probabilities, and the probability in each con-
clusion which we draw is the measure of our assent
to that conclusion. Thus assent becomes a sort of
necessary shadow, following upon inference, which is
the substance; and is never without some alloy of
doubt, because inference in the concrete never reaches
more than probability.
Such is what may be called the a priori method of re-
garding assent in its relation to inference. It condemns
1 60 Assent considered as Unconditional.
an unconditional assent in concrete matters on what
may be called the nature of the case. Assent cannot
rise higher than its source, inference in such matters is
at best conditional, therefore assent is conditional also.
Abstract argument is always dangerous, and this
instance is no exception to the rale ; I prefer to go by
facts. The theory to which I have referred cannot be
carried out in practice. It may be rightly said to prove
too much ; for it debars us from unconditional assent
in cases in which the common voice of mankind, the
advocates of this theory included, would protest against
the prohibition. There are many truths in concrete
matter, which no one can demonstrate, yet every one
unconditionally accepts ; and though of course there
are innumerable propositions to which it would be absurd
to give an absolute assent, still the absurdity lies in the
circumstances of each particular case, as it is taken
by itself, not in their common violation of the preten-
tious axiom that probable reasoning can never lead to
certitude.
Locke's remarks on the subject are an illustration of
what I have been saying. This celebrated writer, after
the manner of his school, speaks freely of degrees of
assent, and considers that the strength of assent given
to each proposition varies with the strength of the
inference on which the assent follows ; yet he is
obliged to make exceptions to his general principle, —
exceptions, unintelligible on his abstract doctrine, but
demanded by the logic of facts. The practice of man-
kind is too strong for the antecedent theorem, to which
he is desirous to subject it.
Simple Assent. 161
First he says, in his chapter "On Probability/3
< Most of the propositions we think, reason, discourse,
nay, act upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted
knowledge of their truth ; yet some of them border so
near upon certainty, that we make no doubt at all about
them, but assent to them as firmly, and act according
to that assent as resolutely, as if they were infallibly
demonstrated, and that our knowledge of them was
perfect and certain." Here he allows that inferences,
which are only " near upon certainty " are so near,
that we legitimately accept them with " no doubt at
all/' and " assent to them as firmly as if they were
infallibly demonstrated/' That is, he affirms and
sanctions the very paradox to which I am committed
myself.
Again ; he says, in his chapter on " The Degrees of
Assent/' that " when any particular thing, consonant
to the constant observation of ourselves and others in
the like case, comes attested by the concurrent reports
of all that mention it, we receive it as easily, and build
as firmly upon it, as if it were certain knowledge, and
we reason and act thereupon, with as little doubt as
if it were perfect demonstration." And he repeats,
u These probabilities rise so near to certainty, that
they govern our thoughts as absolutely, and influence all
our actions as fully, as the most evident demonstration ;
and in what concerns us, we make little or no
difference between them and certain knowledge. Our
belief thus grounded, rises to assurance." Here again
ft probabilities " may be so strong as to " govern our
thoughts as absolutely" as sheer demonstration, so
M
1 62 Assent considered as Unconditional.
strong that belief, grounded on them, " rises to
assurance/' that is, to certitude.
I have so high a respect both for the character and
the ability of Locke, for his manly simplicity of mind
and his outspoken candour, and there is so much in
his remarks upon reasoning and proof in which I fully
concur, that I feel no pleasure in considering him in
the light of an opponent to views, which I myself have
ever cherished as true with an obstinate devotion ; and
I would willingly think that in the passage which
follows in his chapter on " Enthusiasm," he is aiming
at superstitious extravagancies which I should re-
pudiate myself as much as he can do ; but, if so, his
words go beyond the occasion, and contradict what I
have quoted from him above.
"He that would seriously set upon the search of
truth, ought, in the first place, to prepare his mind
with a love of it. For he that loves it not will not
take much pains to get it, nor be much concerned
when he misses it. There is nobody, in the common-
wealth of learning, who does not profess himself a
lover of truth, — and there is not a rational creature,
that would not -take it amiss, to be thought otherwise
of. And yet, for all this, one may truly say, there are
very few lovers of truth, for truth-sake, even amongst
those who persuade themselves that they are so. How
a man may know, whether he be so, in earnest, is
worth inquiry ; and I think, there is this one unerring
mark of it, viz. the not entertaining any proposition
with greater assurance than the proofs it is built on
will warrant. Whoever goes beyond this measure of
Simple Assent. 163
assent, it is plain, receives not truth in the love of it,
loves not truth for truth-sake, but for some other by-
end. For the evidence that any proposition is true
(except such as are self-evident) lying only in the
proofs a man has of it, whatsoever degrees of assent
he affords it beyond the degrees of that evidence, it
is plain all that surplusage of assurance is owing to some
other affection, and not to the love of truth ; it being
as impossible that the love of truth should carry my
assent above the evidence there is to me that it is true,
as that the love of truth should make me assent to any
proposition for the sake of that evidence which it
has not that it is true ; which is in effect to love it
as a truth, because it is possible or probable that it
may not be true.1 "
Here he says that it is not only illogical, but im-
moral to " carry our assent above the evidence that a
proposition is true," to have " a surplusage of assurance
beyond the degrees of that evidence/' And he
excepts from this rule only self-evident propositions.
How then is it not inconsistent with right reason, with
the love of truth for its own sake, to allow, in his
words quoted above, certain strong "probabilities"
to " govern our thoughts as absolutely as the most
evident demonstration " ? how is there no " surplusage
of assurance beyond the degrees of evidence " when in
the case of those strong probabilities, we permit " our
belief, thus grounded, to rise to assurance," as he
prononnces we are rational in doing ? Of course he
1 Reference is made to Locke's statements in " Essay on Development
if Doctrine," ch. vii. § 2.
M 2
164 Assent considered as Unconditional.
had in view one set of instances, when he implied that
demonstration was the condition of absolute assent,
and another set when he said that it was no such con-
dition ; but he surely cannot be acquitted of slovenly
thinking in thus treating a cardinal subject. A philo-
sopher should so anticipate the application, and guard
the enunciation of his principles, as to secure them
against the risk of their being made to change places
with each other, to defend what he is eager to de-
nounce, and to condemn what he finds it necessary to
sanction. However, whatever is to be thought of his
a priori method and his logical consistency, his
animus, I fear, must be understood as hostile to the
doctrine which I am going to maintain. He takes a
view of the human mind, in relation to inference and
assent, which to me seems theoretical and unreal.
Reasonings and convictions which I deem natural and
legitimate, he apparently would call irrational, enthu-
siastic, perverse, and immoral; and that, as I think,
because he consults his own ideal of how the mind
ought to act, instead of interrogating human nature,
as an existing thing, as it is found in the world. In-
stead of going by the testimony of psychological facts,
and thereby determining our constitutive faculties and
our proper condition, and being content with the
mind as God has made it, he would form men as he
thinks they ought to be formed, into something better
and higher, and calls them irrational and indefensible,
if (so to speak) they take to the water, instead of
remaining under the narrow wings of his own arbitrary
theory.
Simple A ssent. \ 6 5
1. Now the first question which this theory leads me
to consider is, whether there is such an act of the mind
as assent at all. If there is, it is plain it ought to show
itself unequivocally as such, as distinct from other acts.
For if a professed act can only be viewed as the neces-
sary and immediate repetition of another act, if assent is
a sort of reproduction and double of an act of inference,
if when inference determines that a proposition is some-
what, or not a little, or a good deal, or very like truth.,
assent as its natural and normal counterpart says that
it is somewhat, or not a little, or a good deal, or very
like truth, then I do not see what we mean by saying,
or why we say at all, that there is any such act. It is
simply superfluous, in a psychological point of view, and
a curiosity for subtle minds, and the sooner it is got out
of the way the better. When I assent, I am supposed,
it seems, to do precisely what I do when I infer, or
rather not quite so much, but something which is
included in inferring ; for, while the disposition of my
mind towards a given proposition is identical in assent
and in inference, I merely drop the thought of the pre-
misses when I assent, though not of their influence on
the proposition inferred. This, then, and no more after
all, is what nature prescribes ; and this, and no more
than this, is the conscientious use of our faculties, so to
assent forsooth as to do nothing else than infer. Then,
I say, if this be really the state of the case, if assent in
no real way differs from inference, it is one and the
same thing with it. It is another name for inference,
and to speak of it at all does but mislead. Nor can it
fairly be urged as a parallel case that an act of conscious
1 66 Assent considered as Unconditional.
recognition, though distinct from an act of knowledge,
is after all only its repetition. On the contrary, such a
recognition is a reflex act with its own object, viz. the
act of knowledge itself. As well might it be said that
the hearing of the notes of my voice is a repetition of
the act of singing : — it gives no plausibility then to the
anomaly I am combating.
I lay it down, then, as a principle that either assent
is intrinsically distinct from inference, or the sooner
we get rid of the word in philosophy the better. If
it be only the echo of an inference, do not treat it as a
substantive act; but on the other hand, supposing it
be not such an idle repetition, as I am sure it is not,
— supposing the word " assent " does hold a rightful
place in language and in thought, — if it does not
admit of being confused with concluding and inferring,
— if the two words are used for two operations of the
intellect which cannot change their character, — if in
matter of fact they are not always found together, — if
they do not vary with each other, — if one is sometimes
found without the other, — if one is strong when the
other is weak, — if sometimes they seem even in conflict
with each other, — then, since we know perfectly well
what an inference is, it comes upon us to consider what,
as distinct from inference, an assent is, and we are, by
the very fact of its being distinct, advanced one step
towards that account of it which I think is the true
one. The first step then towards deciding the point,
will be to inquire what the experience of human life,
as it is daily brought before us, teaches us of the
relation to each other of inference and assent.
Simple Assent. 167
(1.) First, we know from experience that assents may-
endure without the presence of the inferential acts upon
which they were originally elicited. It is plain, that,
as life goes on, we are not only inwardly formed and
changed by the accession of habits, but we are also en-
riched by a great multitude of beliefs and opinions, and
that on a variety of subjects. These beliefs and opinions,
held, as some of them are, almost as first principles, are
assents, and they constitute, as it were, the clothing and
furniture of the mind. I have already spoken of them
under the head of " Credence " and " Opinion/' Some-
times we are fully conscious of them ; sometimes they
are implicit, or only now and then come directly before
our reflective faculty. Still they are assents ; and, when
we first admitted them, we had some kind of reason,
slight or strong, recognized or not, for doing so. How-
ever, whatever those reasons were, even if we ever
realized them, we have long forgotten them. Whether
it was the authority of others, or our own observation,
or our reading, or our reflections, which became the
warrant of our assent, any how we received the matters
in question into our minds as true, and gave them a
place there. We assented to them, and we still assent,
though we have forgotten what the warrant was. At
present they are self-sustained in our minds, and have
been so for long years; they are in no sense conclusions ;
they imply no process of thought. Here then is a case
in which assent stands out as distinct from inference.
(2.) Again ; sometimes assent fails, while the reasons
for it and the inferential act which is the recognition of
those reasons, are still present, and in force. Our rea-
1 68 Assent considered as Unconditional.
sons may seem to us as strong as ever, yet they do
not secure our assent. Our beliefs, founded on them,
were and are not ; we cannot perhaps tell when they
went ; we may have thought that we still held them,
till something happened to call our attention to the
state of our minds, and then we found that our assent
had become an assertion. Sometimes, of course, a
cause may be found why they went ; there may have
been some vague feeling that a fault lay at the ultimate
basis, or in the underlying conditions, of our reason-
ings; or some misgiving that the subject-matter of
them was beyond the reach of the human mind ; or a
consciousness that wo had gained a broader view of
things in general than when we first gave our assent ;
or that there were strong objections to our first con-
victions, which we had never taken into account. But
this is not always so ; sometimes our mind changes so
quickly, so unaccountably, so disproportionately to
any tangible arguments to which the change can be
referred, and with such abiding recognition of the
force of the old arguments, as to suggest the suspicion
that moral causes, arising put of our condition, age,
company, occupations, fortunes, are at the bottom.
However, what once was assent is gone ; yet the per-
ception of the old arguments remains, showing that
inference is one thing, and assent another.
(3.) And as assent sometimes dies out without tan-
gible reasons, sufficient to account for its failure, so
sometimes, in spite of strong and convincing arguments,
it is never given. We sometimes find men loud in their
admiration of truths which they never profess. As, by
Simple Assent. 169
the law of our mental constitution, obedience is quite
distinct from faith, and men may believe without prac-
tising, so is assent also independent of our acts of in-
ference. Again, prejudice hinders assent to the most
incontrovertible proofs. Again, it not unfrequently
happens, that while the keenness of the ratiocinative
faculty enables a man to see the ultimate result of a
complicated problem in a moment, it takes years for
him to embrace it as a truth, and to recognize it as an
item in the circle of his knowledge. Yet he does at
last so accept it, and then we say that he assents.
(4.) Again ; very numerous are the cases, in which
good arguments, and really good as far as they go, and
confessed by us to be good, nevertheless are not strong
enough to incline our minds ever so little to the conclu-
sion at which they point. But why is it that we do not
assent a little, in proportion to those arguments ? On
the contrary, we throw the full onus probandi on the
side of the conclusion, and we refuse to assent to it at
all, until we can assent to it altogether. The proof is
capable of growth ; but the assent either exists or does
not exist. . .
(5.) I have already alluded to the influence of moral
motives in hindering assent to conclusions which are
logically unimpeachable. According to the couplet, —
"A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still ;" —
assent then is not the same as inference.
(6.) Strange as it may seem, this contrast between
inference and assent is exemplified even in the province
of mathematics. Argument is not always able to com-
i 70 Assent considered as Unconditional.
mand our Assent, even though it be demonstrative.
Sometimes of course it forces its way, that is, when the
steps of the reasoning are few, and admit of being
viewed by the mind altogether. Certainly, one cannot
conceive a man having before him the series of con-
ditions and truths on which it depends that the three
angles of a triangle are together equal to two right
angles, and yet not assenting to that proposition. Were
all propositions as plain, though assent would not in
consequence be the same act as inference, yet it would
certainly follow immediately upon it. I allow then as
much as this, that, when an argument is in itself and
by itself conclusive of a truth, it has by a law of our
nature the same command over our assent, or rather
the truth which it has reached has the same command,
as our senses have. Certainly our intellectual nature
is under laws, and the correlative of ascertained truth
is unreserved assent.
But I am not speaking of short and lucid demonstra-
tions ; but of long and intricate mathematical investi-
gations ; and in that case, though every step may be
indisputable, it still requires a specially sustained atten-
tion and an effort of memory to have in the mind all at
once all the steps of the proof, with their bearings on
each other, and the antecedents which they severally
involve; and these conditions of the inference may
interfere with the promptness of our assent.
Hence it is that party spirit or national feeling or
religious prepossessions have before now had power to
retard the reception of truths of a mathematical charac-
ter ; which never could have been, if demonstrations
Simple Assent. i ^ i
were ipso facto assents. Nor indeed would any mathe-
matician, even in questions of pure science, assent to his
own conclusions, on new and difficult ground, and in the
case of abstruse calculations, however often he went over
his work, till he had the corrob oration of other judgments
besides his own. He would have carefully revised his
inference, and would assent to the probability of his
accuracy in inferring, but still he would abstain from
an immediate assent to the truth of his conclusion. Yet
the corroboration of others cannot add to his perception
of the proof; he would still perceive the proof, even
though he failed in gaining their corroboration. And
yet again he might arbitrarily make it his rule, never
to assent to his conclusions without such corroboration,
or at least before the lapse of a sufficient interval.
Here again inference is distinct from assent.
1 have been showing that inference and assent are
distinct acts of the mind, and that they may be made
apart from each other. Of course I cannot be taken to
mean that there is no legitimate or actual connexion
between them, as if arguments adverse to a conclusion
did not naturally hinder assent; or as if the inclina-
tion to give assent were not greater or less according
as the particular act of inference expressed a stronger
or weaker probability ; or as if assent did not always
imply grounds in reason, implicit, if not explicit, or
could be rightly given without sufficient grounds.
So much is it commonly felt that assent must be pre-
ceded by inferential acts, that obstinate men give their
own will as their very reason for assenting, if they can
think of nothing better; " stat pro ratione voluntas"
172 Assent considered as Unconditional.
Indeed, I doubt whether assent is ever given without
some preliminary, which stands for a reason; but it
does not follow from this, that it may not be with-
held in cases when there are good reasons for giving
it to a proposition, or may not be withdrawn after
it has been given, the reasons remaining, or may
not remain when the reasons are forgotten, or must
always vary in strength, as the reasons vary ; and this
substantiveness, as I may call it, of the act of assent
is the very point which I have wished to establish.
2. And in showing that assent is distinct from an act
of inference, I have gone a good way towards showing
in what it differs from it. If assent and inference are
each of them the acceptance of a proposition, but the
special characteristic of inference is that it is condi-
tional, it is natural to suppose that assent is uncon-
ditional. Again, if assent is the acceptance of truth,
and truth is the proper object of the intellect, and no
one can hold conditionally what by the same act he
holds to be true, here too is a reason for saying that
assent is an adhesion without reserve or doubt to the
proposition to which it is given. And again, it is to
be presumed that the word has not two meanings :
what it has at one time, it has at another. Inference
is always inference ; even if demonstrative, it is still
conditional ; it establishes an incontrovertible conclu-
sion on the condition of incontrovertible premisses.
To the conclusion thus drawn, assent gives its absolute
recognition. In the case of all demonstrations, assent,
when given, is unconditionally given. In one class of
subjects, then, assent certainly is always unconditional ;
Simple Assent. 173
but if the word stands for an undoubting and unhesi-
tating act of the mind once, why does it not denote
the same always ? what evidence is there that it ever
means anything else than that which the whole world
will unite in witnessing that it means in certain cases ?
why are we not to interpret what is controverted by
what is known ? This is what is suggested on the
first view of the question ; but to continue : —
In demonstrative matters assent excludes the pre-
sence of doubt : now are instances producible, on the
other hand, of its ever co-existing with doubt in cases
of the concrete ? As the above instances have shown,
on very many questions we do not give an assent at
all. What commonly happens is this, that, after hear-
ing and entering into what may be said for a proposi-
tion, we pronounce neither for nor against it. We may
accept the conclusion as a conclusion, dependent on
premisses, abstract, and tending to the concrete ; but
we do not follow up our inference of a proposition by
giving an assent to it. That there are concrete pro-
positions to which we give unconditional assents, I
shall presently show; but I am now asking for instances
of conditional, for instances in which we assent a little
and not much. Usually, we do not assent at all
Every day, as it comes, brings with it opportunities
for us to enlarge our circle of assents. We read the
newspapers ; we look through debates in Parliament,
pleadings in the law courts, leading articles, letters of
correspondents, reviews of books, criticisms in the fine
arts, and we either form no opinion at all upon the
subjects discussed, as lying out of our line, or at most
1 74 Assent considered as Unconditional.
we have only an opinion about them. At the utmost we
say that we are inclined to believe this proposition or
that, that we are not sure it is not true, that much may be
said for it, that we have been much struck by it ; but we
never say that we give it a degree of assent. We might
as well talk of degrees of truth as of degrees of assent.
Yet Locke heads one of his chapters with the title
" Degrees of Assent ; " and a writer, of this century,
who claims our respect from the tone and drift of his
work, thus expresses himself after Locke's manner:
" Moral evidence," he says, " may produce a variety
of degrees of assents, from suspicion to moral certainty.
For here, the degree of assent depends upon the degree
in which the evidence on one side preponderates, or
exceeds that on the other. And as this preponderancy
may vary almost infinitely, so likewise may the degrees
of assent. For a few of these degrees, though but for a
few, names have been invented. Thus, when the evi-
dence on one side preponderates a very little, there is
ground for suspicion, or conjecture. Presumption,
persuasion, belief, conclusion, conviction, moral cer-
tainty,— doubt, wavering, distrust, disbelief, — are words
which imply an increase or decrease of this preponder-
ancy. Some of these words also admit of epithets
which denote a further increase or diminution of the
assent/' *
Can there be a better illustration than this passage
supplies of what I have been insisting on above, viz.
that, in teaching various degrees of assent, we tend to
destroy assent, as an act of the mind, altogether ? This
'Gambler on Moral Evidence, p. 6.
Simple Assent. 175
author makes the degrees of assent " infinite/' as the
degrees of probability are infinite. His assents are
really only inferences, and assent is a name without
a meaning, the needless repetition of an inference. But
in truth "suspicion, conjecture, presumption, per-
suasion, belief, conclusion, conviction, moral certainty/'
are not " assents " at all ; they are simply more or less
strong inferences of a proposition ; and " doubt, waver-
ing distrust, disbelief/' are recognitions, more or less
strong, of the probability of its contradictory.
There is only one sense in which we are allowed to
call such acts or states of mind assents. They are
opinions; and, as being such, they are, as I have
already observed, when speaking of Opinion, assents
to the plausibility, probability, doubtfulness, or un-
trustworthiness, of a proposition ; that is, not varia-
tions of assent to an inference, but assents to a variation
in inferences. When I assent to a doubtfulness, or to a
probability, my assent, as such, is as complete as if I
assented to a truth ; it is not a certain degree of
assent. And, in like manner, I may be certain of an
uncertainty ; that does not destroy the specific notion
conveyed in the word " certain/'
I do not know then when it is that we ever delibe-
rately profess assent to a proposition without meaning
to convey to others the impression that we accept it
unreservedly, and that because it is true. Certainly,
we familiarly use such phrases as a half -assent, as we
also speak of half-truths ; but a half -assent is not a
kind of assent any more than a half-truth is a kind of
truth. As the object is indivisible, so is the aqk A
1 76 Assent considered as Unconditional.
half-truth is a proposition which in one aspect is a
truth, and in another is not ; to give a half-assent is to
feel drawn towards assent, or to assent one moment
and not the next, or to be in the way to assent to it.
It means that the proposition in question deserves a
hearing, that it is probable, or attractive, that it opens
important views, that it is a key to perplexing diffi-
culties, or the like.
3. Treating the subject then, not according to a priori
fitness, but according to the facts of human nature, as
they are found in the concrete action of life, I find
numberless cases in which we do not assent at all, none
in which assent is evidently conditional ; — and many,
as I shall now proceed to show, in which it is uncon-
ditional, and these in subject-matters which admit of
nothing higher than probable reasoning. If human
nature is to be its own witness, there is no medium
between assenting and not assenting. Locke's theory
of the duty of assenting more or less according to
degrees of evidence, is invalidated by the testimony of
high and low, young and old, ancient and modern, as
continually given in their ordinary sayings and doings.
Indeed, as I have shown, he does not strictly maintain
it himself; yet, though he feels the claims of nature
and fact to be too strong for him in certain cases, he
gives no reason why he should violate his theory in
these, and yet not in many more.
Now let us review some of those assents, which men
give on .evidence short of iu tuition and demonstration,
yet which are as unconditional as if they had that
highest evidence.
Simple Assent. 177
First of all, starting from intuition, of course we all
believe, without any doubt, that we exist; that we
have an individuality and identity all our own ; that we
think, feel, and act, in the home of our own minds ;
that we have a present sense of good and evil, of a
right and a wrong, of a true and a false, of a beautiful
and a hideous, however we analyze our ideas of them.
We have an absolute vision before us of what happened
yesterday or last year, so as to be able without any
chance of mistake to give evidence upon it in a court
of justice, let the consequences be ever so serious. We
are sure that of many things we are ignorant, that
of many things we are in doubt, and that of many
things we are not in doubt.
Nor is the assent which we give to facts limited to
the range of self -consciousness. We are sure beyond
all hazard of a mistake, that our own self is not
the only being existing; that there is an external
world; that it is a system with parts and a whole, a
universe carried on by laws; and that the future is
affected by the past. We accept and hold with an
unqualified assent, that the earth, considered as a phe-
nomenon, is a globe; that all its regions see the
sun by turns ; that there are vast tracts on it of land
and water ; that the*re are really existing cities on
definite sites, which go by the names of London, Paris,
Florence, and Madrid. We are sure that Paris or
London, unless suddenly swallowed up by an earth-
quake or burned to the ground, is to-day just what
it was yesterday, when we left it.
We laugh to scorn the idea that we had no parents
178 Assent considered as Unconditional.
though we have no memory of our birfch ; that we shall
never depart this life, though we can have no experience
of the future ; that we are able to live without food,
though we have never tried ; that a world of men did
not live before our time, or that that world has had no
history ; that there has been no rise and fall of states,
no great men, no wars, no revolutions, no art, no
science, no literature, no religion.
We should be either indignant or amused at the re-
port of our intimate friend being false to us; and we
are able sometimes, without any hesitation, to accuse
certain parties of hostility and injustice to us. We may
have a deep consciousness, which we never can lose,
that we on our part have been cruel to others, and
that they have felt us to be so, or that we have been,
and have been felt to be, ungenerous to those who love
us. We may have an overpowering sense of our moral
weakness, of the precariousness of our life, health,
wealth, position, and good fortune. We may have a
clear view of the weak points of our physical constitu-
tion, of what food or medicine is good for us, and what
does us harm. We may be able to master, at least in
part, the course of our past history ; its turning-points,
our hits, and our great mistakes. We may have a
sense of the presence of a Supreme Being, which never
has been dimmed by even a passing shadow, which has
inhabited us ever since we can recollect any thing, and
which we cannot imagine our losing. We may be able,
for others have been able, so to realize the precepts and
truths of Christianity, as deliberately to surrender our
life, rather than transgress the one or to deny the other.
Simple Assent. 179
On all these truths we have an immediate and an
unhesitating hold, nor do we think ourselves guilty of
not loving truth for truth's sake, because we cannot
reach them through a series of intuitive propositions.
Assent on reasonings not demonstrative is too widely
recognized an act to be irrational, unless man's nature
is irrational, too familiar to the prudent and clear-
minded to be an infirmity or an extravagance. None of
us can think or act without the acceptance of truths,
not intuitive, not demonstrated, yet sovereign. If our
nature has any constitution, any laws, one of them is
this absolute reception of propositions as true, which
lie outside the narrow range of conclusions to which
logic, formal or virtual, is tethered; nor has any
philosophical theory the power to force on us a rule
which will not work for a day.
When, then, philosophers lay down principles, on
which it follows that our assent, except when given
to objects of intuition or demonstration, is con-
ditional, that the assent given to propositions by
well-ordered minds necessarily varies with the proof
producible for them, and that it does not and cannot
remain one and the same while the proof is strengthened
or weakened, — are they not to be considered as con-
fusing together two things very distinct from each
other, a mental act or state and a scientific rule, an
interior assent and a set of logical formulas ? When
they speak of degrees of assent, surely they have no
intention at all of defining the position of the mind
itself relative to the adoption of a given conclusion,
but they are recording their perception of the relation
N 2
180 Assent considered as Unconditional.
of that conclusion towards its premisses. They are
contemplating how representative symbols work, not
how the intellect is affected towards the thing which
those symbols represent. In real truth they as little
mean to assert the principle of measuring our assents
by our logic, as they would fancy they could record
the refreshment which we receive from the open air
by the readings of the 'graduated scale of a thermo-
meter. There is a connexion doubtless between a
logical conclusion and an assent, as there is between
the variation of the mercury and our sensations ; but
the mercury is not the cause of life and health, nor is
verbal argumentation the principle of inward belief.
If we feel hot or chilly, no one will convince us to the
contrary by insisting that the glass is at 60°. It is
the mind that reasons and assents, not a diagram on
paper. I may have difficulty in the management of a
proof, while I remain unshaken in my adherence to
the conclusion. Supposing a boy cannot make his
answer to some arithmetical or algebraical question
tally with the book, need he at once distrust the book?
Does his trust in it fall down a certain number of
degrees, according to the force of his difficulty ?
On the contrary he keeps to the principle, implicit
but present to his mind, with which he took up
the book, that the book is more likely to be right
than he is ; and this mere preponderance of probability
is sufficient to make him faithful to his belief in
its correctness, till its incorrectness is actually
proved.
My own opinion is, that the class of writers of
Simple Assent. 181
whom I have been speaking, have themselves as little
misgiving about the truths which they pretend to
weigh out and measure, as their unsophisticated
neighbours ; but they think it a duty to remind us,
that since the full etiquette of logical requirements
has not been satisfied, we must believe those truths at
our peril. They warn us, that an issue which can
never come to pass in matter of fact, is nevertheless
in theory a possible supposition. They do not, for
instance, intend for a moment to imply that there is
even the shadow of a doubt that Great Britain is an
island, but they think we ought to know, if we do not
know, that there is no proof of the fact, in mode and
figure, equal to the proof of a proposition of Euclid ;
and that in consequence they and we are all bound
to suspend our judgment about such a fact, though it
be in an infinitesimal degree, lest we should seem not
to love truth for truth's sake. Having made their
protest, they subside without scruple into that same
absolute assurance of only partially-proved truths,
which is natural to the illogical imagination of the
multitude.
4. It remains to explain some conversational ex-
pressions, at first sight favourable to that doctrine of
degrees in assent, which I have been combating.
(1.) We often speak of giving a modified and quali-
fied, or a presumptive and primd facie assent, or (as I
have already said) a half -assent to opinions or facts ;
but these expressions admit of an easy explanation.
Assent, upon the authority of others is often, as I have
noticed, when speaking of notional assents, little more
1 8 2 Assent considered as Unconditional.
than a profession or acquiescence or inference, not a real
acceptance of a proposition. I report, for instance, that
there was a serious fire in the town in the past night ;
and then perhaps I add, that at least the morning
papers say so; — that is, I have perhaps no positive doubt
of the fact ; still, by referring to the newspapers I imply
that I do not take on myself the responsibility of the
statement. In thus qualifying my apparent assent, I
show that it was not a genuine assent at all. In like
manner a primd facie assent is an assent to an ante-
cedent probability of a fact, not to the fact itself; as I
might give a, primd facie assent to the Plurality of worlds
or to the personality of Homer, without pledging myself
to either absolutely. " Half -assent/' of which I spoke
above, is an inclination to assent, or again, an intention
of assenting, when certain difficulties are surmounted.
When we speak without thought, assent has as vague a
meaning as half -assent ; but when we deliberately say,
" I assent," we signify an act of the mind so definite,
as to admit of no change but that of its ceasing to be.
(2.) And so, too, though we sometimes use the
phrase " conditional assent," yet we only mean thereby
to say that we will assent under certain contingencies.
Of course we may, if we please, include a condition in
the proposition to which our assent is given ; and then,
that condition enters into the matter of the assent, but
not into the assent itself. To assent to — " If this man
is in a consumption, his days are numbered/' — is as
little a conditional assent, as to assent to — " Of this
consumptive patient the days are numbered/' — which,
(though without tKe conditional form), is an equivalent
Simple Assent. 183
proposition. In such cases, strictly speaking, the
assent is given neither to antecedent nor consequent
of the conditional proposition, but to their connexion,
that is, to the enthymematic inferentia. If we place
the condition external to the proposition, then the
assent will be given to " That ' his days are numbered '
is conditionally true •" and of course we can assent to
the conditionally of a proposition as well as to its pro-
bability. Or again, if so be, we may give our assent
not only to the inferentia in a complex conditional pro-
position, but to each of the simple propositions, of
which it is made up, besides. " There will be a storm
soon, for the mercury falls ;" — here, besides assenting
to the connexion of the propositions, we may assent
also to " The mercury falls," and to " There will be a
storm." This is assenting to the premiss, inferentia,
and thing inferred, all at once; — we assent to the
whole syllogism, and to its component parts.
(3.) In like manner are to be explained the phrases,
" deliberate assent/' a " rational assent ;'; a ' ' sudden/'
"impulsive/' or "hesitating" assent. These expres-
sions denote, not kinds or qualities, but the circum-
stances of assenting. A deliberate assent is an assent
following upon deliberation. It is sometimes called a
conviction, a word which commonly includes in its
meaning two acts, both the act of inference, and the
act of assent consequent upon the inference. This sub-
ject will be considered in the next Section. On the
other hand, a hesitating assent is an assent to which
we have been slow and intermittent in coming ; or an
assent which, when givenj is thwarted and obscured
184 Assent considered as Unconditional.
by external and flitting misgivings, though not such as
to enter into the act itself, or essentially to damage it.
There is another sense in which we speak of a hesi-
tating or uncertain assent ; viz. when we assent in act,
but not in the habit of our minds. Till assent to a
doctrine or fact is my habit, I am at the mercy of
inferences contrary to it ; I assent to-day, and give up
my belief, or incline to disbelief, to-morrow. I may
find it my duty, for instance, after the opportunity of
careful inquiry and inference, to assent to another's
innocence, whom I have for years considered guilty ;
but from long prejudice I may be unable to carry my
new assent well about me, and may every now and then
relapse into momentary thoughts injurious to him.
(4.) A more plausible objection to the absolute absence
of all doubt or misgiving in an act of assent is found in
the use of the terms firm and weak assent, or in the
growth of belief and trust. Thus, we assent to the
events of history, but not with that fulness and force
of adherence to the received account of them with which
we realize a record of occurrences which are within our
own memory. And again, we assent to the praise be-
stowed on a friend's good qualities with an energy which
we do not feel, when we are speaking of virtue in the
abstract : and if we are political partisans, our assent is
very cold, when we cannot refuse it, to representations
made in favour of the wisdom or patriotism of states-
men whom we dislike. And then as to religious sub-
jects we speak of " strong " faith and " feeble " faith ;
of the faith which would move mountains, and of the
ordinary faith " without which it is impossible to please
Simple Assent. 185
God." And as we can grow in graces, so surely can
we inclusively in faith. Again we rise from one work
on Christian Evidences with our faith enlivened and
invigorated ; from another perhaps with the distracted
father's words in our mouth, " I believe, help my un-
belief/'
Now it is evident, first of all, that habits of mind may
grow, as being a something permanent and continu-
ous; and by assent growing, it is often only meant that
the habit grows and has greater hold upon the mind.
But again, when we carefully consider the matter, it
will be found that this increase or decrease of strength
does not lie in the assent itself, but in its circumstances
and concomitants ; for instance, in the emotions, in the
ratiocinative faculty, or in the imagination.
For instance, as to the emotions, this strength of
assent may be nothing more than the strength of love,
hatred, interest, desire, or fear, which the object of the
assent elicits, and this is especially the case when that
object is of a religious nature. Such strength is adven-
titious and accidental ; it may come, it may go ; it is
found in one man, not in another ; it does not interfere
with the genuineness and perfection of the act of assent.
Balaam assented to the fact of his own intercourse with
the supernatural, as well as Moses ; but, to use religious
language, he had light without love ; his intellect was
clear, his heart was cold. Hence his faith would popu-
larly be considered wanting in strength. On the other
hand, prejudice implies strong assents to th« disad-
vantage of its object ; that is, it encourages such as-
sents, and guards them irom the chance of being lost.
1 86 Assent considered as Unconditional.
Again, when a conclusion is recommended to us by
the number and force of the arguments in proof of it,
our recognition of them invests it with a luminousness,
which in one sense adds strength to our assent to it,
as it certainly does protect and embolden that assent.
Thus we assent to a review of recent events, which we
have studied from original documents, with a trium-
phant peremptoriness which it neither occurs to us,
nor is possible for us, to exercise, when we make an
act of assent to the assassination of Julius Caesar, or
to the existence of the Abipones, though we are as
securely certain of these latter facts as of the doings
and occurrences of yesterday.
And further, all that I have said about the appre-
hension of propositions is in point here. We may
speak of assent to our Lord's divinity as strong or
feeble, according as it is given to the reality as im-
pressed upon the imagination, or to the notion of it as
entertained by the intellect.
(5.) Nor, lastly, does this doctrine of the intrinsic
integrity and indivisibility (if I may so speak) of
assent interfere with the teaching of Catholic theology
as to the pre-eminence of strength in divine faith,
which has a supernatural origin, when compared with
all belief which is merely human and natural. For first,
that pre-eminence consists, not in its differing from
human faith, merely in degree of assent, but in its being
superior in nature and kind,3 so that the one does not
8 " Supernaturalis mentis assensus, rebus fidei exhlbitus, cilm prsecipue
dependent a gratia Dei intrinsecus mentem illuminante et comtnovente,
potest esse, et est, major quocunque assensu certitudini naturali prsestito,
sen ex motivis natnralibus orto," &c Dmouski, lustit. t i. p. 2$.
Simple Assent. 187
admit of a comparison with the other ; and next, its
intrinsic superiority is not a matter of experience, but
is above experience.4 Assent is ever assent ; * but in
the assent which follows on a divine announcement,
and is vivified by a divine grace, there is, from the
nature of the case, a transcendant adhesion of mind,
intellectual and moral, and a special self-protection,'
beyond the operation of those ordinary laws of thought,
which alone have a place in my discussion.
4 " Hoc [viz. multo certior est homo de eo quod audit & Deo qui falli non
potest, quam de eo quod videt propria ratione quS falli potest] intelli-
gendum est de certitudine fidei secundum appretiationem, non secundum
intentionem; nam ssepe contingit, ut scientia olarius percipiatur ab in-
tellectu, atque ut connexio scienti» cum veritate magis appareat, quam
connexio fidei cum eadem ; cognitiones enim naturales, utpote captui
nostro accommodates, magis animum quietant, delectant, et veluti
satiant." — Scavini, Theol. Moral, t. ii. p. 428.
5 " Suppono enim, veritatem fidei non esse certiorem veritate meta-
physica- aut geometric^ quoad modum assensionis, sed tantum quoad
modum adhsesionis ; quia utrinque intellectus absolute sine modo limi-
tante assentitnr. Sola autem adhaesio voluntatis diversa est ; quia in
actu fidei gratia seu habitus infusus roborat intellectum et voluntatem,
ne tarn facile mutentur aut perturbentur." — Amort, Theol. t. i. p. 312.
" Hsec distinctio certitudinis [ex diversitate motivorum] extrinsecam
tantum differentiam importat, cu.m omnis naturalis certitudo, formaliter
spectata, sit eequalis j debet enim essentialiter erroris periculum amovere,
exclusio autem periculi erroris in indivisibili consistit ; aut enim habetur
aut non habetur." — Dmouski, ibid. p. 27.
6 " Fides est certior omni veritate naturali, etiam geometrice aut meta-
physice cert&; idque non solum certitudine adhsesionis sed etiam assen-
tionis. . . . Intellectus sentit se in multis veritatibus etiam metaphysice
certis posse per objectiones perturbari, e. g. si legat scepticos. -. . . E
contrtl circa ea, quse constat esse revelatak Deo, nullus potest perturbari."
—Amort, ibid. p. 367.
1 88 Assent considered as Unconditional.
§ 2. COMPLEX ASSENT.
I HAVE been considering assent as the mental assertion
of an intelligible proposition, as an act of the intellect
direct, absolute, complete in itself, unconditional, arbi-
trary, yet not incompatible with an appeal to argument,
and at least in many cases exercised unconsciously.
On this last characteristic of assent I have not insisted,
as it has not come in my way ; nor is it more than an
accident of acts of assent, though an ordinary accident.
That it is of ordinary occurrence cannot be doubted.
A great many of our assents are merely expressions
of our personal likings, tastes, principles, motives,
and opinions, as dictated by nature, or resulting from
habit ; in other words, they are acts and manifesta-
tions of self: now what is more rare than self-
knowledge ? In proportion then to our ignorance of
self, is our unconsciousness of those innumerable acts
of assent, which we are incessantly making. And so
again in what may be almost called the mechanical
operation of our minds, in our continual acts of
apprehension and inference, speculation, and resolve,
propositions pass before us and receive our assent
without our consciousness. Hence it is that we are
so apt to confuse together acts of assent and acts of
Comp lex A ssent. 1 8 9
inference. Indeed, I may fairly say, that those assents
which we give with a direct knowledge of what we are
doing, are few compared with the multitude of like
acts which pass through our minds in long succession
without our observing them.
That mode of Assent which is exercised thus uncon-
sciously, I may call simple assent, and of it I have
treated in the foregoing Section ; but now I am going
to speak of such assents as must be made consciously
and deliberately, and which I shall call complex or
reflex assents. And I begin by recalling what I have
already stated about the relation in which Assent and
Inference stand to each other, — Inference, which holds
propositions conditionally, and Assent, which uncon-
ditionally accepts them ; the relation is this : —
Acts of Inference are both the antecedents of assent
before assenting, and its usual concomitants after as-
senting. For instance, I hold absolutely that the
country which we call India exists, upon trustworthy
testimony ; and next, I may continue to believe it on
the same testimony. In like manner, I have ever
believed that Great Britain is an island, for certain
sufficient reasons; and on the same reasons I may
persist in the belief. But it may happen that I forget
my reasons for what I believe to be so absolutely true ;
or I may never have asked myself about them, or
formally marshalled them in order, and have been
accustomed to assent without a recognition of my assent
or of its grounds, and then perhaps something occurs
which leads to my reviewing and completing those
grounds, analyzing and arranging them, yet without
190 Assent considered as Unconditional,
on that account implying of necessity any suspense,
ever so slight, of assent, to the proposition that India
is in a certain part of the earth, and that Great Britain
is an island. With no suspense of assent at all ; any
more than the boy in my former illustration had any
doubt about the answer set down in his arithmetic-book,
when he began working out the question ; any more
than he would be doubting his eyes and his common
sense, that the two sides of a triangle are together
greater than the third, because he drew out the geo-
metrical proof of it. He does but repeat, after his
formal demonstration, that assent which he made before
it, and assents to his previous assenting. This is what
I call a reflex or complex assent.
I say, there is no necessary incompatibility between
thus assenting and yet proving, — for the conclusiveness
of a proposition is not synonymous with its truth. A
proposition may be true, yet not admit of being con-
cluded ; — it may be a conclusion and yet not a truth.
To contemplate it under one aspect, is not to contem-
plate it under another; and the two aspects maybe
consistent, from the very fact that they are two aspects.
Therefore to set about concluding a proposition is not
ipso facto to doubt its truth ; we may aim at inferring
a proposition, while all the time we assent to it. We
have to do this as a common occurrence, when we take
on ourselves to convince another on any point in which
he differs from us. We do not deny our own faith,
because we become controversialists; and in like
manner we may employ ourselves in proving what we
already believe to be true, simply in order to ascertain
Complex A ssent. i g i
the producible evidence in its favour, and in order to
fulfil what is due to ourselves and to the claims and
responsibilities of our education and social position.
I have been speaking of investigation, not of inquiry ;
it is quite true that inquiry is inconsistent with assent,
but inquiry is something ntore than the mere exercise of
inference. He who inquires has not found ; he is in
doubt where the truth lies, and wishes his present pro-
fession either proved or disproved. We cannot without
absurdity call ourselves at once believers and inquirers
also. Thus it is sometimes spoken of as a hardship that
a Catholic is not allowed to inquire into the truth of
his Creed ; — of course he cannot, if he would retain the
name of believer. He cannot be both inside and outside
of the Church at once. It is merely common sense to
tell him that, if he is seeking, he has not found. If
seeking includes doubting, and doubting excludes be-
lieving, then the Catholic who sets about inquiring,
thereby declares that he is not a Catholic. He has
already lost faith. And this is his best defence to him-
self for inquiring, viz. that he is no longer a Catholic,
and wishes to become one. They who would forbid him
to inquire, would in that case be shutting the stable-
door after the steed is stolen. What can he do better
than inquire, if he is in doubt ? how else can he become
a Catholic again ? Not to inquire is in his case to be
satisfied with disbelief.
However, in thus speaking, I am viewing the matter
in the abstract, and without allowing for the manifold
inconsistencies of individuals, as they are found in the
world, who attempt to unite incompatibilities ; who do
192 Assent considered as Unconditional.
not doubt, but who act as if they did ; who, though they
believe, are weak in faith, and put themselves in the
way of losing it by unnecessarily listening to objections.
Moreover, there are minds, undoubtedly, with whom at
all times to question a truth is to make it questionable,
and to investigate is equivalent to inquiring ; and again,
there may be beliefs so sacred or so delicate, that, if I
may use the metaphor, they will not wash without
shrinking and losing colour. I grant all this ; but here
I am discussing broad principles, not individual cases ;
and these principles are, that inquiry implies doubt, and
that investigation does not imply it, and that those who
assent to a doctrine or fact may without inconsistency
investigate its credibility, though they cannot literally
inquire about its truth.
Next, I consider that, in the case of educated minds,
investigations into the argumentative proof of the things
to which they have given their assent, is an obligation,
or rather a necessity. Such a trial of their intellects is
a law of their nature, like the growth of childhood into
manhood, and analogous to the moral ordeal which is
the instrument of their spiritual life. The lessons of
right and wrong, which are taught them at school, are
to be carried out into action amid the good and evil of
the world ; and so again the intellectual assents, in
which they have in like manner been instructed from the
first, have to be tested, realized, and developed by the
exercise of their mature judgment.
Certainly, such processes of investigation, whether in
religious subjects or secular, often issue in the reversal
of the assents which they were originally intended to
Complex A ssent. 1 9 3
confirm ; as the boy who works out an arithmetical
problem from his book may end in detecting, or think-
ing he detects, a false print in the answer. But the
question before us is whether acts of assent and of
inference are compatible ; and my vague consciousness
of the possibility of a reversal of my belief in the course
of my researches, as little interferes with the honesty
and firmness of that belief while those researches pro-
ceed, as the recognition of the possibility of my train's
oversetting is an evidence of an intention on my part
of undergoing so great a calamity. My mind is not
moved by a scientific computation of chances, nor can
any law of averages affect my particular case. To incur
a risk is not to expect reverse ; and if my opinions are
true, I have a right to think that they will bear exa-
mining. Nor, on the other hand, does belief, viewed in
its idea, imply a positive resolution in the party believing
never to abandon that belief. What belief, as such,
does imply is, not an intention never to change, but the
utter absence of all thought, or expectation, or fear of
changing. A spontaneous resolution never to change
is inconsistent with the idea of belief ; for the very force
and absoluteness of the act of assent precludes any such
resolution. We do not commonly determine not- to do
what we cannot fancy ourselves ever doing. We should
readily indeed make such a formal promise if we were
called upon to do so ; for, since we have the truth, and
truth cannot change, how can we possibly change in
our belief, except indeed through our own weakness
or fickleness ? We have no intention whatever of
being weak or fickle ; so our promise is but the natural
o
194 Assent considered as Unconditional.
guarantee of our sincerity. It is possible then, without
disloyalty to our convictions, to examine their grounds,
even though in the event they are to fail under the
examination, for we have no suspicion of this failure.
And such examination, as I have said, does but fulfil
a law of our nature. Our first assents, right or wrong,
are often little more than prejudices. The reasonings,
which precede and accompany them, though sufficient
for their purpose, do not rise up to the importance and
energy of the assents themselves. As time goes on, by
degrees and without set purpose, by reflection and expe-
rience, we begin to confirm or to correct the notions and
the images to which those assents are given. At times
it is a necessity formally to undertake a survey and revi-
sion of this or that class of them, of those which relate
to religion, or to social duty, or to politics, or to the
conduct of life. Sometimes this review begins in doubt
as to the matters which we propose to consider, that is,
in a suspension of the assents hitherto familiar to us ;
sometimes those assents are too strong to allow of being
lost on the first stirring of the inquisitive intellect, and
if, as time goes on, they give way, our change of mind,
be it for good or for evil, is owing to the accumulating
force of the arguments, sound or unsound, which bear
down upon the propositions which we have hitherto
received. Objections, indeed, as such, have no direct
force to weaken assent; but, when they multiply, they
tell against the implicit reasonings or the formal infer-
ences which are its warrant, and suspend its acts and
gradually undermine its habit. Then the assent goes ;
but whether slowly or suddenly, noticeably or impercep-
Complex Assent. 195
tibly, is a matter of circumstance or accident. How-
ever, whether the original assent is continued on or not,
the new assent differs from the old in this, that it has
the strength of explicitness and deliberation, that it is
not a mere prejudice, and its strength the strength of
prejudice. It is an assent, not only to a given proposi-
tion, but to the claim of that proposition on our assent
as true ; it is an assent to an assent, or what is com-
monly called a conviction.
Of course these reflex acts maybe repeated in a series .
As I pronounce that " Great Britain is an island/' and
then pronounce " That ' Great Britain is an island ' has
a claim on my assent/' or is to " be assented-to," or to
be " accepted as true/' or to be " believed," or simply
" is true" (these predicates being equivalent), so I may
proceed, " The proposition 'that Great-Britain-is- an-
island is to be believed ' is to be believed," &c., &c., and
so on to ad infinitum. But this would be trifling. The
mind is like a double mirror, in which reflexions of self
within self multiply themselves till they are undistin-
guishable, and the first reflexion contains all the rest.
A.t the same time, it is worth while to notiee two other
reflex propositions : — "That * Great Britain is an island '
is probable " is true : — and " That ' Great Britain is an
island ' is uncertain " is true ; — for the former of these
is the expression of Opinion, and the latter of formal
or theological doubt, as I have already determined.
I have one step farther to make — let the proposition
to which the assent is given be as absolutely true as
the reflex act pronounces it to be, that is, objectively
o 2
196 Assent considered as Unconditional.
true as well as subjectively : — then the assent may be
called a perception, the conviction a certitude, the pro-
position or truth a certainty, or thing known, or &
matter of knowledge, and to assent to it is to know.
Of course, in thus speaking, I open the all-important
question, what is truth, and what apparent truth ? what
is genuine knowledge, and what is its counterfeit ? what
are the tests for discriminating certitude from mere
persuasion or delusion ? Whatever a man holds to be
true, he will say he holds for certain; and for the
present I must allow him in his assumption, hoping in
one way or another, as I proceed, to lessen the difficul-
ties which lie in the way of calling him to account for
so doing. And I have the less scruple in taking this
course, as believing that, among fairly prudent and
circumspect men, there are far fewer instances of false
certitude than at first sight might be supposed. Men
are often doubtful about propositions which are really
true ; they are not commonly certain of such as are
simply false. What they judge to be a certainty is in
matter of fact for the most part a truth. Not that
there is not a great deal of rash talking even among
the educated portion of the community, and many a
man makes professions of certitude, for which he has
no warrant ; but that such off-hand, confident language
is no token how these persons will express themselves
when brought to book. No one will with justice con-
sider himself certain of any matter, unless he has
sufficient reasons for so considering ; and it is rare that
what is not true should be so free from every circum-
stance and token of falsity as to create no suspicion in
Complex A ssent. 197
his mind to its disadvantage, no reason for suspense of
judgment. However, I shall have to remark on this
difficulty by and by ; here I will mention two con-
ditions of certitude, in close connexion with that
necessary preliminary of investigation and proof of
which I have been speaking, which will throw some
light upon it. The one, which is a priori, or from the
nature of the case, will tell us what is not certitude ;
the other, which is a posteriori, or from experience,
will tell us in a measure what certitude is.
Certitude, as I have said, is the perception of a truth
with the perception that it is a truth, or the conscious-
ness of knowing, as expressed in the phrase, " I know
that I know/' or " I know that I know that I know,"
— or simply " I know j" for one reflex assertion of the
mind about self sums up the series of self-conscious-
nesses without the need of any actual evolution of them.
1. But if so, if by certitude about a thing is to
be understood the knowledge of its truth, let it be
considered that what is once true is always true, and
cannot fail, whereas what is once known need not
always be known, and is capable of failing. It follows,
that if I am certain of a thing, I believe it will remain
what I now hold it to be, even though my mind should
have the bad fortune to let it drop. Since mere
argument is not the measure of assent, no one can be
called certain of a proposition, whose mind does not
spontaneously and promptly reject, on their first sug-
gestion, as idle, as impertinent, as sophistical, any
objections which are directed against its truth. No
man is certain of a truth, who can endure the thought
198 Assent considered as Unconditional.
of the fact of its contradictory existing or occurring ;
and that not from any set purpose or effort to reject
that thought, but, as I have said, by the spontaneous
action of the intellect. What is contradictory to the
truth, with its apparatus of argument, fades out of the
mind as fast as it enters it ; and though it be brought
back to the mind ever so often by the pertinacity of
an opponent, or by a voluntary or involuntary act of
imagination, still that contradictory proposition and its
arguments are mere phantoms and dreams, in the light
of our certitude, and their very entering into the mind
is the first step of their going out of it. Such is the
position of our minds towards the heathen fancy that
Enceladus lies under Etna ; or, not to take so extreme
a case, that Joanna Southcote was a messenger from
heaven, or the Emperor Napoleon really had a star.
Equal to this peremptory assertion of negative propo-
sitions is the revolt of the mind from suppositions incom-
patible with positive statements of which we are certain,
whether abstract truths or facts; as that a straight
line is the longest possible distance between its two
extreme points, that Great Britain is in shape an exact
square or circle, that I shall escape dying, or that my
intimate friend is false to me.
We may indeed say, if we please, that a man ought
not to have so supreme a conviction in a given case, or
in any case whatever ; and that he is therefore wrong
in treating opinions which he does not himself hold,
with this even involuntary contempt; — certainly, we
have a right to say so, if we will ; but if, in matter of
fact, a man has such a conviction, if he is sure that
Complex Assent. 1 99
Ireland is fco the West of England, or that the Pope is
the Vicar of Christ, nothing is left to him, if he would
be consistent, but to carry his conviction out into this
magisterial intolerance of any contrary assertion ; and
if he were in his own mind tolerant, I do not say patient
(for patience and gentleness are moral duties, but I
mean intellectually tolerant), of objections as objections,
he would virtually be giving countenance to the views
which those objections represented. I say I certainly
should be very intolerant of such a notion as that I
shall one day be Emperor of the French; I should
think it too absurd even to be ridiculous, and that I
must be mad before I could entertain it. And did a
man try to persuade me that treachery, cruelty, or in-
gratitude was as praiseworthy as honesty and tempe-
rance, and that a man who lived the life of a knave and
died the death of a brute had nothing to fear from
future retribution, I should think there was no call on
me to listen to his arguments, except with the hope of
converting him, though ho called me a bigot and a
coward for refusing to inquire into his speculations.
And if, in a matter in which my temporal interests were
concerned, he attempted to reconcile me to fraudulent
acts by what he called philosophical views, I should say
to him, " Ketro Satana," and that, not from any sus-
picion of his ability to reverse1 immutable principles,
but from a consciousness of my own moral changeable-
ness, and a fear, on that account, that I might not be
intellectually true to the truth. This, then, from the
nature of the case, is a main characteristic of certitude
in any matter, to be confident indeed that that certitude
2oo Assent considered as Unconditional.
will last, but to be confident of this also, that, if it did
fail, nevertheless, the thing itself, whatever it is, of
which we are certain, will remain just as it is, true and
irreversible. If this be so, it is easy to instance cases
of an adherence to propositions, which does not fulfil
the conditions of certitude ; for instance : —
(1.) How positive and circumstantial disputants may
be on two sides of a question of fact, on which they
give their evidence, till they are called to swear to it,
and then how guarded and conditional their testimony
becomes ! Again, how confident are they in their rival
accounts of a transaction at which they were present,
till a third person makes his appearance, whose word
will be decisive about it ! Then they suddenly drop
their tone, and trim their statements, and by provisos
and explanations leave themselves loopholes for escape,
in case his testimony should turn out to their dis-
advantage. At first no language could be too bold or
absolute to express the distinctness of their knowledge
on this side or that ; but second thoughts are best, and
their giving way shows that their belief does not come
up to the mark of certitude.
(2.) Again, can we doubt that many a confident
expounder of Scripture, who is so sure that St. Paul
"meant this, and that St. John and St. James did not
mean that, would be' seriously disconcerted at the
presence of those Apostles, if their presence were pos-
sible, and that they have now an especial " boldness of
speech " in treatingtheir subject, because there is no one
authoritatively to set them right, if they are wrong?
(3.) Take another instance, in which the absence of
Complex Assent. 201
Certitude is professed from the first. Though it is a
matter of faith with Catholics that miracles never cease
in the Church, still that this or that professed miracle
really took place, is for the most part only a matter of
opinion, and when it is believed, whether on testimony
or tradition, it is not believed to the exclusion of all
doubt, whether about the fact or its miraculousness.
Thus I may believe in the liquefaction of St. Pantaleon's
blood, and believe it to the best of my judgment to be
a miracle, yet, supposing a chemist offered to produce
exactly the same phenomena under exactly similar cir-
cumstances by the materials put at his command by his
science, so as to reduce what seemed beyond nature
within natural laws, I should watch with some suspense
of mind and misgiving the course of his experiment, as
having no Divine Word to fall back upon as a ground
of certainty that the liquefaction was miraculous.
(4.) Take another virtual exhibition of fear ; I mean
irritation and impatience of contradiction, vehemence of
assertion, determination to silence others, — these are
the tokens of a mind which has not yet attained the
tranquil enjoyment of certitude. No one, I suppose,
would say that he was certain of the plurality of worlds :
that uncertitude on the subject is just the explanation,
and the only explanation satisfactory to my mind, of
the strange violence of language which has before now
dishonoured the philosophical controversy upon it.
Those who are certain of a fact are indolent disputants ;
it is enough for them that they have the truth ; and they
have little disposition, except at the call of duty, to
criticize the hallucinations of others, and much less are
2O2 Assent considered as Unconditional.
they angry at their positiveness or ingenuity in argu-
ment; but to call names, to impute motives, to accuse
of sophistry, to be impetuous and overbearing, is the
part of men who are alarmed for their own position,
and fear to have it approached too nearly. And in
like manner the intemperance of language and of
thought, which is sometimes found in converts to a
religious creed, is often attributed, not without plausi-
bility (even though erroneously in the particular case),
to some flaw in the completeness of their certitude,
which interferes with the harmony and repose of their
convictions.
(5.) Again, this intellectual anxiety, which is incom-
patible with certitude, shows itself in our running back
in our minds to the arguments on which we came to
believe, in not letting our conclusions alone, in going
over and strengthening the evidence, and, as it were,
getting it by heart, as if our highest assent were only
an inference. And such too is our unnecessarily de-
claring that we are certain, as if to reassure ourselves,
and our appealing to others for their suffrage in behalf
of the truths of which we are so sure ; which is like
our asking another whether we are weary and hungry,
or have eaten and drunk to our satisfaction.
All laws are general ; none are invariable j I am not
writing as a moralist or casuist. It must ever be re-
collected that these various phenomena of mind, though
signs, are not infallible signs of uncertitude ; they may
proceed, in the particular case, from other circum-
stances. Such anxieties and alarms may be merely
emotional and from the imagination, not intellectual ;
Complex Assent. 203
parallel to that beating of the heart, nay, as I have been
told, that trembling of the limbs, of even the bravest
men, before a battle, when standing still to receive the
first attack of the enemy. Such too is that palpitating
self -inter rogation, that trouble of the mind lest it
should not believe strongly enough, which, and not
doubt, underlies the sensitiveness described in the
well-known lines, —
" With eyes too tremblingly awake,
To bear with dimness for His sake."
And so again, a man's over-earnestness in argument
may arise from zeal or charity ; his impatience from
loyalty to the truth ; his extravagance from want of
taste, from enthusiasm, or from youthful ardour; and
his restless recurrence to argument, not from personal
disquiet, but from a vivid appreciation of the contro-
versial talent of an opponent, or of his own, or of the
mere philosophical difficulties of the subject in dis-
pute. These are points for the consideration of those
who are concerned in registering and explaining what
may be called the meteorological phenomena of the
human mind, and do not interfere with the broad
principle which I would lay down, that to fear argu-
ment is to doubt the conclusion, and to be certain
of a truth is to be careless of objections to it ; — nor
with the practical rule, that mere assent is not certi-
tude, and must not be confused with it.
2. Now to consider what Certitude is, not simply
as it must be, but in our actual experience of it.
It is accompanied, as a state of mind, by a specific
feeling, proper to it, and discriminating it from other
204 Assent considered as Unconditional.
states, intellectual and moral, I do not say, as its prac-
tical test or as its differentia, but as its token, and in a
certain sense its form. When a man says he is certain,
he means he is conscious to himself of having this spe-
cific feeling. It is a feeling of satisfaction and self-
gratulation, of intellectual security, arising out of a
sense of success, attainment, possession, finality, as
regards the matter which has been in question. As a
conscientious deed is attended by a self-approval which
nothing but itself can create, so certitude is united to
a sentiment sui generis in which it lives and is mani-
fested. These two parallel sentiments indeed have no
relationship with each other, the enjoyable self-repose
of certitude being as foreign to a good deed, as -the
self- approving glow of conscience is to the perception
of a truth ; yet knowledge, as well as virtue, is an end,
and both knowledge and virtue, when reflected on,
carry with them respectively their own reward in the
characteristic sentiment, which, as I have said, is
proper to each. And, as the performance of what is
right is distinguished by this religious peace, so the
attainment of what is true is attested by this intellec-
tual security
And, as the feeling of self -approbation, which is
proper to good conduct, does not belong to the sense
or to the possession of the beautiful or of the becoming,
of the pleasant or of the useful, so neither is the special
relaxation and repose of mind, which is the token of
Certitude, ever found to attend upon simple Assent, on
processes of Inference, or on Doubt ; nor on Investiga-
tion, conjecture, opinion, as such, or on any other state
Complex Assent. 205
or action of mind, besides Certitude. On the contrary,
those acts and states of mind have gratifications proper
to themselves, and unlike that of Certitude, as will
sufficiently appear on considering them separately.
(1.) Philosophers are fond of enlarging on the plea-
sures of Knowledge, (that is, Knowledge as such,) nor
need I here prove that such pleasures exist ; but the
repose in self and in its object, as connected with self,
which I attribute to Certitude, does not attach to mere
knowing, that is, to the perception of things, but to
the consciousness of having that knowledge. The
simple and direct perception of things has its own
great satisfaction; but it must recognize them as
realities, and recognize them as known, before it
becomes the perception and has the satisfaction which
belong to certitude. Indeed, as far as I see, the plea-
sure of perceiving truth without reflecting on it as
truth, is not very different, except in intensity and
in dignity, from the pleasure, as such, of assent or
belief given to what is not true, nay, from the pleasure
of the mere passive reception of recitals or narratives,
which neither profess to be true nor claim to be
believed. Representations of any kind are in their
own nature pleasurable, whether they be true or not,
whether they come to us, or do not come, as true.
We read a history, or a biographical notice, with
pleasure ; and we read a romance with pleasure ; and
a pleasure which is quite apart from the question of
fact or fiction. Indeed, when we would persuade
young people to read history, we tell them that it is
as interesting as a romance or a novel. The mere
206 Assent considered as Unconditional.
acquisition of new images, and those images striking,
great, various, unexpected, beautiful, with, mutual
relations and bearings, as being parts of a whole,
with continuity, succession, evolution, with recurring
complications and corresponding solutions, with a
crisis and a catastrophe, is highly pleasurable, quite
independently of the question whether there is any
truth in them. I am not denying that we should be
baulked and disappointed to be told they were all
untrue, but this seems to arise from the reflection that
we have been taken in ; not as if the fact of their truth
were a distinct element of pleasure, though it would
increase the pleasure, as investing them with a character
of marvellousness, and as associating them with known
or ascertained places. But even if the pleasure of
knowledge is not thus founded on the imagination, at
least it does not consist in that triumphant repose of
the mind after a struggle, which is the characteristic
of Certitude.
And so too as to such statements as gain from us a
half-assent, as superstitious tales, stories of magic, of
romantic crime, of ghosts, or such as we follow for the
moment with a faint and languid assent, — contemporary
history, political occurrences, the news of the day, — the
pleasure resulting from these is that of novelty or curi-
osity, and is like the pleasure arising from the excite-
ment of chance and from variety ; it has in it no sense
of possession: it is simply external to us, and has
nothing akin to the thought of a battle and a victory.
(2.) Again, the Pursuit of knowledge has its own
pleasure, — as distinct from the pleasures of knowledge,
Complex Assent. 207
as it is distinct from that of consciously possessing it.
This will be evident at once, if we consider what a
vacuity and depression of mind sometimes comes upon
us on the termination of an inquiry, however success-
fully terminated, compared with the interest and spirit
with which we carried it on. The pleasure of a search,
like that of a hunt, lies in the searching, and ends at
the point at which the pleasure of Certitude begins.
Its elements are altogether foreign to those which go
to compose the serene satisfaction of Certitude. First,
the successive steps of discovery, which attend on an
investigation, are continual and ever-extending infor-
mations, and pleasurable, not only as such, but also as
the evidence of past efforts, and the earnest of success
at the last. Next, there is the interest which attaches
to a mystery, not yet removed, but tending to removal,
— the complex pleasure of wonder, expectation, sudden
surprises, suspense, and hope, of advances fitful yet
sure, to the unknown. And there is the pleasure
which attaches to the toil and conflict of the strong,
the consciousness and successive evidences of power,
moral and intellectual, the pride of ingenuity and
skill, of industry, patience, vigilance, and perseverance.
Such are the pleasures of investigation and discovery;
and to these we must add, what I have suggested in the
last sentence, the logical satisfaction, as it may be called,
which accompanies these efforts of mind. There is great
pleasure, as is plain, at least to certain minds, in pro-
ceeding from particular facts to principles, in general-
izing, discriminating, reducing into order and meaning
the maze of phenomena which nature presents to us.
so8 Assent considered as Unconditional.
This is the kind of pleasure attendant on the treatment
of probabilities which point at conclusions without reach-
ing them, or of objections which must be weighed and
measured, and adjusted for what they are worth, over
and against propositions which are antecedently evident.
It is the special pleasure belonging to Inference as
contrasted with Assent, a pleasure almost poetical, as
twilight has more poetry in it than noon-day. Such is
the joy of the pleader, with a good case in hand, and
expecting the separate attacks of half a dozen acute
intellects, each advancing from a point of his own. I
suppose this was the pleasure which the Academics had
in mind, when they propounded that happiness lay, not
in finding the truth, but in seeking it. To seek, indeed,
with the certainty of not finding what we seek, cannot
in any serious matter, be pleasurable, any more than the
labour of Sisyphus or the Danaides ; but when the result
does not concern us very much, clever arguments and
rival ones have the attraction of a game of chance or
skill, whether or not they lead to any definite conclusion.
(3.) Are there pleasures of Doubt, as well as of In-
ference and of Assent ? In one sense, there are. Not
indeed, if doubt simply means ignorance, uncertainty,
or hopeless suspense; but there is a certain grave
acquiescence in ignorance, a recognition of our im-
potence to solve momentous and urgent questioi
which has a satisfaction of its own. After hij
aspirations, after renewed endeavours, after boot
less toil, after long wanderings, after hope, effoi
weariness, failure, painfully alternating and recurring,
it is an immense relief to the exhausted mind
Complex Assent. 209
to be able to say, " At length I know that I can know
nothing about any thing " — that is, while it can main-
tain itself in a posture of thought which has no promise
of permanence, because it is unnatural. But here the
satisfaction does not lie in not knowing, but in knowing
there is nothing to know. It is a positive act of assent
or conviction, given to what in the particular case is an
untruth. It is the assent and the false certitude which
are the cause of the tranquillity of mind. Ignorance re-
mains the evil which it ever was, but something of the
peace of Certitude is gained in knowing the worst, and
in having reconciled the mind to the endurance of it.
I may seem to have been needlessly diffuse in thus
dwelling on the pleasurable affections severally attend-
ing on these various conditions of the intellect, but I
have had a purpose in doing so. That Certitude is a
natural and normal state of mind, and not (as is some-
times objected) one of its extravagances or infirmities,
is proved indeed by the remarks which I have made
above on the same objection, as directed against Assent;
for Certitude is only one of its forms. But I have
thought it well in addition to suggest, even at the ex-
pense of a digression, that as no one would refuse to
Inquiry, Doubt, and Knowledge a legitimate place
among our mental constituents, so no one can reasonably
ignore a state of mind which not only is shown to be
substantive by possessing a sentiment sui generis and
characteristic, but is analogical to Inquiry, Doubt, and
Knowledge, in the fact of its thus having a sentiment
of its own.
p
CHAPTER VII.
CERTITUDE.
§ 1. ASSENT AND CERTITUDE CONTRASTED.
IN proceeding to compare together simple assent and
complex, that is, Assent and Certitude, I begin by
observing, that popularly no distinction is made between
the two ; or rather, that in religious teaching that is
called Certitude to which I have given the name of
Assent. I have no difficulty in adopting such a use of
the words, though the course of my investigation has
led me to another. Perhaps religious assent maybe fitly
called, to use a theological term, " material certitude ;"
and the first point of comparison which I shall make
between the two states of mind, will serve to set me
right with the common way of speaking.
1. It certainly follows then, from the distinctions
which I have made, that great numbers of men must
be considered to pass through life with neither doubt
nor, on the other hand, certitude (as I have used the
words) on the most important propositions which can
occupy their minds, but with only a simple assent, that
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 211
is, an assent which they barely recognize, or bring home
to their consciousness or reflect upon, as being assent.
Such an assent is all that religious Protestants com-
monly have to show, who believe nevertheless with
their whole hearts the contents of Holy Scripture.
Such too is the state of mind of multitudes of good
Catholics, perhaps the majority, who live and die in a
simple, full, firm belief in all that the Church teaches,
because she teaches it, — in the belief of the irreversible
truth of whatever she defines and declares, — but who,
as being far removed from Protestant and other dis-
sentients, and having but little intellectual training,
have never had the temptation to doubt, and never the
opportunity to be certain. There were whole nations in
the middle ages thus steeped in the Catholic Faith, who
never used its doctrines as matter for argument or re-
search, or changed the original belief of their childhood
into the more scientific convictions of philosophy. As
there is a condition of mind which is characterized by
invincible ignorance, so there is another which may be
said to be possessed of invincible knowledge ; and it
would be paradoxical in me to deny to such a mental
state the highest quality of religious faith, — I mean
certitude.
I allow this, and therefore I will call simple assent
material certitude ; or, to use a still more apposite term
for it, interpretative certitude. I call it interpretative,
signifying thereby that, though the assent in the indi-
viduals here contemplated is not a reflex act, still the
question only has to be started about the truth of the
objects of their assent, in order to elicit from them an
p 2
2 1 2 Certitude.
act of faith in response which will fulfil the conditions
of certitude, as I have drawn them out. As to the argu-
mentative process necessary for such an act, it is valid
and sufficient, if it be carried out seriously, and propor-
tionate to their several capacities : — " The Catholic
Keligion is true, because its objects, as present to my
mind, control and influence my conduct as nothing else
does ;" or " because it has about it an odour of truth and
sanctity sui generis, as perceptible to my moral nature as
flowers to my sense, such as can only come from heaven/'
or "because it has never been to me any thing but
peace, joy, consolation, and strength, all through my
troubled life." And if the particular argument used in
some instances needs strengthening, then let it be
observed, that the keenness of thereal apprehension with
which the assent is made, though it cannot be the
legitimate basis of the assent, may still legitimately act,
and strongly act, in confirmation. Such, I say, would
be the promptitude and effectiveness of the reasoning,
and the facility of the change from assent to certitude
proper, in the case of the multitudes in question, did the
occasion for reflection occur; but it does not occur; and
accordingly, most genuine and thorough as is the
assent, it can only be called virtual, material, or inter-
pretative certitude, if I have above explained certitude
rightly.
Of course these remarks hold good in secular subjects
as well as religious : — I believe, for instance, that I am
living in an island, that Julius Caesar once invaded it,
that it has been conquered by successive races, that it
has had great political and social changes, and that at
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 213
this time it has colonies, establishments, and imperial
dominion all over the earth. All this I am accustomed
to take for granted without a thought ; but, were the
need to arise, I should not find much difficulty in
drawing out from my own mental resources reasons
sufficient to justify me in these beliefs.
It is true indeed that, among the multitudes who are
thus implicitly certain, there may be those who would
change their assents, did they seek to place them upon
an argumentative footing ; for instance, some believers
in Christianity, did they examine into its claims, might
end in renouncing it. But this is only saying that
there are genuine assents, and assents that ultimately
become not genuine ; and again, that there is an assent
which is not a virtual certitude, and is lost in the attempt
to make it certitude. And of course we are not gifted
with that insight into the minds of individuals, which
enables us to determine before the event, when it is that
an assent is really such, and when not, or not a deeply
rooted assent. Men may assent lightly, or from mere
prejudice, or without understanding what it is to
which they assent. They may be genuine believers in
Revelation up to the time when they begin formally to
examine, — nay, and really have imp licit reasons for their
belief, — and then, being overcome by the number of
views which they have to confront, and swayed by the
urgency of special objections, or biassed by their
imaginations, or frightened by a deeper insight into the
claims of religion upon the soul, may, in spite of their
habitual and latent grounds for believing, shrink back
and withdraw their assent. Or again, they may once
214 Certitude.
have believed, but their assent has gradually become a
mere profession, without their knowing it ; then, when
by accident they interrogate themselves, they find no
assent within them at all to turn into certitude. The
event, I say, alone determines whether what is out-
wardly an assent is really such an act of the mind as
admits of being developed into certitude, or is a mere
self-delusion or a cloak for unbelief.
2. Next, I observe, that, of the two modes of ap-
prehending propositions, notional and real, assent, as I
have already said, has closer relations with real than
with notional. Now a simple assent need not bo
notional ; but the reflex or confirmatory assent of cer-
titude always is given to a notional proposition, viz. to
the truth, necessity, duty, &c., of our assent to the
simple assent and to its proposition. Its predicate is a
general term, and cannot stand for a fact, whereas the
original proposition, included in it, may, and often does,
express a fact. Thus, " The cholera is in the midst of
us " is a real proposition ; but " That ( the cholera is in
the midst of us ' is beyond all doubt " is a notional.
Now assent to a real proposition is assent to an imagi-
nation, and an imagination, as supplying objects to our
emotional and moral nature, is adapted to be a prin-
ciple of action : accordingly, the simple assent to " The
cholera is among us/' is more emphatic and operative, than
the confirmatory assent, " It is beyond reasonable doubt
that ' the cholera is among us. J M The confirmation gives
momentum to the complex act of the mind, but the
simple assent gives it its edge. The simple assent would
still be operative in its measure, though the reflex assent
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 215
was, not " It is undeniable/' but " It is probable " that
" the cholera is among us ;" whereas there would be no
operative force in the mental act at all, though the
reflex assent was to the truth, not to the probability of
the fact, if the fact which was the object of the simple
assent was nothing more than " The cholera is in China/'
The reflex assent then, which is the characteristic of
certitude, does not immediately touch us ; it is purely
intellectual, and, taken by itself, has scarcely more force
than the recording of a conclusion.
I have taken an instance, in which the matter which
is submitted for examination and for assent, can
hardly fail of being interesting to the minds employed
upon it; but in many cases, even though the fact
assented-to has a bearing upon action, it is not
directly of a nature to influence the feelings or con-
duct, except of particular persons. And in such
instances of certitude, the previous labour of coming
to a conclusion, and that repose of mind which I
have above described as attendant on an assent to
its truth, often counteracts whatever of lively sensa-
tion the fact thus concluded is in itself adapted to
excite ; so that what is gained in depth and exactness
of belief is lost as regards freshness and vigour.
Hence it is that literary or scientific men, who may
have investigated some difficult point of history*
philosophy, or physics, and have come to their own
settled conclusion about it, having had a perfect
right to form one, are far more disposed to be silent
as to their convictions, and to let others alone, than
partisans on either side of the question, who take it
2 1 6 Certitude.
up with less thought and seriousness. And so again,
in the religious world, no one seems to look for any
great devotion or fervour in controversialists, writers
on Christian Evidences, theologians, and the like, it
being taken for granted, rightly or wrongly, that
such men are too intellectual to be spiritual, and are
more occupied with the truth of doctrine than with
its reality. If, on the other hand, we would see
what the force of simple assent can be, viewed apart
from its reflex confirmation, we have but to look at
the generous and uncalculating energy of faith as
exemplified in the primitive Martyrs, in the youths who
defied the pagan tyrant, or the maidens who were
silent under his tortures. It is assent, pure and simple,
which is the motive cause of great achievements ; it is
a confidence, growing out of instincts rather than argu-
ments, stayed upon a vivid apprehension, and animated
by a transcendent logic, more concentrated in will and
in deed for the very reason that it has not been sub-
jected to any intellectual development.
It must be borne in mind, that, in thus speaking, I
am contrasting with each other the simple and the
reflex assent, which together make up the complex act
of certitude. In its complete exhibition keenness in
believing is united with repose and persistence.
3. We must take the constitution of the human
mind as we find it, and not as we may judge it ought
to be ; — thus I am led on to another remark, which is
at first sight disadvantageous to Certitude. Introspec-
tion of our intellectual operations is not the best of
means for preserving us from intellectual hesitations.
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 217
To meddle with the springs of thought and action is
really to weaken them ; and, as to that argumentation
which is the preliminary to Certitude, it may indeed
be unavoidable, but, as in the case of other serviceable
allies, it is not so easy to discard it, after it has done
its work, as it was in the first instance to obtain its
assistance. Questioning, when encouraged on any
subject-matter, readily becomes a habit, and leads the
mind to substitute exercises of inference for assent,
whether simple or complex. Eeasons for assenting
suggest reasons for not assenting, and what were
realities to our imagination, while our assent was
simple, may become little more than notions, when we
have attained to certitude. Objections and difficulties
tell upon the mind ; it may lose its elasticity, and be
unable to throw them off. And thus, even as regards
things which it may be absurd to doubt, we may, in
consequence of some past suggestion of the possibility
of error, or of some chance association to their dis-
advantage, be teazed from time to time and hampered
by involuntary questionings, as if we were not certain,
when we are. Nay, there are those, who are visited
with these even permanently, as a sort of muscce
volitantes of their mental vision, ever flitting to and
fro, and dimming its clearness and completeness —
visitants, for which they are not responsible, and which
they know to be unreal, still so seriously interfering
with their comfort and even with their energy, that they
may be tempted to complain that even blind prejudice
has more of quiet and of durability than certitude.
As even Saints may suffer from imaginations in which
218 Certitude.
they have no part, so the shreds and tatters of former
controversies, and the litter of an argumentative habit,
may beset and obstruct the intellect, — questions which
have been solved without their solutions, chains of reason-
ing with missing links, difficulties which have their roots
in the nature of things, and which are necessarily left
behind in a philosophical inquiry because they cannot be
removed, and which call for the exercise of good sense
and for strength of will to put them down with a high
hand, as irrational or preposterous. Whence comes evil ?
why are we created without our consent ? how can the
Supreme Being have no beginning ? how can He need
skill, if He is omnipotent ? if He is omnipotent, why
does He permit suffering ? If He permits suffering, how
is He all-loving ? if He is all-loving, how can He be
just ? if He is infinite, what has He to do with the
finite ? how can the temporary be decisive of the eter-
nal ? — these, and a host of like questions, must arise in
every thoughtful mind, and, after the best use of reason,
must be deliberately put aside, as beyond reason, as (so
to speak) no-thoroughfares, which, having no outlet
themselves, have no legitimate power to divert us from
the King's highway, and to hinder the direct course of
religious inquiry from reaching its destination. A
serious obstruction, however, they will be now and then
to particular minds, enfeebling the faith which they
cannot destroy, — being parallel to the uncomfortable
associations with which sometimes we regard one whom
we have fallen-in with, acquaintance or stranger, arising
from some chance word, look, or action of his which we
have witnessed, and which prejudices him in our imagi-
Assent and Certitude contrasted. 219
nation, though we are angry with ourselves that it
should do so.
Again, when, in confidence of our own certitude, and
with a view to philosophical fairness, we have attempted
successfully to throw ourselves out of our habits of belief
into a simply dispassionate frame of mind, then vague
antecedent improbabilities, or what seem to us as such,
— merely what is strange or marvellous in certain truths,
merely the fact that things happen in one way and not
in another, when they must happen in some way, — may
disturb us, as suggesting to us, " Is it possible ? who
would have thought it ! what a coincidence ! " without
really touching the deep assent of our whole intellectual
being to the object, whatever it be, thus irrationally
assailed. Thus we may wonder at the Divine Mercy of
the Incarnation, till we grow startled at it, and ask why
the earth has so special a theological history, or why we
are Christians and others not, or how God can really
exert a particular governance, since He does not punish
such sinners as we are, thus seeming to doubt His power
or His equity, though in truth we are not doubting at all.
The occasion of this intellectual waywardness may be
slighter still. I gaze on the Palatine Hill, or on the
Parthenon, or on the Pyramids, which I have read of
from a boy, or upon the matter-of-fact reality of the
sacred places in the Holy Land, and I have to force my
imagination to follow the guidance of sight and of
reason. It is to me so strange that a lifelong belief
should be changed into sight, and things should be
so near me, which hitherto had been visions. And
so in times, first of suspense, then of joy ; ' ' When the
22O Certitude.
Lord turned the captivity of Sion, then" (according to
the Hebrew text)"we were like unto them that dream."
Yet it was a dream which they were certain was a truth,
while they seemed to doubt it. So, too, was it in some
sense with the Apostles after our Lord's resurrection.
Such vague thoughts, haunting or evanescent, are in
no sense akin to that struggle between faith and unbelief,
which made the poor father cry out, " I believe, help
Thou mine unbelief ! " Nay, even what in some minds
seems like an undercurrent of scepticism, or a faith
founded on a perilous substratum of doubt, need not be
more than a temptation, though robbing Certitude of its
normal peacefulness. In such a case, faith may still ex-
press the steady conviction of the intellect ; it may still
be the grave, deep, calm, prudent assurance of mature
experience, though it is not the ready and impetuous
assent of the young, the generous, or the unreflecting.
4. There is another characteristic of Certitude, in
contrast with Assent, which it is important to insist
upon, and that is, its persistence. Assents may and do
change; certitudes endure. This is why religion demands
more than an assent to its truth; it requires a certitude,
or at least an assent which is convertible into certitude
on demand. Without certitude in religious faith there
may be much decency of profession and of observance*
but there can be no habit of prayer, no directness of
devotion, no intercourse with the unseen, no generosity
of self-sacrifice. Certitude then is essential to the
Christian ; and if he is to persevere to the end, his
certitude must include in it a principle of persistence.
This it has ; as I shall explain in the next Section.
Indef edibility of Certitude* 221
§ 2. INDEPECTIBILITY OP CERTITUDE.
IT is the characteristic of certitude that its object is a
truth, a truth as such, a proposition as true. There
are right and wrong convictions, and certitude is a
right conviction; if it is not right with a consciousness
of being right, it is not certitude. Now truth cannot
change ; what is once truth is always truth ; and the
human mind is made for truth, and so rests in truth,
as it cannot rest in falsehood. When then it once
becomes possessed of a truth, what is to dispossess it ?
but this is to be certain; therefore once certitude,
always certitude. If certitude in any matter be the
termination of all doubt or fear about its truth, and an
unconditional conscious adherence to it, it carries with
it an inward assurance, strong though implicit, that it
shall never fail. Indefectibility almost enters into its
very idea, enters into it at least so far as this, that its
failure, if of frequent occurrence, would prove that
certitude was after all and in fact an impossible act,
and that what looked like it was a mere extravagance
of the intellect. Truth would still be truth, but the
knowledge of it would be beyond us and unattainable.
It is of great importance then to show, that, as a
general rule, certitude does not fail ; that failures of
222 Certitude.
what was taken for certitude are the exception ; that
the intellect, which is made for truth, can attain truth,
and, having attained it, can keep it, can recognize it,
and preserve the recognition.
This is on the whole reasonable ; yet are the stipu-
lations, thus obviously necessary for an act or state of
certitude, ever fulfilled ? We know what conjecture
is, and what opinion, and what assent is, can we point
out any specific state or habit of thought, of which the
distinguishing mark is unchangeableness ? On the
contrary, any conviction, false as well as true, may last ;
and any conviction, true as well as false, may be lost.
A conviction in favour of a proposition may be ex-
changed for a conviction of its contradictory ; and each
of them may be attended, while they last, by that sense
of security and repose, which a true object alone can
legitimately impart. No line can be drawn between
such real certitudes as have truth for their object, and
apparent certitudes. No distinct test can be named,
sufficient to discriminate between what may be called
the false prophet and the true. What looks like certi-
tude always is exposed to the chance of turning out to
be a mistake. If our intimate, deliberate conviction
may be counterfeit in the case of one proposition, why
not in the case of another ? if in the case of one man,
why not in the case of a hundred ? Is certitude then
ever possible without the attendant gift of infallibility ?
can we know what is right in one case, unless we are
secured against error in any ? Further, if one man is
infallible, why is he different from his brethren ? unless
indeed he is distinctly marked out for the prerogative.
Indef edibility of Certitude. 223
Must not all men be infallible by consequence, if any
man is to be considered as certain ?
The difficulty, thus stated argumentatively, has only
too accurate a response in what actually goes on in the
world. It is a fact of daily occurrence that men change
their certitudes, that is, what they consider to be such,
and are as confident and well-established in their new
opinions as they were once in their old. They take up
forms of religion only to leave them for their contra-
dictories. They risk their fortunes and their lives on
impossible adventures. They commit themselves byword
and deed, in reputation and position, to schemes which
in the event they bitterly repent of and renounce ; they
set out in youth with intemperate confidence in prospects
which fail them, and in friends who betray them, ere
they come to middle age ; and they end their days in
cynical disbelief of truth and virtue any where ; — and
often, the more absurd are their means and their ends, so
much the longer do they cling to them, and then again
so much the more passionate is their eventual disgust
and contempt of them. How then can certitude be
theirs, how is certitude possible at all, considering it
is so often misplaced, so often fickle and inconsistent, so
deficient in available criteria ? And, as to the feeling of
finality and security, ought it ever to be indulged ? Is
it not a mere weakness or extravagance, a deceit, to be
eschewed by every clear and prudent mind ? With the
countless instances, on all sides of us, of human falli-
bility, with the constant exhibitions of antagonist
certitudes, who can so sin against modesty and
sobriety of mind, as not to be content with probability,
224 Certitude.
as the true guide of life, renouncing ambitious
thoughts, which are sure either to delude him, or to
disappoint ?
This is what may be objected : now let us see what
can be said in answer, particularly as 'regards religious
certitude.
1.
First, as to fallibility and infallibility. It is very
common, doubtless, especially in religious controversy,
to confuse infallibility with certitude, and to argue that,
since we have nofc the one, we have not the other, for that
no one can claim to be certain on any point, who is not
infallible about all ; but the two words stand for things
quite distinct from each other. For example, I remem-
ber for certain what I did yest-erday, but still my memory
is not infallible; I am quite clear that two and two
make four, but I often make mistakes in long addition
sums. I have no doubt whatever that John or Richard
is my true friend, but I have before now trusted those
who failed me, and I may do so again before I die. A
certitude is directed to this or that particular proposition;
it is not a faculty or gift, but a disposition of mind rela-
tively to a definite case which is before me. Infallibi-
lity, on the contrary, is just that which certitude is not ;
it is a faculty or gift, and relates, not to some one truth
in particular, but to all possible propositions in a given
subject-matter. We ought in strict propriety, to speak,
not of infallible acts, but of acts of infallibility. A belief
or opinion as little admits of being called infallible, as a
deed can correctly be called immortal. A deed is done
and over ; it may be great, momentous, effective, any-
Indefectibility of Certitude. 225
thing but immortal ; it is its fame, it is the work which
it brings to pass, which is immortal, not the deed itself.
And as a deed is good or bad, but never immortal, so
a belief, opinion, or certitude is true or false, but never
infallible. We cannot speak of things which exist or
things which once were, as if they were something in
posse. It is persons and rules that are infallible, not
what is brought out into act, or committed to paper.
A man is infallible, whose words are always true ; a
rule is infallible, if it is unerring in all its possible
applications. An infallible authority is certain in every
particular case that may arise ; but a man who is
certain in some one definite case, is not on that account
infallible.
I am quite certain that Victoria is our Sovereign,
and not her father, the late Duke of Kent, without
laying any claim to the gift of infallibility ; as I may
do a virtuous action, without being impeccable. I
may be certain that the Church is infallible, while I
am myself a fallible mortal ; otherwise, I cannot be
certain that the Supreme Being is infallible, until I
am infallible myself. It is a strange objection, then,
which is sometimes urged against Catholics, that they
cannot prove and assent to the Church's infallibility,
unless they first believe in their own. Certitude, as I
have said, is directed to one or other definite concrete
proposition. I am certain of proposition one, two,
three, four, or five, one by one, each by itself. I may
be certain of one of them, without being certain of the
rest; that I am certain of the first makes it neither
likely nor unlikely that I am certain of the second ;
Q
226 Certitude.
but were I infallible, then I should be certain, not only
of one of them, but of all, and of many more besides,
which have never come before me as yet. Therefore
we may be certain of the infallibity of the Church, while
we admit that in many things we are not, and cannot
be, certain at all.
It is wonderful that a clear-headed man, like
Chillingworth, sees this as little as the run of every-
day objectors to the Catholic religion; for in his
celebrated "Religion of Protestants " he writes as
follows : — " You tell me they cannot be saved, unless
they believe in your proposals with an infallible faith.
To which end they must believe also your pro-
pounder, the Church, to be simply infallible. Now
how is it possible for them to give a rational assent
to the Church's infallibility, unless they have some
infallible means to know that she is infallible ?
Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility of
this means, but by some other ; and so on for ever,
unless they can dig so deep, as to come at length to
the Kock, that is, to settle all upon something evident
of itself, which is not so much as pretended/' *
Now what is an " infallible means " ? It is a means
of coming at a fact without the chance of mistake. It
is a proof which is sufficient for certitude in the
particular case, or a proof that is certain. When then
Chillingworth says that there can be no " rational
assent to the Church's infallibility " without " some
infallible means of knowing that she is infallible,"
he means nothing else than some means which is
1 ii, n. 154. Vide Note I at the end of the volume.
Indefectibility o/ Certitude. 227
certain; he says that for a rational assent to in-
fallibility there must be an absolutely valid or certain
proof. This is intelligible ; but observe how his
argument will run, if worded according to this in-
terpretation: "The doctrine of the Church's infalli-
bility requires a proof that is certain; and that
certain proof requires another previous certain proof,
and that again another, and so on ad injmitum,
unless indeed we dig so deep as to settle all upon
something evident of itself." What is this but to
say that nothing in this world is certain but what
is self-evident ? that nothing can be absolutely proved ?
Can he really mean this ? What then becomes of phy-
sical truth ? of the discoveries in optics, chemistry, and
electricity, or of the science of motion ? Intuition by
itself will carry us but a little way into that circle of
knowledge which is the boast of the present age.
I can believe then in the infallible Church without
my own personal infallibility. Certitude is at most
nothing more than infallibility pro hac vice, and promises
nothing as to the truth of any proposition beside its
own. That I am certain of this proposition to-day, is
no ground for thinking that I shall have a right to be
certain of that proposition to-morrow ; and that I am
wrong in my convictions about to-day's proposition,
does not hinder my having a true conviction, a genuine
certitude, about to-morrow's proposition. If indeed I
claimed to be infallible, one failure would shiver my
claim to pieces ; but I may claim to be certain of the
truth to which I have already attained, though I should
arrive at no new truths in addition as long as I live.
Q 2
228 Certitude.
2.
Let us put aside the word " infallibility ; ?> let us
understand by certitude, as I have explained it, nothing
more than a relation of the mind towards given propo-
sitions : — still, it may be urged, it involves a sense of
security and of repose, at least as regards these in parti-
cular. Now how can this security be mine, — without
which certitude is not, — if I know, as I know too well,
that before now I have thought myself certain, when I
was certain after all of an untruth ? Is not the very
possibility of certitude lost to me for ever by that one
mistake ? What happened once, may happen again.
All my certitudes before and after are henceforth de-
stroyed by the introduction of a reasonable doubt,
underlying them all. Ipso facto they cease to be
certitudes, — they come short of unconditional assents
by the measure of that counterfeit assurance. They
are nothing more to me than opinions or anticipa-
tions, judgments on the verisimilitude of intellectual
views, not the possession and enjoyment of truths.
And who has not thus been balked by false certitudes
a hundred times in the course of his experience ? and
how can certitude have a legitimate place in our mental
constitution, when it thus manifestly ministers to error
and to scepticism ?
This is what may be objected, and it is not, as I think,
difficult to answer. Certainly, the experience of mistakes
in the assents which we have made are to the prejudice
of subsequent ones. There is an antecedent difficulty
in our allowing ourselves to be certain of something
Indefectibility of Certitude. 229
to-day, if yesterday we had to give up our belief of
something else, of which we had up to that time
professed ourselves to be certain. This is true ; but
antecedent objections to an act are not sufficient of
themselves to prohibit its exercise ; they may demand
of us an increased circumspection before committing
ourselves to it, but may be met with reasons more
than sufficient to overcome them.
It must be recollected that certitude is a deliberate
assent given expressly after reasoning. If then my cer-
titude is unfounded, it is the reasoning that is in fault,
not my assent to it. It is the law of my mind to seal
up the conclusions to which ratiocination has brought
me, by that formal assent which I have called a certi-
tude. I could indeed have withheld my assent, but I
should have acted against my nature, had I done so
when there was what I considered a proof ; and I did
only what was fitting, what was incumbent on me, upon
those existing conditions, in giving it. This is the pro-
cess by which knowledge accumulates and is stored up
both in the individual and in the world. It has some-
times been remarked, when men have boasted of the
knowledge of modern times, that no wonder we see more
than the ancients, because we are mounted upon their
shoulders. The conclusions of one generation are the
truths of the next. We are able, it is our dut}y deli-
berately to take things for granted which our forefathers
had a duty to doubt about ; and unless we summarily
put down disputation on points which have been already
proved and ruled, we shall waste our time, and make no
advances. Circumstances indeed may arise, when a
2 30 Certitude.
question may legitimately be revived, which has already
been definitely determined ; but a re-consideration of
such a question need not abruptly unsettle the existing
certitude of those who engage in it, or throw them into
a scepticism about things in general, even though
eventually they find they have been wrong in a particu-
lar matter. It would have been absurd to prohibit the
controversy which has lately been held concerning the
obligations of Newton to Pascal ; and supposing it had
issued in their being established, the partisans of
Newton would not have thought it necessary to re-
nounce their certitude of the law of gravitation itself,
on the ground that they had been mistaken in their
certitude that Newton discovered it.
If we are never to be certain, after having been once
certain wrongly, then we ought never to attempt a
proof because we have once made a bad one. Errors
in reasoning are lessons and warnings, not to give up
reasoning, but to reason with greater caution. It is
absurd to break up the whole structure of our know-
ledge, which is the glory of the human intellect, because
the intellect is not infallible in its conclusions. If in
any particular case we have been mistaken in our infer-
ences and the certitudes which followed upon them,
we are bound of course to take the fact of this mistake
into account, in making up our minds on any new
question, before we proceed to decide upon it. But if,
while weighing the arguments on one side and the
other and drawing our conclusion, that old mistake
has already been allowed for, or has been, to use a
familiar mode of speaking, discounted, then it has no
InaeJ edibility of Certitude. 231
outstanding claim against our acceptance of that con-
clusion, after it has actually been drawn. Whatever
be the legitimate weight of the fact of that mistake in
our inquiry, justice has been done to it, before we have
allowed ourselves to be certain again. Suppose I am
walking out in the moonlight, and see dimly the out-
lines of some figure among the trees -, — it is a man. I
draw nearer, — it is still a man ; nearer still, and all
hesitation is at an end, — I am certain it is a man. But
he neither moves, nor speaks when I address him ; and
then I ask myself what can be his purpose in hiding
among the trees at such an hour. I come quite close
to him, and put out my arm. Then I find for certain
that what I took for a man is but a singular shadow,
formed by the falling of the moonlight on the inter-
stices of some branches or their foliage. Am I not to
indulge my second certitude, because I was wrong in
my first ? does not any objection, which lies against
my second from the failure of my first, fade away be-
fore the evidence on which my second is founded ?
Or again : I depose on my oath in a court of justice,
to the best of my knowledge and belief, that I was robbed
by the prisoner at the bar. Then, when the real offender
is brought before me, I am obliged, to my great confu-
sion, to retract. Because I have been mistaken in my
certitude, may I not at least be certain that I have been
mistaken ? And further, in spite of the shock which
that mistake gives me, is it impossible that the sight ol
the real culprit may give me so luminous a conviction
that at length I have got the right man, that, were it
decent towards the court, or consistent with self-respect,
232 Certitude.
I may find myself prepared to swear to the identity of
the second, as I have already solemnly committed myself
to the identity of the first ? It is manifest that the
two certitudes stand each on its own basis, and the
antecedent objection to my admission of a truth which
was brought home to me second, drawn from a hallu-
cination which came first, is a mere abstract argument,
impotent when directed against good evidence lying
in the concrete.
8.
If in the criminal case which I have been supposing,
the second certitude, felt by a witness, was a legitimate
state of mind, so was the first. An act, viewed in itself,
is not wrong because it is done wrongly. False certi-
tudes are faults because they are false, not because they
are (supposed) certitudes. They are, or may be, the
attempts and the failures of an intellect insufficiently
trained, or off its guard. Assent is an act of the mind,
congenial to its nature ; and it, as other acts, may be
made both when it ought to be made, and when it
ought not. It is a free act, a personal act for which
the doer is responsible, and the actual mistakes in
making it, be they ever so numerous or serious, have no
force whatever to prohibit the act itself. We are accus-
tomed in such cases, to appeal to the maxim, " Usum
non tollit abusus ;" and it is plain that, if what may be
called functional disarrangements of the intellect are to
be considered fatal to the recognition of the functions
themselves, then the mind has no laws whatever and no
normal constitution. I just now spoke of the growth
Indefectibility of Certitude. 233
of knowledge ; there is also a growth in the use of those
faculties by which knowledge is acquired. The intellect
admits of an education ; man is a being of progress ; he
has to learn how to fulfil his end, and to be what facts
show that he is intended to be. His mind is in the first
instance in disorder, and runs wild ; his faculties have
their rudimental and inchoate state, and are gradually
carried on by practice and experience to their perfec-
tion. No instances then whatever of mistaken certi-
tude are sufficient to constitute a proof, that certitude
itself is a perversion or extravagance of his nature.
We do not dispense with clocks, because from time
to time they go wrong, and tell untruly. A clock, or-
ganically considered, may be perfect, yet it may require
regulating. Till that needful work is done, the
moment-hand perhaps marks the half-minute, when
the minute-hand is at the quarter-past, and the hour
hand is just at noon, and the quarter-bell strikes the
three-quarters, and the hour-bell strikes four, while
the sun-dial precisely tells two o'clock. The sense of
certitude may be called the bell of the intellect ; and
that it strikes when it should not is a proof that the
clock is out of order, no proof that the bell will be un-
trustworthy and useless, when it comes to us adjusted
and regulated from the hands of the clock-maker.
Our conscience too may be said to strike the hours,
and will strike them wrongly, unless it be duly regu-
lated for the performance of its proper function. It is
the loud announcement of the principle of right in the
details of conduct, as the sense of certitude is the clear
witness to what is true. Both certitude and conscience
2 34 Certitude.
have a place in the normal condition of the mind. As
a human being, I am unable, if I were to try, to live
without some kind of conscience ; and I am as little
able to live without those landmarks of thought which
certitude secures for me; still, as the hammer of a
clock may tell untruly, so may my conscience and my
sense of certitude be attached to mental acts, whether
of consent or of assent, which have no claim to be thus
sanctioned. Both the moral and the intellectual
sanction are liable to be biassed by personal inclina-
tions and motives ; both require and admit of disci-
pline ; and, as it is no disproof of the authority of
conscience that false consciences abound, neither
does it destroy the importance and the uses of certi-
tude, because even educated minds, who are earnest in
their inquiries after the truth, in many cases remain
under the power of prejudice or delusion.
To this deficiency in mental training a wider error is
to be attributed, — the mistaking for conviction and
certitude states and frames of mind which make no
pretence to the fundamental condition on which con-
viction rests as distinct from assent. The multitude of
men confuse together the probable, the possible, and
the certain, and apply these terms to doctrines and
statements almost at random. They have no clear
view what it is they know, what they presume, what
they suppose, and what they only assert. They make
little distinction between credence, opinion, and profes-
sion ; at various times they give them all perhaps the
name of certitude, and accordingly, when they change
their minds, they fancy they have given up points of
Indefectibility of Certitude. 2 3 5
which they had a true conviction. Or at least by-
standers thus speak of them, and the very idea of
certitude falls into disrepute.
In this day the subject-matter of thought and belief
has so increased upon us, that a far higher mental for-
mation is required than was necessary in times past,
and higher than we have actually reached. The whole
world is brought to our doors every morning, and our
judgment is required upon social concerns, books, per-
sons, parties, creeds, national acts, political principles
and measures. We have to form our opinion, make
our profession, take our side on a hundred matters on
which we have but little right to speak at all. But we
do speak, and must speak, upon them, though neither
we nor those who hear us are well able to determine
what is the real position of our intellect relatively to
those many questions, one by one, on which we commit
ourselves; and then, since many of these questions
change their complexion with the passing hour, and
many require elaborate consideration, and many are
simply beyond us, it is not wonderful, if, at the end of
a few years, we have to revise or to repudiate our con-
clusions ; and then we shall be unfairly said to have
changed our certitudes, and shall confirm the doctrine,
that, except in abstract truth, no judgment rises higher
than probability.
Such are the mistakes about certitude among edu-
cated men ; and after referring to them, it is scarcely
worth while to dwell upon the absurdities and excesses
of the rude intellect, as seen in the world at large ; as
if any one could dream of treating as deliberate assents,
236 Certitude.
as assents upon assents, as convictions or certitudes,
the prejudices, credulities, infatuations, superstitions,
fanaticisms, the whims and fancies, the sudden irre-
vocable plunges into the unknown, the obstinate deter-
minations,— the offspring, as they are, of ignorance,
wilfulness, cupidity, and pride, — which go so far to
make up the history of mankind ; yet these are often
set down as instances of certitude and of its failure.
4.
I have spoken of certitude as being assigned a definite
and fixed place among our mental acts ; it follows upon
examination and proof, as the bell sounds the hour,
when the hands reach it, — so that no act or state of
•the intellect is certitude, however it may resemble it,
which does not observe this appointed law. This pro-
viso greatly diminishes the catalogue of genuine cer-
titudes. Another restriction is this : — the occasions
or subject-matters of certitude are under law also.
Putting aside the daily exercise of the senses, the
principal subjects in secular knowledge, about which
we can be certain, are the truths or facts which are its
basis. As to this world, we are certain of the elements
of knowledge, whether general, scientific, historical, or
such as bear on our daily needs and habits, and relate
to ourselves, our homes and families, our friends,
neighbourhood, country, and civil state. Beyond these
elementary points of knowledge, lies a vast subject-
matter of opinion, credence, and belief, viz. the field
of public affairs, of social and professional life, of
business, of duty, of literature, of taste, nay, of the
Indefectibility of Certitude. 237
experimental sciences. On subjects such as these the
reasonings and conclusions of mankind vary, — " mun-
dum tradidit disputation! eorum ;" — and prudent men
in consequence seldom speak confidently, unless they
are warranted to do so by genius, great experience, or
some special qualification. They determine their
judgments by what is probable, what is safe, what
promises best, what has verisimilitude, what impresses
and sways them. They neither can possess, nor need
certitude, nor do they look out for it.
Hence it is that — the province of certitude being go
contracted, and that of opinion so large — it is common
to call probability the guide of life. This saying, when
properly explained, is true ; however, we must not
suffer ourselves to carry a true maxim to an extreme ;
it is far from true, if we so hold it as to forget that
without first principles there can be no conclusions at
all, and that thus probability does in some sense pre-
suppose and require the existence of truths which are
certain. Especially is the maxim untrue, in respect to
the other great department of knowledge, the spiritual,
if taken to support the doctrine, that the first principles
and elements of religion, which are universally received,
are mere matter of opinion ; though in this day, it is
too often taken for granted that religion is one of those
subjects on which truth cannot be discovered, and on
which one conclusion is pretty much on a level with
another. But on the contrary, the initial truths of
divine knowledge ought to be viewed as parallel to the
initial truths of secular : as the latter are certain, so
too are the former. I cannot indeed deny that a decent
238 Certitude.
reverence for the Supreme Being, an acquiescence in the
claims of Revelation, a general profession of Christian
doctrine, and some sort of attendance on sacred ordi-
nances, is in fact all the religion that is usual with even
the better sort of men, and that for all this a sufficient
basis may certainly be found in probabilities ; but if
religion is to be devotion, and not a mere matter of
sentiment, if it is to be made the ruling principle of
our lives, if our actions, one by one, and our daily con-
duct, are to be consistently directed towards an Invis-
ible Being, we need something higher than a mere
balance of arguments to fix and to control our minds.
Sacrifice of wealth, name, or position, faith and hope,
self-conquest, communion with the spiritual world, pre-
suppose a real hold and habitual intuition of the objects
of Revelation, which is certitude under another name.
To this issue indeed we may bring the main differ-
ence, viewed philosophically, between nominal Chris-
tianity on the one hand, and vital Christianity on the
other. Rational, sensible men, as they consider them-
selves, men who do not comprehend the very notion
of loving God above all things, are content with such
a measure of probability for the truths of religion, as
serves them in their secular transactions \ but those
who are deliberately staking their all upon the hopes
of the next world, think it reasonable, and find it
necessary, before starting on their new course, to have
some points, clear and immutable, to start from;
otherwise, they will not start at all. They ask, as a
preliminary condition, to have the ground sure under
their feet ; they look for more than human reasonings
Indef edibility of Certitude. 239
and inferences, for nothing less than the " strong
consolation/' as the Apostle speaks, of those "im-
mutable things in which it is impossible for God to
lie," His counsel and His oath. Christian earnestness
may be ruled by the world to be a perverseness or a
delusion ; but, as long as it exists, it will presuppose
certitude as the very life which is to animate it.
This is the true parallel between human and divine
knowledge; each of them opens into a large field of
mere opinion, but in both the one and the other the
primary principles, the general, fundamental, cardinal
truths are immutable. In human matters we are
guided by probabilities, but, I repeat, they are proba-
bilities founded on certainties. It is on no probability
that we are constantly receiving the informations and
dictates of sense and memory, of our intellectual in-
stincts, of the moral sense, and of the logical faculty.
It is on no probability that we receive the general-
izations of science, and the great outlines of history.
These are certain truths ; and from them each of us
forms his own judgments and directs his own course,
according to the probabilities which they suggest to
him, as the navigator applies his observations and his
charts for the determination of his course. Such is
the main view to be taken of the separate provinces of
probability and certainty in matters of this world ; and
so, as regards the world invisible and future, we have
a direct and conscious knowledge of our Maker, His
attributes, His providences, acts, works, and will, from
nature, and revelation ; and, beyond this knowledge lies
the large domain of- theology, metaphysics, and ethics,
240 Certitude.
on which it is not allowed to us to advance beyond
probabilities, or to attain to more than an opinion.
Such on the whole is the analogy between our
knowledge of matters of this world and matters of the
world unseen; — indefectible certitude in primary truths,
manifold variations of opinion in their application and
disposition.
5.
I have said that Certitude, whether in human or
divine knowledge, is attainable as regards general and
cardinal truths; and that in neither department of
knowledge, on the whole, is certitude discredited, lost,
or reversed : for, in matter of fact, whether in human
or divine, those primary truths have ever kept their
place from the time when they first took possession of
it. However, there is one obvious objection which
may be made to this representation, and I proceed to
take notice of it.
It may be urged then, that time was when the
primary truths of science were unknown, and when in
consequence various theories were held, contrary to each
other. The first element of all things was said to be
water, to be air, to be fire; the framework of the
universe was eternal ; or it was the ever-new combina-
tion of innumerable atoms : the planets were fixed in
solid crystal revolving spheres ; or they moved round
the earth in epicycles mounted upon circular orbits ;
or they were carried whirling round about the sun,
while the sun was whirling round the earth. About
such doctrines there was no certitude, no more than
there is now certitude about the origin of languages,
Indef edibility of Certitiide. 241
the age of man, or the evolution of species, considered
as philosophical questions. Now theology is at present
in the very same state in which natural science was five
hundred years ago ; and this is the proof of it, — that,
instead of there being one received theological science in
the world, there are a multitude of hypotheses. We
have a professed science of Atheism, another of Deism, a
Pantheistic, ever so many Christian theologies, to say
no thing of Judaism, Islamism, and the Oriental religions.
Each of these creeds has its own upholders, and these
upholders all certain that it is the very and the only
truth, and these same upholders, it may happen, pre-
sently giving it up, and then taking up some other
creed, and being certain again, as they profess, that it
and it only is the truth, these various so-called truths
being incompatible with each other. Are not Jews
certain about their interpretation of their law ? yet they
become Christains : are not Catholics certain about the
new law ? yet they become Protestants. At present
then, and as yet, there is no clear certainty anywhere
about religious truth at all ; it has still to be discovered ;
and therefore for Catholics to claim the right to lay
down the first principles of theological science in their
own way, is to assume the very matter in dispute.
First let their doctrines be universally received, and
then they will have a right to place them on a level
with the certainty which belongs to the laws of motion
or of refraction. This is the objection which I propose
to consider.
Now first as to the want of universal reception which
is urged against the Catholic dogmas, this part of the
B
Certitude,
objection will not require many words. Surely a truth
or a fact may be certain, though it is not generally
received ; — we are each of us ever gaining through our
senses various certainties, which no one shares with us ;
again, the certainties of the sciences are in the possession
of a few countries only, and for the most part only of
the educated classes in those countries ; yet the philo-
sophers of Europe and America would feel certain that
the earth rolled round the sun, in spite of the Indian
belief of its being supported by an elephant with a tor-
toise under it. The Catholic Church then, though not
universally acknowledged, may without inconsistency
claim to teach the primary truths of religion, just as
modern science, though but partially received, claims to
teach the great principles and laws which are the foun-
dation of secular knowledge, and that with a significance
to which no other religious system can pretend, because
it is its very profession to speak to all mankind, and its
very badge to be ever making converts all over the
earth, whereas other religions are more or less variable
in their teaching, tolerant of each other, and local, and
professedly local, in their habitat and character.
This, however, is not the main point of the objection ;
the real difficulty lies not in the variety of religions,
but in the contradiction, conflict, and change of reli-
gious certitudes. Truth need not be universal, but it
must of necessity be certain ; and certainty, in order
to be certainty, must endure ; yet how is this reason-
able expectation fulfilled in the case of religion ? On
the contrary, those who have been the most certain in
their beliefs are sometimes found to lose them, Catholics
Indef edibility of Certitude. 243
as well as others ; and then to take up new beliefs,
perhaps contrary ones, of which they become as certain
as if they had never been certain of the old.
In answering this representation, I begin with recur •
ring to the remark which I have already made, that
assent and certitude have reference to propositions, one
by one. We may of course assent to a number of pro-
positions all together, that is, we may make a number
of assents all at once ; but in doing so we run the risk
of putting upon one level, and treating as if of the same
value, acts of the mind which are very different from
each other in character and circumstance. An assent,
indeed, is ever an assent ; but given assents may be
strong or weak, deliberate or impulsive, lasting or
ephemeral. Now a religion is not a proposition, but a
system ; it is a rite, a creed, a philosophy, a rule of duty,
all at once ; and to accept a religion is neither a simple
assent to it nor a complex, neither a conviction nor
a prejudice, neither a notional assent nor a real, not
a mere act of profession, nor of credence, nor of opinion,
nor of speculation, but it is a collection of all these
various kinds of assents, at once and together, some of
one description, some of another ; but, out of all these
different assents, how many are of that kind which I
have called certitude ? Certitudes indeed do not change,
but who shall pretend that assents are indefectible ?
For instance : the fundamental dogma of Protestant-
ism is the exclusive authority of Holy Scripture ; but
in holding this a Protestant holds a host of propositions,
explicitly or implicitly, and holds them with assents
of various character. Among these propositions, ne
B 2
244 Certitude,
holds that Scripture is the Divine Eevelation itself, that
it is inspired, that nothing is known in doctrine but
what is there, that the Church has no authority in mat-
ters of doctrine, that, as claiming it, it was condemned
long ago in the Apocalypse, that St. John wrote the
Apocalypse, that justification is by faith only, that our
Lord is God, that there are seventy-two generations
between Adam and our Lord. Now of which, out of
all these propositions, is he certain ? and to how many
of them is his assent of one and the same description ?
His belief, that Scripture is commensurate with the
Divine Revelation, is perhaps implicit, not conscious ;
as to inspiration, he does not well know what the word
means, and his assent is scarcely more than a profes-
sion ; that no doctrine is true but what can be proved
from Scripture he understands, and his assent to it is
what I have called speculative ; that the Church has
no authority he holds with a real assent or belief; that
the Church is condemned in the Apocalypse is a stand-
ing prejudice ; that St. John wrote the Apocalypse is
his opinion; that justification is by faith only, he
accepts, but scarcely can be said to apprehend ; that
our Lord is God perhaps he is certain; that there are
seventy-two generations between Adam and Christ he
accepts on credence. Yet, if he were asked the ques-
tion, he would most probably answer that he was
certain of the truth of "Protestantism," though
" Protestantism " means these things and a hundred
more all at once, and though he believes with actual
certitude only one of them all, — that indeed a dogma
of most sacred importance, but not the discovery of
Indefectibility of Certitude. 245
Luther or Calvin. He would think it enough to say
that he was a foe to " Romanism " and " Socinianism,"
and to avow that he gloried in the Reformation. He
looks upon each of these religious professions, Protes-
tantism, Romanism, Socinianism ancT Theism, merely
as units, as if they were not each made up of many
elements, as if they had nothing in common, as if a
transition from the one to the other involved a simple
obliteration of all that had been as yet written on his
mind, and would be the reception of a new faith.
When, then, we are told that a man has changed from
one religion to another, the first question which we
have to ask, is, have the first and the second religions
nothing in common ? If they have common doctrines,
he has changed only a portion of his creed, not the
whole : and the next question is, has he ever made much
of any doctrines but such as are if otherwise common
to his new creed and his old ? what doctrines was he
certain of among the old, and what among the new ?
Thus, of three Protestants, one becomes a Catholic, a
second a Unitarian, and a third an unbeliever : how is
this ? The first becomes a Catholic, because he assented,
as a Protestant, to the doctrine of our Lord's divinity,
with a real assent and a genuine conviction, and because
this certitude, taking possession of his mind, led him on
to welcome the Catholic doctrines of the Real Presence
and of the Theotocos, till his Protestantism fell off from
him, and he submitted himself to the Church. The
second became a Unitarian, because, proceeding on the
principle that Scripture was the rule of faith and that a
man's private judgment was its rule of interpretation.
246 Certitude.
and finding that the doctrine of the Nicene and Athana-
sian Creeds did not follow by logical necessity from the
text of Scripture, he said to himself, "The word of God
has been made of none effect by the traditions of men,"
and therefore nothing was left for him but to profess
what he considered primitive Christianity, and to be-
come a Humanitarian. The third gradually subsided
into infidelity, because he started with the Protestant
dogma, cherished in the depths of his nature, that a
priesthood was a corruption of the simplicity of the
Gospel. First, then, he would protest against the
sacrifice of the Mass ; next he gave up baptismal re-
generation, and the sacramental principle ; then he
asked himself whether dogmas were not a restraint on
Christian liberty as well as sacraments ; then came the
question, what after all was the use of teachers of reli-
gion ? why should any one stand between him and his
Maker ? After a time it struck him, that this obvious
question had to be answered by the Apostles, as well
as by the Anglican clergy ; so he came to the conclu-
sion that the true and only revelation of God to man
is that which is written on the heart. This did for a
time, and he remained a Deist. But then it occurred
to him, that this inward moral law was there within
the breast, whether there was a God or not, and that
it was a roundabout way of enforcing that law, to say
that it came from God, and simply unnecessary, con-
sidering it carried with it its own sacred and sovereign
authority, as our feelings instinctively testified; and
when he turned to look at the physical world around
him, he really did not see what scientific proof there
Indefectibility of Certi tude. 247
was there of the Being of God at all, and it
seemed to him as if all things would go on quite as
well as at present, without that hypothesis as with it ;
so he dropped it, and became a purus, putus Atheist.
Now the world will say, that in these three cases old
certitudes were lost, and new were gained ; but it is
not so : each of the three men started with just one
certitude, as he would have himself professed, had he
examined himself narrowly ; and he carried it out and
carried it with him into a new system of belief. He
was true to that one conviction from first to last ; and
on looking back on the past, would perhaps insist upon
this, and say he had really been consistent all through,
when others made much of his great changes in reli-
gious opinion. He has indeed made serious additions
to his initial ruling principle, but he has lost no con-
viction of which he was originally possessed.
I will take one more instance. A man is converted
to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its reli-
gious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That
admiration remains ; but, after a time, he leaves his
new faith, perhaps returns to his old. The reason, if
we may conjecture, may sometimes be this : he has
never believed in the Church's infallibility ; in her doc-
trinal truth he has believed, but in her infallibility, no.
He was asked, before he was received, whether he held
all that the Church taught, he replied he did ; but he
understood the question to mean, whether he held those
particular doctrines " which at that time the Church in
matter of fact formally taught," whereas it really meant
" whatever the Church then or at any future time
248 Certitude.
should teach/' Thus, he never had the indispensable
and elementary faith of a Catholic, and was simply no
subject for reception into the fold of the Church. This
being the case, when the Immaculate Conception is
defined, he feels that it is something more than he
bargained for when he became a Catholic, and accord-
ingly he gives up his religious profession. The world
will say that he has lost his certitude of the divinity
of the Catholic Faith, but he never had it.
The first point to be ascertained, then, when we hear
of a change of religious certitude in another, is, what
the doctrines are on which his so-called certitude
before now and at present has respectively fallen. All
doctrines besides these were the accidents of his pro-
fession, and the indefectibility of certitude would not
be disproved, though he changed them every year.
There are few religions which have no points in com-
mon ; and these, whether true or false, when embraced
with an absolute conviction, are the pivots on which
changes take place in that collection of credences,
opinions, prejudices, and other assents, which make up
what is called a man's selection and adoption of a form
of religion, a denomination, or a Church. There have
been Protestants whose idea of enlightened Christianity
has been a strenuous antagonism to what they consider
the unmanliness and unreasonableness of Catholic
morality, an antipathy to the precepts of patience,
meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and chastity. All
this they have considered a woman's religion, the
ornament of monks, of the sick, the feeble, and the old.
Lust, revenge, ambition, courage, pride, these, they
Indefectibility of Certitude. 249
have fancied, made the man, and want of them the
slave. No one could fairly accuse such men of any
great change of their convictions, or refer to them in
proof of the defectibility of certitude, if they were one
day found to have taken up the profession of Islam.
And if this intercommunion of religions holds good,
even when the common points between them are but
errors held in common, much more natural will be the
transition from one religion to another, without injury
to existing certitudes, when the common points, the
objects of those certitudes, are truths ; and still stronger
in that case and more constraining will be the sympathy,
with which minds that love truth, even when they have
surrounded it with error, will yearn towards the
Catholic faith, which contains within itself, and claims
as its own, all truth that is elsewhere to be found, and
more than all, and nothing but truth. This is the
secret of the influence, by which the Church draws to
herself converts from such various and conflicting re-
ligions. They come, not so much to lose what they have,
as to gain what they have not ; and in order that, by
means of what they have, more may be given to them.
St. Augustine tells us that there is no false teaching
without an intermixture of truth ; and it is by the light
of those particular truths, contained respectively in the
various religions of men, and by our certitudes about
them, which are possible wherever those truths are found,
that we pick our way, slowly perhaps, but surely, into
the One Religion which God has given, taking our certi-
tudes with us,not to lose, but to keep them more securely,
and to understand and love their objects more perfectly.
2 5O Certitude.
Not even are idolaters and heathen out of the range
of some of these religious truths and their correlative
certitudes. The old Greek and Roman polytheists had,
as they show in their literature, clear and strong notions,
nay, vivid mental images, of a Particular Providence, of
the power of prayer, of the rule of Divine Governance,
of the law of conscience, of sin and guilt, of expiation
by means of sacrifices, and of future retribution : I will
even add, of the Unity and Personality of the Supreme
Being. This it is that throws such a magnificent light
over the Homeric poems, the tragic choruses, and the
Odes of Pindar; and it has its counterpart in the
philosophy of Socrates and of the Stoics, and in such
historians as Herodotus. It would be out of place to
speak confidently of a state of society which has passed
away, but at first sight it does not appear why the
truths which I have enumerated should not have re-
ceived as genuine and deliberate an assent on the part
of Socrates or Clanthes, (of course with divine aids,
but they do not enter into this discussion), as was
given to them by St. John or St. Paul, nay, an assent
which rose to certitude. Much more safely may it
be pronounced of a Mahometan, that he may have a
certitude of the Divine Unity, as well as a Christian;
and of a Jew, that he may believe as truly as a Christian
in the resurrection of the body; and of a Unitarian
that he can give a deliberate and real assent to the fact
of a supernatural revelation, to the Christian miracles,
to the eternal moral law, and to the immortality of the
soul. And so, again, a Protestant may, not only in
words, but in mind and heart, hold, as if he were a
I ndef edibility of Certitude. 25 1
Catholic, with simple certitude, the doctrines of the
Holy Trinity, of the fall of man, of the need of re-
generation, of the efficacy of Divine Grace, and of the
possibility and danger of falling away. And thus it is
conceivable that a man might travel in his religious
profession all the way from heathenism to Catholicity,
through Mahometanism, Judaism, Unitarianism, Pro-
testantism, and Anglicanism, without any one certitude
lost, but with a continual accumulation of truths, which
claimed from him and elicited in his intellect fresh and
fresh certitudes.
In saying all this, I do not forget that the same
doctrines, as held in different religions, may be and
often are held very differently, as belonging to distinct
wholes or forms, as they are called, and exposed to the
influence and the bias of the teaching, perhaps false,
with which they are associated. Thus, for instance^
whatever be the resemblance between St. Augustine's
doctrine of Predestination and the tenet of Calvin
upon it, the two really differ from each other toto ccelo
in significance and effect, in consequence of the place
they hold in the systems in which they are respectively
incorporated, just as shades and tints show so differ-
ently in a painting according to the masses of colour
to which they are attached. But, in spite of this, a
man may so hold the doctrine of personal election as
a Calvinist, as to be able still to hold it as a Catholic.
However, I have been speaking of certitudes which
remain unimpaired, or rather confirmed, by a change of
religion ; on the contrary there are others, whether we
call them certitudes or convictions, which perish in the
252 Certitude.
change, as St. Paul's conviction of the sufficiency of
the Jewish Law came to an end on his becoming a
Christian. Now how is such a series of facts to be re-
conciled with the doctrine which I have been enforcing ?
What conviction could be stronger than the faith of
the Jews in the perpetuity of the Mosaic system ?
Those, then, it may be said, who abandoned Judaism
for the Gospel, surely, in so doing, bore the most em-
phatic of testimonies to the defectibility of certitude.
And, in like manner, a Mahometan may be so deeply
convinced that Mahomet is the prophet of God, that it
would be only by a quibble about the meaning of the
word " certitude " that we could maintain, that, on his
becoming a Catholic, he did not unequivocally prove
that certitude is defectible. And it may be argued,
perhaps, in the case of some members of the Church
of England, that their faith in the validity of Anglican
orders, and the invisibility of the Church's unity, is so
absolute, so deliberate, that their abandonment of it,
did they become Catholics or sceptics, would be tanta-
mount to the abandonment of a certitude.
Now, in meeting this difficulty, I will not urge (lest
I should be accused of quibbling), that certitude is a
conviction of what is true, and that these so-called cer-
titudes have come to nought, because, their objects being
errors, not truths, they really were not certitudes at all ;
nor will I insist, as I might, that they ought to be
proved first to be something more than mere prejudices,
assents without reason and judgment, before they can
fairly be taken as instances of the defectibility of
certitude -, but I simply ask, as regards the zeal of the
I ndef edibility of Certitude. 253
Jews for the sufficiency of their law, (even though it
implied genuine certitude, not a prejudice, not a mere
conviction,) still was such zeal, such professed certitude,
found in those who were eventually converted, or in
those who were not; for, if those who had not that
certitude became Christians and those who had it
remained Jews, then loss of certitude in the latter is
not instanced in the fact of the conversion of the former.
St. Paul certainly is an exception, but his conversion,
as also his after-life, was miraculous ; ordinarily speak-
ing, it was not the zealots who supplied members to
the Catholic Church, but those "men of good will,"
who, instead of considering the law as perfect and
eternal, " looked for the redemption of Israel/' and for
" the knowledge of salvation in the remission of sins."
And, in like manner, as to those learned and devout
men among the Anglicans at the present day, who
come so near the Church without acknowledging her
claims, I ask whether there are not two classes among
them also, — those who are looking out beyond their
own body for the perfect way, and those on the other
hand who teach that the Anglican communion is the
golden mean between men who believe too much and
men who believe too little, the centre of unity to
which East and West are destined to gravitate, the
instrument and the mould, as the Jews might think of
their own moribund institutions, through which the
kingdom of Christ is to be established all over the
earth. And next I would ask, which of these two
classes supplies converts to the Church ; for if they
come from among those who never professed to be
254 Certitude.
quite certain of the special strength of the Anglican
position, such men cannot be quoted as instances of the
defectibility of certitude.
There is indeed another class of beliefs, of which I
must take notice, the failure of which may be taken at
first sight as a proof that certitude may be lost. Yet
they clearly deserve no other name than prejudices, as
being founded upon reports of facts, or on arguments,
which will not bear careful examination. Such was the
disgust felt towards our predecessors in primitive times,
the Christians of the first centuries, as a secret society,
as a conspiracy against the civil power, as a set of
mean, sordid, despicable fanatics, as monsters revelling
in blood and impurity. Such also is the deep prejudice
now existing against the Church among Protestants,
who dress her up in the most hideous and loathsome
images, which rightly attach, in the prophetic descrip-
tions, to the evil spirit, his agents and instruments.
And so of the numberless calumnies directed against
individual Catholics, against our religious bodies and
men in authority, which serve to feed and sustain the
suspicion and dislike with which everything Catholic is
regarded in this country. But as a persistence in such
prejudices is no evidence of their truth, so an abandon-
ment of them is no evidence that certitude can fail.
There is yet another class of prejudices against the
Catholic Religion, which is far more tolerable and
intelligible than those on which I have been dwelling,
but still in no sense certitudes. Indeed, I doubt
whether they would be considered more than presump-
tive opinions by the persons who entertain them. Such
I ndef edibility of Certitude. 255
is the idea which has possessed certain philosophers,
ancient and modern, that miracles are an infringement
and disfigurement of the beautiful order of nature,
buck, too, is the persuasion, common among political
and literary men, that the Catholic Church is inconsis-
tent with the true interests of the human race, with
social progress, with rational freedom, with good
government. A renunciation of these imaginations is
not a change in certitudes.
So much on this subject. All concrete laws are
general, and persons, as such, do not fall under laws.
Still, I have gone a good way, as I think, to remove
the objections to the doctrine of the indefectibility of
certitude in matters of religon, though I cannot
assign to it an infallible token.
6.
One further remark may be made. Certitude does
not admit of an interior, immediate test, sufficient to
discriminate it from false certitude. Such a test is
rendered impossible from the circumstance that, when
we make the mental act expressed by " I know/' we
sum up the whole series of reflex judgments which
might, each in turn, successively exercise a critical
function towards those of the series which precede it.
But still, if it is the general rule that certitude is
indefectible, will not that indefectibility itself become
at least in the event a criterion of the genuineness of
the certitude ? or is there any rival state or habit of
the intellect, which claims to be indefectible also ? A
few words will suffice to answer these questions.
256 Certitude.
Premising that all rules are but general, especially
those which relate to the mind, I observe that inde-
fectibility may at least serve as a negative test of
certitude, or sine qua non condition, so that whoever
loses his conviction on a given point is thereby proved
not to have been certain of it. Certitude ought to stand
all trials, or it is not certitude. Its very office is to
cherish and maintain its object, and its very lot and
duty is to sustain rude shocks in maintenance of it
without being damaged by them.
I will take an example. Let us suppose we are told
on an unimpeachable authority, that a man whom we
saw die is now alive again and at his work, as it was his
wont to be ; let us suppose we actually see him and
converse with him ; what will become of our certitude
of his death ? I do not think we should give it up ; how
could we, when we actually saw him die ? At first,
indeed, we should be thrown into an astonishment and
confusion so great, that the world would seem to reel
round us, and we should be ready to give up the use of
our senses and of our memory, of our reflective powers,
and of our reason, and even to deny our power of
thinking, and our existence itself. Such confidence have
we in the doctrine that when life goes it never returns.
Nor would our bewilderment be less, when the first
blow was over ; but our reason would rally, and with our
reason our certitude would come back to us. What-
ever came of it, we should never cease to know and to
confess to ourselves both of the contrary facts, that we
saw him die, and that after dying we saw him alive
again. The overpowering strangeness of our ex-
Indefectibility of Certitude. 257
perience would have no power to shake our certitude
in the facts which created it.
Again, let us suppose, for argument's sake, that
ethnologists, philologists, anatomists, and antiquarians
agreed together in separate demonstrations that there
were half a dozen races of men, and that they were all
descended from gorillas, or chimpanzees, or ourang-
outangs, or baboons j moreover, that Adam was an
historical personage, with a well-ascertained dwelling-
place, surroundings and date, in a comparatively
modern world. On the other hand, let me believe
that the Word of God Himself distinctly declares that
there were no men before Adam, that he was immedi-
ately made out of the slime of the earth, and that he is
the first father of all men that are or ever have been,
Here is a contradiction of statements more direct than
in the former instance ; the two cannot stand together ;
one or other of them is untrue. But whatever means I
might be led to take, for making, if possible, the an-
tagonism tolerable, I conceive I should never give up
my certitude in that truth which on sufficient grounds
I determined to come from heaven. If I so believed, 1
should not pretend to argue, or to defend myself to
others ; I should be patient ; I should look for better
days ; but I should still believe. If, indeed, I had
hitherto only half believed, if I believed with an assent
short of certitude, or with an acquiescence short of
assent, or hastily or on light grounds, then the case
would be altered ; but if, after full consideration, and
availing myself of my best lights, I did think that
beyond all question God spoke as I thought He did,
s
258 Certitude.
philosophers and experimentalists might take their
course for me, — I should consider that they and I
thought and reasoned in different mediums, and that
my certitude was as little in collision with them or
damaged by them, as if they attempted to counteract
in some great matter chemical action by the force of
gravity, or to weigh magnetic influence against
capillary attraction. Of course, I am putting an
impossible case, for philosophical discoveries cannot
really contradict divine revelation.
So much on the indefectibility of certitude ; as to
the question whether any other assent is indefectible
besides it, I think prejudice may be such; but it
cannot be confused with certitude, for the one is an
assent previous to rational grounds, and the other an
assent given expressly after careful examination.
It seems then that on the whole there are three
conditions of certitude : that it follows on investiga-
tion and proof, that it is accompanied by a specific
sense of intellectual satisfaction and repose, and that
it is irreversible. If the assent is made without
rational grounds, it is a rash judgment, a fancy, or a
prejudice ; if without the sense of finality, it is scarcely
more than an inference ; if without permanence, it is
a mere conviction.
CHAPTER VIII.
INFEBENOEr
§ 1. FORMAL INFERENCE.
INFEEENCE is the conditional acceptance of a proposition,
Assent is the unconditional ; the object of Assent is a
truth, the object of Inference is the truth-like or a
verisimilitude. The problem which I have undertaken
is that of ascertaining how it comes to pass that a
conditional act leads to an unconditional ; and, having
now shown that assent really is unconditional, I proceed
fco show how inferential exercises, as such, always must
be conditional.
We reason, when we hold this by virtue of that ;
whether we hold it as evident or as approximating or
tending to be evident, in either case we so hold it
because of holding something else to be evident or
tending to be evident. In the next place, our reasoning
ordinarily presents itself to our mind as a simple act,
not a process or series of acts. We apprehend the
antecedent and then apprehend the consequent, without
S 2
260 Inference.
explicit recognition of the medium connecting the two,
as if by a sort of direct association of the first thought
with the second. We proceed by a sort of instinctive
perception, from premiss to conclusion. I call it in-
stinctive, not as if the faculty were one and the same
to all men in strength and quality (as we generally
conceive of instinct), but because ordinarily, or at least
often, it acts by a spontaneous impulse, as prompt and
inevitable as the exercise of sense and memory. We
perceive external objects, and we remember past events,
without knowing how we do so ; and in like manner we
reason without effort and intention, or any necessary
consciousness of the path which the mind takes in
passing from antecedent to conclusion.
Such is ratiocination, in what may be called a state of
nature, as it is found in the uneducated, — nay, in all
men, in its ordinary exercise; nor is there any antecedent
ground for determining that it will not be as correct in
its informations as it is instinctive, as trustworthy as are
sensible perception and memory, though its informa-
tions are not so immediate and have a wider range. By
means of sense we gain knowledge directly ; by means
of reasoning we gain it indirectly, that is, by virtue of a
previous knowledge. And if we may justly regard the
universe, according to the meaning of the word, as one
whole, we may also believe justly that to know one part
of it is necessarily to know much more than that one
part. This thought leads us to a further view of
ratiocination. The proverb says, " Ex pede Herculem /'
and we have actual experience how the practised
zoologist can build up some intricate organization from
Formal Inference. 261
the sight of its smallest bone, evoking the whole as if
it were a remembrance ; how, again, a philosophical
antiquarian, by means of an inscription, interprets the
mythical traditions of former ages, and makes the past
live ; and how a Columbus is led, from considerations
which are common property, and fortuitous phenomena
which are successively brought to his notice, to have
such faith in a western world, as willingly to commit
himself to the terrors of a mysterious ocean in order
to arrive at it. That which the mind is able thus
variously to bring together into unity, must have some
real intrinsic connexion of part with part. But if this
summa rerum is thus one whole, it must be constructed
on definite principles and laws, the knowledge of which
will enlarge our capacity of reasoning about it in par-
ticulars ; — thus we are led on to aim at determining on
a large scale and on system, what even gifted or
practised intellects are only able by their own personal
vigour to reach piecemeal and fitfully, that is, at sub-
stituting scientific methods, such as all may use, for
the action of individual genius.
There is another reason for attempting to discover an
instrument of reasoning (that is, of gaining new truths
by means of old), which may be less vague and arbitrary
than the talent and experience of the few or the
common-sense of the many. As memory is not always
accurate, and has on that account led to the adoption
of writing, as being a memoria technica, unaffected by
the failure of mental impressions, — as our senses at
times deceive us, and have to be corrected by each
other; so is it also with our reasoning faculty. The
262 Inference.
conclusions of one man are not the conclusions of
another; those of the same man do not always agree
together; those of ever so many who agree together
may differ from the facts themselves, which those con-
clusions are intended to ascertain. In consequence it
becomes a necessity, if it be possible, to analyze the
process of reasoning, and to invent a method which
may act as a common measure between mind and mind,
as a means of joint investigation, and as a recognized
intellectual standard, — a standard such as to secure us
against hopeless mistakes, and to emancipate us from
the capricious ipse dixit of authority.
As the index on the dial notes down the sun's course
in the heavens, as a key, revolving through the intri-
cate wards of the lock, opens for us a treasure-house,
so let us, if we can, provide ourselves with some ready
expedient to serve as a true record of the system of
objective truth, and an available rule for interpreting
its phenomena ; or at least let us go as far as we can
in providing it. One such experimental key is the
science of geometry, which, in a certain department of
nature, substitutes a collection of true principles, fruit-
ful and interminable in consequences, for the guesses,
pro re nata, of our intellect, and saves it both the
labour and the risk of guessing. Another far more
subtle and effective instrument is algebraical science,
which acts as a spell in unlocking for us, without merit
or effort of our own individually, the arcana of the
concrete physical universe. A more ambitious, because
a more comprehensive contrivance still, for interpreting
the concrete world is the method of logical inference.
Formal Inference. 263
What we desiderate is something which may supersede
the need of personal gifts by a far-reaching and in-
fallible rule. Now, without external symbols to mark
out and to steady its course, the intellect runs wild ;
but with the aid of symbols, as in algebra, it advances
with precision and effect. Let then our symbols be
words : let all thought be arrested and embodied in
words. Let language have a monopoly of thought;
and thought go for only so much as it can show itself
to be worth in language. Let every prompting of the
intellect be ignored, every momentum of argument be
disowned, which is unprovided with an equivalent
wording, as its ticket for sharing in the common search
after truth. Let the authority of nature, common-
sense, experience, genius, go for nothing. Ratiocina-
tion, thus restricted and put into grooves, is what I
have called Inference, and the science, which is its
regulating principle, is Logic.
The first step in the inferential method is to throw
the question to be decided into the form of a proposi-
tion ; then to throw the proof itself into propositions,
the force of the proof lying in the comparison of these
propositions with each other. When the analysis is
carried out fully and put into form, it becomes the
Aristotelic syllogism. However, an inference need
not be expressed thus technically; an enthymeme
fulfils the requirements of what I have called Inference.
So does any other form of words with the mere gram-
matical expressions, " for/' " therefore/' " supposing,"
" so that/' " similarly/' and the like. Verbal reason-
ing, of whatever kind, as opposed to mental, is what I
264 Inference.
mean by inference, which differs from logic only inas-
much as logic is its scientific form. And it will be
more convenient here to use the two words indiscrim-
inately, for I shall say nothing about logic which does
not in its substance also apply to inference.
Logical inference, then, being such, and its office such
as I have described, the question follows, how far it
answers the purpose for which it is used. It proposes to
provide both a test and a common measure of reason-
ing ; and I think it will be found partly to succeed
and partly to fail ; succeeding so far as words can in
fact be found for representing the countless varieties
and subtleties of human thought, failing on account of
the fallacy of the original assumption, that whatever
can be thought can be adequately expressed in words.
In the first place, Inference, being conditional, is
hampered with other propositions besides that which is
especially its own, that is, with the premisses as well as
the conclusion, and with the rules connecting the latter
with the former. It views its OWD proper proposition in
the medium of prior propositions, and measures it by
them. It does not hold a proposition for its own sake,
but as dependent upon others, and those others it
entertains for the sake of the conclusion. Thus it is
practically far more concerned with the comparison of
propositions, than with the propositions themselves.
It is obliged to regard all the propositions, with which
it has to do, not so much for their own sake, as for the
Bake of each other, as regards the identity or likeness,
independence or dissimilarity, which has to be mutually
predicated of them. It follows from this, that the more
Formal Inference. 265
simple and definite are the words of a proposition, and
the narrower their meaning, and the more that meaning
in each proposition is restricted to the relation which it
has to the words of the other propositions compared
with it, — in other words, the nearer the propositions
concerned in the inference approach to being mental
abstractions, and the less they have to do with the
concrete reality, and the more closely they are made to
express exact, intelligible, comprehensible, communi-
cable notions, and the less they stand for objective
things, that is, the more they are the subjects, not of
real, but of notional apprehension, — so much the more
suitable do they become for the purposes of Inference.
Hence it is that no process of argument is so perfect,
as that which is conducted by means of symbols. In
Arithmetic 1 is 1, and just 1, and never anything else
but 1 ; it never is 2, it has no tendency to change its
meaning, and to become 2 ; it has no portion, quality,
admixture of 2 in its meaning. And 6 under all circum-
stances is 3 times 2, and the sum of 2 and 4 ; nor can
the whole world supply anything to throw doubt upon
these elementary positions. It is not so with language.
Take, by contrast, the word " inference," which I have
been using : it may stand for the act of inferring, as I
have used it ; or for the connecting principle, or inferen-
tia, between premisses and conclusions; or for the
conclusion itself. And sometimes it will be difficult,
in a particular sentence, to say which it bears of these
three senses. And so again in Algebra, a is never x, or
anything but a, wherever it is found ; and a and b are
always standard quantities, to which x and y are always
266 Inference.
to be referred, and by which they are always to be
measured. In Geometry again, the subjects of argu-
ment, points, lines, and surfaces, are precise creations of
the mind, suggested indeed by external objects, but
meaning nothing but what they are defined to mean: they
have no colour, no motion, no heat, no qualities which
address themselves to the ear or to the palate ; so that, in
whatever combinations or relations the words denoting
them occur, and to whomsoever they come, those words
never vary in their meaning, but are just of the same
measure and weight at one time and at another.
What is true of Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry,
is true also of Aristotelic argumentation in its typical
modes and figures. It compares two given words sepa-
rately with a third, and then determines how they
stand towards each other, in a bond fide identity of
sense. In consequence, its formal process is best con-
ducted by means of symbols, A, B, and C. While it
keeps to these, it is safe ; it has the cogency of mathe-
matical reasoning, and draws its conclusions by a rule
as unerring as it is blind.
Symbolical notation, then, being the perfection of the
syllogistic method, it follows that, when words are
substituted for symbols, it will be its aim to circum-
scribe and stint their import as much as possible, lest
perchance A should not always exactly mean A, and B
mean B ; and to make them, as much as possible, the
calculi of notions, which are in our absolute power, as
meaning just what we choose them to mean, and as
little as possible the tokens of real things, which are out-
side of us, and which mean we do not know how much,
Formal Inference . 267
but so much certainly as, (in proportion as we enter into
them,) may run away with us beyond the range of
scientific management. The concrete matter of propo-
sitions is a constant source of trouble to syllogistic
reasoning, as marring the simplicity and perfection of
its process. Words, which denote things, have innu-
merable implications ; but in inferential exercises it is
the very triumph of that clearness and hardness of head,
which is the characteristic talent for the art, to have
stripped them of all these connatural senses, to have
drained them of that depth and breadth of associations
which constitute their poetry, their rhetoric, and their
historical life, to have starved each term down till it has
become the ghost of itself, and everywhere one and the
same ghost, " omnibus umbra locis," so that it may
stand for just one unreal aspect of the concrete thing to
which it properly belongs, for a relation, a generaliza-
tion, or other abstraction, for a notion neatly turned out
of the laboratory of the mind, and sufficiently tame and
subdued, because existing only in a definition.
Thus it is that the logician for his own purposes,
and most usefully as far as those purposes are concerned,
turns rivers, full, winding, and beautiful, into navigable
canals. To him dog or horse is not a thing which he
sees, but a mere name suggesting ideas ; and by dog or
horse universal he means, not the aggregate of all indi-
vidual dogs or horses brought together, but a common
aspect, meagre but precise, of all existing or possible
dogs or horses, which all the while does not really corre-
spond to any one single dog or horse out of the whole
aggregate. Such minute fidelity in the representation
268 Inference.
of individuals is neither necessary nor possible to his
art ; his business is not to ascertain facts in the con-
crete, but to find and dress up middle terms ; and,
provided they and the extremes which they go between
are not equivocal, either in themselves or in their use*
and he can enable his pupils to show well in&vivavoce
disputation, or in a popular harangue, or in a written
dissertation, he has achieved the main purpose of his
profession.
Such are the characteristics of reasoning, viewed as a
science or scientific art, or inferential process, and we
might anticipate that, narrow as by necessity is its field
of view, for that reason its pretensions to be demon-
strative were incontrovertible. In a certain sense they
really are so ; while we talk logic, we are unanswerable ;
but then, on the other hand, this universal living scene
of things is after all as little a logical world as it is a
poetical ; and, as it cannot without violence be exalted
into poetical perfection, neither can it be attenuated into
a logical formula. Abstract can only conduct to ab-
stract ; but we have need to attain by our reasonings to
what is concrete ; and the margin between the abstract
conclusions of the science, and the concrete facts which
we wish to ascertain, will be found to reduce the force
of the inferential method from demonstration to the
mere determination of the probable. Thus, whereas (as
I have already said) Inference starts with conditions,
as starting with premisses, here are two reasons why,
when employed upon questions of fact, it can only con-
clude probabilities : first, because its premisses are
assumed, not proved ; and secondly, because its conclu-
Formal Inference. 269
sions are abstract, and not concrete. I will now con-
sider these two points separately.
1.
Inference comes short of proof in concrete matters,
because it has not a full command over the objects to
which it relates, but merely assumes its premisses. In
order to complete the proof, we are thrown upon some
previous syllogism or syllogisms, in which the assump-
tions may be proved ; and then, still farther back, we
are thrown upon others again, to prove the new as-
sumptions of that second order of syllogisms. Where
is this process to stop ? especially since it must run
upon separated, divergent, and multiplied lines of
argument, the farther the investigation is carried
back. At length a score of propositions present them-
selves, all to be proved by propositions more evident
than themselves, in order to enable them respectively
to become premisses to that series of inferences which
terminates in the conclusion which we originally drew.
But even now the difficulty is not at an end ; it would
be something to arrive at length at premisses which
are undeniable, however long we might be in arriving
at them ; but in this case the long retrospection lodges
us at length at what are called first principles, the
recondite sources of all knowledge, as to which logic
provides no common measure of minds, — which are
accepted by some, rejected by others, — in which, and
not in the syllogistic exhibitions, lies the whole problem
of attaining to truth, — and which are called self-
evident by their respective advocates because they are
2 7O Inference.
evident in no other way. One of the two uses con-
templated in reasoning by rule, or in verbal argumen-
tation, was, as I have said, to establish a standard. of
truth and to supersede the ipse dixit of authority :
how does it fulfil this end, if it only leads us back to
first principles, about which there is interminable con-
troversy? We are not able to prove by syllogism
that there are any self-evident propositions at all; but
supposing there are (as of course I hold there are),
still who can determine these by logic ? Syllogism,
then, though of course it has its use, still does only
the minutest and easiest part of the work, in the in-
vestigation of truth, for when there is any difficulty,
that difficulty commonly lies in determining first prin-
ciples, not in the arrangement of proofs.
Even when argument is the most direct and severe
of its kind, there must be those assumptions in the
process which resolve themselves into the conditions of
human nature ; but how many more assumptions does
that process in ordinary concrete matters involve,
subtle assumptions not directly arising out of these
primary conditions, but accompanying the course of
reasoning, step by step, and traceable to the sentiments
of the age, country, religion, social habits and ideas, of
the particular inquirers or disputants, and passing
current without detection, because admitted equally on
all hands ! And to these must be added the assump-
tions which are made from the necessity of the case, in
consequence of the prolixity and elaborateness of any
argument which should faithfully note down all the
'propositions which go to make it up. We recognize this
Formal Inference. 271
tediousness even in the case of the theorems of Euclid,
though mathematical proof is comparatively simple.
Logic then does not really prove ; it enables us to
join issue with others; it suggests ideas; it opens views;
it maps out for us the lines of thought ; it verifies nega-
tively ; it determines when differences of opinion are
hopeless ; and when and how far conclusions are pro-
bable ; but for genuine proof in concrete matter we
require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic
than verbal argumentation.
I ought to give an illustration of what I have been
stating in general terms ; but it is difficult to do so
without a digression. However, if it must be, I look
round the room in which I happen to be writing, and
take down the first book which catches my eye. It is
an old volume of a Magazine of great name ; I open it
at random and fall upon a discussion about the then
lately discovered emendations of the text of Shake-
speare. It will do for my purpose.
In the account of Falstaff's death in " Henry V."
(act ii. scene 3) we read, according to the received text,
the well-known words, " His nose was as sharp as a pen,
and 'a babbled of green fields." In the first authentic
edition, published in 1623, some years after Shake-
speare's death, the words, I believe, ran, " and a table
of green fields," which has no sense. Accordingly, an
anonymous critic, reported by Theobald in the last
century, corrected them to ' ' and 'a talked of green
fields." Theobald himself improved the reading into
" and 'a babbled of green fields/' which since his time
2 72 Inference.
has been the received text. But just twenty years ago
an annotated copy of the edition of 1632 was found,
annotated perhaps by a contemporary, which, among
as many as 20,000 corrections of the text, substituted
for the corrupt reading of 1 623, the words " on a table
of green frieze/' which has a sufficient sense, though
far less acceptable to an admirer of Shakespeare, than
Theobald's. The genuineness of this copy with its
annotations, as it is presented to us, I shall here take
for granted.
Now I understand, or at least will suppose, the
argument, maintained in the article of the Magazine in
question, to run thus : — " Theobald's reading, as at pre-
sent received, is to be retained, to the exclusion of the
text of 1623 and of the emendation made on the copy
of the edition of 1632 ; — to the exclusion of the text of
1623 because that text is corrupt; to the exclusion of
the annotation of 1632 because it is anonymous." I
wish it then observed how many large questions are
opened in the discussion which ensues, how many
recondite and untractable principles have to be settled,
and how impotent is logic, or any reasonings which
can be thrown into language, to deal with these
indispensable first principles.
The first position is, " The authoritative reading of
1623 is not to be restored to the received text, because
it is corrupt/' Now are we to take it for granted, as a
first principle, which needs no proof, that a text may
be tampered with, because it is corrupt ? However the
corrupt reading arose, it is authoritative. It is found in
an edition, published by known persons, only six years
Formal Inference. 2 73
after Shakespeare's death, from his own manuscript^
as it appears, and with his corrections of earlier faulty
impressions. Authority cannot sanction nonsense, but
it can forbid critics from experimentalizing upon it. If
the text of Shakespeare is corrupt, it should be pub-
lished as corrupt.
I believe the best editors of the Greek tragedians
have given up the impertinence of introducing their
conjectures into the text ; and a classic like Shakespeare
has a right to be treated with the same respect as
-^schylus. To this it will be replied, that Shakespeare
is for the general public and ^Sschylus for students of
a dead language ; that the run of men read for amuse-
ment or as a recreation, and that, if the editions of
Shakespeare were made on critical principles, they
would remain unsold. Here, then, we are brought to
the question whether it is any advantage to read
Shakespeare except with the care and pains which a
classic demands, and whether he is in fact read at all
by those whom such critical exactness would offend ;
and thus we are led on to further questions about
cultivation of mind and the education of the masses,
Further, the question presents itself, whether the
general admiration of Shakespeare is genuine, whether
it is not a mere fashion, whether the multitude of men
understand him at all, whether it is not true that every
one makes much of him, because every one else makes
much of him. Can we possibly make Shakespeare
light reading, especially in this day of cheap novels, by
ever so much correction of his text ?
Now supposing this point settled, and the text of
T
274 Inference.
1623 put out of court, then comes the claim of the
Annotator to introduce into Shakespeare's text the
emendation made upon his copy of the edition of 1632 ;
why is he not of greater authority than Theobald, the
inventor of the received reading, and his emendation
of more authority than Theobald's ? If the corrupt
reading must any how be got out of the way, why
should not the Annotator, rather than Theobald, deter-
mine its substitute ? For what we know, the authority
of the anonymous Annotator may be very great. There
is nothing to show that he was not a contemporary of
the poet ; and if so, the question arises, what is the
character of his emendations ? are they his own private
and arbitrary conjectures, or are they informations
from those who knew Shakespeare, traditions of the
theatre, of the actors or spectators of his plays ? Here,
then, we are involved in intricate questions which can
only be decided by a minute examination of the 20,000
emendations so industriously brought together by this
anonymous critic. But it is obvious that a verbal
argumentation upon 20,000 corrections is impossible :
there must be first careful processes of perusal, classi-
fication, discrimination, selection, which mainly are
acts of the mind without the intervention of language.
There must be a cumulation of arguments on one side
and on the other, of which only the heads or the results
can be put upon paper. Next come in questions of
criticism and taste, with their recondite and disputable
premisses, and the usual deductions from them, so
subtle and difficult to follow. All this being considered,
am 1 wrong in saying that, though controversy is both
Formal Inference. 275
possible and useful at all times, yet it is not adequate
to this occasion ; rather that that sum-total of argument
(whether for or against the Annotator) which is fur-
nished by his numerous emendations, — or what may
be called the multiform, evidential fact, in which the
examination of these emendations results,— requires
rather to be photographed on the individual mind as by
one impression, than admits of delineation for the satis-
faction of the many in any known or possible language,
however rich in vocabulary and flexible in structure ?
And now as to the third point which presents
itself for consideration, the claim of Theobald's emen-
dation to retain its place in the textus receptus. It
strikes me with wonder that an argument in its
defence could have been put forward to the following
effect, viz. that true though it be, that the Editors of
1623 are of much higher authority than Theobald,
and that the Annotator 's reading in the passage in
question is more likely to be correct than Theobald's,
nevertheless Theobald's has by this time acquired a
prescriptive right to its place there, the prescription
of more than a hundred years ; — that usurpation has
become legitimacy ; that Theobald's words have sunk
into the hearts of thousands ; that in fact they have
become Shakespeare's ; that it would be a dangerous
innovation and an evil precedent to touch them. If
we begin an unsettlement of the popular mind, where
is it to stop ?
Thus it appears, in order to do justice to the
question before us, we have to betake ourselves to the
consideration of myths, pious frauds, and other grave
T 2
276 Inference.
matters, which introduce us into a sylva, dense and
intricate, of first principles and elementary phenomena,
belonging to the domains of archeology and theology.
Nor is this all; when such views of the duty of
garbling a classic are propounded, they open upon us
a long vista of sceptical interrogations which go far
to disparage the claims upon us, the genius, the very
existence, of the great poet to whose honour these
views are intended to minister. For perhaps, after
all, Shakespeare is really but a collection of many
Theobalds, who have each of them a right to his own
share of him. There was a great dramatic school in
his day ; he was one of a number of first-rate artists, —
perhaps they wrote in common. How are we to know
what is his, or how much ? Are the best parts his,
or the worst ? It is said that the players put in what
is vulgar and offensive in his writings ; perhaps they
inserted the beauties. I have heard it urged years
ago, as an objection to Sheridan's claim of authorship
to the plays which bear his name, that they were so
unlike each other ; is not this the very peculiarity
of those imputed to Shakespeare? Were ever the
writings of one man so various, so impersonal ? can
we form any one true idea of what he was in history
or character, by means of them ? is he not in short
"vox et prceterea nihil" ? Then again, in corrobora-
tion, is there any author's life so deficient in bio-
graphical notices as his ? We know about Hooker,
Spenser, Spelman, Raleigh, Harvey, his contem-
poraries : what do we know of Shakespeare ? Is he
much more than a name? Is not the traditional
Formal Inference. 277
object of an Englishman's idolatry after all a nebula
of genius, destined, like Homer, to be resolved into
its separate and independent luminaries, as soon as
we have a criticism powerful enough for the purpose ?
I must not be supposed for a moment to countenance
such scepticism myself, — though it is a subject
worthy the attention of a sceptical age : here I have
introduced it simply to suggest how many words go
to make up a thoroughly valid argument; how short
and easy a way to a true conclusion is the logic of
good sense ; how little syllogisms have to do with the
formation of opinion; how little depends upon the
inferential proofs, and how much upon those pre-
existing beliefs and views, in which men either already
agree with each other or hopelessly differ, before they
begin to dispute, and which are hidden deep in our
nature, or, it may be, in our personal peculiarities.
2.
So much on the multiplicity of assumptions, which
in spite of formal exactness, logical reasoning in con-
crete matters is forced to admit, and on the consequent
uncertainty which attends its conclusions. Now I
come to the second reason why its conclusions are
thus wanting in precision.
In this world of sense we have to do with things, far
more than with notions. We are not solitary, left to
the contemplation of our own thoughts and their legiti-
mate developments. We are surrounded by external
beings, and our enunciations are directed to the concrete.
We reason in order to enlarge our knowledge of matters,
278 Inference.
which do not depend on us for being what they are.
But how is an exercise of mind, which is for the most
part occupied with notions, not things, competent to
deal with things, except partially and indirectly ? This
is the main reason why an inference, however fully
worded, (except perhaps in some peculiar cases, which
are out of place here,) never can reach so far as to ascer-
tain a fact. As I have already said, arguments about
the abstract cannot handle and determine the concrete.
They may approximate to a proof, but they only reach
the probable, because they cannot reach the particular.
Even in mathematical physics a margin is left for
possible imperfection in the investigation. When the
planet Neptune was discovered, it was deservedly con-
sidered a triumph of science, that abstract reasonings
had done so much towards determining the planet and
its orbit. There would have been no triumph in success,
had there been no hazard of failure ; it is no triumph
to Euclid, in pure mathematics, that the geometrical
conclusions of his second book can be worked out and
verified by algebra.
The motions of the heavenly bodies are almost mathe-
matical in their precision ; but there is a multitude of
matters, to which mathematical science is applied,
which are in their nature intricate and obscure, and re-
quire that reasoning by rule should be completed by the
living mind. Who would be satisfied with a navigator
or engineer, who had no practice or experience whereby
to carry on his scientific conclusions out of their native
abstract into the concrete and the real ? What is the
meaning of the distrust, which is ordinarily felt, of
Formal Inference. 2 79
speculators and theorists but this, that they are dead to
the necessity of personal prudence and judgment to
qualify and complete their logic ? Science, working "by
itself, reaches truth in the abstract, and probability in the
concrete ; but what we aim at is truth in the concrete.
This is true of other inferences besides mathematical.
They come to no definite conclusions about matters of
fact, except as they are made effectual for their purpose
by the living intelligence which uses them. " All men
have their price; Fabricius is a man; he has his price;"
but he had not his price ; how is this ? Because he is
more than a universal ; because he falls under other
universals; because universals are ever at war with each
other; because what is called a universal is only a
general ; because what is only general does not lead to
a necessary conclusion. Let us judge him by another
universal. "Men have a conscience; Fabricius is a
man; he has a conscience." Until we have actual
experience of Fabricius, we can only say, that, since he
is a man, perhaps he will take a bribe, and perhaps
he will not. " Latet dolus in generalibus ;" they are
arbitrary and fallacious, if we take them for more than
broad views and aspects of things, serving as our notes
and indications for judging of the particular, but not
absolutely touching and determining facts.
Let units come first, and (so-called) universals second;
let universals minister to units, not units be sacrificed to
universals. John, Eichard, and Eobert are individual
things, independent, incommunicable. We may find
some kind of common measure between them, and we
may give it the name of man, man as such, the typical
280 Inference.
man, the auto-anthropos. We are justified in so doing,
and in investing it with general attributes, and bestow-
ing on it what we consider a definition. But we think
we may go on to impose our definition on the whole race,
and to every member of it, to the thousand Johns,
Kichards, and Roberts who are found in it. No ; each
of them is what he is, in spite of it. Not any one of
them is man, as such, or coincides with the auto-anthropos.
Another John is not necessarily rational, because " all
men are rational," for he may be an idiot ; — nor because
" man is a being of progress/' does the second Richard
progress, for he may be a dunce ;— nor, because "man is
made for society," must we therefore go on to deny
that the second Robert is a gipsy or a bandit, as he
is found to be. There is no such thing as stereotyped
humanity ; it must ever be a vague, bodiless idea,
because the concrete units from which it is formed are
independent realities. General laws are not inviolable
truths ; much less are they necessary causes. Since, as
a rule, men are rational, progressive, and social, there is a
high probability of this rule being true in the case of a
particular person ; but we must know him to be sure of it.
Each thing has its own nature and its own history.
When the nature and the history of many things are
similar, we say that they have the same nature ; but
there is no such thing as one and the same nature ; they
are each of them itself, not identical, but like. A law is
not a fact, but a notion. " All men die ; therefore Elias
has died;" but he has not died, and did not die. He
was an exception to the general law of humanity ; so I
far, he did not come under that law, but under the law
Formal Inference. 281
(so to say) of Ellas. It was the peculiarity of his
individuality, that he left the world without dying :
what right have we to subject the person of Elias to
the scientific notion of an abstract humanity, which we
have formed without asking his leave ? Why must the
tyrant majority create a rule for his individual history ?
" But all men are mortal ?" not so ; what is really meant
by this universal is, that " man, as such, is mortal/' that
is, the abstract, typical auto-anthropos ; to this major
premiss the minor, if Elias is to be proved mortal,
ought to be, " Elias was the abstract man ;" but he
was not, and could not be such, nor could any one
else, any more than the average man of an Insurance
Company is every individual man who insures his life
with it. Such a syllogism proves nothing about the
veritable Elias, except in the way of antecedent pro-
bability. If it be said that Elias was exempted from
death, not by nature, but by miracle, what is this to
the purpose, undeniable as it is ? Still, to have this
miraculous exemption was the personal prerogative of
Elias. We call it miracle, because God ordinarily acts
otherwise. He who causes men in general to die, gave
to Elias not to die. This miraculous gift comes into
the individuality of Elias. On this individuality we
must fix our thoughts, and not begin our notion of him
by ignoring it. He was a man, and something more
than " man " $ and if we do not take this into account,
we fall into an initial error in our thoughts of him.
What is true of Elias is true of every one in his own
place and degree. We call rationality the distinction
of man, when compared with other animals. This is
282 Inference.
true in logic ; but in fact a man differs from a brute,
not in rationality only, but in all that he is, even in
those respects in which he is most like a brute ; so that
Kis whole self, his bones, limbs, make, life, reason,
moral feeling, immortality, and all that he is besides,
is his real differentia, in contrast to a horse or a dog.
And in like manner as regards John and Richard,
when compared with one another ; each is himself, and
nothing else, and, though, regarded abstractedly, the
two may fairly be said to have something in common,
(viz. that abstract sameness which does not exist at
all,) yet strictly speaking, they have nothing in
common, for each of them has a vested interest in all
that he himself is ; and, moreover, what seems to be
common in the two, becomes in fact so uncommon, so
sui simile, in their respective individualities — the
bodily frame of each is so singled out from all other
bodies by its special constitution, sound or weak, by
its vitality, activity, pathological history and changes,
and, again, the mind of each is so distinct from all
other minds, in disposition, powers, and habits, —
that, instead of saying, as logicians say, that the two
men differ only in number, we ought, I repeat, rather
to say that they differ from each other in all that they
are, in identity, in incommunicability, in personality.
Nor does any real thing admit, by any calculus of
logic, of being dissected into all the possible general
notions which it admits, nor, in consequence, of being
recomposed out of them ; though the attempt thus to
treat it is more unpromising in proportion to the
intricacy and completeness of its make. We cannot
Formal Inference. 283
see through any one of the myriad beings which make
up the universe, or give the full catalogue of its
belongings. We are accustomed, indeed, and rightly,
to speak of the Creator Himself as incomprehensible ;
and, indeed, He is so by an incommunicable attribute ;
but in a certain sense each of His creatures is incom-
prehensible to us also, in the sense that no one has a
perfect understanding of them but He. We recognize
and appropriate aspects of them, and logic is useful to
us in registering these aspects and what they imply ;
but it does not give us to know even one individual being.
So much on logical argumentation; and in thus
speaking of the syllogism, I speak of all inferential
processes whatever, as expressed in language, (if they
are such as to be reducible to science,) for they all
require general notions, as conditions of their coming
to a conclusion.
Thus, in the deductive argument, " Europe has no
security for peace, till its lange standing armies in its
separate states are reduced ; for a large standing army
is in its very idea provocative of war/' the conclusion
is only probable, for it may so be that in no country is
that pure idea realized, but in every country in concrete
fact there may be circumstances, political or social,
which destroy the abstract dangerousness.
So, too, as regards Induction and Analogy, as modes
of Inference ; for, whether I argue, ' ' This place will have
the cholera, unless it is drained; for there are a number
of well-ascertained cases which point to this conclusion;"
or, " The sun will rise to-morrow, for it rose to-day ;"
in either method of reasoning I appeal, in order to
284 Inference.
prove a particular case, to a general principle or law,
which has not force enough to warrant more than a
probable conclusion. As to the cholera, the place in
question may have certain antagonist advantages,
which anticipate or neutralize the miasma which is the
principle of the poison ; and as to the sun's rising to-
morrow, there was a first day of the sun's rising, and
therefore there may be a last.
This is what I have to say on formal Inference,
when taken to represent Ratiocination. Science in all
its departments has too much simplicity and exactness,
from the nature of the case, to be the measure of fact.
In its very perfection lies its incompetency to settle
particulars and details. As to Logic, its chain of con-
clusions hangs loose at both ends ; both the point from
which the proof should start, and the points at which
it should arrive, are beyond its reach ; it comes short
both of first principles and of concrete issues. Even
its most elaborate exhibitions fail to represent ade-
quately the sum-total of considerations by which an
individual mind is determined in its judgment of
things ; even its most careful combinations made to
bear on a conclusion want that steadiness of aim
which is necessary for hitting it. As I said when I
began, thought is too keen and manifold, its sources
are too remote and hidden, its path too personal,
delicate, and circuitous, its subject-matter too various
and intricate, to admit of the trammels of any lan-
guage, of whatever subtlety and of whatever compass.
Nor is it any disparagement of the proper value of
Formal Inference. 285
formal reasonings thus to speak of them. That they
cannot proceed beyond probabilities is most readily
allowed by those who use them most. Philosophers,
experimentalists, lawyers, in their several ways, have
commonly the reputation of being, at least on moral
and religious subjects, hard of belief; because, pro-
ceeding in the necessary investigation by the analytical
method of verbal inference, they find within its limits
no sufficient resources for attaining a conclusion. Nay,
they do not always find it possible in their own special
province severally; for, even when in their hearts they
have no doubt about a conclusion, still often, from the
habit of their minds, they are reluctant to own it,
and dwell upon the deficiencies of the evidence, or the
possibility of error, because they speak by rule and
by book, though they judge and determine by
common-sense.
Every exercise of nature or of art is good in its
place ; and the uses of this logical inference are mani-
fold. It is the great principle of order in our thinking ;
it reduces a chaos into harmony ; ifc catalogues the ac-
cumulations of knowledge; it maps out for us the
relations of its separate departments ; it puts us in the
way to correct its own mistakes. It enables the in-
dependent intellects of many, acting and re-acting on
each other, to bring their collective force to bear upon
one and the same subject-matter, or the same question.
If language is an inestimable gift to man, the logical
faculty prepares it for our use. Though it does not go
so far as to ascertain truth, still it teaches us the
direction in which truth lies, and how propositions lie
286 Inference.
towards each other. Nor is it a slight benefit to know
what is probable, and what is not so, what is needed
for the proof of a point, what is wanting in a theory,
how a theory hangs together, and what will follow, if
it be admitted. Though it does not itself discover the
unknown, it is one principal way by which discoveries
are made. Moreover, a course of argument, which is
simply conditional, will point out when and where
experiment and observation should be applied, or testi-
mony sought for, as often happens both in physical and
legal questions. A logical hypothesis is the means of
holding facts together, explaining difficulties, and
reconciling the imagination to what is strange. And,
again, processes of logic are useful as enabling us to
get over particular stages of an investigation speedily
and surely, as on a journey we now and then gain
time by travelling by night, make short cuts when
the high-road winds, or adopt water-carriage to avoid
fatigue.
But reasoning by rule and in words is too natural to
us, to admit of being regarded merely in the light of
utility. Our inquiries spontaneously fall into scientific
sequence, and we think in logic, as we talk in prose,
without aiming at doing so. However sure we are of
the accuracy of our instinctive conclusions, we as in-
stinctively put them into words, as far as we can ; as
preferring, if possible, to have them in an objective
shape which we can fall back upon, — first for our own
satisfaction, then for our justification with others. Such
a tangible defence of what we hold, inadequate as it
necessarily is, considered as an analysis of our ratioci-
Formal Inference. 287
nation in its length and breadth, nevertheless is in such
sense associated with our holdings^ and so fortifies and
illustrates them, that it acts as a vivid apprehension
acts, giving them luminousness and force. Thus in*
ference becomes a sort of symbol of assent, and even
bears upon action.
I have enlarged on these obvious considerations, lest
I should seem paradoxical ; but they do not impair the
main position of this Section, that Inference, considered
in the sense of verbal argumentation, determines neither
our principles, nor our ultimate judgments, — that it is
neither the test of truth, nor tne adequate basis of
assent.1
I 1 have assumed throughout this Section that all verbal argumenta-
tion is ultimately syllogistic ; and in consequence that it ever requires
universal propositions and comes short of concrete fact. A friend refers
me to the dispute between Des Cartes and Gassendi, the latter main-
taining against the former that " Cogito ergo sum" implies the uni-
versal " All who think exist." I should deny this with Des Cartes j but
I should say (as indeed he said), that his dictum was not an argument,
but was the expression of a ratiocinative instinct, as I explain below
under the head of " Natural Logic."
As to the instance " Brutes are not men ; therefore men are not
brutes," there seems to me no consequence here, neither a prater nor a
propter, but a tautology. And as to " It was either Tom or Dick that
did it ; it was not Dick, ergo," this may be referred to the one great
principle on which all logical reasoning is founded, but really it ought
not to be accounted an inference any more that if I broke a biscuit,
flung half away, and then said of the other half, "This is what remains."
It does but state a fact. So, when the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd proposition of
Euclid II, is put before the eyes in a diagram, a boy, before he yet has
learned to reason, sees with his eyes the fact of the thesis, and this seeing
it even makes it difficult for him to master the mathematical proof.
Here, then, &fact is stated in the form of an argument.
However, I have inserted parentheses at pp. 278 and 283, in order to
say «* trauseat " to the question.
288 Inference.
§ 2. INFORMAL INFERENCE.
IT is plain that formal logical sequence is not in fact
the method by which we are enabled to become certain
of what is concrete ; 'and it is equally plain, from what
has been already suggested, what the real and necessary
method is. It is the cumulation of probabilities, in-
dependent of each other, arising out of the nature and
circumstances of the particular case which is under
review ; probabilities too fine to avail separately, too
subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllogisms,
too numerous and various for such conversion, even were
they convertible. As a man's portrait differs from a
sketch of him, in having, not merely a continuous
outline, but all its details filled in, and shades and
colours laid on and harmonized together, such is the
multiform and intricate process of ratiocination, neces-
sary for our reaching him as a concrete fact, compared
with the rude operation of syllogistic treatment.
Let us suppose I wish to convert an educated,
thoughtful Protestant, and accordingly present for his
acceptance a syllogism of the following kind : — " All
Protestants are bound to join the Church; you are
a Protestant: ergo." He answers, we will say, by
Informal Inference. 289
denying both premisses ; and he does so by means of
arguments, which branch out into other arguments, and
those into others, and all of them severally requiring to
be considered by him on their own merits, before the
syllogism reaches him, and in consequence mounting up,
taken altogether, into an array of inferential exercises
large and various beyond calculation. Moreover, he is
bound to submit himself to this complicated process from
the nature of the case ; he would act rashly, if he did
not; for he is a concrete individual unit, and being so
is under so many laws, and is the subject of so many
predications all at once, that he cannot determine, off-
hand, his position and his duty by the law and the
predication of one syllogism in particular. I mean he
may fairly say, " Distinguo," to each of its premisses :
he says, " Protestants are bound to join the Church, —
under circumstances/' and " I am a Protestant — in a
certain sense ; " and therefore the syllogism, at first
sight, does not touch him at all.
Before, then, he grants the major, he asks whether all
Protestants really are bound to join the Church — are
they bound in case they do not feel themselves bound;
if they are satisfied that their present religion is a safe
one ; if they are sure it is true ; if, on the other hand,
they have grave doubts as to the doctrinal fidelity and
purity of the Church ; if they are convinced that the
Church is corrupt ; if their conscience instinctively
rejects certain of its doctrines; if history convinces
them that the Pope's power is not jure divinOj but
merely in the order of Providence ? if, again, they
are in a heathen country where priests are not? or
U
290 Inference.
where the only priest who is to be found exacts of them
as a condition of their reception, a profession, which the
Creed of Pope Pius IV. says nothing about; for instance,
that the Holy See is fallible even when it teaches, or
that the Temporal Power is an anti- Christian corruption?
On one or other of such grounds he thinks he need not
change his religion ; but presently he asks himself, Can
a Protestant be in such a state as to be really satisfied
with his religion, as he has just now been professing ?
Can he possibly believe Protestantism came from above,
as a whole ? how much of it can he believe came from
above ? and, as to that portion which he feels did come
from above, has it not all been derived to him from the
Church, when traced to its source? Is not Protestantism
in itself a negation ? Did not the Church exist before
it ? and can he be sure, on the other hand, that any one
of the Church's doctrines is not from above ? Further,
he finds he has to make up his mind what is a corruption,
and what are the tests of it; what he means by a
religion ; whether it is obligatory to profess any religion
in particular; what are the standards of truth and
falsehood in religion ; and what are the special claims
of the Church.
And so, again, as to the minor premiss, perhaps he
will answer, that he is not a Protestant ; that he is a
Catholic of the early undivided Church ; that he is a
Catholic, but not a Papist. Then he has to determine
questions about division, schism, visible unity, what is
essential, what is desirable; about provisional states; as
to the adjustment of the Church's claims with those of
personal judgment and responsibility ; as to the soul of
Informal Inference. 291
the Church contrasted with the body ; as to degrees of
proof, and the degree necessary for his conversion ; as
to what is called his providential position, and the
responsibility of change; as to the sincerity of his
purpose to follow the Divine Will, whithersoever it
may lead him ; as to his intellectual capacity of investi-
gating such questions at all.
None of these questions, as they come before him,
admit of simple demonstration; but each carries with it
a number of independent probable arguments, sufficient,
when united, for a reasonable conclusion about itself.
And first he determines that the questions are such as he
personally, with such talents or attainments as he has,
may fairly entertain ; and then he goes on, after delibe-
ration, to form a definite judgment upon them ; and
determines them, oneway or another, in their bearing on
the bald syllogism which was originally offered to his
acceptance. And, we will say, he comes to the conclusion,
that he ought to accept it as true in his case ; that he is
a Protestant in such a sense, of such a complexion, of
such knowledge, under such circumstances, as to be called
upon by duty to join the Church; that this is a
conclusion of which he can be certain, and ought to be
certain, and that he will be incurring grave responsi-
bility, if he does not accept it as certain, and act upon
the certainty of it. And to this conclusion he comes,
as is plain, not by any possible verbal enumeration of
all the considerations, minute but abundant, delicate
but effective, which unite to bring him to it ; but by a
mental comprehension of the whole case, and a discern-
ment of its upshot, sometimes after much deliberation,
n 2
292 Inference.
but, it may be, by a clear and rapid act of the intellect,
always, however, by an unwritten summing-up, some-
thing like the summation of the terms, plus and minus
of an algebraical series.
This I conceive to be the real method of reasoning in
concrete matters j and it has these characteristics : —
First, it does not supersede the logical form of inference,
but is one and the same with it ; only it is no longer an
abstraction, but carried out into the realities of life, its
premisses being instinct with the substance and the
momentum of that mass of probabilities, which, acting
upon each other in correction and confirmation, carry
it home definitely to the individual case, which is its
original scope.
Next, from what has been said it is plain, that such
a process of reasoning is more or less implicit, and
without the direct and full advertence of the mind
exercising it. As by the use of our eyesight we re-
cognize two brothers, yet without being able to express
what it is by which we distinguish them ; as at first
sight we perhaps confuse them together, but, on better
knowledge, we see no likeness between them at all ; as
it requires an artist's eye to determine what lines and
shades make a countenance look young or old, amiable,
thoughtful, angry or conceited, the principle of dis-
crimination being in each case real, but implicit ; — so is
the mind unequal to a complete analysis of the motives
which carry it on to a particular conclusion, and is
swayed and determined by a body of proof, which it
recognizes only as a body, and not in its constituent
parts.
Informal Inference. 293
And thirdly, it is plain, that, in this investigation of
the method of concrete inference, we have not advanced
one step towards depriving inference of its conditional
character; for it is still as dependent on premisses as it
is in its elementary idea. On the contrary, we have
rather added to the obscurity of the problem ; for a
syllogism is at least a demonstration, when the premisses
are granted, but a cumulation of probabilities, over and
above their implicit character, will vary both in their
number and their separate estimated value, according to
the particular intellect which is employed upon it. It
follows that what to one intellect is a proof is not so to
another, and that the certainty of a proposition does
properly consist in the certitude of the mind which
contemplates it. And this of course may be said
without prejudice to the objective truth or falsehood of
propositions, since it does not follow that these pro-
positions on the one hand are not true, and based on
right reason, and those on the other not false, and
based on false reason, because not all men discriminate
them in the same way.
Having thus explained the view which I would take
of reasoning in the concrete, viz. that, from the nature
of the case, and from the constitution of the human
mind, certitude is the result of arguments which,
taken in the letter, and not in their full implicit sense,
are but probabilities, I proceed to dwell on some
instances and circumstances of a phenomenon which
seems to me as undeniable as to many it may be
perplexing.
294 Inference.
1.
Let us take three instances belonging respectively
to the present, the past, and the future.
1. We are all absolutely certain, beyond the possi-
bility of doubt, that Great Britain is an island. We
give to that proposition our . deliberate and uncondi-
tional adhesion. There is no security on which we
should be better content to stake our interests, our
property, our welfare, than on the fact that we are
living in an island. We have no fear of any geo-
graphical discovery which may reverse our belief. We
should be amused or angry at the assertion, as a bad
jest, did any one say that we were at this time joined
to the main-land in Norway or in France, though a
canal was cut across the isthmus. We are as little
exposed to the misgiving, " Perhaps we are not on an
island after all," as to the question, " Is it quite cer-
tain that the angle in a semi-circle is a right-angle ? "
It is a simple and primary truth with us, if any truth
is such ; to believe it is as legitimate an exercise of
assent, as there are legitimate exercises of doubt or of
opinion. This is the position of our minds towards
our insularity ; yet are the arguments producible for it
(to use the common expression) in black and white com-
mensurate with this overpowering certitude about it ?
Our reasons for believing that we are circum-
navigable are such as these : — first, we have been so
taught in our childhood, and it is so in all the maps ;
next, we have never heard it contradicted or ques-
tioned ; on the contrary, every one whom we have
Informal Inference. 295
heard speak on the subject of Great Britain, every
book we have read, invariably took it for granted ;
our whole national history, the routine transactions
and current events of the country, our social and com-
mercial system, our political relations with foreigners,
imply it in one way or another. Numberless facts, or
what we consider facts, rest on the truth of it ; no
received fact rests on its being otherwise. If there is
anywhere a junction between us and the continent,
where is it ? and how do we know it ? is it in the
north or in the south ? There is a manifest reductio
ad absurdum attached to the notion that we can be
deceived on such a point as this.
However, negative arguments and circumstantial
evidence are not all, in such a matter, which we have a
right to require. They are not the highest kind of
proof possible. Those who have circumnavigated the
island have a right to be certain : have we ever our-
selves even fallen in with any one who has ? And as
to the common belief, what is the proof that we are
'not all of us believing it on the credit of each other?
And then, when it is said that every one believes it,
and everything implies it, how much comes home to
me personally of this " every one " and " everything "?
The question is, Why do I believe it myself ? A living
statesman is said to have fancied Demerara an island ;
his belief was an impression ; have we personally more
than an impression, if we view the matter argumenta-
tively, a lifelong impression about Great Britain, like
the belief, so long and so widely entertained, that the
earth was immovable, and the sun careered round it ?
296 Inference.
I am not at all insinuating that we are not rational in
our certitude ; I only mean that we cannot analyze a
proof satisfactorily, the result of which good sense
actually guarantees to us.
2. Father Hardouin maintained that Terence's
Plays, Virgil's "^Eneid," Horace's Odes, and the
Histories of Livy and Tacitus, were the forgeries of
the monks of the thirteenth century. • That he should
be able to argue in behalf of such a position, shows of
course that the proof in behalf of the received opinion
is not overwhelming. That is, we have no means of
inferring absolutely, that Virgil's episode of Dido, or
of the Sibyl, and Horace's " Te quoque mensorem "
and " Quern tu Melpomene," belong to that Augustan
age, which owes its celebrity mainly to those poets.
Our common-sense, however, believes in their gen-
uineness without any hesitation or reserve, as if it
had been demonstrated, and not in proportion to
the available evidence in its favour, or the balance of
arguments.
So much at first sight ; — but what are our grounds
for dismissing thus summarily, as we are likely to do,
a theory such as Hardouin's ? For let it be observed
first, that all knowledge of the Latin classics comes to
us from the medieval transcriptions of them, and they
who transcribed them had the opportunity of forging
or garbling them. We are simply at their mercy ; for
neither by oral transmission, nor by monumental inscrip-
tions, nor by contemporaneous manuscripts are the
works of Virgil, Horace, and Terence, of Livy and
Tacitus, brought to our knowledge. The existing copies,
Informal Inference.
whenever made, are to us the autographic originals.
Next, it must be considered, that the numerous re-
ligious bodies, then existing over the face of Europe,
had leisure enough, in the course of a century, to
compose, not only all the classics, but all the Fathers
too. The question is, whether they had the ability.
This is the main point on which the inquiry turns, or
at least the most obvious ; and it forms one of those
arguments, which, from the nature of the case, are felt
rather than are convertible into syllogisms. Hardouin
allows that the Georgics, Horace's Satires and Epistles,
and the whole of Cicero, are genuine : we have a
standard then in these undisputed compositions of the
Augustan age. We have a standard also, in the
extant medieval works, of what the thirteenth century
could do ; and we see at once how widely the disputed
works differ from the medieval. Now could the
thirteenth century simulate Augustan writers better
than the Augustan could simulate such writers as those
of the thirteenth ? No. Perhaps, when the subject
is critically examined, the question may be brought to
a more simple issue ; but as to our personal reasons
for receiving as genuine the whole of Virgil, Horace,
Livy, Tacitus, and Terence, they are summed up in
our conviction that the monks had not the ability to
write them. That is, we take for granted that we are
sufficiently informed about the capabilities of the
human mind, and the conditions of genius, to be
quite sure that an age which was fertile in great ideas
and in momentous elements of the future, robust in
thought, hopeful in its anticipations, of singular in-
298 Inference.
tellectual curiosity and acumen, and of nigh genius in
at least one of the fine arts, could not, for the very
reason of its pre-eminence in its own line, have an
equal pre-eminence in a contrary one. We do not
pretend to be able to draw the line between what the
medieval intellect could or could not do ; but we feel
sure that at least it could not write the classics. An
instinctive sense of this, and a faith in testimony, are
the sufficient, but the undeveloped argument on which
to ground our certitude.
I will add, that, if we deal with arguments in the
mere letter, the question of the authorship of works in
any case has much difficulty. I have noticed it in the
instance of Shakespeare, and of Newton. We are all
certain that Johnson wrote the prose of Johnson, and
Pope the poetry of Pope ; but what is there but pre-
scription, at least after contemporaries are dead, to
connect together the author of the work and the owner
of the name ? Our lawyers prefer the examination of
present witnesses to affidavits on paper ; but the tradi-
tion of "testimonia," such as are prefixed to the
classics and the Fathers, together with the absence of
dissentient voices, is the adequate groundwork of our
belief in the history of literature.
3. Once more : what are my grounds for thinking
that I, in my own particular case, shall die ? I am as
certain of it in my own innermost mind, as I am that
I now live ; but what is the distinct evidence on which
I allow myself to be certain ? how would it tell in a
court of justice? how should I fare under a cross-
examination upon the grounds of my certitude ? De-
Informal Inference. 299
monstration of course I cannot have of a future event,
unless by means of a Divine Voice ; but what logical
defence can I make for that undoubting, obstinate
anticipation of it, of which I could not rid myself, if I
tried ?
First, the future cannot be proved a posteriori ; there-
fore we are compelled by the nature of the case to put
up with a priori arguments, that is, with antecedent
probability, which is by itself no logical proof. Men
tell me that there is a law of death, meaning by law a
necessity; and I answer that they are throwing dust into
my eyes, giving me words instead of things. What is a
law but a generalized fact ? and what power has the
past over the future ? and what power has the case of
others over my own case ? and how many deaths have I
seen ? how many ocular witnesses have imparted to me
their experience of deaths, sufficient to establish what
is called a law ?
But let there be a law of death ; so there is a law, we
are told, that the planets, if let alone, would severally
fall into the sun — it is the centrifugal law which hinders
it, and so the centripetal law is never carried out. In
like manner I am not under the law of death alone, I
am under a thousand laws, if I am under one ; and they
thwart and counteract each other, and jointly determine
the irregular line, along which my actual history runs,
divergent from the special direction of any one of them.
No law is carried out, except in cases where it acts
freely : how do I know that the law of death will be
allowed its free action in my particular case ? We often
are able to avert death by medical treatment : why
3oo Inference.
should death have its effect, sooner or later, in every
case conceivable ?
It is true that the human frame, in all instances
which come before me, first grows, and then declines,
wastes, and decays, in visible preparation for dissolution.
We see death seldom, but of this decline we are witnesses
daily ; still, it is a plain fact, that most men who die,
die, not by any law of death, but by the law of disease ;
and some writers have questioned whether death is
ever, strictly speaking, natural. Now, are diseases
necessary? is there any law that every one, sooner
or later, must fall under the power of disease ? and
what would happen on a large scale, were there no
diseases ? Is what we call the law of death anything
more than the chance of disease ? Is the prospect
of my death, in its logical evidence, — as that evidence
is brought home to me — much more than a high
probability ?
The strongest proof I have for my inevitable mortality
is the reductio ad absurdum. Can I point to the man,
in historic times, who has lived his two hundred years ?
What has become of past generations of men, unless it
is true that they suffered dissolution ? But this is a
circuitous argument to warrant a conclusion to which in
matter of fact I adhere so relentlessly. Anyhow, there
is a considerable "surplusage," as Locke calls it, of belief
over proof, when I determine that I individually must
die. But what logic cannot do, my own living personal
reasoning, my good sense, which is the healthy condition
of such personal reasoning, but which cannot adequately
express itself in words, does for me, and I am possessed
Informal Inference. 301
with the most precise, absolute, masterful certitude of
my dying some day or other.
I am led on by these reflections to make another
remark. If it is difficult to explain how a man knows
that he shall die, is it not more difficult for him to
satisfy himself how he knows that he was born. His
knowledge about himself does not rest on memory,
nor on distinct testimony, nor on circumstantial evi-
dence. Can he bring into one focus of proof the reasons
which make him so sure ? I am not speaking of scien-
tific men, who have diverse channels of knowledge, but
of an ordinary individual, as one of ourselves.
Answers doubtless may be given to some of these
questions ; but, on the whole, I think it is the fact that
many of our most obstinate and most reasonable certi-
tudes depend on proofs which are informal and per-
sonal, which baffle our powers of analysis, and cannot
be brought under logical rule, because they cannot be
submitted to logical statistics. If we must speak of
Law, this recognition of a correlation between certitude
and implicit proof seems to me a law of our minds.
I said just now that an object of sense presents itself
to our view as one whole, and not in its separate details :
we take it in, recognize it, and discriminate it from other
objects, all at once. Such too is the intellectual view
we take of the momenta of proof for a concrete truth ;
we grasp the full tale of premisses and the conclusion,
per modum unius, — by a sort of instinctive perception of
the legitimate conclusion in and through the premisses,
302 Inference.
not by a formal juxta-position of propositions ; though
of course such a juxta-position is useful and natural, both
to direct and to verify, just as in objects of sight our
notice of bodily peculiarities, or the remarks of others
may aid us in establishing a case of disputed identity.
And, as this man or that will receive his own impression
of one and the same person, and judge differently from
others about his countenance, its expression, its moral
significance, its physical contour and complexion, so an
intellectual question may strike two minds very differ-
ently, may awaken in them distinct associations, may be
invested by them in contrary characteristics, and lead
them to opposite conclusions; —and so, again, a body
of proof, or a line of argument, may produce a distinct,
nay, a dissimilar effect, as addressed to one or to the
other.
Thus in concrete reasonings we are in great measure
thrown back into that condition, from which logic pro-
posed to rescue us. We judge for ourselves, by our own
lights, and on our own principles ; and our criterion of
truth is not so much the manipulation of propositions,
as the intellectual and moral character of the person
maintaining them, and the ultimate silent effect of his
arguments or conclusions upon our minds.
It is this distinction between ratiocination as the
exercise of a living faculty in the individual intellect,
and mere skill in argumentative science, which is the
true interpretation of the prejudice which exists against
logic in the popular mind, and of the animadversions
which are levelled against it, as that its formulas make
a pedant and a doctrinaire, that it never makes converts,
Informal Inference. 303
that it leads to rationalism, that Englishmen are too
practical to be logical, that an ounce of common-sense
goes farther than many cartloads of logic, that Laputa
is the land of logicians, and the like. Such maxims
mean, when analyzed, that the processes of reasoning
which legitimately lead to assent, to action, to certitude,
are in fact too multiform, subtle, omnigenous, too im-
plicit, to allow of being measured by rule, that they are
after all personal, — verbal argumentation being useful
only in subordination to a higher logic. It is this which
was meant by the Judge who, when asked for his advice
by a friend, on his being called to important duties
which were new to him, bade him always lay down the
law boldly, but never give his reasons, for his decision
was likely to be right, but his reasons sure to be
unsatisfactory. This is the point which I proceed to
illustrate.
1. I will take a question of the present moment.
" We shall have a European war, for Greece is auda-
ciously defying Turkey/' How are we to test the
validity of the reason, implied, not expressed, in the
word "for"? Only the judgment of diplomatists, states-
men, capitalists, and the like, founded on experience,
strengthened by practical and historical knowledge,
controlled by self-interest, can decide the worth of that
" for " in relation to accepting or not accepting the
conclusion which depends on it. The argument is from
concrete fact to concrete fact. How will mere logical
inferences, which cannot proceed without general and
abstract propositions, help us on to the determination
of this particular case ? It is not the case of Switzerland
304 Inference.
attacking Austria, or of Portugal attacking Spain, or
of Belgium attacking Prussia, but a case without
parallels. To draw a scientific conclusion, the argu-
ment must run somewhat in this way : — " All audacious
defiances of Turkey on the part of Greece must end in
a European war; these present acts of Greece are such :
ergo ;" — where the major premiss is more difficult to
accept than the conclusion, and the proof becomes an
" obscurum per obscurius." But, in truth, I should
not betake myself to some one universal proposition to
defend my own view of the matter ; I should determine
the particular case by its particular circumstances, by
the combination of many uncatalogued experiences
floating in my memory, of many reflections, variously
produced, felt rather than capable of statement ; and if I
had them not, I should go to those who had. I assent
in consequence of some such complex act of judgment,
or from faith in those who are capable of making it,
and practically syllogism has no part, even verificatory,
in the action of my mind.
I take this instance at random in illustration ; now
let me follow it np by more serious cases.
2. Leighton says, "What a full confession do we
make of our dissatisfaction with the objects of our
bodily senses, that in our attempts to express what
we conceive of the best of beings and the greatest of
felicities to be, we describe by the exact contraries of
all that we experience here, — the one as infinite, incom-
prehensible, immutable, &c.; the other as incorruptible,
undefiled, and that passeth not away. At all events,
this coincidence, say rather identity of attributes, ia
Informal Inference. 305
sufficient to apprise us that, to be inheritors of bliss,
we must become the children of God." Coleridge quotes
this passage, and adds," Another and more fruitful, per-
haps more solid, inference from the facts would be, that
there is something in the human mind which makes it
know that in all finite quantity, there is an infinite, in
all measures of time an eternal ; that the latter are the
basis, the substance, of the former; and that, as we
truly are only as far as God is with us, so neither can
we truly possess, that is, enjoy our being or any other
real good, but by living in the sense of His holy
presence/' *
What is this an argument for ? how few readers will
enter into either premiss or conclusion ! and of those
who understand what it means, will not at least some
confess that they understand it by fits and starts, not
at all times ? Can we ascertain its force by mood and
figure ? Is there any royal road by which we may
indolently be carried along into the acceptance of it ?
Does not the author rightly number it among his ( ' aids '
for our " reflection/' not instruments for our compul-
sion ? It is plain that, if the passage is worth anything,
we must secure that worth for our own use by the
personal action of our own minds, or else we shall be
only professing and asserting its doctrine, without
having any ground or right to assert it. And our
preparation for understanding and making use of it
will be the general state of our mental discipline and
cultivation, our own experiences, our appreciation of
1 " Aids to Reflection," p. 59, ed. 1839.
306 Inference.
religious ideas, the perspicacity and steadiness of our
intellectual vision.
8. It is argued by Hume against the actual occur-
rence of the Jewish and Christian miracles, that, where-
as "it is experience only which gives authority to
human testimony, and it is the same experience which
assures us of the laws of nature," therefore, " when
these two kinds of experience are contrary " to each
oiiher, *' we are bound to subtract the one from the
other ; " and, in consequence, since we have no expe-
rience of a violation of natural laws, and much expe-
rience of the violation of truth, " we may establish it
as a maxim that no human testimony can have such
force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just founda-
tion for any such system of religion." *
I will accept the general proposition, but I resist its
application. Doubtless it is abstractedly more likely
that men should lie than that the order of nature
should be infringed ; but what is abstract reasoning to
a question of concrete fact ? To arrive at the fact of any
matter, we must eschew generalities, and take things
as they stand, with all their circumstances. A priori,
of course the acts of men are not so trustworthy as the
order of nature, and the pretence of miracles is in fact
more common than the occurrence. But the question is
not about miracles in general, or men in general, but
definitely, whether these particular miracles, ascribed
to the particular Peter, James, and John, are more
likely to have been or not ; whether they are unlikely,
supposing that there is a Power, external to the world,
> Works, vol. iii. p. 178, ed. 177CX
Informal Inference. 307
who can bring them about ; supposing they are the only
means by which He can reveal Himself to those who need
a revelation ; supposing He is likely to reveal Himself ;
that He has a great end in doing so ; that the professed
miracles in question are like His natural works, and such
as He is likely to work, in case He wrought miracles >
that great effects, otherwise unaccountable, in the event
followed upon the acts said to be miraculous ; that they
were from the first accepted as true by large numbers
of men against their natural interests ; that the recep-
tion of them as true has left its mark upon the world,
as no other event ever did ; that, viewed in their effects,
they have — that is, the belief of them has — served to
raise human nature to a high moral standard, otherwise
unattainable : these and the like considerations are parts
of a great complex argument, which so far can be put into
propositions, but which, even between, and around, and
behind these, still is implicit and secret, and cannot by
any ingenuity be imprisoned in a formula, and packed into
a nut-shell. These various conditions may be decided
in the affirmative or in the negative. That is a further
point ; here I only insist upon the nature of the argu-
ment, if it is to be philosophical. It must be no smart
antithesis which may look well on paper, but the living
action of the mind on a great problem of fact ; and we
must summon to our aid all our powers and resources,
if we would encounter it worthily, and not as if it were
a literary essay.
4. " Consider the establishment of the Christian
religion," says Pascal in his " Thoughts." " Here is a
religion contrary to our nature, which establishes itself
308 Inference.
in men's minds with so much mildness, as to use no
external force ; with so much energy, that no tortures
could silence its martyrs and confessors ; and consider
the holiness, devotion, humility of its true disciples ;
its sacred books, their superhuman grandeur, their
admirable simplicity. Consider the character of its
Founder ; His associates and disciples, unlettered men,
yet possessed of wisdom sufficient to confound the ablest
philosopher; the astonishing succession of prophets who
heralded Him ; the state at this day of the Jewish peo-
ple who rejected Him and His religion ; its perpetuity
and its holiness; the light which its doctrines shed upon
the contrarieties of our nature ; — after considering these
things, let any man judge if it be possible to doubt
about its being the only true one." 3
This is an argument parallel in its character to that
by which we ascribe the classics to the Augustan age.
We urge, that, though we cannot draw the line defi-
nitely between what the monks could do in literature,
and what they could not, anyhow Virgil's " ^Eneid "
and the Odes of Horace are far beyond the highest
capacity of the medieval mind, which, however great,
was different in the character of its endowments. And
in like manner we maintain, that, granting that we
cannot decide how far the human mind can advance
by its own unaided powers in religious ideas and senti-
ments, and in religious practice, still the facts of Chris-
tianity, as they stand, are beyond what is possible to
man, and betoken the presence of a higher intelligence,
purpose, and might.
» Taylor's Translation, p. 131.
Informal Inference. 309
Many have been converted and sustained in their
faith by this argument, which admits of being power-
fully stated ; but still such statement is after all only
intended to be a vehicle of thought, and to open the
mind to the apprehension of the facts of the case, and to
trace them and their implications in outline, not to
convince by the logic of its mere wording. Do we not
think and muse as we read it, try to master it as we
proceed, put down the book in which we find it, fill out
its details from our own resources, and then resume the
study of it ? And, when we have to give an account of
it to others, should we make use of its language, or even
of its thoughts, and not rather of its drift and spirit ?
Has it never struck us what different lights different
minds throw upon the same theory and argument, nay,
how they seem to be differing in detail when they are
professing, and in reality showing, a concurrence in it ?
Have we never found, that, when a friend takes up the
defence of what we have written or said, that at first we
are unable to recognize in his statement of it what we
meant it to convey ? It will be our wisdom to avail
ourselves of language, as far as it will go, but to aim
mainly by means of it to stimulate, in those to whom
we address ourselves, a mode of thinking and trains of
thought similar to our Own, leading them on by their
own independent action, not by any syllogistic com-
pulsion. Hence it is that an intellectual school will
always have something of an esoteric character ; for it is
an assemblage of minds that think ; their bond is unity
of thought, and their words become a sort of tessera ,
not expressing thought, but symbolizing it.
3IO Inference.
Recurring to Pascal's argument, I observe that, its
force depending upon the assumption that the facts of
Christianity are beyond human nature, therefore, accord-
ing as the powers of nature are placed at a high or low
standard, that force will be greater or less ; and that
standard will vary according to the respective disposi-
tions, opinions, and experiences, of those to whom the
argument is addressed. Thus its value is a personal
question ; not as if there were not an objective truth
and Christianity as a whole not supernatural, but that,
when we come to consider where it is that the super-
natural presence is found, there may be fair differences
of opinion, both as to the fact and the proof of what is
supernatural. There is a multitude of facts, which,
taken separately, may perhaps be natural, but, found
together, must come from a source above nature j and
what these are, and how many are necessary, will be
variously determined. And while every inquirer has a
right to determine the question according to the best
exercise of his judgment, still whether he so determine it
for himself, or trust in part or altogether to the judgment
of those who have the best claim to judge, in either case
he is guided by the implicit processes of the reasoning
faculty, not by any manufacture of arguments forcing
their way to an irrefragable conclusion.
5. Pascal writes in another place, " He who doubts,
but seeks not to have his doubts removed, is at once the
most criminal and the most unhappy of mortals. If,
together with this, he is tranquil and self-satisfied, if he
be vain of his tranquillity, or makes his state a topic of
mirth and self-gratulation? I have not words to describe
Informal Inference* 311
so insane a creature. Truly it is to the honour of reli-
gion to have for its adversaries men so bereft of reason ;
their opposition, far from being formidable, bears testi-
mony to its most distinguishing truths ; for the great
object of the Christian religion is to establish the cor-
ruption of our nature, and the redemption by Jesus
Christ."4 Elsewhere he says of Montaigne, " He involves
everything in such universal, unmingled scepticism, as
to doubt of his very doubts. He was a pure Pyrrhonist.
He ridicules all attempts at certainty in anything.
Delighted with exhibiting in his own person the con-
tradictions that exist in the mind of a free-thinker, it is
all one to him whethn he is successful or not in his
argument. The virtue he loved was simple, sociable,
gay, sprightly, and playful; to use one of his own
expressions, 'Ignorance and incuriousness are two
charming pillows for a sound head/ " *
Here are two celebrated writers in direct opposition
to each other in their fundamental view of truth and
duty. Shall we say that there is no such thing as truth
and error, but that anything is truth to a man which he
troweth ? and not rather, as the solution of a great
mystery, that truth there is, and attainable it is, but
that its rays stream in upon us through the medium of
our moral as well as our intellectual being ; and that
in consequence that perception of its first principles
which is natural to us is enfeebled, obstructed, per-
verted, by allurements of sense and the supremacy of
self, and, on the other hand, quickened by aspirations
after the supernatural ; so that at length two characters
4 Ibid. pp. 108—110. 5 Ibid. pp. 429—436,
312 Inference.
of mind are brought out into shape, and two standards
and systems of thought, — each logical, when analyzed,
yet contradictory of each other, and only not antago-
nistic because they have no common ground on which
they can conflict ?
6. Montaigne was endowed with a good estate,
health, leisure, and an easy temper, literary tastes, and
a sufficiency of books : he could afford thus to play
with life, and the abysses into which it leads us. Let
us take a case in contrast.
" I think/' says the poor dying factory-girl in the
tale, " if this should be the end of all, and if all I have
been born for is just to work my heart and life away,
and to sicken in this dree place, with those mill-stones
in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them
to stop and let me have a little piece of quiet, and with
the fluff filling my lungs, until I thirst to death for one
long deep breath of the clear air, and my mother gone,
and I never able to tell her again how I loved her, and
of all my troubles, — I think, if this life is the end, and
that there is no God to wipe away all tears from all
eyes, I could go mad ! " 6
Here is an argument for the immortality of the soul.
As to its force, be it great or small, will it make a figure
in a logical disputation, carried on secundum artem ?
Can any scientific common measure compel the intellects
of Dives and Lazarus to take the same estimate of ifc ?
Is there any test of the validity of it better than the
ipse dixit of private judgment, that is, the judgment
of those who have a right to judge, and next; the
€ "North and South."
Informal Inference. 313
agreement of many private judgments in one arid the
same view of it ?
7. " In order to prove plainly and intelligibly," says
Dr. Samuel Clarke, " that God is a Being, which must
of necessity be endued with perfect knowledge, 'tis to
be observed that knowledge is a perfection, without
which the foregoing attributes are no perfections at
all, and without which those which follow can have no
foundation. Where there is no Knowledge, Eternity
and Immensity are as nothing, and Justice, Goodness,
Mercy, and Wisdom can have no place. The idea of
eternity and omnipresence, devoid of knowledge, is as
the notion of darkness compared with that of light.
'Tis as a notion of the world without the sun to illumi-
nate it j 'tis as the notion of inanimate matter (which
is the atheist's supreme cause) compared with that of
light and spirit. And as for the following attributes
of Justice, Goodness, Mercy, and Wisdom, 'tis evident
that without knowledge there could not possibly be
any such things as these at all." 7
The argument here used in behalf of the Divine
Attribute of Knowledge comes under the general pro-
position that the Attributes imply each other, for the
denial of one is the denial of the rest. To some minds
this thesis is self-evident ; others are utterly insensible
to its force. Will it bear bringing out into words
throughout the whole series of its argumentative
links ? for if it does, then either those who maintain
it or those who reject it, the one or the other, will be
compelled by logical necessity to confess that they are
314 Inference.
in error. " G-od is wise, if He is eternal; He is good,
if He is wise ; He is just, if He is good." What skill
can so arrange these propositions, so add to them, so
combine them, that they may be able, by the force of
their juxta-position, to follow one from the other, and
become one and the same by an inevitable correlation.
That is not the method by which the argument be-
comes a demonstration. Such a method, used by a
Theist in controversy against men who are unprepared
personally for the question, will but issue in his re-
treat along a series of major propositions, farther and
farther back, till he and they find themselves in a land
of shadows, " where the light is as darkness."
To feel the true force of an argument like this, we
must not confine ourselves to abstractions, and merely
compare notion with notion, but we must contemplate
the God of our conscience as a Living Being, as one
Object and Reality, under the aspect of this or that
attribute. We must patiently rest in the thought of
the Eternal, Omnipresent, and All -knowing, rather
than of Eternity, Omnipresence, and Omniscience ; and
we must not hurry on and force a series of deductions,
which, if they are to be realized, must distil like dew
into our minds, and form themselves spontaneously
there, by a calm contemplation and gradual under-
standing of their premisses. Ordinarily speaking,
such deductions do not flow forth, except according as
the Image,8 presented to us through conscience, on
which they depend, is cherished within us with the
sentiments which, supposing it be, as we know it is
3 Vide supr. cb. v. § X, pp. 109, 113,
Informal Inference. 315
the truth, it necessarily claims of us, and is seen re-
flected, by the habit of our intellect, in the appoint-
ments and the events of the external world. And, in
their manifestation to our inward sense, they are
analogous to the knowledge which we at length attain
of the details of a landscape, after we have selected
the right stand-point, and have learned to accommo-
date the pupil of our eye to the varying focus neces-
sary for seeing them ; have accustomed it to the glare
of light, have mentally grouped or discriminated lines
and shadows and given them their due meaning, and
have mastered the perspective of the whole. Or they
may be compared to a landscape as drawn by the
pencil (unless the illustration seem forced), in which
by the skill of the artist, amid the bold outlines of
trees and rocks, when the eye has learned to take in
their reverse aspects, the forms or faces of historical
personages are discernible, which we catch and lose
again, and then recover, and which some who look on
with us are never able to catch at all.
Analogous to such an exercise of sight, must be our
mode of dealing with the verbal expositions of an
argument such as Clarke's. His words speak to those
who understand the speech. To the mere barren
intellect they are but the pale ghosts of notions ; but
the trained imagination sees in them the representa-
tions of things. He who has once detected in his
conscience the outline of a Lawgiver and Judge, needs
no definition of Him, whom he dimly but surely con-
templates there, and he rejects the mechanism of
logic, which cannot contain in its grasp matters so
316 Inference.
real and so recondite. Such a one, according to the
strength and perspicacity of his mind, the force of his
presentiments, and his power of sustained attention,
is able to pronounce about the great Sight which
encompasses him, as about some visible object ; and,
in his investigation of the Divine Attributes, is not
inferring abstraction from abstraction, but noting
down the aspects and phases of that one thing on
which he is ever gazing. Nor is it possible to limit
the depth of meaning, which at length he will attach to
words, which to the many are but definitions and ideas.
Here then again, as in the other instances, it seems
clear, that methodical processes of inference, useful as
they are, as far as they go, are only instruments of the
mind, and need, in order to their due exercise, that
real ratiocination and present imagination which gives
them a sense beyond their letter, and which, while
acting through them, reaches to conclusions beyond
and above them. Such a living organon is a personal
gift, and not a mere method or calculus.
3.
That there are cases, in which evidence, not suffi-
cient for a scientific proof, is nevertheless sufficient for
assent and certitude, is the doctrine of Locke, as of
most men. He tells us that belief, grounded on suffi-
cient probabilities, " rises to assurance ;" and as to
the question of sufficiency, that where propositions
" border near on certainty," then " we assent to them
as firmly as if they were infallibly demonstrated/'
The only question is, what these propositions are : this
Informal Inference. 317
he does not tell us, but he seems to think that they
are few in number, and will be without any trouble
recognised at once by common-sense ; whereas, unless
I am mistaken, they are to be found throughout the
range of concrete matter, and that supra-logical judg-
ment, which is the warrant for our certitude about
them, is not mere common-sense, but the true healthy
action of our ratiocinative powers, an action more
subtle and more comprehensive than the mere appre-
ciation of a syllogistic argument. It is often called
the "judicium prudentis viri," a standard of certitude
which holds good in all concrete matter, not only in
those cases of practice and duty, in which we are
more familiar with it, but in questions of truth and
falsehood generally, or in what are called "specula-
tive " questions, and that, not indeed to the exclusion,
but as the supplement of logic. Thus a proof, except
in abstract demonstration, has always in it, more or
less, an element of the personal, because " prudence "
is not a constituent part of our nature, but a personal
endowment.
And the language in common use, when concrete
conclusions are in question, implies the presence of
this personal element in the proof of them. We are
considered to feel, rather than to see, its cogency ; and
we decide, not that the conclusion must be, but that
it cannot be otherwise. We say, that we do not see
our way to doubt it, that it is impossible to doubt, that
we are bound to believe it, that we should be idiots, if
we did not believe. We never should say, in abstract
science, that we could not escape the conclusion that
3 1 8 Inference.
25 was a mean proportional between 5 and 125 ; or
that a man had no right to say that a tangent to
a circle at the extremity of the radius makes an acute
angle with it. Yet, though our certitude of the fact
is quite as clear, we should not think it unnatural to
say that the insularity of Great Britain is as good as
demonstrated, or that none but a fool expects never to
die. Phrases indeed such as these are sometimes used
to express a shade of doubt, but it is enough for my
purpose if they are also used when doubt is altogether
absent. What, then, they signify, is, what I have so
much insisted on, that we have arrived at these con-
clusions— not ex opere operato, by a scientific necessity
independent of ourselves, — but by the action of our
own minds, by our own individual perception of the
truth in question, under a sense of duty to those con-
clusions and with an intellectual conscientiousness.
This certitude and this evidence are often called
moral ; a word which I avoid, as having a very vague
meaning; but using it here for once, I observe that
moral evidence and moral certitude are all that we can
attain, not only in the case of ethical and spiritual
subjects, such as religion, but of terrestrial and cos-
mical questions also. So far, physical Astronomy and
Revelation stand on the same footing. Vince, in his
treatise on Astronomy, does but use the language of
philosophical sobriety, when, after speaking of the
proofs of the earth's rotatory motion, he says, " when
these reasons, all upon different principles, are con-
sidered, they amount to a proof of the earth's rota-
tion about its axis, which is as satisfactory to the
Informal Inference. 319
mind as the most direct demonstration could be ; " or,
as he had said just before, " the mind rests equally
satisfied, as if the matter was strictly proved." 9 That
is, first there is no demonstration that the earth
rotates ; next there is a cluster of " reasons on different
principles," that is, independent probabilities in cumu-
lation : thirdly, these " amount to a proof," and " the
mind " feels " as if the matter was strictly proved,"
that is, there is the equivalent of proof ; lastly, "the
mind rests satisfied" that is, it is certain on the point.
And though evidence of the fact is now obtained
which was not known fifty years ago, that evidence on
the whole has not changed its character.
Compare with this avowal the language of Butler,
when discussing the proof of Revelation. " Probable
proofs," he says, " by being added, not only increase
the evidence, but multiply it. The truth of our religion,
like the truth of common matters, is to be judged by the
whole evidence taken together ... in like manner as,
if in any common case numerous events acknowledged
were to be alleged in proof of any other event disputed,
the truth of the disputed event would be proved, not
only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself
clearly imply it, but though no one of them singly did
so, if the whole of the acknowledged events taken
together could not in reason be supposed to have hap-
pened, unless the disputed one were true." J Here, as
in Astronomy, is the same absence of demonstration of
the thesis, the same cumulating and converging indica-
tions of it, the same indirectness in the proof, as being
9 Pp. 84, 86. i " Analogy," pp. 3 r , 330, ed. 1836.
320 Inference.
per impossibile, the same recognition nevertheless that
the conclusion is not only probable, but true. One other
characteristic of the argumentative process is given,
which is unnecessary in a subject-matter so clear and
simple as astronomical science, viz. the moral state of
the parties inquiring or disputing. They must be " as
much in earnest about religion, as about their temporal
affairs, capable of being convinced, on real evidence,
that there is a God who governs the world, and feel
themselves to be of a moral nature and accountable
creatures." 2
This being the state of the case, the question arises,
whether, granting that the personality (so to speak) of
the parties reasoning is an important element in
proving propositions in concrete matter, any account
can be given of the ratiocinative method in such proofs,
over and above that analysis into syllogism which is
possible in each of its steps in detail. I think there
can ; though I fear, lest to some minds it may appear
far-fetched or fanciful; however, I will hazard this
imputation. I consider, then, that the principle of con-
crete reasoning is parallel to the method of proof which
is the foundation of modern mathematical science, as
contained in the celebrated lemma with which Newton
opens his " Principia." We know that a regular
polygon, inscribed in a circle, its sides being continually
diminished, tends to become that circle, as its limit ;
but it vanishes before it has coincided with the circle,
so that its tendency to be the circle, though ever
nearer fulfilment, never in fact gets beyond a tendency
2 Ibid. p. 278.
Informal Inference. 321
In like manner, the conclusion in a real or concrete
question is foreseen and predicted rather than actually
attained; foreseen in the number and direction of
accumulated premisses, which all converge to it, and
as the result of their combination, approach it more
nearly than any assignable difference, yet do not touch
it logically (though only not touching it,) on account
of the nature of its subject-matter, and the delicate
and implicit character of at least part of the reasonings
on which it depends. It is by the strength, variety,
or multiplicity of premisses, which are only probable,
not by invincible syllogisms, — by objections overcome,
by adverse theories neutralized, by difficulties gradually
clearing up, by exceptions proving the rule, by un-
looked-for correlations found with received truths, by
suspense and delay in the process issuing in trium-
phant reactions, — by all these ways, and many others,
it is that the practised and experienced mind is able
to make a sure divination that a conclusion is inevit-
able, of which his lines of reasoning do not actually put
him in possession. This is what is meant by a propo-
sition being "as good as proved/' a conclusion as
undeniable " as if it were proved/ ' and by the reasons
for it " amounting to a proof," for a proof is the limit
of converging probabilities.
It may be added, that, whereas the logical form of
this argument, is, as I have already observed, indirect,
viz. that "the conclusion cannot be otherwise/' and
Butler says that an event is proved, if its antecedents
" could not in reason be supposed to have happened
unless it were true," and law-books tell us that the
T
322 Inference.
principle of circumstantial evidence is the reductio ad
absurdum, so Newton too is forced to the same mode of
proof for the establishment of his lemma, about prime
and ultimate ratios. " If you deny that they become
ultimately equal," he says, " let them be ultimately
unequal ; " and the consequence follows, " which is
against the supposition/'
Such being the character of the mental process in
concrete reasoning, I should wish to adduce some good
instances of it in illustration, instances in which the
person reasoning confesses that he is reasoning on this
very process, as I have been stating it ; but these are
difficult to find, from the very circumstance that the
process from first to last is carried on as much without
words as with them. However, I will set down three
such.
1. First, an instance in physics. Wood, treating of
the laws of motion, thus describes the line of reasoning
by which the mind is certified of them. " They are not
indeed self-evident, nor do they admit of accurate proof
by experiment, on account of the effects of friction and
the air's resistance, which cannot entirely be removed.
They are, however, constantly and invariably suggested
to our senses, and they agree with experiment, as far as
experiment can go; and the more accurately the experi-
ments are made, and the greater care we take to remove
all those impediments which tend to render the conclu-
sions erroneous, the more nearly do the experiments
coincide with these laws.
" Their truth is also established upon a different
ground : from these general principles innumerable
Informal Inference. 323
particular conclusions have been deducted ; sometimes
the deductions are simple and immediate, sometimes
they are made by tedious and intricate operations;
yet they are all, without exception, consistent with
each other and with experiment. It follows thereby,
that the principles upon which the calculations are
founded are true." *
The reasoning of this passage (in which the uniformity
of the laws of nature is assumed) seems to me a good
illustration of what must be considered the principle
or form of an induction. The conclusion, which is its
scope, is, by its own confession, not proved ; but it
ought to be proved, or is as good as proved, and a man
would be irrational who did not take it to be virtually
proved; first, because the imperfections in the proof arise
out of its subject-matter and the nature of the case, so
that it is proved interpretative ; and next, because in
the same degree in which these faults in the subject-
matter are overcome here or there, are the involved
imperfections here or there of the proof remedied ; and
further, because, when the conclusion is assumed as an
hypothesis, it throws light upon a multitude of collateral
facts, accounting for them, and uniting them together
in one whole. Consistency is not always the guarantee
of truth ; but there may be a consistency in a theory
so variously tried and exemplified as to lead to belief
in it, as reasonably as a witness in a court of law
may, after a severe cross-examination, satisfy and
assure judge, jury, and the whole court, of his simple
veracity.
* " Mechanics," p. 31.
Y 2
324 Inference.
2. And from the courts of law shall my second illus-
tration be taken.
A learned writer says, " In criminal prosecutions, the
circumstantial evidence should be such, as to produce
nearly the same degree of certainty as that which arises
from direct testimony, and to exclude a rational proba-
bility of innocence/' 4 By degrees of certainty he seems
to mean, together with many other writers, degrees of
proof, or approximations towards proof, and not certi-
tude, as a state of mind ; and he says that no one should
be pronounced guilty on evidence which is not equiva-
lent in weight to direct testimony. So far is clear ; but
what is meant by the expression "rational probability " ?
for there can be no probability but what is rational. I
consider that the " exclusion of a rational probability "
means the " exclusion of any argument in the man's
favour which has a rational claim to be called probable/'
or rather, " the rational exclusion of any supposition
that he is innocent ; " and " rational " is used in contra-
distinction to argumentative, and means ' ' resting on
implicit reasons/' such as we feel, indeed, but which
for some cause or other, because they are too subtle or
too circuitous, we cannot put into words so as to satisfy
logic. If this is a correct account of his meaning, he
says that the evidence against a criminal, in order to be
decisive of his guilt, to the satisfaction of our conscience,
must bear with it, along with the palpable arguments for
that guilt, such a reasonableness, or body of implicit rea-
sons for it in addition, as may exclude any probability,
really such, that he is not guilty, — that is, it must be
4 Phillipps' " Law of Evidence," vol. i. p. 456.
Informal Inference. 325
an evidence free from anything obscure, suspicious,
unnatural, or defective, such as (in the judgment of a
prudent man) would hinder that summation and coa-
lescence of the evidence into a proof, which I have
compared to the running into a limit, in the case of
mathematical ratios. Just as an algebraical series may
be of a nature never to terminate or admit of valuation,
as being the equivalent of an irrational quantity or surd,
so there may be some grave imperfections in a body of
reasons, explicit or implicit, which is directed to a
proof, sufficient to interfere with its successful issue or
resolution, and to balk us with an irrational, that is, an
indeterminate, conclusion.
So much as to the principle of conclusions made
upon evidence in criminal cases ; now let us turn to
an instance of its application in a particular instance.
Some years ago there was a murder committed, which
unusually agitated the popular mind, and the evidence
against the culprit was necessarily circumstantial. At
the trial the Judge, in addressing the Jury, instructed
them on the kind of evidence necessary for a verdict
of guilty. Of course he could not mean to say that
they must convict a man, of whose guilt they were
not certain, especially in a case in which two foreign
countries, Germany and the American States, were
attentively looking on. If the Jury had any doubt,
that is, reasonable doubt, about the man's guilt, of
course they would give him the benefit of that doubt.
Nor could the certitude, which would be necessary for
an adverse verdict, be merely that which is sometimes
called a " practical certitude," that is, a certitude in-
326 Inference.
deed, but a certitude, that it was a " duty/' " expe-
dient/' " safe/' to bring in a verdict of guilty. Of
course the Judge spoke of what is called a " speculative
certitude," that is, a certitude of the fact that the man
was guilty; the only question being, what evidence
was sufficient for the proof, for the certitude of that
fact. This is what the Judge meant; and these are
among the remarks which, with this drift, he made
upon the occasion : —
After observing that by circumstantial evidence he
meant a case in which " the facts do not directly prove
the actual crime, but lead to the conclusion that the
prisoner committed that crime," he went on to dis-
claim the suggestion, made by counsel in the case, that
the Jury could not pronounce a verdict of guilty, unless
they were as much satisfied that the prisoner did the
deed as if they had seen him commit it. " That is not
the certainty/' he said, " which is required of you to
discharge your duty to the prisoner, whose safety is in
your hands." Then he stated what was the " degree
of certainty," that is, of certainty or perfection of proof,
which was necessary to the question, " involving as it
did the life of the prisoner at the bar," — it was such
as that f ' with which," he said, ' ( you decide upon and
conclude your own most important transactions in life.
Take the facts which are proved before you, separate
those you believe from those which you do not believe,
and all the conclusions that naturally and almost neces-
sarily result from those facts, you may confide in as
much as in the facts themselves. The case on the part
of the prosecution is the story of the murder, told by
Informal Inference. 327
the different witnesses, who unfold the circumstances
one after another, according to their occurrence, to-
gether with the gradual discovery of some apparent
connexion between the property that was lost, and the
possession of it by the prisoner/'
Now here I observe, that whereas the conclusion
which is contemplated by the Judge, is what may be
pronounced (on the whole, and considering all things,
and judging reasonably) a proved or certain conclu-
sion, that is, a conclusion of the truth of the allegation
against the prisoner, or of the fact of his guilt, on the
other hand, the motiva constituting this reasonable,
rational proof, and this satisfactory certitude, needed
not, according to him, to be stronger than those on
which we prudently act on matters of important in-
terest to ourselves, that ,is, probable reasons viewed in
their convergence and combination. And whereas the
certitude is viewed by the Judge as following on con-
verging probabilities, which constitute a real, though
only a reasonable, not an argumentative, proof, so it
will be observed in this particular instance, that, in
illustration of the general doctrine which I have laid
down, the process is one of " line upon line, and letter
upon letter," of various details accumulating and of
deductions fitting into each other ; for, in the Judge's
words, there was a story — and that not told right out
and by one witness, but taken up and handed on from
witness to witness — gradually unfolded, and tending
to a proof, which of course might have been ten times
stronger than it was, but was still a proof for all that,
and sufficient for its conclusion, — just as we see that
328 Inference.
two straight lines are meeting, and are certain they will
meet at a given distance, though we do not actually see
the junction.
3. The third instance I will take is one of a literary
character, the divination of the authorship of a certain
anonymous publication, as suggested mainly by in-
ternal evidence, as I find it in a critique written some
twenty years ago. In the extract which I make from
it, we may observe the same steady march of a proof
towards a conclusion, which is (as it were) out of
sight; — a reckoning, or a reasonable judgment, that
the conclusion really is proved, and a personal certi-
tude upon that judgment, joined with a confession
that a logical argument could not well be made out
for it, and that the various details in which the proof
consisted were in no small measure implicit and
impalpable.
"Rumour speaks uniformly and clearly enough in
attributing it to the pen of a particular individual.
Nor, although a cursory reader might well skim the
book without finding in it anything to suggest, &c.,
.... will it appear improbable to the more attentive
student of its internal evidence; and the improbability
will decrease more and more, in proportion as the
reader is capable of judging and appreciating the
delicate, and at first invisible touches, which limit, to
those who understand them, the individuals who can
have written it to a very small number indeed. The
utmost scepticism as to its authorship (which we do
not feel ourselves) cannot remove it farther from him
than to that of some one among his most intimate
Informal Inference. 329
friends ; so that, leaving others to discuss antecedent
probabilities/' &c.
Here is a writer who professes to have no doubt at
all about the authorship of a book, — which at the
same time he cannot prove by mere argumentation
set down in words. The reasons of his conviction
are too delicate, too intricate ; nay, they are in
part invisible; invisible, except to those who from
circumstances have an intellectual perception of what
does not appear to the many. They are personal to
the individual. This again is an instance, distinctly
set before us, of the particular mode in which the
mind progresses in concrete matter, viz. from merely
probable antecedents to $ie sufficient proof of a fact
or a truth, and, after the proof, to an act of certitude
about it.
I trust the foregoing remarks may not deserve the
blame of a needless refinement. I have thought it
incumbent on me to illustrate the intellectual process
by which we pass from conditional inference to uncon-
ditional assent ; and I have had only the alternative
of lying under the imputation of a paradox or of a
subtlety.
330 Inference.
§ 3. NATURAL INFERENCE.
I COMMENCED my remarks upon Inference by saying
that reasoning ordinarily shows as a simple act, not as
a process, as if there were no medium interposed be-
tween antecedent and consequent, and the transition
from one to the other were of the nature of an in-
stinct,—that is, the process is altogether unconscious
and implicit. It is necessary, then, to take some
notice of this natural or material Inference, as an
existing phenomenon of mind; and that the more,
because I shall thereby be illustrating and supporting
what I have been saying of the characteristics of
inferential processes as carried on in concrete matter,
and especially of their being the action of the mind
itself, that is, by its ratiocinative or illative faculty,
not a mere operation as in the rules of arithmetic.
I say, then, that our most natural mode of reasoning
is, not from propositions to propositions, but from things
to things, from concrete to concrete, from wholes to
wholes. Whether the consequents, at which we arrive
from the antecedents with which we start, lead us to
assent or only towards assent, those antecedents com-
monly are not recognized by us as subjects for analy-
Natural Inference. 331
sis ; nay, often are only indirectly recognized as ante-
cedents at all. Not only is the inference with, its pro-
cess ignored, but the antecedent also. To the mind
itself the reasoning is a simple divination or predic-
tion; as it literally is in the instance of enthusiasts,
who mistake their own thoughts for inspirations.
This is the mode in which we ordinarily reason,
dealing with things directly, and as they stand, one by
one, in the concrete, with an intrinsic and personal
power, not a conscious adoption of an artificial instru-
ment or expedient; and it is especially exemplified
both in uneducated men, and in men of genius, — in
those who know nothing of intellectual aids and rules,
and in those who care nothing for them, — in those
who are either without or above mental discipline. As
true poetry is a spontaneous outpouring of thought,
and therefore belongs to rude as well as to gifted
minds, whereas no one becomes a poet merely by the
canons of criticism, so this unscientific reasoning,
being sometimes a natural, uncultivated faculty, some-
times approaching to a gift, sometimes an acquired
habit and second nature, has a higher source than
logical rule, — " nascitur, non fit." When it is charac-
terized by precision, subtlety, promptitude, and truth,
it is of course a gift and a rarity : in ordinary minds
it is biassed and degraded by prejudice, passion, and
self-interest ; but still, after all, this divination comes by
nature, and belongs to all of us in a measure, to women
more than to men, hitting or missing, as the case may
be, but with a success on the whole sufficient to show
that there is a method in it, though it be implicit.
332 Inference
A peasant who is weather-wise may yet be simply un-
able to assign intelligible reasons why he thinks it will
be fine to-morrow ; and if he attempts to do so, he
may give reasons wide of the mark ; but that will not
weaken his own confidence in his prediction. His mind
does not proceed step by step, but he feels all at once
and together the force of various combined phenomena,
though he is not conscious of them. Again, there are
physicians who excel in the diagnosis of complaints ;
though it does not follow from this, that they could
defend their decision in a particular case against a
brother physician who disputed it. They are guided
by natural acuteness and varied experience ; they have
their own idiosyncratic modes of observing, generaliz-
ing, and concluding ; when questioned, they can but
rest on their own authority, or appeal to the future
event. In a popular novel,6 a lawyer is introduced,
who " would know, almost by instinct, whether an
accused person was or was not guilty; and he had
already perceived by instinct " that the heroine was
guilty. " I've no doubt she's a clever woman/' he
said, and at once named an attorney practising at the
Old Bailey. So, again, experts and detectives, when
employed to investigate mysteries, in cases whether of
the civil or criminal law, discern and follow out indi-
cations which promise solution with a sagacity incom-
prehensible to ordinary men. A parallel gift is the
intuitive perception of character possessed by certain
men, while others are as destitute of it, as others
again are of an ear for music. What common measure
5 "OrleyFarm."
Natural Inference. 333
is there between the judgments of those who have this
intuition, and those who have not ? What but the
event can settle any difference of opinion which occurs
in their estimation of a third person ? These are
instances of a natural capacity, or of nature improved
by practice and habit, enabling the mind to pass
promptly from one set of facts to another, not only, I
say, without conscious media, but without conscious
antecedents.
Sometimes, I say, this illative faculty is nothing
short of genius. Such seems to have been Newton's
perception of truths mathematical and physical, though
proof was absent. At least that is the impression left
on my own mind by various stories which are told of
him, one of which was stated in the public papers a
few years ago. " Professor Sylvester/' it was said,
" has just discovered the proof of Sir Isaac Newton's
rule for ascertaining the imaginary roots of equations.
. . . This rule has been a Gordian-knot among alge-
braists for the last century and a half. The proof
being wanting, authors became ashamed at length of
advancing a proposition, the evidence for which rested
on no other foundation than belief in Newton's saga-
city." 6
Such is the gift of the calculating boys who now and
then make their appearance, who seem to have certain
short-cuts to conclusions, which they cannot explain to
themselves. Some are said to have been able to de-
termine off-hand what numbers are prime, — numbers
I think, up to seven places.
6 Guardian, June 28, 1865.
334 Inference.
In a very different subject-matter, Napoleon sup-
plies us with an instance of a parallel genius in reason-
ing, by which he was enabled to look at things in his
own province, and to interpret them truly, apparently
without any ratiocinative media. " By long experi-
ence/' says Alison, "joined to great natural quickness
and precision of eye, he had acquired the power of
judging, with extraordinary accuracy, both of the
amount of the enemy's force opposed to him in the
field, and of the probable result of the movements,
even the most complicated, going forward in the oppo-
site armies. . . . He looked around him for a little
while with his telescope, and immediately formed a
clear conception of the position, forces, and intention
of the whole hostile array. In this way he could,
with surprising accuracy, calculate in a few minutes,
according to what he could see of their formation and
the extent of the ground which they occupied, the
numerical force of armies of 60,000 or 80,000 men ;
and if their troops were at all scattered, he knew at
once how long it would require for them to concen-
trate, and how many hours must elapse before they
could make their attack/' 7
It is difficult to avoid calling such clear presenti-
ments by the name of instinct ; and I think they may
so be called, if by instinct be understood, not a natural
sense, one and the same in all, and incapable of culti-
vation, but a perception of facts without assignable
media of perceiving. There are those who can tell at
once what is conducive or injurious to their welfare,
' History, vol. x. pp. 286, 287.
Natural Inference. 335
i
who are their friends, who their enemies, what is to
happen to them, and how they are to meet it. Presence
of mind, fathoming of motives, talent for repartee, are
instances of this gift. As to that divination of per-
sonal danger which is found in the young and inno-
cent, we find a description of it in one of Scott's
romances, in which the heroine, " without being able
to discover what was wrong either in the scenes of
unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in
the manner of her hostess," is said nevertheless to
have felt " an instinctive apprehension that all was not
right, — a feeling in the human mind/' the author
proceeds to say, " allied perhaps to that sense of
danger, which animals exhibit, when placed in the
vicinity of the natural enemies of their race, and
which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air,
and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the
desert."8
A religious biography, lately published, affords us
an instance of this spontaneous perception of truth in
the province of revealed doctrine. " Her firm faith/'
says the Author of the Preface, " was so vivid in its
character, that it was almost like an intuition of the
entire prospect of revealed truth. Let an error against
faith be concealed under expressions however abstruse,
and her sure instinct found it out. I have tried this
experiment repeatedly. She might not be able to
separate the heresy by analysis, but she saw. and felt,
and suffered from its presence." 9
• " Peveril of the Peak."
« « Life of Mother Mar^ret M Hallahan," p. vii.
336 Inference.
i
And so of the great fundamental truths of religion,
natural and revealed, and as regards the mass of reli-
gious men : these truths, doubtless, may be proved
and defended by an array of invincible logical argu-
ments, but such is. not commonly the method in which
those same logical arguments make their way into our
minds. The grounds, on which we hold the divine
origin of the Church, and the previous truths which
are taught us by nature — the being of a God, and the
immortality of the soul — are felt by most men to be
recondite and impalpable, in proportion to their depth
and reality. As we cannot see ourselves, so we cannot
well see intellectual motives which are so intimately
ours, and which spring up from the very constitution
of our minds ; and while we refuse to admit the notion
that religion has not irrefragable arguments in its
behalf, still the attempts to argue, on the part of an
individual hie et nunc, will sometimes only confuse his
apprehension of sacred objects, and subtracts from his
devotion quite as much as it adds to his knowledge.
This is found in the case of other perceptions besides
that of faith. It is the case of nature against art : of
course, if possible, nature and art should be combined,
but sometimes they are incompatible. Thus, ID the
case of calculating boys, it is said, I know not with
what truth, that to teach them the ordinary rules of
arithmetic is to endanger or to destroy the extraor-
dinary endowment. And men who have the gift of
playing on an instrument by ear, are sometimes afraid
to learn by rule, lest they should lose it.
There is an analogy, in this respect, between Ratioci-
Natural Inference. 337
nation and Memory, though the latter may be exercised
without antecedents or media, whereas the former
requires them in its very idea. At the same time asso-
ciation has so much to do with memory, that we may
not unfairly consider memory, as well as reasoning, as
depending on certain previous conditions. Writing, as I
have already observed, is a memoria technica, or logic of
memory. Now it will be found, I think, that indis-
pensable as is the use of letters, still, in fact, we weaken
our memory in proportion as we habituate ourselves to
commit all that we wish to remember to memorandums.
Of course in proportion as our memory is weak or over-
burdened, and thereby treacherous, we cannot act other-
wise ; but in the case of men of strong memory in any
particular subject-matter, as in that of dates, all artificial
expedients, from the " Thirty days has September," &c.,
to the more formidable formulas which are offered for
their use, are as difficult and repulsive as the natural
exercise of memory is healthy and easy to them ; just
as the clear-headed and practical reasoner, who sees
conclusions at a glance, is uncomfortable under the drill
of a logician, being oppressed and hampered, as David
in Saul's armour, by what is intended to be a benefit.
I need not say more on this part of the subject.
What is called reasoning is often only a peculiar and
personal mode of abstraction, and so far, like memory,
may be said to exist without antecedents. It is a power
of looking at things in some particular aspect, and
of determining their internal and external relations
thereby. And according to the subtlety and versatility
of their gift, are men able to read what comes before
338 Inference.
them justly, variously, and fruitfully. Hence, too, it is,
that in our intercourse with others, in business and
family matters, in social and political transactions, a
word or an act on the part of another is sometimes a
sudden revelation ; light breaks in upon us, and our
whole judgment of a course of events, or of an under-
taking, is changed. We determine correctly or other-
wise, as it may be ; but in either case, it is by a sense
proper to ourselves, for another may see the objects
which we are thus using, and give them quite a different
interpretation, inasmuch as he abstracts another set
of general notions from those same phenomena which
present themselves to us also.
What I have been saying of Eatiocination, may be
said of Taste, and is confirmed by the obvious analogy
oetween the two. Taste, skill, invention in the fine
arts — and so, again, discretion or judgment in conduct
— are exerted spontaneously, when once acquired, and
could not give a clear account of themselves, or of their
mode of proceeding. They do not go by rule, though
to a certain point their exercise may be analyzed, and
may take the shape of an art or method. But these
parallels will come before us presently.
And now I come to a further peculiarity of this
natural and spontaneous ratiocination. This faculty, as
it is actually found in us, proceeding from concrete to
concrete, is attached to a definite subject-matter, accord-
ing to the individual. In spite of Aristotle, I will not
allow that genuine reasoning is an instrumental art; and
in spite of Dr. Johnson, I will assert that genius, as far
as it is manifested in ratiocination, is not equal to all
Natural Inference. 339
undertakings, but has its own peculiar subject-matter,
and is circumscribed in its range. No one would for
a moment expect that because Newton and Napoleon
both had a genius for ratiocination, that, in consequence,
Napoleon could have generalized the principle of gravi-
tation, or Newton have seen how to concentrate a
hundred thousand men at Austerlitz. The ratiocinative
faculty, then, as found in individuals, is not a general
instrument of knowledge, but has its province, or is
what may be called departmental. It is not so much
one faculty, as a collection of similar or analogous facul-
ties under one name, there being really as many facul-
ties as there are distinct subject-matters, though in the
same person some of them may, if it so happen, be
united, — nay, though some men have a sort of literary
power in arguing in all subject-matters, de omni scibili,
a power extensive, but not deep or real.
This surely is the conclusion, to which we are brought
by our ordinary experience of men. It is almost pro-
verbial that a hard-headed mathematician may have no
head at all for what is called historical evidence. Suc-
cessful experimentalists need not have talent for legal
research or pleading. A shrewd man of business may
be a bad arguer in philosophical questions. Able states-
men and politicians have been before now eccentric or
superstitious in their religious views. It is notorious
how ridiculous a clever man may make himself, who
ventures to argue with professed theologians, critics,
or geologists, though without positive defects in know-
ledge of his subject. Priestley, great in electricity and
chemistry, was but a poor ecclesiastical historian. The
z 2
34-O Inference.
Author of the Minute Philosopher is also the Author of
the Analyst. Newton wrote not only his " Principia,"
but his comments on the Apocalypse ; Cromwell, whose
actions savoured of the boldest logic, was a confused
speaker. In these, and various similar instances, the
defect lay, not so much in an ignorance of facts, as in an
inability to handle those facts suitably ; in feeble or
perverse modes of abstraction, observation, comparison,
analysis, inference, which nothing could have obviated,
but that which was wanting, — a specific talent, and a
ready exercise of it.
I have already referred to the faculty of memory in
illustration ; it will serve me also here. We can form
an abstract idea of memory, and call it one faculty,
which has for its subject-matter all past facts of our
personal experience ; but this is really only an illusion ;
for there is no such gift of universal memory. Of
course we all remember in a way, as we reason, in all
subject-matters; but I am speaking of remembering
rightly, as I spoke of reasoning rightly. In real fact
memory, as a talent, is not one indivisible faculty, but a
power of retaining and recalling the past in this or that
department of our experience, not in any whatever.
Two memories, which are both specially retentive, may
also be incommensurate. Some men can recite the
canto of a poem, or good part of a speech, after once
reading it, but have no head for dates. Others have
great capacity for the vocabulary of languages, but
recollect nothing of the small occurrences of the day or
year. Others never forget any statement which they
have read, and can give volume and page, but have no
Natural Inference. 341
memory for faces. I have known those who could,
without effort, run through the succession of days on
which Easter fell for years back ; or could say where
they were, or what they were doing, on a given day, in
a given year ; or could recollect accurately the Chris-
tian names of friends and strangers ; or could enumerate
in exact order the names on all the shops from Hyde
Park Corner to the Bank ; or had so mastered the Uni-
versity Calender as to be able to bear an examination in
the academical history of any M.A. taken at random.
And I believe in most of these cases the talent, in its
exceptional character, did not extend beyond several
classes of subjects. There are a hundred memories, as
there are a hundred virtues. Virtue is one indeed in the
abstract ; but, in fact, gentle and kind natures are not
therefore heroic, and prudent and self-controlled minds
need not be open-handed. At the utmost such virtue
is one only in posse ; as developed in the concrete, it
takes the shape of species which in no sense imply each
other.
So is it with Ratiocination; and as we should betake
ourselves to Newton for physical, not for theological
conclusions, and to Wellington for his military expe-
rience, not for statesmanship, so the maxim holds good
generally, " Cuique in arte sua credendum est :" or, to
use the grand words of Aristotle, " We are bound to
give heed to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions
of the experienced and aged, not less than to demon-
strations \ because, from their having the eye of ex-
perience, they behold the principles of things/' In-
i Eth. Nicoin. vi. llf <|n.
342 Inference.
stead of trusting logical science, we must trust persons,
namely, those who by long acquaintance with their
subject have a right to judge. And if we wish our-
selves to share in their convictions and the grounds of
them, we must follow their history, and learn as they
have learned. We must take up their particular subject
as they took it up, beginning at the beginning, give
ourselves to it, depend on practice and experience
more than on reasoning, and thus gain that mental
insight into truth, whatever its subject-matter may
be, which our masters have gained before us. By
following this course, we may make ourselves of
their number, and then we rightly lean upon our-
selves, directing ourselves by our own moral or
intellectual judgment, not by our skill in argumen-
tation.
This doctrine, stated in substance as above by the
great philosopher of antiquity, is more fully expounded
in a passage which he elsewhere quotes from Hesiod.
" Best of all is he," says that poet, " who is wise by
his own wit ; next best he who is wise by the wit of
others ; but whoso is neither able to see, nor willing
to hear, he is a good-for-nothing fellow." Judgment
then in all concrete matter is the architectonic
faculty ; and what may be called the Illative Sense,
or right judgment in ratiocination, is one branch
of it.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ILLATIVE SENSE.
MY object in the foregoing pages has been, not to form
a theory which may account for those phenomena of the
intellect of which they treat, viz. those which charac-
terize inference and assent, but to ascertain what is the
matter of fact as regards them, that is, when it is that
assent is given to propositions which are inferred, and
under what circumstances. I have never had the
thought of an attempt which in me would be ambitious
and which has failed in the hands of others, — if that
attempt may fairly be called unsuccessful, which^
though made by the acutest minds, has not succeeded
in convincing opponents. Especially have I found my-
self unequal to antecedent reasonings in the instance
of a matter of fact. There are those, who, arguing
a priori, maintain, that, since experience leads by syllo-
gism only to probabilities, certitude is ever a mistake.
There are others, who, while they deny this conclusion,
grant the a priori principle assumed in the argument,
and in consequence are obliged, in order to vindicate
the certainty of our knowledge, to have recourse to
the hypothesis of intuitions, intellectual forms, and the
344 The Illative Sense.
like, which belong to us by nature, and may be con-
sidered to elevate our experience into something more
than it is in itself. Earnestly maintaining, as I would,
with this latter school of philosophers, the certainty
of knowledge, I think it enough to appeal to the
common voice of mankind in proof of it. That is to
be accounted a normal operation of our nature, which
men in general do actually instance. That is a law of
our minds, which is exemplified in action on a large
scale, whether a priori it ought to be a law or no.
Our hoping is a proof that hope, as such, is not an ex-
travagance ; and our possession of certitude is a proof
that it is not a weakness or an absurdity to be certain.
How it comes about th'at we can be certain is not my
business to determine ; for me it is sufficient that cer-
titude is felt. This is what the schoolmen, I believe,
call treating a subject in facto esse, in contrast with in
fieri. Had I attempted the latter, I should have been
falling into metaphysics ; but my aim is of a practical
character, such as that of Butler in his Analogy, with
this difference, that he treats of probability, doubt,
expedience, and duty, whereas in these pages, without
excluding, far from it, the question of duty, I would
confine myself to the truth of things, and to the mi d's
certitude of that truth.
Certitude is a mental state : certainty is a quality of
propositions. Those propositions I call certain, which
are such that I am certain of them. Certitude is not a
passive impression made upon the mind from without,
by argumentative compulsion, but in all concrete ques-
tions (nay, even in abstract, for though the reasoning is
The Illative Sense. 345
abstract, the mind which judges of it is concrete) it is
an active recognition of propositions as true, such as it
is the duty of each individual himself to exercise at the
bidding of reason, an d,. (when reason forbids, to withhold.
And reason never bids us be certain except on an abso-
lute proof ; and such a proof can never be furnished to
us by the logic of words, for as certitude is of the mind,
so is the act of inference which leads to it. Every one
who reasons, is his own centre ; and no expedient for
attaining a common measure of minds can reverse this
truth; — but then the question follows, is there any
criterion of the accuracy of an inference, such as may be
our warrant that certitude is rightly elicited in favour
of the proposition inferred, since our warrant cannot,
as I have said, be scientific ? I have already said that
the sole and final judgment on the validity of an
inference in concrete matter is committed to the per-
sonal action of the ratiocinative faculty, the perfec-
tion or virture of which I have called the Illative Sense,
a use of the word " sense " parallel to our use of it in
" good sense/' " common sense/' a " sense of beauty/'
&c. . — and I own I do not see any way to go farther
than this in answer to the question. However, I can
at least explain my meaning more fully ; and therefore
I will now speak, first of the sanction of the Illative
Sense., next of its nature, and then of its range.
346 The Illative Sense.
§ 1. THE SANCTION OF THE ILLATIVE SENSE.
WE are in a world of facts, and we use them ; for there
is nothing else to use. We do not quarrel with them,
but we take them as they are, and avail ourselves of
what they can do for us. It would be out of place to
demand of fire, water, earth, and air their credentials,
so to say, for acting upon us, or ministering to us. We
call them elements, and turn them to account, and
make the most of them. We speculate on them at our
leisure. But what we are still less able to doubt about
or annul, at our leisure or not, is that which is at once
their counterpart and their witness, I mean, ourselves.
We are conscious of the objects of external nature, and
we reflect and act upon them, and this consciousness,
reflection, and action we call our rationality. And as
we use the (so called) elements without first criticizing
what we have no command over, so is it much more un-
meaning in us to criticize or find fault with our own
nature, which is nothing else than we ourselves, instead
of using it according to the use of which it ordinarily
admits. Our being, with its faculties, mind and body,
is a fact not admitting of question, all things being of
necessity referred to it, not it to other things.
The Sanction of the Illative Sense. 347
If I may not assume that I exist, and in a particular
way, that is, with a particular mental constitution, I
have nothing to speculate about, and had better let
speculation alone. Such as I am, it is my all; this
is my essential stand-point, and must be taken for
granted; otherwise, thought is but an idle amuse-
ment, not worth the trouble. There is no medium
between using my faculties, as I have them, and
flinging myself upon the external world according
to the random impulse of the moment, as spray upon
the surface of the waves, and simply forgetting that
I am.
I am what I am, or I am nothing. I cannot think,
reflect, or judge about my being, without starting
from the very point which I aim at concluding. My
ideas are all assumptions, and I am ever moving in a
circle. I cannot avoid being sufficient for myself, for
I cannot make myself anything else, and to change me
is to destroy me. If I do not use myself, I have no
other self to use. My only business is to ascertain
what I am, in order to put it to use. It is enough for
the proof of the value and authority of any function
which I possess, to be able to pronounce that it is
natural. What I have to ascertain is the laws under
which I live. My first elementary lesson of duty is
that of resignation to the laws of my nature, whatever
they are; my first disobedience is to be impatient at
what I am, and to indulge an ambitious aspiration
after what I cannot be, to cherish a distrust of my
powers, and to desire to change laws which are identical
with myself,
348 The Illative Sense.
Truths such as these, which are too obvious to be
called irresistible, are illustrated by what we see in
universal nature. Every being is in a true sense suf-
ficient for itself, so as to be able to fulfil its particular
needs. It is a general law that, whatever is found as
a function or an attribute of any class of beings, or is
natural to it, is in its substance suitable to it, and
subserves its existence, and cannot be rightly re-
garded as a fault or enormity. No being could endure,
of which the constituent parts were at war with each
other. And more than this ; there is that principle of
vitality in every being, which is of a sanative and
restorative character, and which brings all its parts
and functions together into one whole, and is ever
repelling and correcting the mischiefs which befall ifc,
whether from within or without, while showing no
tendency to cast off its belongings as if foreign to its
nature. The brute animals are found severally with
limbs and organs, habits, instincts, appetites, sur-
roundings, which play together for the safety and
welfare of the whole ; and, after all exceptions, may
be said each of them to have, after its own kind, a
perfection of nature. Man is the highest of the
animals, and more indeed than an animal, as having a
mind ; that is, he has a complex nature different from
theirs, with a higher aim and a specific perfection ; but
still the fact that other beings find their good in the
use of their particular nature, is a reason for antici-
pating that to use duly our own is our interest as well
as our necessity.
is the peculiarity of our nature, in contrast
The Sanction of the Illative Sense. 349
with the inferior animals around us ? It is that, though
man cannot change what he is born with, he is a being
of progress with relation to his perfection and charac-
teristic good. Other beings are complete from their
first existence, in that line of excellence which is
allotted to them ; but man begins with nothing realized
(to use the word), and he has to make capital for him-
self by the exercise of those faculties which are his
natural inheritance. Thus he gradually advances to
the fulness of his original destiny. Nor is this pro-
gress mechanical, nor is it of necessity ; it is committed
to the personal efforts of each individual of the species ;
each of us has the prerogative of completing his in-
choate and rudimental nature, and of developing his
own perfection out of the living elements with which
his mind began to be. It is his gift to be the creator
of his own sufficiency ; and to be emphatically self-
made. This is the law of his being, which he cannot
escape ; and whatever is involved in that law he is
bound, or rather he is carried on, to fulfil.
And here I am brought to the bearing of these re-
marks upon my subject. For this law of progress is
carried out by means of the acquisition of knowledge,
of which inference and assent are the immediate in-
struments. Supposing, then, the advancement of our
nature, both in ourselves individually and as regards
the human family, is, to every one of us in his place, a
sacred duty, it follows that that duty is intimately
bound up with the right use of these two main instru-
ments of fulfilling it. And as we do not gain the
knowledge of the law of progress by any a priori view
35O The Illative Sense.
of man, but by looking at it as the interpretation
which is provided by himself on a large scale in the
ordinary action of his intellectual nature, so too we
must appeal to himself, as a fact, and not to any ante-
cedent theory, in order to find what is the law of his
mind as regards the two faculties in question. If then
such an appeal does bear me out in deciding, as I have
done, that the course of inference is ever more or less
obscure, while assent is ever distinct and definite, and
yet that what is in its nature thus absolute does, in
fact follow upon what in outward manifestation is thus
complex, indirect, and recondite, what is left to us but
to take things as they are, and to resign ourselves to
what we find ? that is, instead of devising, what cannot
be, some sufficient science of reasoning- which may
compel certifcude in concrete conclusions, to confess
that there is no ultimate test of truth besides the tes-
timony born to truth by the mind itself, and that this
phenomenon, perplexing as we may find it, is a normal
and inevitable characteristic of the mental constitution
of a being like man on a stage such as the world.
His progress is a living growth, not a mechanism;
and its instruments are mental acts, not the formulas
and contrivances of language.
We are accustomed in this day to lay great stress
upon the harmony of the universe ; and we have well
learned the maxim so powerfully inculcated by our
own English philosopher, that in our inquiries into its
laws, we must sternly destroy all idols of the intellect,
and subdue nature by co-operating with her. Know-
ledge is power, for it enables us to use eternal prin-
The Sanction of the Illative Sense. 35 I
ciples which we cannot alter. So also is it in that
microcosm, the human mind. Let us follow Bacon
more closely than to distort its faculties according to
the demands of an ideal optimism, instead of looking
out for modes of thought proper to our nature, and
faithfully observing them in our intellectual exercises.
Of course I do not stop here. As the structure of
the universe speaks to us of Him who made it, so the
laws of the mind are the expression, not of mere con-
stituted order, but of His will. I should be bound by
them even were they not His laws ; but since one of
their very functions is to tell me of Him, they throw
a reflex light upon themselves, and, for resignation to
my destiny, I substitute a cheerful concurrence in an
overruling Providence. We may gladly welcome such
difficulties as are to be found in our mental constitu-
tion, and in the interaction of our faculties, if we are
able to feel that He gave them to us, and He can over-
rule them for us. We may securely take them as they
are, and use them as we find them. It is He who
teaches us all knowledge ; and the way by which we
acquire it is His way. He varies that way according
to the subject-matter ; but whether He has set before
us in our particular pursuit the way of observation
or of experiment, of speculation or of research, of
demonstration or of probability, whether we are
inquiring into the system of the universe, or into the
elements of matter and of life, or into the history of
human society and past times, if we take the way
proper to our subject-matter, we have His blessing
upon us, and shall find, besides abundant matter for
352 The Illative Sense.
mere opinion, the materials in due measure of proof
and assent.
And especially, by this disposition of things, shall
we learn, as regards religious and ethical inquiries, how
little we can effect, however much we exert ourselves,
without that Blessing ; for, as if on set purpose, He
has made this path of thought rugged and circuitous
above other investigations, that the very discipline in-
flicted on our minds in finding Him, may mould them
into due devotion to Him when He is found. " Yerily
Thou art a hidden Grod, the God of Israel, the Saviour,'*
is the very law of His dealings with us. Certainly we
need a clue into the labyrinth which is to lead us to
Him ; and who among us can hope to seize upon the
true starting-points of thought for that enterprise, and
upon all of them, who is to understand their right
direction, to follow them out to their just limits, and
duly to estimate, adjust, and combine the various
reasonings in which they issue, so as safely to arrive
at what it is worth any labour to secure, without a
special illumination from Himself ? Such are the
dealings of Wisdom with the elect soul. " She will
bring upon him fear, and dread, and trial ; and She
will torture him with the tribulation of Her discipline,
till She try him by Her laws, and trust his soul. Then
She will strengthen him, and make Her way straight
to him, and give him joy."
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 353
§ 2. THE NATURE OF THE ILLATIVE SENSE.
IT is the mind that reasons, and that controls its own
reasonings,, not any technical apparatus of words and
propositions. This power of judging and concluding,
when in its perfection, I call the Illative Sense, and I
shall best illustrate it by referring to parallel faculties,
which we commonly recognize without difficulty.
For instance, how does the mind fulfil its function
of supreme direction and control, in matters of duty,
social intercourse, and taste ? In all of these separate
actions of the intellect, the individual is supreme, and
responsible to himself, nay, under circumstances, may
be justified in opposing himself to the judgment of
the whole world ; though he uses rules to his great
advantage, as far as they go, and is in consequence
bound to use them. As regards moral duty, the sub-
ject is fully considered in the well-known ethical
treatises of Aristotle.1 He calls the faculty which
1 Though Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, speaks
the virtue of the tio&ffTiKbv generally, and as being concerned generally
with contingent matter (vi. 4), or what I have called the concrete, and
of its function being, as regards that matter, &\Tideveiv rf KaraQdvai %
airoQavai (ibid. 3), he does not treat of it in that work in its general
relation to truth and the affirmation of truth, but only as it bears upon
A a
354 The Illative Sense,
guides the mind in matters of conduct, by the name
of phronesis, or judgment. This is the directing, con-
trolling, and determining principle in such matters,
personal and social. What it is to be virtuous, how
we are to gain the just idea and standard of virtue,
how we are to approximate in practice to our own
standard, what is right and wrong in a particular case,
for the answers in fulness and accuracy to these and
similar questions, the philosopher refers us to no code
of laws, to no moral treatise, because no science of
life, applicable to the case of an individual, has been
or can be written. Such is Aristotle's doctrine, and
it is undoubtedly true. An ethical system may supply
laws, general rules, guiding principles, a number of
examples, suggestions, landmarks, limitations, cau-
tions, distinctions, solutions of critical or anxious
difficulties j but who is to apply them to a particular
case ? whither can we go, except to the living intellect,
our own, or another's ? What is written is too vague,
too negative for our need. It bids us avoid extremes ;
but it cannot ascertain for us, according to our per-
sonal need, the golden mean. The authoritative
oracle, which is to decide our path, is something more
searching and manifold than such jejune generaliza-
tions as treatises can give, which are most distinct and
clear when we least need them. It is seated in the
mind of the individual, who is thus his own law, his
own teacher, and his own judge in those special cases
of duty which are personal to him. It comes of an
acquired habit, though it has its first origin in nature
itself, and it is formed and matured by practice and
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 355
experience ; and it manifests itself, not in any breadth
of view, any philosophical comprehension of the mutual
relations of duty towards duty, or any consistency in
its teachings, but it is a capacity sufficient for the
occasion, deciding what ought to be done here and
now, by this given person, under these given circum-
stances. It decides nothing hypothetical, it does not
determine what a man should do ten years hence, or
what another should do at this time. It may indeed
happen to decide ten years hence as it does now, and
to decide a second case now as it now decides a first ;
still its present act is for the present, not for the dis-
tant or the future.
State or public law is inflexible, but this mental
rule is not only minute and particular, but has an
elasticity, which, in its application to individual cases,
is, as I have said, not studious to maintain the appear-
ance of consistency. In old times the mason's rule
which was in use at Lesbos was, according to Aristotle,
not of wood or iron; but of lead, so as to allow of its
adjustment to the uneven surface of the stones brought
together for the work. By such the philosopher
illustrates the nature of equity in contrast with law,
and such is that phronesis, from which the science of
morals forms its rules, and receives its complement.
In this respect of course the law of truth differs
from the law of duty, that duties change, but truths
never ; but, though truth is ever one and the same,
and the assent of certitude is immutable, still the
reasonings which carry us on to truth and certitude
are many and distinct, and vary with the inquirer;
A a 2
356 The Illative Sense.
and it is not with assent, but with the controlling
principle in inferences that I am comparing phronesis.
It is with this drift that I observe that the rule of con-
duct for one man is not always the rule for another,
though the rule is always one and the same in the
abstract, and in its principle and scope. To learn his
own duty in his own case, each individual must have
recourse to his own rule ; and if his rule is not suffi-
ciently developed in his intellect for his need, then he
goes to some other living, present authority, to supply
it for him, not to the dead letter of a treatise or a code.
A living, present authority, himself or another, is his
immediate guide in matters of a personal, social, or
political character. In buying and selling, in con-
tracts, in his treatment of others, in giving and re-
ceiving, in thinking, speaking, doing, and working, in
toil, in danger, in his recreations and pleasures, every
one of his acts, to be praiseworthy, must be in accord-
ance with this practical sense. Thus it is, and not by
science, that he perfects the virtues of justice, self-
command, magnanimity, generosity, gentleness, an<
all others. Phronesis is the regulating principle
every one of them.
These last words lead me to a further remark,
doubt whether it is correct, strictly speaking, to coi
eider this phronesis as a general faculty, directing
perfecting all the virtues at once. So understood, ii
is little better than an abstract term, including und(
it a circle of analogous faculties, severally proper
the separate virtues. Properly speaking, there are
many kinds of phronesis as there are virtues ; for
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 357
judgment, good sense, or tact which is conspicuous
in a man's conduct in one subject-matter, is not
necessarily traceable in another. As in the parallel
cases of memory and reasoning, he may be great in
one aspect of his character, and little-minded in
another. He may be exemplary in his family, yet
commit a fraud on the revenue ; he may be just and
cruel, brave and sensual, imprudent and patient. And
if this be true of the moral virtues, it holds good still
more fully when we compare what is called his private
character with his public. A good man may make a
bad king ; profligates have been great statesmen, or
magnanimous political leaderse
So, too, I may go on to speak of the various callings
and professions which give scope to the exercise of
great talents, for these talents also are matured, not
by mere rule, but by personal skill and sagacity.
They are as diverse as pleading and cross-examining,
conducting a debate in Parliament, swaying a public
meeting, and commanding an awny ; and here, too, I
observe that, though the directing principle in each
case is called by the same name, — sagacity, skill, tact,
or prudence, — still there is no one ruling faculty lead-
ing to eminence in all these various lines of action in
common, but men will excel in one of them, without
any talent for the rest.
The parallel may be continued in the case of the
Fine Arts, in which, though true and scientific rules
may be given, no one would therefore deny that Phi-
dias or Kafael had a far more subtle standard of taste
and a more versatile power of embodying it in his
358 The Illative Sense.
works, than any which he could communicate to others
in even a series of treatises. And here again genius
is indissolubly united to one definite subject-matter ;
a poet is not therefore a painter, or an architect a
musical composer.
And so, again, as regards the useful arts and per-
sonal accomplishments, we use the same word " skill/'
but proficiency in engineering or in ship-building, or
again in engraving, or again in singing, in playing
instruments, in acting, or in gymnastic exercises, is as
simply one with its particular subject-matter, as the
human soul with its particular body, and is, in its own
department, a sort of instinct or inspiration, not an
obedience to external rules of criticism or of science.
It is natural, then, to ask the question, why ratio-
cination should be an exception to a general law which
attaches to the intellectual exercises of the mind ; why
it is held to be commensurate with logical science ; and
why logic is made an instrumental art sufficient for
determining every sort of truth, while no one would
dream of making any one formula, however generalized,
a working rule at once for poetry, the art of medicine,
and political warfare ?
This is what I have to remark concerning the Illative
Sense, and in explanation of its nature and claims;
and on the whole, I have spoken of it in four respects,
— as viewed in itself, in its subject-matter, in the pro-
cess it uses, and in its function and scope.
. First, viewed in its exercise, it is one and the same
in all concrete matters, though employed in them in
different measures. We do not reason in one way in
The Nature of the Illative Sense. 359
chemistry or law, in another in morals or religion ; but
in reasoning on any subject whatever, which is con-
crete, we proceed, as far indeed as we can, by the logic
of language, but we are obliged to supplement it by
the more subtle and elastic logic of thought ; for forms
by themselves prove nothing.
Secondly, it is in fact attached to definite subject-
matters, so that a given individual may possess it in
one department of thought, for instance, history, and
not in another, for instance, philosophy.
Thirdly, in coming to its conclusion, it proceeds
always in the same way, by a method of reasoning,
which, as I have observed above, is the elementary
principle of that mathematical calculus of modern
times, which has so wonderfully extended the limits of
abstract science.
Fourthly, in no class of concrete reasonings, whether
in experimental science, historical research, or theology,
is there any ultimate test of truth and error in our
inferences besides the trustworthiness of the Illative
Sense that gives them its sanction ; just as there is no
sufficient test of poetical excellence, heroic action, or
gentleman-like conduct, other than the particular
mental sense, be it genius, taste, sense of propriety, or
the moral sense, to which those subject-matters are
severally committed. Our duty in each of these is to
strengthen and perfect the special faculty which is its
living rule, and in every case as it comes to do our
best. And such, also is our duty and our necessity, as
regards the Illative Sense.
360 The Illative Sense.
§ 8. THE BANGS OF THE ILLATIVE SENSE.
GBEAT as are the services of language in enabling us to
extend the compass of our inferences, to test their
validity, and to communicate them to others, still the
mind itself is more versatile and vigorous than any of
its works, of which language is one, and it is only under
its penetrating and subtle action that the margin dis-
appears, which I have described as intervening between
verbal argumentation and conclusions in the concrete.
It determines what science cannot determine, the limit
of converging probabilities and the reasons sufficient
for a proof. It is the ratiocinative mind itself, and no
trick of art, however simple in its form and sure in
operation, by which we are able to determine, and
thereupon to be certain, that a moving body left to
itself will never stop, and that no man can live without
eating.
Nor, again, is it by any diagram that we are able to
scrutinize, sort, and combine the many premisses which
must be first run together before we answer duly a
given question. It is to the living mind that we must
look for the means of using correctly principles of what-
ever kind, facts or doctrines, experiences or testimonies,
true or probable, and of discerning what conclusion
The Range of the Illative Sense. 361
from these is necessary, suitable, or expedient, when
they are taken for granted ; and this, either by means
of a natural gift, or from mental formation and practice
and a long familiarity with those various starting-points.
Thus, when Laud said that he did not see his way to
come to terms with the Holy See, " till Eome was other
than she was," no Catholic would admit the sentiment :
but any Catholic may understand that this is just the
judgment consistent with Laud's actual condition of
thought and cast of opinions., his ecclesiastical position,
and the existing state of England.
Nor, lastly, is an action of the mind itself less neces-
sary in relation to those first elements of thought which
in all reasoning are assumptions, the principles, tastes,
and opinions, very often of a personal character, which
are half the battle in the inference with which the
reasoning is to terminate. It is the mind itself that
detects them in their obscure recesses, illustrates them,
establishes them, eliminates them, resolves them into
simpler ideas, as the case may be. The mind contem-
plates them without the use of words, by a process which
cannot be analyzed. Thus it was that Bacon separated
the physical system of the world from the theological ;
thus that Butler connected together the moral system
with the religious. Logical formulas could never have
sustained the reasonings involved in such investigations.
Thus the Illative Sense, that is, the reasoning faculty,
as exercised by gifted, or by educated or otherwise well-
prepared minds, has its function in the beginning
middle, and end of all verbal discussion and inquiry,
and in every step of the process. It is a rule to itself,
362 The Illative Sense.
and appeals to no judgment beyond its own; and
attends upon the whole course of thought from ante-
cedents to consequents, with a minute diligence and
unwearied presence, which is impossible to a cumbrous
apparatus of verbal reasoning, though, in communi-
cating with others, words are the only instrument we
possess, and a serviceable, thoughimperfect instrument.
One function indeed there is of Logic, to which I have
referred in the preceding sentence, which the Illative
Sense does not and cannot perform. It supplies no
common measure between mind and mind, as being
nothing else than a personal gift or acquisition. Few
there are, as I said above, who are good reasoners on
all subject-matters. Two men, who reason well each in
his own province of thought, may, one or both of them,
fail and pronounce opposite judgments on a question
belonging to some third province. Moreover, all
reasoning being from premisses, and those premisses
arising (if it so happen) in their first elements from
personal characteristics, in which men are in fact in
essential and irremediable variance one with another,
the ratiocinative talent can do no more than point out
where the difference between them lies, how far it is
immaterial, when it is worth while continuing an argu-
ment between them, and when not.
Now of the three main occasions of the exercise of the
Illative Sense, which I have been insisting on, and which
are the measure of its range, the start, the course, and
the issue of an inquiry, I have already, in treating of
Informal Inference, shown the place it holds in the final
resolution of concrete questions. Here then it is left to
The Range of the Illative Sense. 363
me to illustrate its presence and action in relation to
the elementary premisses, and, again, to the conduct
of an argument. And first of the latter.
1.
There has been a great deal written of late years on
the subject of the state of Greece and Rome during the
pre-historic period ; let us say before the Olympiads
in Greece, and the war with Pyrrhus in the annals of
Rome. Now, in a question like this, it is plain that
the inquirer has first of all to decide on the point from
which he is to start in the presence of the received
accounts; on what side, from what quarter he is to
approach them; on what principles his discussion is
to be conducted; what he is to assume, what opinions
or objections he is summarily to put aside as nugatory,
what arguments, and when, he is to consider as appo-
site, what false issues are to be avoided, when the
state of his arguments is ripe for a conclusion. Is he
to commence with absolutely discarding all that has
hitherto been received ; or to retain it in outline ; or
to make selections from it ; or to consider and inter-
pret it as mythical, or as allegorical ; or to hold so
much to be trustworthy, or at least of primd facie
authority, as he cannot actually disprove ; or never to
destroy except in proportion as he can construct?
Then, as to the kind of arguments suitable or admis-
sible, how far are tradition, analogy, isolated monu-
ments and records, ruins, vague reports, legends, the
facts or sayings of later times, language, popular pro-
verbs, to tell in the inquiry ? what are marks of truth,
364 The Illative Sense.
what of falsehood, what is probable, what suspicious,
what promises well for discriminating facts from fic-
tions ? Then, arguments have to be balanced against
each other, and then lastly the decision is to be made,
whether any conclusion at all can be drawn, or whether
any before certain issues are tried and settled, or
whether a probable conclusion or a certain. It is plain
how incessant will be the call here or there for the exer-
cise of a definitive judgment, how little that judgment
will be helped on by logic, and how intimately it will be
dependent upon the intellectual complexion of the writer.
This might be illustrated at great length, were it
necessary, from the writings of any of those able men,
whose names are so well known in connexion with the
subject I have instanced; such as Niebuhr, Mr. Clinton,
Sir George Lewis, Mr. Grote, and Colonel Mure. These
authors have severally views of their own on the period
of history which they have selected for investigation,
and they are too learned and logical not to know and
to use to the utmost the testimonies by which the facts
which they investigate are to be ascertained. Why
then do they differ so much from each other, whether
in their estimate of those testimonies or of those facts ?
because that estimate is simply their own, coming of
their own judgment; and that judgment coming of
assumptions of their own, explicit or implicit; and
those assumptions spontaneously issuing out of the state
of thought respectively belonging to each of them ;
and all these successive processes of minute reasoning
superintended and directed by an intellectual instru-
ment far too subtle and spiritual to be scientific.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 365
What was Niebuhr's idea of the office he had under-
taken ? I suppose it was to accept what he found in
the historians of Rome, to interrogate it, to take it to
pieces, to put it together again, to re-arrange and in-
terpret it. Prescription together with internal consis-
tency was to him the evidence of fact, and if he pulled
down he felt he was bound to build up. Very different
is the spirit of another school of writers, with whom
prescription is nothing, and who will admit no evidence
which has not first proved its right to be admitted.
" We are able/' says Niebuhr, " to trace the history of
the Roman constitution back to the beginning of the
Commonwealth, as accurately as we wish, and even
more perfectly than the history of many portions of the
middle ages." But, "we may rejoice/' says Sir George
Lewis, " that the ingenuity or learning of Niebuhr
should have enabled him to advance many noble hypo-
theses and conjectures respecting the form of the early
constitution of Rome, but, unless he can support those
hypotheses by sufficient evidence, they are not entitled
to our belief." " Niebuhr," says a writer nearly related
to myself, " often expresses much contempt for mere
incredulous criticism and negative conclusions ; . . yet
wisely to disbelieve is our first grand requisite in deal-
ing with materials of mixed worth/' And Sir George
Lewis again, " It may be said that there is scarcely any
of the leading conclusions of Niebuhr's work which has
not been impugned by some subsequent writer."
Again, " It is true/' says Niebuhr, " that the Trojan
war belongs to the region of fable, yet undeniably it has
an historical foundation." But Mr. Grote writes, " If
366 The Illative Sense.
we are asked whether the Trojan war is not a legend
. . raised upon a basis of truth, . . our answer must
be, that, as the possibility of it cannot be denied, so
neither can the reality of it be affirmed." On the
other hand, Mr. Clinton lays down the general rule,
f( We may acknowledge as real persons, all those whom
there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is
in favour of the early tradition, if no argument can be
brought to overthrow it/' Thus he lodges the onus
probandi with those who impugn the received accounts ;
but Mr. Grote and Sir George Lewis throw it upon
those who defend them. " Historical evidence," says
the latter, " is founded on the testimony of credible
witnesses/' And again, " It is perpetually assumed in
practice, that historical evidence is different in its nature
from other sorts of evidence. This laxity seems to be
justified by the doctrine of taking the best evidence
which can be obtained. The object of [my] inquiry will
be to apply to the early Roman history the same rules
of evidence which are applied by common consent to
modern history." Far less severe is the judgment of
Colonel Mure : " Where no positive historical proof is
affirmable, the balance of historical probability must
reduce itself very much to a reasonable indulgence to
the weight of national conviction, and a deference to
the testimony of the earliest native authorities." a Rea-
sonable indulgence " to popular belief, " deference "
to ancient tradition, are principles of writing history
abhorrent to the judicial temper of Sir George Lewis.
He considers the words " reasonable indulgence " to
be " ambiguous," and observes that " the very point
The Range of the Illative Sense. 367
which cannot be taken for granted, and in which
writers differ, is, as to the extent to which contempo-
rary attestation may be presumed without direct and
positive proof, . . the extent to which the existence
of a popular belief concerning a supposed matter of
fact authorizes the inference that it grew out of
authentic testimony/1 And Mr. Grote observes to
the same effect : " The word tradition is an equivocal
word, and begs the whole question. It is tacitly un-
derstood to imply a tale descriptive of some real
matter of fact, taking rise at the time when the fact
happened, originally accurate, but corrupted by oral
transmission/' And Lewis, who quotes the passage,
adds, " This tacit understanding is the key-stone of the
whole argument."
I am not contrasting these various opinions of able
men, who have given themselves to historical research,
as if it were any reflection on them that they differ
from each other. It is the cause of their differing on
which I wish to insist. Taking the facts by them-
selves, probably these authors would come to no con-
clusion at all; it is the "tacit understandings" which
Mr. Grote speaks of, the vague and impalpable notions
of " reasonableness " on his own side as well as on
that of others, which both make conclusions possible,
and are the pledge of their being contradictory. The
conclusions vary with the particular writer, for each
writes from his own point of view and with his own
principles, and these admit of no common measure.
This in fact is their own account of the matter:
" The results of soeculative historical inquiry/* says
368 The Illative Sense.
Colonel Mure, " can rarely amount to more than fair
presumption of the reality of the events in question, as
limited to their general substance, not as extending to
their details. Nor can there consequently be expected
in the minds of different inquirers any such unity
regarding the precise degree of reality, as may fre-
quently exist in respect to events attested by docu-
mentary evidence/' Mr. Grote corroborates this de-
cision by the striking instance of the diversity of
existing opinions concerning the Homeric Poems.
"Our means of knowledge/' he says, "are so limited,
that no one can produce arguments sufficiently cogent
to contend against opposing preconceptions, and it
creates a painful sensation of diffidence, when we read
the expressions of equal and absolute persuasion with
which the two opposite conclusions have both been
advanced." And again, " There is a difference of
opinion among the best critics, which is probably not
destined to be adjusted, since so much depends partly
upon critical feeling, partly upon the general reason-
ings in respect to ancient epical unity, with which a
man sits down to the study/' Exactly so ; every one
has his own " critical feeling/' his antecedent tf reason-
ings/' and in consequence his own " absolute persua-
sion," coming in fresh and fresh at every turn of the
discussion ; and who, whether stranger or friend, is to
reach and affect what is so intimately bound up with
the mental constitution of each?
Hence the categorical contradictions between one
writer and another, which abound. Colonel Mure
appeals in defence of an historical thesis to the " fact
The Range of the Illative Sense. 369
of the Hellenic confederacy combining for the adop-
tion of a common national system of chronology in
776 B.C." Mr. Grote replies: "Nothing is more at
variance with my conception/' — he just now spoke of
the preconceptions of others, — " of the state of the
Hellenic world in 776 B.C.. than the idea of a combina-
tion among all the members of the race for any pur-
pose, much more for the purpose of adopting a common
national system of chronology." Colonel Mure speaks
of the " bigoted Athenian public •" Mr. Grote replies
that tf no public ever less deserved the epithet of
' bigoted * than the Athenian/' Colonel Mure also
speaks of Mr. Grote's " arbitrary hypothesis/' and
again (in Mr. Grote's words), of his " unreasonable
scepticism. n He cannot disprove by mere argument
the conclusions of Mr. Grote ; he can but have recourse
to a personal criticism. He virtually says, " We differ
in our personal view of things/' Men become personal
when logic fails ; it is their mode of appealing to their
own primary elements of thought, and their own illa-
tive sense, against the principles and the judgment of
another.
I have already touched upon Niebuhr's method of
investigation, and Sir George Lewis's dislike of it : it
supplies us with as apposite an instance of a difference
in first principles as is afforded by Mr. Grote and
Colonel Mure. "The main characteristic of his history,"
says Lewis, " is the extent to which he relies upon in-
ternal evidence, and upon the indications afforded by
the narrative itself, independently of the testimony of
its truth." And, " Ingenuity and labour can produce
B b
370 The Illative Sense.
nothing bnt hypotheses and conjectures, which may be
supported by analogies, but can never rest upon the
solid foundation of proof." And it is undeniable, that,
rightly or wrongly, disdaining the scepticism of the
mere critic, Niebuhr does consciously proceed by the
high path of divination. " For my own part/' he says,
" I divine that, since the censorship of Fabius and
Decius falls in the same year, that On. Flavins became
mediator between his own class and the higher
orders." Lewis considers this to be a process of guess-
ing ; and says, <f Instead of employing those tests of
credibility which are consistently applied to modern
history/' Niebuhr, and his followers, and most of his
opponents, {C attempt to guide their judgment by the
indication of internal evidence, and assume that the
truth is discovered by an occult faculty of historical
divination/* Niebuhr defends himself thus : €( The real
geographer has a tact which determines his judgment
and choice among different statements. He is able
from isolated statements to draw inferences respecting
things that are unknown, which are closely approxi-
mate to results obtained from observation of facts, and
may supply their place. He is able with limited data
to form an image of things which no eye-witness has
described." He applies this to himself. The principle
set forth in this passage is obviously the same as I
should myself advocate \ but Sir Greorge Lewis, though
not simply denying it as a principle, makes little
account of it, when applied to historical research. " It
is not enough/' he says, " for an historian to claim the
possession of a retrospective second-sight, which is de-
The Range of the Illative Sense. 371
nied to the rest of the world — of a mysterious doctrine,
revealed only to the initiated." And he pronounces,
that " the history of Niebuhr has opened more ques-
tions than it has closed, and it has set in motion a large
body of combatants, whose mutual variances are not at
present likely to be settled by deference to a common
principle." *
We see from the above extracts how a controversy,
such as that to which they belong, is carried on from
starting-points, and with collateral aids, not formally
proved, but more or less assumed, the process of assump-
tion lying in the action of the Illative Sense, as applied
to primary elements of thought respectively congenial
to the disputants. Not that explicit argumentation on
these minute OP minor, though important, points is not
sometimes possible to a certain extent ; but, as I have
said, it is too unwieldy an expedient for a constantly
recurring need, even when it is tolerably exact.
2.
And now secondly, as to the first principles them-
selves. In illustration, I will mention under separate
heads some of those elementary contrarieties of opinion,
on which the Illative Sense has to act, discovering them,
following them out, defending or resisting them, as the
case may be.
1. As to the statement of the case. This depends on
3 Niebuhr, " Roman History," vol. i. p. 177 ; vol. iii. pp. 262. 318. 322.
"Lectures," vol. iii. App. p. xxii. Lewis," Roman History," vol. i.
pp. 11—17 ; vol. ii. pp. 489—492. F. W. Newman, " Regal Rome,"
p. v. Grote, "Greece," vol. ii. pp. 67, 68. 218. 630—639. Mure,
" Greece/' vol. iii. p. 603 ; vol. iv. p. 318. Clinton, ap. Grote, suprk.
B b 2
372 The Illative Sense.
the particular aspect under which we view a subject,
that is, on the abstraction which forms our representa-
tive notion of what it is. Sciences are only so many
distinct aspects of nature; sometimes suggested by
nature itself, sometimes created by the mind. (1) One of
the simplest and broadest aspects under which to view
the physical world, is that of a system of final causes,
or, on the other hand, of initial or effective causes.
Bacon, having it in view to extend our power over
nature, adopted the latter. He took firm hold of the
idea of causation (in the common sense of the word) as
contrasted with that of design, refusing to mix up the
two ideas in one inquiry, and denouncing such tradi-
tional interpretations of facts, as did but obscure the
simplicity of the aspect necessary for his purpose. He
saw what others before him might have seen in what
they saw, but who did not see as he saw it. In this
achievement of intellect, which has been so fruitful in
results, lie his genius and his fame.
(2) So again, to refer to a very different subject-
matter, we often hear of the exploits of some great
lawyer, judge or advocate, who is able in perplexed cases,
when common minds see nothing but a hopeless heap
of facts, foreign or contrary to each other, to detect
the principle which rightly interprets the riddle, and, to
the admiration of all hearers, converts a chaos into an
orderly and luminous whole. This is what is meant
by originality in thinking : it is the discovery of an
aspect of a subject-matter, simpler, it may be, and more
intelligible than any hitherto taken.
(3) On the other hand, such aspects are often unreal,
The Range of the Illative Sense. 373
as being mere exhibitions of ingenuity, not of true
originality of mind. This is especially the case in what
are called philosophical views of history. Such seems to
me the theory advocated in a work of great learning,
vigour, and acuteness, Warburton's " Divine Legation
of Moses/' I do not call Gibbon merely ingenious ;
still his account of the rise of Christianity is the mere
subjective view of one who could not enter into its
depth and power.
(4) The aspect under which we view things is often
intensely personal ; nay, even awfully so, considering
that, from the nature of the case, it does not bring
home its idiosyncrasy either to ourselves or to others.
Each of us looks at the world in his own way, and does
not know that perhaps it is characteristically his own.
This is the case even as regards the senses. Some
men have little perception of colours ; some recognize
one or two ; to some men two contrary colours, as red
and green, are one and the same. How poorly can we
appreciate the beauties of nature, if our eyes discern, ou
the face of things, only an Indian-ink or a drab creation !
(5) So again, as regards form : each of us abstracts
the relation of line to line in his own personal way, — as
one man might apprehend a curve as convex, another
as concave. Of course, as in the case of a curve, there
may be a limit to possible aspects ; but still, even when
we agree together, it is not perhaps that we learn one
from another, or fall under any law of agreement, but
that our separate idiosyncrasies happen to concur. I
fear I may seem trifling, if I allude to an illustration
which has ever had a great force with me, and that
374 The Illative Sense.
for the very reason it is so trivial and minute.
Children, learning to read, are sometimes presented
with the letters of the alphabet turned into the figures
of men in various attitudes. It is curious to observe
from such representations, how differently the shape of
the letters strikes different minds. In consequence I
have continually asked the question in a chance com-
pany, which way certain of the great letters look, to
the right or the left ; and whereas nearly every one
present had his own clear view, so clear that he could
not endure the opposite view, still I have generally
found that one half of the party considered the letters
in question to look to the left, while the other half
thought they looked to the right.
(6) This variety of interpretation in the very ele-
ments of outlines seems to tKrow light upon other
cognate differences between one man and another. If
they look at the mere letters of the alphabet so j
differently, we may understand how it is they form
such distinct judgments upon handwriting ; nay, how
some men may have a talent for deciphering from it
the intellectual and moral character of the writer,
which others have not. Another thought that occurs
is, that perhaps here lies the explanation why it is that
family likenesses are so variously recognized, and how
mistakes in identity may be dangerously frequent.
(7) If we so variously apprehend the familiar objects
of sense, still more various, we may suppose, are the
aspects and associations attached by us, one with
another, to intellectual objects. I do not say we differ
in the objects themselves, but that we may have intermin-
The Range of the Illative Sense. 375
able differences as to their relations and circumstances.
I have heard say (again to take a trifling matter) that
at the beginning of this century, it was a subject of
serious, nay, of angry controversy, whether it began
with January 1800, or January 1801. Argument, which
ought, if in any case, to have easily brought the question
to a decision, was but sprinkling water upon a flame. I
am not clear that, if it could be fairly started now, it
would not lead to similar results ; certainly I know those
who studiously withdraw from giving an opinion on the
subject, when it is accidentally mooted, from their experi-
ence of the eager feeling which it is sure to excite in some
one or other who is present. This eagerness can only
arise from an overpowering sense that the truth of the
matter lies in the one alternative, and not in the other.
These instances, because they are so casual, suggest
how it comes to pass, that men differ so widely from
each other in religious and moral perceptions. Here, I
say again, it does not prove that there is no objective
truth, because not all men are in possession of it ; or
that we are not responsible for the associations which
we attach, and the relations which we assign, to the
objects of the intellect. But this it does suggest to us,
that there is something deeper in our differences than
the accident of external circumstances ; and that we
need the interposition of a Power, greater than human
teaching and human argument, to make our beliefs
true and our minds one.
2. Next I come to the implicit assumption of definite
propositions in the first start of a course of reasoning,
and the arbitrary exclusion of others, of whatever kind.
376 The Illative Sense.
Unless we had the right, when we pleased, of ruling that
propositions were irrelevant or absurd, I do not see how
we could conduct an argument at all; our way would
be simply blocked up by extravagant principles and
theories, gratuitous hypotheses, false issues,unsupported
statements, and incredible facts. There are those who
have treated the history of Abraham as an astronomical
record, and have spoken of our Adorable Saviour as the
sun in Aries. Arabian Mythology has changed Solomon
into a mighty wizard. Noah has been considered the
patriarch of the Chinese people. The ton tribes have
been pronounced still to live in their descendants, the
Bed Indians ; or to be the ancestors of the Groths and
Vandals, and thereby of the present European races.
Some have conjectured that the Apollos of the Acts of
the Apostles was Apollonius Tyaneus. Able men have
reasoned out, almost against their will, that Adam was a
negro. These propositions, and many others of various
kinds, we should think ourselves justified in passing over,
if we were engaged in a work on sacred history ; and
there are others, on the contrary, which we should assume
as true by our own right and without notice, and with-
out which we could not set about or carry on our work.
(1) However, the right of making assumptions has
been disputed; but, when the objections are examined, I
think they only go to show that we have no right in
argument to make any assumption we please. Thus,
in the historical researches which just now came before
us, it seems fair to say that no testimony should be
received, except such as comes from competent witnesses,
while it is not unfair to urge, on the other side, that
The Range of the Illative Sense. 377
tradition, though unauthenticated, being (what is called)
in possession, has a prescription in its favour, and may,
prima facie, or provisionally, be received. Here are
the materials of a fair dispute ; but there are writers
who seem to have gone far beyond this reasonable
scepticism, laying down as a general proposition that we
have no right in philosophy to make any assumption
whatever, and that we ought to begin with a universal
doubt. This, however, is of all assumptions the greatest,
and to forbid assumptions universally is to forbid this
one in particular. Doubt itself is a positive state, and
implies a definite habit of mind, and thereby neces-
sarily involves a system of principles and doctrines all
its own. Again, if nothing is to be assumed, what is
our very method of reasoning but an assumption ? and
what our nature itself ? The very sense of pleasure
and pain, which is one of the most intimate portions of
ourselves, inevitably translates itself into intellectual
assumptions.
Of the two, I would rather have to maintain that we
ought to begin with believing everything that is offered
to our acceptance, than that it is our duty to doubt of
everything. The former, indeed, seems the true way
of learning. In that case, we soon discover and dis-
card what is contradictory to itself; and error having
always some portion of truth in it, and the truth having
a reality which error has not, we may expect, that
when there is an honest purpose and fair talents, we
shall somehow make our way forward, the error falling
off from the mind, and the truth developing and occu-
pying it. Thus it is that the Catholic religion is
378 The Illative Sense.
reached, as we see, by inquirers from all points of the
compass, as if it mattered not where a man began, so
that he had an eye and a heart for the truth.
(2) An argument has been often put forward by un-
believers, I think by Paine, to this effect, that " a reve-
lation, which is to be received as true, ought to be
written on the sun." This appeals to the common-
sense of the many with great force, and implies the
assumption of a principle which Butler, indeed, would
not grant, and would consider unphilosophical, and
yet I think something may be said in its favour.
Whether abstractedly defensible or not, Catholic popu-
lations would not be averse, mutatis mutandis, to
admitting it. Till these last centuries, the Visible
Church was, at least to her children, the light of the
world, as conspicuous as the sun in the heavens ; and
the Creed was written on her forehead, and proclaimed
through her voice, by a teaching as precise as it was
emphatical ; in accordance with the text, " Who is she
that looketh forth at the dawn, fair as the moon, bright
as the sun, terrible as an army set in array ? " It was
not, strictly speaking, a miracle, doubtless ; but in its
effect, nay, in its circumstances, it was little less. Of
course I would not allow that the Church fails in this
manifestation of the truth now, any more than in
former times, though the clouds have come over the
sun ; for what she has lost in her appeal to the ima-
gination, she has gained in philosophical cogency, by
the evidence of her persistent vitality. So far is clear,
that if Paine's aphorism has aprimdfacie force against
Christianity, it owes this advantage to the miserable
deeds of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 379
(3) Another conflict of first principles or assumptions,
which have often been implicit on either side, has been
carried through in our day, and relates to the end and
scope of civil society, that is, whether government and
legislation ought to be of a religious character, or not ;
whether the state has a conscience; whether Chris-
tianity is the law of the land ; whether the magistrate,
in punishing offenders, exercises a retributive office or
a corrective ; or whether the whole structure of society
is raised upon the basis of secular expediency. The re-
lation of philosophy and the sciences to theology comes
into the question. The old time-honoured theory has,
during the last forty years, been vigorously contending
with the new ; and the new is in the ascendant.
(4) There is another great conflict of first principles,
and that among Christians, which has occupied a large
space in our domestic history, during the last thirty or
forty years, and that is the controversy about the Rule
of Faith. I notice it as affording an instance of an
assumption so deeply sunk into the popular mind, that
it is a work of great difficulty to obtain from its main-
tamers an acknowledgment that it is an assumption.
That Scripture is the Rule of Faith is in fact an assump-
tion so congenial to the state of mind and course of
thought usual among Protestants, that it seems to them
rather a truism than a truth. If they are in controversy
with Catholics on any point of faith, they at once ask,
" Where do you find it in Scripture ? " and if Catholics
reply, as they must do, that it is not necessarily in
Scripture in order to be true, nothing can persuade
them that such an answer is not an evasion, and a
triumph to themselves. Yet it is by no means self-
380 The Illative Sense.
evident that all religious truth is to be found in a number
of works, however sacred, which were written at diffe-
rent times, and did not always form one book ; anil in
fact it is a doctrine very hard to prove. So much so,
that years ago, when I was considering it from a Pro-
testant point of view, and wished to defend it to the
best of my power, I was unable to give any better
account of it than the following, which I here quote
from its appositeness to my present subject.
" It matters not," I said, speaking of the first Pro-
testants, " whether or not they only happened to come
right on what, in a logical point of view, are faulty pre-
misses. They had no time for theories of any kind ; and
to require theories at their hand argues an ignorance
of human nature, and of the ways in which truth is
struck out in the course of life. Common sense, chance,
moral perception, genius, the great discoverers of prin-
ciples do not reason. They have no arguments, no
grounds, they see the truth, but they do not know how
they see it ; and if at any time they attempt to prove
it, it is as much a matter of experiment with them, as
if they had to find a road to a distant mountain, which
they see with the eye ; and they get entangled, embar-
rassed, and perchance overthrown in the superfluous en-
deavour. It is the second-rate men, though most useful
in their place, who prove, reconcile, finish, and explain.
Probably, the popular feeling of the sixteenth century
saw the Bible to be the Word of God, so as nothing
else is His Word, by the power of a strong sense, by
a sort of moral instinct, or by a happy augury." 8
That is, I considered the assumption an act of the
8 « Prophetical Office of the Church/' pp. 347, 348, ed. 1837.
The Range of the Illative Sense. 38 1
Illative Sense ; — I should now add, the Illative Sense,
acting on mistaken elements of thought.
3. After the aspects in which a question is to be
viewed, and the principles on which it is to be con-
sidered, come the arguments by which it is decided ;
among these are antecedent reasons, which are
especially in point here, because they are in great
measure made by ourselves and belong to our personal
character, and to them I shall confine myself.
Antecedent reasoning, when negative, is safe. Thus
no one would say that, because Alexander's rash hero-
ism is one of the leading characteristics of his history,
therefore we are justified, except in writing a romance,
in asserting that at a particular time and place, he
distinguished himself by a certain exploit about which
history is altogether silent ; but, on the other hand, his
notorious bravery would be almost decisive against any
charge against him of having on a particular occasion
acted as a coward.
In like manner, good character goes far in destroy-
ing the force of even plausible charges. There is
indeed a degree of evidence in support of an allega-
tion, against which reputation is no defence ; but it
must be singularly strong to overcome an established
antecedent probability which stands opposed to it.
Thus historical personages or great authors, men of
high and pure character, have had imputations cast
upon them, easy to make, difficult or impossible to
meet, which are indignantly trodden under foot by all
just and sensible men, as being as anti-social as they
are inhuman. I need not add what a cruel and despic-
able part a husband or a son would play, who readily
382 The Illative Sense.
listened to a charge against his wife or his father. Yet
all this being admitted, a great number of cases remain
which are perplexing, and on which we cannot adjust the
claims of conflicting and heterogeneous arguments except
by the keen and subtle operation of the Illative Sense.
Butler's argument in his Analogy is such a presump-
tion used negatively. Objection being brought against
certain characteristics of Christianity, he meets it by
the presumption in their favour derived from their
parallels as discoverable in the order of nature, argu-
ing that they do not tell against the Divine origin
of Christianity, unless they tell against the Divine
origin of the natural system also. But he could not
adduce it as a positive and direct proof of the Divine
origin of the Christian doctrines that they had their
parallels in nature, or at the utmost as more than a
recommendation of them to the religious inquirer.
Unbelievers use the antecedent argument from the
order of nature against our belief in miracles. Here,
if they only mean that the fact of that system of laws,
by which physical nature is governed, makes it ante-
cedently improbable that an exception should occur in
it, there is no objection to the argument ; but if, as
is not uncommon, they mean that the fact of an
established order is absolutely fatal to the very notion
of an exception, they are using a presumption as if it
were a proof. They are saying, — What has happened
999 times one way cannot possibly happen on the
1000th time another way, because what has happened
999 times one way is likely to happen in the same way
on the 1000th. But unlikely things do happen some-
times. If, however, they mean that the existing order
The Range of the Illative Sense. 383
of nature constitutes a physical necessity, and that a
law is an unalterable fact, this is to assume the very
point in debate, and is much more than asserting its
antecedent probability.
Facts cannot be proved by presumptions, yet it is
remarkable that in cases where nothing stronger than
presumption was even professed, scientific men have
sometimes acted as if they thought this kind of argu-
ment, taken by itself, decisive of a fact which was in
debate. Thus in the controversy about the Plurality
of worlds, it has been considered, on purely antecedent
grounds, as far as I see, to be so necessary that the
Creator should have filled with living beings the lumi-
naries which we see in the sky, and the other cosmical
bodies which we imagine there, that it almost amounts
to a blasphemy to doubt it.
Theological conclusions, it is true, have often been
made on antecedent reasonings ; but then it must be
recollected that theological reasoning professes to be
sustained by a more than human power, a.nd to be
guaranteed by a more than human authority. It may
be true, also, that conversions to Christianity have often
been made on antecedent reasons ; yet, even admitting
the fact, which is not quite clear, a number of antece-
dent probabilities, confirming each other, may make it
a duty in the judgment of a prudent man, not only to act
as if a statement were true, but actually to accept and
believe it. This is not unfrequently instanced in oui
dealings with others, when we feel it right, in spite of
our misgivings, to oblige ourselves to believe their
honesty. And in all these delicate questions there is
constant call for the exercise of the Illative Sense.
CHAPTER X.
INFERENCE AND ASSENT IN THE MATTER OJ
RELIGION.
AND now I have completed my review of the second
subject to which I have given my attention in this
Essay, the connexion existing between the intellectual
acts of Assent and Inference, my first being the con-
nexion of Assent with Apprehension ; and as I closed
my remarks upon Assent and Apprehension by applying
the conclusions at which I had arrived to our belief in
the Truths of Religion, so now I ought to speak of its
Evidences, before quitting the consideration of the
dependence of Assent upon Inference. I shall attempt
to do so in this Chapter, not without much anxiety, lest
I should injure so large, momentous, and sacred a
subject by a necessarily cursory treatment.
I begin with expressing a sentiment, which is habi-
tually in my thoughts, whenever they are turned to the
subject of mental or moral science, and which I am as
willing to apply here to the Evidences of Religion as it
properly applies to Metaphysics or Ethics, viz. that in
these provinces of inquiry egotism is true modesty. In
Inference and Assent in Religion. 385
religious inquiry each of us can speak only for himself,
and for himself he has a right to speak. His own
experiences are enough for himself, but he cannot
speak for others : he cannot lay down the law ; he can
only bring his own experiences to the common stock
of psychological facts. He knows what has satisfied
and satisfies himself ; if it satisfies him, it is likely to
satisfy others ; if, as he believes and is sure, it is true,
it will approve itself to others also, for there is but
one truth. And doubtless he does find in fact, that,
allowing for the difference of minds and of modes of
speech, what convinces him, does convince others also.
There will be very many exceptions, but these will
admit of explanation. Great numbers of men refuse
to inquire at all 5 they put the subject of religion
aside altogether ; others are not serious enough to
care about questions of truth and duty and to entertain
them; and to numbers, from their temper of mind, or
the absence of doubt, or a dormant intellect, it does not
occur to inquire why or what they believe; many,
though they tried, would not be able to do so in any
satisfactory way. This being the case, it causes no un-
easiness to any one who honestly attempts to set down
his own view of the Evidences of Religion, that at
first sight he seems to be but one among many who
are all in opposition to each other. But, however that
may be, he brings together his reasons, and relies on
them, because they are his own, and this is his primary
evidence ; and he has a second ground of evidence, in
the testimony of those who agree with him. Bat his
best evidence is the former, which is derived from his
c c
386 Inference and Assent in Religion.
own thoughts ; and it is that which the world has a
right to demand of him; and therefore his true
sobriety and modesty consists, not in claiming for his
conclusions an acceptance or a scientific approval
which is not to be found anywhere, but in stating
what are personally his own grounds for his belief in
Natural and Kevealed Keligion, — grounds which he
holds to be so sufficient, that he thinks that others do
hold them implicitly or in substance, or would hold
them, if they inquired fairly, or will hold if they listen
to him, or do not hold from impediments, invincible or
not as it may be, into which he has no call to inquire.
However, his own business is to speak for himself. He
uses the words of the Samaritans to their country-
woman, when our Lord had remained with them for
two days, " Now we believe, not for thy saying, for we
have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is in-
deed the Saviour of the world."
In these words it is declared both that the Gospel
Revelation is divine, and that it carries with it the
evidence of its divinity ; and this is of course the
matter of fact. However, these two attributes need
not have been united ; a revelation might have been
really given, yet given without credentials. Our
supreme Master might have imparted to us truths
which nature cannot teach us, without telling us thi
He had imparted them, — as is actually the case now
regards heathen countries, into which portions of
vealed truth overflow and penetrate, without th<
populations knowing whence those truths came. Bi
the very idea of Christianity in its profession an<
Inference and Assent in Religion. 387
history, is something more than this ; it is a " Keve-
latio revelata ; " it is a definite message from God to
man distinctly conveyed by His chosen instruments,
and to be received as such a message ; and therefore
to be positively acknowledged, embraced, and main-
tained as true, on the ground of its being divine, not
as true on intrinsic grounds, not as probably true, or
partially true, but as absolutely certain knowledge,
certain in a sense in which nothing else can be certain,
because it comes from Him who neither can deceive
nor be deceived.
And the whole tenor of Scripture from beginning
to end is to this effect : the matter of revelation is not
a mere collection of truths, not a philosophical view,
not a religious sentiment or spirit, not a special
morality, — poured out upon mankind as a stream
might pour itself into the sea, mixing with the world's
thought, modifying, purifying, invigorating it ; — but
an authoritative teaching, which bears witness to itself
and keeps itself together as one, in contrast to the
assemblage of opinions on all sides of it, and speaks
to all men, as being ever and everywhere one and the
same, and claiming to be received intelligently, by
all whom it addresses, as one doctrine, discipline, and
devotion directly given from above. In consequence,
the exhibition of credentials, that is, of evidence, that
it is what it professes to be, is essential to Christianity,
as it comes to us ; for we are not left at liberty to pick
and choose out of its contents according to our judg-
ment, but must receive it all, as we find it, if we
accept it at all. It is a religion in addition to the
c c 2
388 Inference and Assent in Religion.
religion of nature ; and as nature has an intrinsic claim
upon us to be obeyed and used, so what is over and
above nature, or supernatural, must also bring with it
valid testimonials of its right to demand our homage.
Next, as to its relation to nature. As I have said,
Christianity is simply an addition to it ; it does not
supersede or contradict it ; it recognizes and depends
on it, and that of necessity : for how possibly can it
prove its claims except by an appeal to what men
have already ? be it ever so miraculous, it cannot dis-
pense with nature ; this would be to cut the ground
from under it ; for what would be the worth of evi-
dences in favour of a revelation which denied the au-
thority of that system of thought, and those courses
of reasoning, out of which those evidences necessarily
grew?
And in agreement with this obvious conclusion we
find in Scripture our Lord and His Apostles always
treating Christianity as the completion and supplement
of Natural Religion, and of previous revelations ; as
when He says that the Father testified of Him ; that
not to know Him was not to know the Father ; and
as St. Paul at Athens appeals to the " Unknown God,"
and says that " He that made the world " " now d<
clareth to all men to do penance, because He hath a]
pointed a day to judge the world by the man whoi
He hath appointed." As then our Lord and His
Apostles appeal to the God of nature, we must follow
them in that appeal ; and, to do this with the bett
effect, we. must first inquire into the chief doctrine*
and the grounds of Natural Religion.
Natural Religion. 389
§ 1. NATURAL RELIGION.
BY Eeligion I mean the knowledge of God, of His
Will, and of our duties towards Him ; and there are
three main channels which Nature furnishes for our
acquiring this knowledge, viz. our own minds, the
voice of mankind, and the course of the world, that is,
of human life and human affairs. The informations
which these three convey to us teach us the Being and
Attributes pf God, our responsibility to Him, our
dependence on Him, our prospect of reward or pun-
ishment, to be somehow brought about, according as
we obey or disobey Him. And the most authoritative
of these three means of knowledge, as being specially
our own, is our own mind, whose informations give us
the rule by which we test, interpret, and correct what
is presented to us for belief, whether by the universal
testimony of mankind, or by the history of society and
of the world.
Our great internal teacher of religion is, as I have
said in an earlier part of this Essay, our Conscience.1
Conscience is a personal guide, and I use it because
I must use myself ; I am as little able to think by
> Supra, n. IDS. &/>_ Vide also Univ. germ, ii. 7 — 13.
390 Inference and Assent in Religion.
any mind but my own as to breathe with another's
lungs. Conscience is nearer to me than any other
means of knowledge. And as it is given to me, so
also is it given to others; and being carried about
by every individual in his own breast, and requiring
nothing besides itself, it is thus adapted for the com-
munication to each separately of that knowledge which
is most momentous to him individually, — adapted for
the use of all classes and conditions of men, for high
and low, young and old, men and women, independ-
ently of books, of educated reasoning, of physical
knowledge, or of philosophy. Conscience, too, teaches
us, not only that God is, but what He is ; it provides
for the mind a real image of Him, as a medium of
worship ; it gives us a rule of right and wrong, as
being His rule, and a code of moral duties. More-
over, it is so constituted that, if obeyed, it becomes
clearer in its injunctions, and wider in their range,
and corrects and completes the accidental feebleness of
its initial teachings. Conscience, then, considered as
our guide, is fully furnished for its office. I say all
this without entering into the question how far external
assistances are in all cases necessary to the action of
the mind, because in tact man does not live in isolation,
but is everywhere found as a member of society ; I am
not concerned here with abstract questions.
Now Conscience suggests to us many things about that
Master, whom by means of it we perceive, but its most
prominent teaching, and its cardinal and distinguishing
truth, is that he is our Judge. In consequence, the
special Attribute under which it brings Him before us,
Natural Religion. 391
to which it subordinates all other Attributes, is that
of justice — retributive justice. We learn from its
informations to conceive of the Almighty, primarily,
not as a God of Wisdom, of Knowledge, of Power, of
Benevolence, but as a God of Judgment and Justice ;
as One, who, not simply for the good of the offender,
but as an end good in itself, and as a principle of
government, ordains that the offender should suffer for
his offence. If it tells us anything at all of the charac-
teristics of the Divine Mind, it certainly tells us this ;
and, considering that our shortcomings are far more
frequent and important than our fulfilment of the
duties enjoined upon us, and that of this point we are
fully aware ourselves, it follows that the aspect under
which Almighty God is presented to us by Nature, is
(to use a figure) of One who is angry with us, and
threatens evil. Hence its effect is to burden and
sadden the religious mind, and is in contrast with the
enjoyment derivable from the exercise of the affections,
and from the perception of beauty, whether in the
material universe or in the creations of the intellect.
This is that fearful antagonism brought out with such
soul-piercing reality by Lucretius, when he speaks so
dishonourably of what he considers the heavy yoke of
religion, and the "aeternas posnas in morte timen-
dum ;" and, on the other hand, rejoices in his " Alma
Venus," " quae rerum naturam sola gubernas." And
we may appeal to him for the fact, while we repudiate
his view of it.
Such being the primd facie aspect of religion which
the teachings of Conscience bring before us individu-
392 Inference and Assent in Religion.
ally, in the next place let us consider what are the
doctrines, and what the influences of religion, as we
find it embodied in those various rites and devotions
which have taken root in the many races of mankind,
since the beginning of history, and before history, all
over the earth. Of these also Lucretius gives us a
specimen; and they accord in form and complexion
with that doctrine about duty and responsibility, which
he so bitterly hates and loathes. It is scarcely necessary
to insist, that wherever Religion exists in a popular
shape, it has almost invariably worn its dark side out-
wards. It is founded in one way or other on the sense
of sin ; and without that vivid sense it would hardly
have any precepts or any observances. Its many
varieties all proclaim or imply that man is in a degraded,
servile condition, and requires expiation, reconcilia-
tion, and some great change of nature. This is sug-
gested to us in the many ways in which we are told of
a realm of light and a realm of darkness, of an elect
fold and a regenerate state. It is suggested in the
almost ubiquitous and ever-recurring institution of a
Priesthood ; for wherever there is a priest, there is the
notion of sin, pollution, and retribution, as, on the
other hand, of intercession and mediation. Also, still
more directly, is the notion of our guilt impressed
upon us by the doctrine of future punishment, and
that eternal, which is found in mythologies and creeds
of such various parentage.
Of these distinct rites and doctrines embodying the
severe side of Natural Religion, the most remarkable
is that of atonement, that is, " a substitution of some-
Natural Religion. 393
thing offered, or some personal suffering, for a penalty
which would otherwise be exacted ;" most remarkable,
I say, both from its close connexion with the notion of
vicarious satisfaction, and, on the other hand, from its
universality. "The practice of atonement," says the
author, whose definition of the word I have just given*
" is remarkable for its antiquity and universality, proved
by the earliest records that have come down to us of all
nations, and by the testimony of ancient and modern
travellers. In the oldest books of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, we have numerous instances of expiatory rites,
where atonement is the prominent feature. At the
earliest date, to which we can carry our inquiries by
means of the heathen records, we meet with the same
notion of atonement. If we pursue our inquiries through
the accounts left us by the Greek and Roman writers of
the barbarous nations with which they were acquainted,
from India to Britain, we shall find the same notions
and similar practices of atonement. From the most
popular portion of our own literature, our narratives
of voyages and travels, every one, probably, who reads
at all will be able to find for himself abundant proof that
the notion has been as permanent as it is universal.
It shows itself among the various tribes of Africa, the
islanders of the South Seas, and even that most peculiar
race, the natives of Australia, either in the shape of
some offering, or some mutilation of the person/' 2
These ceremonial acknowledgments, in so many
distinct forms of worship, of the existing degradation
of the human race, of course imply a brighter, as well
2 fenny Cyclopeedia, art. " Atonement " (abridged).
394 Inference and Assent in Religion.
as a threatening aspect of Natural Religion ; for why
should men adopt any rifces of deprecation or of purifi-
cation at all, unless they had some hope of attaining to
a better condition than their present ? Of this happier
side of religion I will speak presently ; here, however, a
question of another kind occurs, viz. whether the notion
of atonement can be admitted among the doctrines
of Natural Keligion, — I mean on the ground that it is
inconsistent with those teachings of Conscience, which
I have recognized above, as the rule and corrective of
every other information on the subject. If there is any
truth brought home to us by conscience, it is this, that
we are personally responsible for what we do, that we
have no means of shifting our responsibility, and that
dereliction of duty involves punishment ; how, it may
be asked, can acts of ours of any kind — how can even
amendment of life — undo the past ? And if even our
own subsequent acts of obedience bring with them no
promise of reversing what has once been committed,
how can external rites, or the actions of another (as of
a priest), be substitutes for that punishment which is the
connatural fruit and intrinsic development of violation
of the sense of duty ? I think this objection avails as
far as this, that amendment is no reparation, and that
no ceremonies or penances can in themselves exercise
any vicarious virtue in our behalf; and that, if they
avail, they only avail in the intermediate season of
probation ; that in some way we must make them our
own ; and that, when the time comes, which conscience
forebodes, of our being called to judgment, then, at
least, we shall have to stand in and by ourselves, what-
Natural Religion. 395
ever we shall have by that time become, and must bear
our own burden. But it is plain that in this final
account, as it lies between us and our Master, He alone
can decide how the past and the present will stand
together who is our Creator and our Judge.
In thus making it a necessary point to adjust the
religions of the world with the intimations of our
conscience, I am suggesting the reason why I confine
myself to such religions as have had their rise in
barbarous times, and do not recognize the religion of
what is called civilization, as having legitimately a
part in the delineation of Natural Religion. It may at
first sight seem strange, that, considering I have laid
such stress upon the progressive nature of man, I
should take my ideas of his religion from his initial,
and not his final testimony about its doctrines ; and it
may be urged that the religion of civilized times is
quite opposite in character to the rites and traditions
of barbarians, and has nothing of that gloom and
sternness, on which I have insisted as their character-
istic. Thus the Greek Mythology was for the most
part cheerful and graceful, and its new gods certainly
more genial and indulgent than the old ones. And, in
like manner, the religion of philosophy is more noble
and more humane than those primitive conceptions
which were sufficient for early kings and warriors.
But my answer to this objection is obvious : the
progress of which man's nature is capable is a
development, not a destruction of its original state ;
it must subserve the elements from which it proceeds,
in order to be a true development and not a per-
396 Inference and Assent in Religion.
version.* And those popular rituals do in fact sub-
serve and complete that nature with which man is
born. It is otherwise with the religion of so-called
civilization; such religion does but contradict the
religion of barbarism; and since this civilization
itself is not a development of man's whole nature,
but mainly of the intellect, recognizing indeed the
moral sense, but ignoring the conscience, no wonder
that the religion in which it issues has no sympathy
either with the hopes and fears of the awakened soul,
or with those frightful presentiments which are ex-
pressed in the worship and traditions of the heathen.
This artificial religion, then, has no place in the in-
quiry; first, because it comes of a one-sided pro-
gress of mind, and next, for the very reason that it
contradicts informants which speak with greater
authority than itself.
Now we come to the third natural informant on the
subject of Religion ; I mean the system and the course
of the world. This established order of things, in which
we find ourselves, if it has a Creator, must surely speak
of His will in its broad outlines and its main issues. This
principle being laid down as certain, when we come to
apply it to things as they are, our first feeling is one of
surprise and (I may say) of dismay, that His control
of this living world is so indirect, and His action
obscure. This is the first lesson that we gain froi
the course of human affairs. What strikes the mind
8 On these various subjects I have written in " University Sermons"
(Oxford), No. vi. " Idea of the University,'* Disc. viii. " History
Turks/' ch. iv. " Development of Doctrine/' eh. i. sect. 3.
Natural Religion. 397
forcibly and so painfully is, His absence (if I may so
speak) from His own world.4 It is a silence that speaks.
It is as if others had got possession of His work.
Why does not He, our Maker and Ruler, give us
some immediate knowledge of Himself? Why does
He not write His Moral Nature in large letters upon
the face of history, and bring the blind, tumultuous
rush of its events into a celestial, hierarchical order ?
Why does He not grant us in the structure of society
at least so much of a revelation of Himself as the
religions of the heathen attempt to supply? Why
from the beginning of time has no one uniform steady
light guided all families of the earth, and all individual
men, how to please Him ? Why is it possible without
absurdity to deny His will, His attributes, His exist-
ence ? Why does He not walk with us one by one, as
He is said to have walked with His chosen men of old
time ? We both see and know each other ; why, if we
cannot have the sight of Him, have we not at least the
knowledge ? On the contrary, He is specially " a
Hidden God ;" and with our best efforts we can only
glean from the surface of the world some faint and
fragmentary views of Him. I see only a choice of
alternatives in explanation of so critical a fact : — either
there is no Creator, or He has disowned His creatures.
Are then the dim shadows of His Presence in the affairs
of men but a fancy of our own, or, on the other hand,
has He hid His face and the light of His countenance,
because we have in some special way dishonoured Him ?
My true informant, my burdened conscience, gives me
4 Vide " Apologia," p. 241.
398 Inference and Assent in Religion.
at once the true answer to each of these antagonist
questions : — it pronounces without any misgiving that
God exists : — and it pronounces quite as surely that I
am alienated from Him ; that " His hand is not short-
ened, but that our iniquities have divided between us
and our God." Thus it solves the world's mystery,
and sees in that mystery only a confirmation of its own
original teaching.
Let us pass on to another great fact of experience,
bearing on Religion, which confirms this testimony both
of conscience and of the forms of worship which pre-
vail among mankind ; — I mean, the amount of suffer-
ing, bodily and mental, which is our portion in this life.
Not only is the Creator far off, but some being of ma-
lignant nature seems, as I have said, to have got hold
of us, and to be making us his sport. Let us say there
are a thousand millions of men on the earth at this
time > who can weigh and measure the aggregate of
pain which this one generation has endured and will
endure from birth to death ? Then add to this all the
pain which has fallen and will fall upon our race
through centuries past and to come. Is there not then
some great gulf fixed between us and the good God ?
Here again the testimony of the system of nature is
more than corroborated by those popular traditions
about the unseen state, which are found in mythologies
and superstitions, ancient and modern ; for those tra-
ditions speak, not only of present misery, but of pain
and evil hereafter, and even without end. But this
dreadful addition is not necessary for the conclusion
which I am here wishing to draw. The real mystery
Natural Religion. 399
is, not that evil should never have an end, but that it
should ever have had a beginning. Even a universal
restitution could not undo what had been, or account
for evil being the necessary condition of good. How
are we to explain it, the existence of Grod being
taken for granted, except by saying that another
will, besides His, has had a part in the disposition
of His work, that there is a quarrel without remedy,
a chronic alienation, between God and man ?
I have implied that the laws on which this world is
governed do not go so far as to prove that evil will
never die out of the creation ; nevertheless, they look
in that direction. No experience indeed of life can
assure us about the future, but it can and does give us
means of conjecturing what is likely to be ; and those
conjectures coincide with our natural forebodings.
Experience enables us to ascertain the moral constitu-
tion of man, and thereby to presage his future from
his present. It teaches us, first, that he is not suffi-
cient for his own happiness, but is dependent upon the
sensible objects which surround him, and that these
he cannot take with him when he leaves the world ;
secondly, that disobedience to his sense of right is even
by itself misery, and that he carries that misery about
him, wherever he is, though no divine retribution fol-
lowed upon it \ and thirdly, that he cannot change his
nature and his habits by wishing, but is simply himself,
and will ever be himself and what he now is, wherever
he is, as long as he continues to be, — or at least that
pain has no natural tendency to make him other than he
is, and that.the longer he lives, the more difficult he is to
4OO Inference and Assent in Religion.
change. How can we meet these not irrational antici-
pations, except by shutting our eyes, turning away from
them, and saying that we have no call, no right, to think
of them at present, or to make ourselves miserable
about what is not certain, and may be not true ? 5
Such is the severe aspect of Natural Religion : also
it is the most prominent aspect, because the multitude
of men follow their own likings and wills, and not the
decisions of their sense of right and wrong. To them
Religion is a mere yoke, as Lucretius describes it ; not
a satisfaction or refuge, but a terror and a superstition.
However, I must not for an instant be supposed to
mean, that this is its only, its chief, or its legitimate
aspect. All Religion, so far as it is genuine, is a
blessing, Natural as well as Revealed. I have insisted
on its severe aspect in the first place, because, from
the circumstances of human nature, though not by the
fault of Religion, such is the shape in which we first
encounter it. Its large and deep foundation is the
sense of sin and guilt, and without this sense there is
for man, as he is, no genuine religion. Otherwise, it
is but counterfeit and hollow ; and that is the reason
why this so-called religion of civilization and philoso-
phy is so great a mockery. However, true as this
judgment is which I pass on philosophical religion,
and troubled as are the existing relations between God
and man, as both the voice of mankind and the facts
of Divine Government testify, equally true are other
general laws which govern those relations, and they
speak another language, and compensate for what is
« Vide « Callista," ch. xix.
Natural Relig ion. 40 1
stern in the teaching of nature, without tending to
deny that sternness.
The first of these laws, relieving the aspect of Natural
.Religion, is the very fact that religious beliefs and in-
stitutions, of some kind or other, are of such general
acceptance in all times and places. Why should men
subject themselves to the tyranny which Lucretius de-
nounces, unless they had either experience or hope of
benefits to themselves by so doing ? Though it be
mere hope of benefits, that alone is a great alleviation
of the gloom and misery which their religious rites
presuppose or occasion ; for thereby they have a pros-
pect, more or less clear, of some happier state in reserve
for them, or at least the chances of it. If they simply
despaired of their fortunes, they would not care about
religion. And hope of future good, as we know,
sweetens all suffering.
Moreover, they have an earnest of that future in the
real and recurring blessings of life, the enjoyment of
the gifts of the earth, and of domestic affection and
social intercourse, which is sufficient to touch and to
subdue even the most guilty of men in his better
moments, reminding him that he is not utterly cast off
by Him whom nevertheless he is not given to know.
Or, in the Apostle's words, though the Creator once
" suffered all nations to walk in their own ways/' still,
" He left not Himself without testimony, doing good
from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness/'
Nor are these blessings of physical nature the only
tokens in the Divine System, which in that heathen
D d
4O2 Inference and Assent in Religion.
time, and indeed in every age, bring home to our ex-
perience the fact of a Good God, in spite of the tumult
and confusion of the world. It is possible to give an
interpretation to the course of things, by which every
event or occurrence in its order becomes providential :
and though that interpretation does not hold good un-
less the world is contemplated from a particular point
of view, in one given aspect, and with certain inward
experiences, and personal first principles and judg-
ments, yet these may be fairly pronounced to be com-
mon conditions of human thought, that is, till they are
wilfully or accidentally lost; and they issue in fact, in
leading the great majority of men to recognize the
Hand of unseen power, directing in mercy or in judg-
ment the physical and moral system. In the pro-
minent events of the world, past and contemporary,
the fate, evil or happy, of great men, the rise and fall
of states, popular revolutions, decisive battles, the
migration of races, the replenishing of the earth, earth-
quakes and pestilences, critical discoveries and inven-
tions, the history of philosophy, the advancement of
knowledge, in these the spontaneous piety of the
human mind discerns a Divine Supervision. Nay,
there is a general feeling, originating directly in the
workings of conscience, that a similar governance is
extended over the persons of individuals, who thereby
both fulfil the purposes and receive the just recom-
penses of an Omnipotent Providence. Good to the
good, and evil to the evil, is instinctively felt to be,
even from what we see, amid whatever obscurity and
confusion, the universal rule of God's dealings with us.
Natural Religion. 403
Hence come the great proverbs, indigenous in both
Christian and heathen nations, that punishment is
sure, though slow, that murder will out, that treason
never prospers, that pride will have a fall, that honesty
is the best policy, and that curses fall on the heads of
those who utter them. To the unsophisticated appre-
hension of the many, the successive passages of life,
social or political, are so many miracles, if that is to
be accounted miraculous which brings before them the
immediate Divine Presence ; and should it be objected
that this is an illogical exercise of reason, I answer,
that since it actually brings them to a right conclusion,
and was intended to bring them to it, if logic finds
fault with it, so much the worse for logic.
Again, prayer is essential to religion, and, where
prayer is, there is a natural relief and solace in all
trouble, great or ordinary : now prayer is not less
general in mankind at large than is faith in Provi-
dence. It has ever been in use, both as a personal and
as a social practice. Here again, if, in order to deter-
mine what the Religion of Nature is, we may justly
have recourse to the spontaneous acts and proceedings
of our race, as viewed on a large field, we may safely
say that prayer, as well as hope, is a constituent of
man's religion. Nor is it a fair objection to this
argument, to say that such prayers and rites as have
obtained in various places and times, are in their cha-
racter, object, and scope inconsistent with each other ;
because their contrarieties do not come into the idea of
religion, as such, at all, and the very fact of their dis-
cordance destroys their right to be taken into account,
D d 2
404 Inference and Assent in Religion.
so far as they are discordant ; for what is not universal
has no claim to be considered natural, right, or of
divine origin. Thus we may determine prayer to be
part of Natural Religion, from such instances of the
usage as are supplied by the priests of Baal and by
dancing Dervishes, without therefore including in our
notions of prayer the frantic excesses of the one, or
the artistic spinning of the other, or sanctioning their
respective objects of belief, Baal or Mahomet.
As prayer is the voice of man to God, so Revelation
is the voice of God to man. Accordingly, it is another
alleviation of the darkness and distress which weigh
upon the religions of the world, that in one way or
other such religions are founded on some idea of ex-
press revelation, coming from the unseen agents whose
anger they deprecate; nay, that the very rites and
observances, by which they hope to gain the favour of
these beings, are by these beings themselves commu-
nicated and appointed. The Religion of Nature has not
been a deduction of reason, or the joint, voluntary mani-
festo of a multitude meeting together and pledging
themselves to each other, as men move resolutions
now for some political or social purpose, but it has been
a tradition or an interposition vouchsafed to a peopL
from above. To such an interposition men even
cribed their civil polity or citizenship, which did not
originate in any plebiscite, but in dii minores or heroes,
and was inaugurated with portents or palladia, and pro-
tected and prospered by oracles and auguries. Here ij
an evidence, too, how congenial the notion of a revel
tion is to the human jnind, so that the expectation oi
Natiiral Religion. 405
it may truly be considered an integral part of Natural
Religion.
Among the observances imposed by these professed
revelations, none is more remarkable, or more general,
than the rite of sacrifice, in which guilt was removed or
blessing gained by an offering, which availed instead of
the merits of the offerer. This, too, as well as the notion
of divine interpositions, may be considered almost an
integral part of the Religion of Nature, and an allevia-
tion of its gloom. But it does not stand by itself ; I
have already spoken of the doctrine of atonement,
under which it falls, and which, if what is universal is
natural, enters into the idea of religious service. And
what the nature of man suggests, the providential
system of the world sanctions by enforcing. It is the
law, or the permission, given to our whole race, to use
the Apostle's words, to " bear one another's burdens •"
and this, as I said when on the subject of Atonement,
is quite consistent with his antithesis that " every one
must bear his own burden." The final burden of
responsibility when we are called to judgment is our
own ; but among the media by which we are prepared
for that judgment are the exertions and pains taken
in our behalf by others. On this vicarious principle,
by which we appropriate to ourselves what others do
for us, the whole structure of society is raised.
Parents work and endure pain, that their children
may prosper ; children suffer for the sin of their
parents, who have died hefore it bore fruit. " Deli-
rant reges, plectuntur Achivi." Sometimes it is a
compulsory, sometimes a willing mediation. The
406 Inference and Assent in Religion.
punishment which is earned by the husband falls upon
the wife ; the benefits in which all classes partake are
wrought out by the unhealthy or dangerous toil of
the few. Soldiers endure wounds and death for those
who sit at home ; and ministers of state fall victims
to their zeal for their countrymen, who do little else
than criticize their actions. And so in some measure
or way this law embraces all of us. We all suffer for
each other, and gain by each others sufferings ; for
man never stands alone here, though he will stand by
himself one day hereafter; but here he is a social
being, and goes forward to his long home as one of a
large company.
Butler, it need scarcely be said, is the great master
of this doctrine, as it is brought out in the system of
nature. In answer to the objection to the Christian
doctrine of satisfaction, that it "represents God as
indifferent whether He punishes the innocent or the
guilty," he observes that " the world is a constitution
or system, whose parts have a mutual reference to
each other; and that there is a scheme of things
gradually carrying on, called the course of nature, to
the carrying on of which God has appointed us, in
various ways, to contribute. And in the daily course
of natural providence, it is appointed that innocent
people should suffer for the faults of the guilty.
Finally, indeed and upon the whole, every one sh*
receive according to his personal deserts ; but durin<
the progress, and, for aught we know, even in ordt
to the completion of this moral scheme, vicarioi
punishments may be fit, and absolutely necessary.
Natural Religion. 407
We see in what variety of ways one person's sufferings
contribute to the relief of another ; and being familiar-
ized to it, men are not shocked with it. So the reason
of their insisting on objections against the [doctrine
of] satisfaction is, either that they do not consider
God's settled and uniform appointments as His ap-
pointments at all ; or else they forget that vicarious
punishment is a providential appointment of every day's
experience." ' I will but add, that, since all human
suffering is in its last resolution the punishment of sin,
and punishment implies a Judge and a rule of justice,
he who undergoes the punishment of another in his
stead may be said in a certain sense to satisfy the
claims of justice towards that other in his own person.
One concluding remark has to be made here. In all
sacrifices it was specially required that the thing offered
should be something rare, and unblemished ; and in like
manner in all atonements and all satisfactions, not only
was the innocent taken for the guilty, but it was a point
of special importance that the victim should be spotless,
and the more manifest that spotlessness, the more effica-
cious was the sacrifice. This leads me to a last principle
which I shall notice as proper to Natural Religion, and
as lightening the prophecies of evil in which it is
founded; I mean the doctrine of meritorious inter-
cession. The man in the Gospel did but speak for the
human race everywhere, when he said, " God heareth
not sinners ; but if a man be a worshipper of God,
and doth His will, him He heareth." Hence every
religion has had its eminent devotees, exalted above
6 "Analogy/' Pt. ii. ch. 5 (abridged).
408 Inference and Assent in Religion.
the body of the people, mortified men, brought nearer
to the Source of good by austerities, self-inflictions,
and prayer, who have influence with Him, and extend
a shelter and gain blessings for those who become
their clients. A belief like this has been, of course,
attended by numberless superstitions ; but those super-
stitions vary with times and places, and the belief itself
in the mediatorial power of the good and holy has
been one and the same everywhere. Nor is this
belief an idea of past times only or of heathen coun-
tries. It is one of the most natural visions of the
young and innocent. And all of us, the more keenly
we feel our own distance from holy persons, the more
are we drawn near to them, as if forgetting that
distance, and proud of them because they are so un-
like ourselves, as being specimens of what our nature
may be, and with some vague hope that we, their
relations by blood, may profit in our own persons by
their holiness.
Such, then, in outline is that system of natural beliefs
and sentiments, which, though true and divine, is still
possible to us independently of Revelation, and is the
preparation for it ; though in Christians themselves it
cannot really be separated from their Christianity, and
never is possessed in its higher forms in any people
without some portion of those inward aids which
Christianity imparts to us, and those endemic tradi-
tions which have their first origin in a paradisiacal
illumination-
Revealed Religion. 409
§ 2. REVEALED RELIGION.
IN determining, as above, the main features of Natural
Religion, and distinguishing it from the religion of
philosophy or civilization, I may be accused of having
taken a course of my own, for which I have no sufficient
warrant. Such an accusation does not give me much
concern. Every one who thinks on these subjects takes
a course of his own, though it will also happen to be the
course which others take besides himself. The minds
of many separately bear them forward in the same direc-
tion, and they are confirmed in it by each other. This
I consider to be my own case ; if I have mis-stated or
omitted notorious facts in my account of Natural Reli-
gion, if I have contradicted or disregarded anything
which He who speaks through my conscience has told
us all directly from Heaven, then indeed I have acted
unjustifiably and have something to unsay j but, if I
have done no more than view the notorious facts of the
case in the medium of my primary mental experiences,
under the aspects which they spontaneously present to
me, and with the aid of my best illative sense, I only
do on one side of the question what those who think
differently do on the other. As they start with one
4io Inference and Assent in Religion.
set of first principles, I start with another. I gave
notice just now that I should offer my own witness
in the matter in question ; though of course it would
not be worth while my offering it, unless what I felt
myself agreed with what is felt by hundreds and thou-
sands besides me, as I am sure it does, whatever be the
measure, more or less, of their explicit recognition of it.
In thus speaking of Natural Eeligion as in one sense
a matter of private judgment, and that with a view of
proceeding from it to the proof of Christianity, I seem
to give up the intention of demonstrating either. Cer-
tainly I do; not that I deny that demonstration is
possible. Truth certainly, as such, rests upon grounds
intrinsically and objectively and abstractedly demon-
strative, but it does not follow from this that the
arguments producible in its favour are unanswerable
and irresistible. These latter epithets are relative, and
bear upon matters of fact; arguments in themselves
ought to do, what perhaps in the particular case they can-
not do. The fact of revelation is in itself demonstrably
true, but it is not therefore true irresistibly ; else, how
comes it to be resisted? There is avast distance between
what it is in itself, and what it is to us. Light is a
quality of matter, as truth is of Christianity; but light
is not recognized by the blind, and there are those who
do not recognize truth, from the fault, not of truth, but
of themselves. I cannot convert men, when I ask for
assumptions which they refuse to grant to me; and
without assumptions no one can prove anything about
anything.
I am suspicious then of scientific demonstrations in a
Revealed Religion. 411
question of concrete fact, in a discussion between fal-
lible men. However, let those demonstrate who have
the gift ; " unusquisque in suo sensu abundet." For
me, it is more congenial to my own judgment to at-
tempt to prove Christianity in the same informal way
in which I can prove for certain that I have been born
into this world, and that I shall die out of it. It is
pleasant to my own feelings to follow a theological
writer, such as Amort, who has dedicated to the great
Pope, Benedict XIV., what he calls " a new, modest,
and easy way of demonstrating the Catholic Beligion."
In this work he adopts the argument merely of the
greater probability;1 I prefer to rely on that of an
accumulation ,of various probabilities; but we both
hold (that is, I hold with him), that from probabilities
we may construct legitimate proof, sufficient for cer-
titude. I follow him in holding, that, since a Good
1 " Scopus operis est, planiorem Protestantibus aperire viam ad veram
Ecclesiam. Cum enim hactenus Polemic! nostri insudarint toti in
demonstrandis singulis Religionis Catholic® articulis, in id ego ununi
incumbo, ut hsec tria evincam. Prime : Articulos fundamen tales, Reli-
gionis Catbolicse esse evidenter credibiliores oppositis, &c. &c
Demonstratio autem bujus novae inodestae, ac facilis vise, qua ex articulis
fundamentalibus solum probabilioribus adstruitur surnma Religionis
certitude, ha3c est : Deus, cum sit sapiens ac providus, tenetur, Reli-
gionem & se revelatarn reddere evidenter credibiliorem religionibus falsis.
Imprudenter enim vellet, suam Religionem ab hominibus recipi, nisi
earn redderet evidenter credibiliorem religionibus caeteris. Ergo ilia
religio, quse est evidenter credibilior cseteris, est ipsissima religio a Deo
revelata, adeoque certissime vera, seu demonstrata. Atqui, &c. . . .
Motivum aggrediendi novam lianc, modestam, ac facilem viam illud
prcecipuum est, quod observem, Protestantium plurimos post innumeros
concertationum fluctus, in iis tandem consedisse syrtibus, ut credant,
nullam dari religionem undequaque dernonstratarn, &c. . . . Ratiociniis
denique opponunt ratiocinia j preejudiciis prtejudicia ex majoribus
sua," &c.
412 Inference and Assent in Religion.
Providence watches over us, He blesses such means of
argument as it has pleased Him to give us, in the
nature of man and of the world, if we use them duly
for those ends for which He has given them ; and that,
as in mathematics we are justified by the dictate of
nature in withholding our assent from a conclusion of
which we have not yet a strict logical demonstration,
so by a like dictate we are not justified, in the case of
concrete reasoning and especially of religious inquiry,
in waiting till such logical demonstration is ours, bat
on the contrary are bound in conscience to seek truth
and to look for certainty by modes of proof, which,
when reduced to the shape of formal propositions, fail
to satisfy the severe requisitions of science.2
Here then at once is one momentous doctrine or prin-
ciple, which enters into my own reasoning, and which
another ignores, viz. the providence and intention of
God ; and of course there are other principles, explicit
or implicit, which are in like circumstances. It is not
wonderful then, that, while I can prove Christianity
8 " Docet naturalis ratio, Deum, exips& naturabonitatis ac providentii
suae, si velit in mundo habere religiouem puram, eamque instituere ac
conservare usque in finem mundi, teneri ad earn religionem reddendam
evidenter credibiliorem ac verisimiliorem caeteris, &c. &c Ex hoc
sequitur ulterius ; certitudinem moralem de verd Ecclesid elevari posse
ad certitudinem metaphysicam, si homo advertat, certitudinem moralem
absolute fallibilem substare in materi& religionis circa ejus constitutiva
f undamentalia speciali providentise divinee, praeservatrici ab omni errore.
.... Itaque homo semel ex serie historic^, actoruua perductus ad
moralem certitudinem de auctore, fundatione, propagatione, et con.
tinuatione Ecclesise Christianse, per reflexionem ad existentiam certissi-
rnam providentiffl divinse in materia religionis, a priori lumine natures
certitudine inetaphysiea notam, eo ipso eadem infallibili certitudine
intelliget, argumenta de auctore," &c. — Amort. Ethica Christiana,
p. 252.
Revealed Religion. 4 1 3
divine to my own satisfaction, I shall not be able to
force it upon any one else. Multitudes indeed I ought
to succeed in persuading of its truth without any force
at all, because they and I start from the same princi-
ples, and what is a proof to me is a proof to them ; but
if any one starts from any other principles but ours, 1
have not the power to change his principles, or the con-
clusion which he draws from them, any more than I can
make a crooked man straight. Whether his mind will
ever grow straight, whether I can do anything towards
its becoming straight, whether he is not responsible,
responsible to his Maker, for being mentally crooked,
is another matter ; still the fact remains, that, in any
inquiry about things in the concrete, men differ from
each other, not so much in the soundness of their
reasoning as in the principles which govern its exer-
cise, that those principles are of a personal character,
that where there is no common measure of minds, there
is no common measure of arguments, and that the
validity of proof is determined, not by any scientific
test, but by the illative sense.
Accordingly, instead of saying that the truths of
Revelation depend on those of Natural Religion, it is
more pertinent to say that belief in revealed truths
depends on belief in natural. Belief is a state of mind;
belief generates belief ; states of mind correspond to
each other; the habits of thought and the reasonings
which lead us on to a higher state of belief than our
present, are the very same which we already possess in
connexion with the lower state. Those Jews became
Christians in Apostolic times who were already what
414 Inference and Assent in Religion.
may be called crypto- Christians ; and those Christians
in this day remain Christian only in name, and (if it so
happen) at length fall away, who are nothing deeper
or better than men of the world, savants, literary men,
or politicians.
That a special preparation of mind is required for
each separate department of inquiry and discussion
(excepting, of course, that of abstract science) is
strongly insisted upon in well-known passages of the
Nicomachean ethics. Speaking of the variations
which are found in the logical perfection of proof in
various subject-matters, Aristotle says, " A well-
educated man will expect exactness in every class of
subject, according as the nature of the thing admits ;
for it is much the same mistake to put up with a
mathematician using probabilities, and to require
demonstration of an orator. Bach man judges skill-
fully in those things about which he is well-informed ;
it is of these that he is a good judge ; viz. he, in each
subject-matter, is a judge, who is well-educated in that
subject-matter, and he is in an absolute sense a judge,
who is in all of them well-educated/' Again : "Young
men come to be mathematicians and the like, but they
cannot possess practical judgment; for this talent is
employed upon individual facts, and these are learned
only by experience ; and a youth has not experience,
for experience is only gained by a course of years.
And so, again, it would appear that a boy may be a
mathematician, but not a philosopher, or learned in
physics, and for this reason, — because the one study
deals with abstractions, while the other studies gain
Revealed Religion. 415
their principles from experience, and in the latter sub-
jects youths do not give assent, but make assertions,
but in the former they know what it is that they are
handling/'
These words of a heathen philosopher, laying down
broad principles about all knowledge, express a general
rule, which in Scripture is applied authoritatively to the
case of revealed knowledge in particular ; — and that not
once or twice only, but continually, as is notorious.
For instance: — "I have understood,'* says the Psalmist,
" more than all my teachers, because Thy testimonies
are my meditation/' And so our Lord : " He that
hath ears, let him hear/' " If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine." And " He that
is of God, heareth the words of God." Thus too the
Angels at the Nativity announce " Peace to men of
good will." And we read in the Acts of the Apostles
of " Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened to attend
to those things which were said by Paul" And
we are told on another occasion, that " as many as
were ordained," or disposed by God, " to life everlast-
ing, believed/' And St. John tells us, "He that
knoweth God, heareth us; he that is not of God,
heareth us not ; by this we know the spirit of truth,
and the spirit of error/7
1.
Relying then on these authorities, human and Divine,
I have no scruple in beginning the review I shall take
of Christianity by professing to consult for those only
whose minds are properly prepared for it ; and by being
4 1 6 Inference and Assent in Religion.
prepared, I mean to denote those who are imbued with
the religious opinions and sentiments which I have
identified with Natural Religion. I do not address
myself to those, who in moral evil and physical see
nothing more than imperfections of a parallel nature ;
who consider that the difference in gravity between
the two is one of degree only, not of kind ; that moral
evil is merely the offspring of physical, and that as we
remove the latter so we inevitably remove the former ;
that there is a progress of the human race which tends
to the annihilation of moral evil; that knowledge is
virtue, and vice is ignorance; that sin is a bugbear,
not a reality ; that the Creator does not punish except
in the sense of correcting ; that vengeance in Him
would of necessity be vindictiveness ; that all that we
know of Him, be it much or little, is through the laws
of nature ; that miracles are impossible ; that prayer to
Him is a superstition ; that the fear of Him is unmanly;
that sorrow for sin is slavish and abject ; that the only
intelligible worship of Him is to act well our part in
the world, and the only sensible repentance to do
better in future ; that if we do our duties in this life,
we may take our chance for the next ; and that it is of
no use perplexing our minds about the future state,
for it is all a matter of guess. These opinions charac-
terize a civilized age; and if I say that I will not
argue about Christianity with men who hold them, I
do so, not as claiming any right to be impatient or
peremptory with any one, but because it is plainly
absurd to attempt to prove a second proposition to
those who do not admit the first
Revealed Religion. 417
I assume then that the above system of opinion is
simply false, inasmuch as it contradicts the primary
teachings of nature in the human race, wherever a
religion is found and its workings can be ascertained.
I assume the presence of God in our conscience, and the
universal experience, as keen as our experience of bodily
pain, of what we call a sense of sin or guilt. This
sense of sin, as of something not only evil in itself, but
an affront to the good God, is chiefly felt as regards one
or other of three violations of His law. He Himself
is Sanctity, Truth, and Love ; and the three offences
against His Majesty are impurity, inveracity, and cruelty
All men are not distressed at these offences alike ; but
the piercing pain and sharp remorse which one or other
inflicts upon the mind, till habituated to them, brings
home to it the notion of what sin is, and is the vivid
type and representative of its intrinsic hatefulness.
Starting from these elements, we may determine with-
out difficulty the class of sentiments, intellectual and
moral, which constitute the formal preparation for enter-
ing upon what are called the Evidences of Christianity.
These evidences, then, presuppose a belief and perception
of the Divine Presence, a recognition of His attributes
and an admiration of His Person viewed under them ; a
conviction of the worth of the soul and of the reality
and momentousness of the unseen world, an understand-
ing that, in proportion as we partake in our own persons
of the attributes which we admire in Him, we are dear to
Him ; a consciousness on the contrary that we are far from
exemplifying them, a consequent insight into our guilt
and misery, an eager hope of reconciliation to Him, a
£ e •
41 8 Inference and Assent in Religion.
desire to know and to love Him, and a sensitive lookiug-
out in all that happens, whether in the course of nature
or of human life, for tokens, if such there be, of His
bestowing on us what we so greatly need. These are
specimens of the state of mind for which I stipulate in
those who would inquire into the truth of Christianity ;
and my warrant for so definite a stipulation lies in the
teaching, as I have described it, of conscience and the
moral sense, in the testimony of those religious rites
which have ever prevailed in all parts of the world,
and in the character and conduct of those who have
commonly been selected by the popular instinct as the
special favourites of Heaven.
2.
I have appealed to the popular ideas on the subject
of religion, and to the objects of popular admiration
and praise, as illustrating my account of the prepara-
tion of mind which is necessary for the inquirer into
Christianity. Here an obvious objection occurs, in
noticing which I shall be advanced one step farther in
the work which I have undertaken.
It may be urged, then, that no appeal will avail me,
which is made to religions so notoriously immoral as
those of paganism; nor indeed can it be made without
an explanation. Certainly, as regards ethical teaching,
various religions, which have been popular in the world,
have not supplied any; and in the corrupt state in which
they appear in history, they are little better than schools
of imposture, cruelty, and impurity. Their objects of
worship were immoral as well as false, and their founders
Revealed Religion. 419
and heroes have been in keeping with their gods. This
is undeniable, but it does not destroy the use that may
be made of their testimony. There is a better side of
their teaching ; purity has often been held in reverence,
if not practised ; ascetics have been in honour ; hospi-
tality has been a sacred duty; and dishonesty and
injustice have been under a ban. Here then, as
before, I take our natural perception of right and
wrong as the standard for determining the character-
istics of Natural Religion, and I use the religious rites
and traditions which are actually found in the world,
only so far as they agree with our moral sense.
This leads me to lay down the general principle, which
I have all along implied : — that no religion is from God
which contradicts our sense of right and wrong. Doubt-
less ; but at the same time we ought to be quite sure ,
that, in a particular case which is before us, we have
satisfactorily ascertained what the dicates of our moral
nature are, and that we apply them rightly, and whether
the applying them or not comes into question at all.
The precepts of a religion certainly may be absolutely
immoral ; a religion which simply commanded us to lie,
or to have a community of wives, would ipso facto forfeit
all claim to a divine origin. Jupiter and Neptune, as
represented in the classical mythology, are evil spirits,
and nothing can make them otherwise. And I should
in like manner repudiate a theology which taught that
men were created in order to be wicked and wretched.
I alluded just now to those who consider the doctrine
of retributive punishment, or of divine vengeance, to be
incompatible with the true religion ; but I do not see
E e 2
42O Inference and Assent in Religion.
how they can maintain their ground. In order to do
so, they have first to prove that an act of vengeance
must, as such, be a sin in our own instance ; but even
this is far from clear. Anger and indignation against
cruelty and injustice, resentment of injuries, desire that
the false, the ungrateful, and the depraved should meet
with punishment, these, if not in themselves virtuous
feelings, are at least not vicious ; but, first from the cer-
tainty that, if habitual, it will run into excess and become
sin, and next because the office of punishment has not
been committed to us, and farther because it is a feeling
unsuitable to those who are themselves so laden with im-
perfection and guilt, therefore vengeance, in itself allow-
able, is forbidden to us. These exceptions do not hold
in the case of a perfect being, and certainly not in the
instance of the Supreme Judge. Moreover, we see that
even men on earth have different duties, according to
their personal qualifications and their positions in the
community. The rule of morals is the same for all ; and
yet, notwithstanding, what is right in one is not neces-
sarily right in another. What would be a crime in a
private man to do, is a crime in a magistrate not to
have done : still wider is the difference between man
and his Maker. Nor must it be forgotten, that, as I
have observed above, retributive justice is the very
attribute under which God is primarily brought before
us in the teachings of our natural conscience.
And further, we cannot determine the character of
particular actions, till we have the whole case before us
out of which they arise; unless, indeed, they are in
themselves distinctively vicious. We all feel the force
Revealed Religion. 421
of tne maxim, " Audi alteram partem." It is difficult
to trace the path and to determine the scope of Divine
Providence. We read of a day when the Almighty will
condescend to place His actions in their completeness
before His creatures, and ' ( will overcome when He is
judged." If, till then, we feel it to be a duty to suspend
our judgment concerning certain of His actions or pre-
cepts, we do no more than what we do every day in the
case of an earthly friend or enemy, whose conduct in
some point requires explanation. It surely is not too
much to expect of us that we should act with parallel
caution, and be "memores conditionis nostrae" as regards
the acts of our Creator. There is a poem of Pamelas
which strikingly brings home to us how differently the
divine appointments will look in the light of day, from
what they appear to be in our present twilight. An
Angel, in disguise of a man, steals a golden cup,
strangles an infant, and throws a guide into the stream,
and then explains to his horrified companion, that acts
which would be enormities in man, are in him, as
God's minister, deeds of merciful correction or of
retribution.
Moreover, when we are about to pass judgment on the
dealings of Providence with other men, we shall do well
to consider first His dealings with ourselves. We can-
not know about others, about ourselves we do know
something ; and we know that He has ever been good
to us, and not severe. Is it not wise to argue from what
we actually know to what we do not know ? It may
turn out in the day of account, that unf orgiven souls,
while charging His laws with injustice in the case of
422 Inference and Assent in Religion.
others, may be unable to find fault with His dealings
severally towards themselves.
As to those various religions which, together with
Christianity, teach the doctrine of eternal punishment,
here again we ought, before we judge, to understand, not
only the whole state of the case, but what is meant by
the doctrine itself. Eternity, or endlessness, is in itself
mainly a negative idea, though the idea of suffering is
positive. Its fearful force, as an element of future
punishment, lies in what it excludes ; it means never
any change of state, no annihilation or restoration ;
but what, considered positively, it adds to suffering,
we do not know. For what we know, the suffering
of one moment may in itself have no bearing, or but
a partial bearing, on the suffering of the next ; and
thus, as far as its intensity is concerned, it may vary
with every lost soul. This may be so, unless we assume
that the suffering is necessarily attended by a con-
sciousness of duration and succession, by a present ima-
gination of its past and its future, by a sustained power
of realizing its continuity.* As I have already said, the
great mystery is, not that evil has no end, but that it had
a beginning. But I submit the whole subject to the
Theological School.
3.
One of the most important effects of Natural Religion
on the mind, in preparation for Revealed, is the antici-
* " De hac damnatorura saltern hominum respiratione, nihil adhuc certi
decretum est ab EcclesiS, Catholic^ : ut propterea non temere, tanquam
absurda, sit explodenda sanctissiinorum Patrnm h«c opinio : quamvis
communi sensu Catholicorum hoc tempore sit aliena." — Petavius de
Angelis, fin. Vide Note IIL
Revealed Religion. 423
pation which it creates, that a Revelation will be given.
That earnest desire of it, which religious minds cherish,
leads the way to the expectation of it. Those who know
nothing of the wounds of the soul, are not led to deal
with the question, or to consider its circumstances ; but
when our attention is roused, then the more steadily we
dwell upon it, the more probable does it seem that a
revelation has been or will be given to us. This pre-
sentiment is founded on our sense, on the one hand, of
the infinite goodness of God, and, on the other, of our
own extreme misery and need — two doctrines which
are the primary constituents of Natural Religion. It is
difficult to put a limit to the legitimate force of this
antecedent probability. Some minds will feel it to be
so powerful, as to recognize in it almost a proof, without
direct evidence, of the divinity of a religion claiming to
be the true, supposing its history and doctrine are free
from positive objection, and there be no rival religion
with plausible claims of its own. Nor ought this trust
in a presumption to seem preposterous to those who are
so confident, on a priori grounds, that the moon is inha-
bited by rational beings, and that the course of nature is
never crossed by miraculous agency. Any how, very
little positive evidence seems to be necessary, when the
mind is penetrated by the strong anticipation which I
am supposing. It was this instinctive apprehension, as
we may conjecture, which carried on Dionysius and
Damaris at Athens to a belief in Christianity, though
St. Paul did no miracle there, and only asserted the
doctrines of the Divine Unity, the Resurrection, and the
universal judgment, while, on the other hand, it had had
424 Inference and Assent in Religion.
no tendency to attach them to any of the mythological
rites in which the place abounded.
Here my method of argument differs from that adopted
by Paley in his Evidences of Christianity. This clear-
headed and almost mathematical reasoner postulates,
for his proof of its miracles, only thus much, that, under
the circumstances of the case, a revelation is not impro-
bable. He says, " We do not assume the attributes of
the Deity, or the existence of a future state." " It is
not necessary for our purpose that these propositions
(viz. that a future existence should be destined by God
for His human creation, and that, being so destined, He
should have acquainted them with it,) be capable of
proof, or even that, by arguments drawn from the light
of nature, they can be made out as probable; it is
enough that we are able to say of them, that they are
not so violently improbable, so contradictory to what
we already believe of the Divine power and character,
that [they] ought to be rejected at first sight, and to be
rejected by whatever strength or complication of evi-
dence they be attested/' He has such confidence in
the strength of the testimony which he can produce in
favour of the Christian miracles, that he only asks to
be allowed to bring it into court.
I confess to much suspicion of legal proceedings and
legal arguments, when used in questions whether of
history or of philosophy. Rules of court are dictated by
what is expedient on the whole and in the long run; but
they incur the risk of being unjust to the claims of par-
ticular cases. Why am I to begin with taking up a
position not my own, and unclothing my mind of that
large outfit of existing thoughts, principles, likings.
Revealed Religion. 42$
desires, and hopes, which make me what I am ? If I
am asked to use Paley's argument for my own conver-
sion, I say plainly I do not want to be converted by a
smart syllogism ;4 if I am asked to convert others by
it, I say plainly I do not care to overcome their reason
without touching their hearts. I wish to deal, not
with controversialists, but with inquirers.
I think Paley's argument clear, clever, and power-
ful ; and there is something which looks like charity
in going out into the highways and hedges, and com-
pelling men to come in ; but in this matter some exer-
tion on the part of the persons whom I am to convert
is a condition of a true conversion. They who have
no religious earnestness are at the mercy, day by day,
of some new argument or fact, which may overtake
them, in favour of one conclusion or the other. And
how, after all, is a man better for Christianity, who
has never felt the need of it or the desire ? On the
other hand, if he has longed for a revelation to en-
lighten him and to cleanse his heart, why may he not
use, in his inquiries after it, that just and reasonable
anticipation of its probability, which such longing has
opened the way to his entertaining ?
Men are too well inclined to sit at home, instead of
stirring themselves to inquire whether a revelation has
been given; they expect its evidences to come to them
without their trouble ; they act, not as suppliants, but
as judges.6 Modes of argument such as Paley's, en-
courage this state of mind ; they allow men to forget
that revelation is a boon, not a debt on the part of the
4 Vide supra, p. 302.
5 Vide the author's Occasional Sermons, No. 5.
426 Inference and Assent in Religion.
Giver ; they treat it as a mere historical phenomenon.
If I was told that some great man, a foreigner, whom I
did not know, had come into town, and was on his way
to call on me, and to go over my house, I should send
to ascertain the fact, and meanwhile should do my best
to put my house into a condition to receive him. He
would not be pleased if I left the matter to take its
chance, and went on the maxim that seeing was believ-
ing. Like this is the conduct of those who resolve to
treat the Almighty with dispassionateness, a judicial
temper, clearheadedness, and candour. It is the way
with some men, (surely not a good way,) to say, that
without these lawyerlike qualifications conversion is
immoral. It is their way, a miserable way, to pronounce
that there is no religious love of truth where there is
fear of error. On the contrary, I would maintain that
the fear of error is simply necessary to the genuine love
of truth. No inquiry comes to good which is not con-
ducted under a deep sense of responsibility, and of the
issues depending upon its determination. Even the
ordinary matters of life are an exercise of conscien-
tiousness ; and where conscience is, fear must be. So
much is this acknowledged just now, that there is almost
an affectation, in popular literature, in the case of criti-
cisms on the fine arts, on poetry, and music, of insist-
ing upon conscientiousness in writing, painting, or
singing ; and that earnestness and simplicity of mind,
which makes men fear to go wrong in these minor
matters, has surely a place in the most serious of all
undertakings.
It is on these grounds that, in considering Christianity,
Repealed Religion . 427
I start with conditions different from Paley's ; not,
however, as undervaluing the force and the serviceable-
ness of his argument, but as preferring inquiry to
disputation in a question about truth.
There is another point on which my basis of argument
differs from Paley's. He argues on the principle that the
credentials, which ascertain for us a message from above,
are necessarily in their nature miraculous ; nor have I
any thought of venturing to say otherwise. In fact, all
professed revelations have been attended, in one shape or
another, with the profession of miracles ; and we know
how direct and unequivocal are the miracles of both the
Jewish Covenant and of our own. However, my object
here is to assume as little as possible as regards facts,and
to dwell only on what is patent and notorious ; and there-
fore I will only insist on those coincidences and their
cumulations, which, though not in themselves miracu-
lous, do irresistibly force upon us, almost by the law of
our nature, the presence of the extraordinary agency of
Him whose being we already acknowledge. Though
coincidences rise out of a combination of general laws,
there is no law of those coincidences ;8 they have a cha-
racter of their own, and seem left by Providence in His
own hands, as the channel by which, inscrutable to us,
He may make known to us His will.
For instance, if I am a believer in a God of Truth
and Avenger oi dishonesty, and know for certain that a
« Vide supra, {>. 84.
42 8 Inference and Assent ft Religion.
market-woman, after calling on Him to strike her dead
if she had in her possession a piece of money not hers,
did fall down dead on the spot, and that the money was
found in her hand, how can I call this a blind coinci-
dence, and not discern in it an act of Providence over
and above its general laws ? So, certainly, thought the
inhabitants of an English town, when they erected a
pillar as a record of such an event at the place where
it occurred. And if a Pope excommunicates a great
conqueror ; and he, on hearing the threat, says to one of
his friends, " Does he think the world has gone back a
thousand years? does he suppose the arms will fall from
the hands of my soldiers ? " and within two years, on the
retreat over the snows of Russia, as two contemporary
historians relate, " famine and cold tore their arms from
the grasp of the soldiers/' " they fell from the hands of
the bravest and most robust/' and " destitute of the
power of raising them from the ground, the soldiers left
them in the snow ;" is not this too, though no miracle,
a coincidence so special, as rightly to be called a Divine
judgment ? So thinks Alison, who avows with religious
honesty, that a there is something in these marvellous
coincidences beyond the operation of chance, and which
even a Protestant historian feels himself bound to mark
for the observation of future years/' 7 And so, too, of a
cumulation of coincidences, separately less striking ;
when Spelman sets about establishing the fact of the ill-
fortune which in many instances has followed upon acts
of sacrilege among us, then, even though in many in-
stances it has not followed, and in many instances he
1 History, roL rtii
Revealed Religion. 429
exaggerates, still there may be a large residuum of cases
which cannot be properly resolved into the mere
accident of concurrent causes, but must in reason be
considered the warning voice of God. So, at least,
thought Gibson, Bishop of London, when he wrote,
" Many of the instances, and those too well-attested,
are so terrible in the event, and in the circumstances
so surprising, that no considering person can well pass
them over."
I think, then, that the circumstances under which
a professed revelation comes to us, may be such as to
impress both our reason and our imagination with a
sense of its truth, even though no appeal be made to
strictly miraculous intervention — in saying which I do
not mean of course to imply that those circumstances,
when traced back to their first origins, are not the
outcome of such intervention, but that the miraculous
intervention addresses us at this day in the guise of
those circumstances ; that is, of coincidences, which are
indications, to the illative sense of those who believe in
a Moral Governor, of His immediate Presence, especially
to those who in addition hold with me the strong
antecedent probability that, in His mercy, He will thus
supernaturally present Himself to our apprehension.
Now as to the fact; has what is so probable in
anticipation actually been granted to us, or have we
still to look out for it ? It is very plain, supposing it
has been granted, which among all the religions of the
world comes from God : and if it is not that, a revela-
430 Inference and Assent in Religion.
tion is not yet given, and we must look forward to the
future. There is only one Religion in the world which
tends to fulfil the aspirations, needs, and foreshadowings
of natural faith and devotion. It may be said, perhaps,
that, educated in Christianity, I merely judge of it by
its own principles ; but this is not the fact. For, in
the first place, I have taken my idea of what a revelation
must be, in good measure, from the actual religions of
the world ; and as to its ethics, the ideas with which I
come to it are derived not simply from the Gospel, but
prior to it from heathen moralists, whom Fathers of the
Church and Ecclesiastical writers have imitated or
sanctioned ; and as to the intellectual position from
which I have contemplated the subject, Aristotle has
been my master. Besides, I do not here single out
Christianity with reference simply to its particular
doctrines or precepts, but for a reason which is on the
surface of its history. It alone has a definite message
addressed to all mankind. As far as I know, the
religion of Mahomet has brought into the world no new
doctrine whatever, except, indeed, that of its own divine
origin ; and the character of its teaching is too exact a
reflection of the race, time, place, and climate in which
it arose, to admit of its becoming universal. The same
dependence on external circumstances is characteristic,
so far as I know, of the religions of the far East ; nor
am I sure of any definite message from God to man
which they convey and protect, though they may have
sacred books. Christianity, on the other hand, is in its
idea an announcement, a preaching ; it is the deposi-
tory of truths beyond human discovery, momentous,
Revealed Religion. 431
practical, maintained one and the same in substance in
every age from its first, and addressed to all mankind.
And it has actually been embraced and is found in all
parts of the world, in all climates, among all races, in
all ranks of society, under every degree of civilization,
from barbarism to the highest cultivation of mind.
Coming to set right and to govern the world, it has
ever been, as it ought to be, in conflict with large
masses of men, with the civil power, with physical
force, with adverse philosophies ; it has had successes,
it has had reverses ; but it has had a grand history,
and has effected great things, and is as vigorous in its
age as in its youth. In all these respects it has a dis-
tinction in the world and a pre-eminence of its own ; it
has upon it primd facie signs of divinity ; I do not
know what can be advanced by rival religions to match
prerogatives so special ; so that I feel myself justified
in saying either Christianity is from God, or a revela-
tion has not yet been given to us.
It will not surely be objected, as a point in favour
of some of the Oriental religions, that they are older
than Christianity by some centuries ; yet, should it be
so said, it must be recollected that Christianity is only
the continuation and conclusion of what professes to
be an earlier revelation, which may be traced back
into prehistoric times, till it is lost in the darkness
that hangs over them. As far as we know, there never
was a time when that revelation was not, — a revelation
continuous and systematic, with distinct representa-
tives and an orderly succession. And this, I suppose, is
far more than can be said for the religions of the East*
432 Inference and Assent in Religion.
6.
Here, then, I am brought to the consideration of the
Hebrew nation and the Mosaic religion, as the first step
in the direct evidence for Christianity.
The Jews are one of the few Oriental nations who are
known in history as a people of progress, and their
line of progress is the development of religious truth.
In that their own line they stand by themselves among
all the populations, not only of the Bast, but of the
West. Their country may be called the classical home
of the religious principle, as Greece is the home of
intellectual power, and Rome that of political and prac-
tical wisdom. Theism is their life ; it is emphatically
their natural religion, for they never were without it,
and were made a people by means of it. This is a
phenomenon singular and solitary in history, and rnusi
have a meaning. If there be a God and Providence,
it must come from Him, whether immediately or indi-
rectly ; and the people themselves have ever maintained
that it has been His direct work, and has beeri recog-
nized by Him as such. We are apt to treat pretences
to a divine mission or to supernatural powers as of
frequent occurrence, and on that score to dismiss them
from our thoughts ; but we cannot so deal with Judaism.
When mankind had universally denied the first lesson
of their conscience by lapsing into polytheism, is it
a thing of slight moment that there was just one excep-
tion to the rule, that there was just one people who, first
by their rulers and priests, and afterwards by their own
unanimous zeal, professed, as their distinguishing doc^
Revealed Religion. 433
trine, the Divine Unity and Government of the world,
and that, moreover, not only as a natural truth, but as
revealed to them by that God Himself of whom they
spoke, — who so embodied it in their national polity, that
a Theocracy was the only name by which it could be
called ? It was a people founded and set up in Theism,
kept together by Theism, and maintaining Theism for a
period from first to last of 2000 years, till the dissolution
of their body politic ; and they have maintained it since
in their state of exile and wandering for 2000 years
more. They begin with the beginning of history, and
the preaching of this august dogma begins with them.
They are its witnesses and confessors, even to torture
and death ; on it and its revelation are moulded their
laws and government; on this their politics, philosophy,
and literature are founded ; of this truth their poetry is
the voice, pouring itself out in devotional compositions
which Christianity, through all its many countries and
ages, has been unable to rival ; on this aboriginal truth,
as time goes on, prophet after prophet bases his further
revelations, with a sustained reference to a time when,
according to the secret counsels of its Divine Object and
Author, it is to receive completion and perfection, — till
at length that time comes.
The last age of their history is as strange as their
first. When that time of destined blessing came,
which they had so accurately marked out, and were so
carefully waiting for — a time which found them, in
fact, more zealous for their Law, and for the dogma it
enshrined, than they ever had been before — then,
instead of any final favour coming on them from above,
P f
434 Inference and Assent in Religion.
they fell under the power of their enemies, and were
overthrown, their holy city razed to the ground, their
polity destroyed, and the remnant of their people
cast off to wander far and away through every land
except their own, as we find them at this day ; lasting
on, century after century, not absorbed in other
populations, not annihilated, as likely to last on, as
unlikely to be restored, as far as outward appearances
go, now as a thousand years ago. What nation has
so grand, so romantic, so terrible a history ? Does it
not fulfil the idea of, what the nation calls itself, a
chosen people, chosen for good and evil ? Is it not an
exhibition in a course of history of that primary de-
claration of conscience, as I have been determining it,
" With the upright Thou shalt be upright, and with
the froward Thou shalt be f reward " ? It must have
a meaning, if there is a God. We know what was
their witness of old time ; what is their witness now ?
Why, I say, was it that, after so memorable a career,
when their sins and sufferings were now to come to an
end, when they were looking out for a deliverance and
a Deliverer, suddenly all was reversed for once and for
all ? They were the favoured servants of God, and
yet a peculiar reproach and note of infamy is affixed
to their name. It was their belief that His protection
was unchangeable, and that their Law would last for
ever ; — it was their consolation to be taught by an un-
interrupted tradition, that it could not die, except by
changing into a new self, more wonderful than it was
before; — it was their faithful expectation that a
promised King was coming, the Messiah, who would
Revealed Religion. 435
extend the sway of Israel over all people; — it was a
condition of their covenant, that, as a reward to
Abraham, their first father, the day at length should
dawn when the gates of their narrow land should open,
and they should pour out for the conquest and occupa-
tion of the whole earth ; — and, I repeat, when the day
came, they did go forth, and they did spread into all
lands, but as hopeless exiles, as eternal wanderers.
Are we to say that this failure is a proof that, after all,
there was nothing providential in their history ? For
myself, I do not see how a second portent obliterates a
first ; and, in truth, their own testimony and their own
sacred books carry us on towards a better solution of the
difficulty. I have said they were in God's favour under
a covenant, — perhaps they did not fulfil the conditions
of it. This indeed seems to be their own account of
the matter, though it is not clear what their breach of
engagement was. And that in some way they did sin,
whatever their sin was, is corroborated by the well-
known chapter in the Book of Deuteronomy, which so
strikingly anticipates the nature of their punishment.
That passage, translated into Greek as many as 350
years before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, has on it
the marks of a wonderful prophecy ; but I am not now
referring to it as such, but merely as an indication that
the disappointment, which actually overtook them at the
Christian era, was not necessarily out of keeping with
the original divine purpose, or again with the old pro-
mise made to them, and their confident expectation of
its fulfilment. Their national ruin, which came instead
of aggrandizement, is described in that book, in spite
F f2
436 Inference and Assent in Religion.
of all promises, with an emphasis .and minuteness which
prove that it was contemplated long before, at least as
a possible issue of the fortunes of Israel. Among other
inflictions which should befall the guilty people, it was
told them that they should fall down before their ene-
mies, and should be scattered throughout all the king-
doms of the earth ; that they never should have quiet
in those nations, or have rest for the sole of their foot;
that they were to have a fearful heart and languishing
eyes, and a soul consumed with heaviness ; that they
were to suffer wrong, and to be crushed at all times,
and to be astonished at the terror of their lot ; that their
sons and daughters were to be given to another people,
and they were to look and to sicken all the day, and
their life was ever to hang in doubt before them, and
fear to haunt them day and night ; that they should
be a proverb and a by-word of all people among whom
they were brought ; and that curses were to come on
them, and to be signs and wonders on them and their
seed for ever. Such are some portions, and not the
most terrible, of this extended anathema ; and its par-
tial accomplishment at an earlier date of their history
was a warning to them, when the destined time drew
near, that, however great the promises made to them
•might be, those promises were dependent on the terms
of the covenant which stood between them and their
Maker, and that, as they had turned to curses at that
former time, so they might turn to curses again.
This grand drama, so impressed with the characters
of supernatural agency, concerns us here only in its
bearing upon the evidence for the divine origin of
Revealed Religion. 437
Christianity ; and it is at this point that Christianity
comes upon the historical scene. It is a notorious fact
that it issued from the Jewish land and people ; and
had it no other than this historical connexion with
Judaism, it would have some share in the prestige of
its original home. But it claims to be far more than
this ; it professes to be the actual completion of the
Mosaic Law, the promised means of deliverance and
triumph to the nation, which that nation itself, as I
have said, has since considered to be, on account of
some sin or other, withheld or forfeited. It professes
to be, not the casual, but the legitimate offspring, heir,
and successor of the Mosaic covenant, or rather to be
Judaism itself, developed and transformed. Of course
it has to prove its claim, as well as to prefer it ; but if
it succeeds in doing so, then all those tokens of the
Divine Presence, which distinguish the Jewish history,
at once belong to it, and are a portion of its creden -
tials.
And at least the primd facie view of its relations
towards Judaism is in favour of these pretensions. It
is an historical fact, that, at the very time that the Jews
committed their unpardonable sin, whatever it was, and
were driven out from their home to wander over the
earth, their Christian brethren, born of the same stock,
and equally citizens of Jerusalem, did also issue forth
from the same home, but in order to subdue that same
earth and make it their own ; that is, they undertook
the very work which, according to the promise, their
nation actually was ordained to execute ; and, with a
method of their own indeed, and with a/ new end^ and
438 Inference and Assent in Religion.
only slowly and painfully, but still really and tho-
roughly, they did it. And since that time the two
children of the promise have ever been found together
— of the promise forfeited and the promise fulfilled ; and
whereas the Christian has been in high place, so the
Jew has been degraded and despised — the one has
been " the head," and the other " the tail ;w so that, to
go no farther, the fact that Christianity actually has
done what Judaism was to have done, decides the con-
troversy, by the logic of facts, in favour of Christianity.
The prophecies announced that the Messiah was to
come at a definite time and place ; Christians point to
Him as coming then and there, as announced ; they
are not met by any counter claim or rival claimant on
the part of the Jews, only by their assertion that He
did not come at all, though up to the event they had
said He was then and there coming. Further, Christi-
anity clears up the mystery which hangs over Judaism,
accounting fully for the punishment of the people, by
specifying their sin, their heinous sin. If, instead of
hailing their own Messiah, they crucified Him, then
the strange scourge which has pursued them after the
deed, and the energetic wording of the curse before it,
are explained by the very strangeness of their guilt ; —
or rather, their sin is their punishment ; for in reject-
ing their Divine King, they ipso facto lost the living
principle and tie of their nationality. Moreover, we
see what led them into error ; they thought a triumph
and an empire were to be given to them at once, which
were given indeed eventually, but by the slow and
gradual growth of many centuries and a long warfare.
Revealed Religion. 439
On the whole, then, I observe, on the one hand, that,
Judaism having been the channel of religious traditions
which are lost in the depth of their antiquity, of course
it is a great point for Christianity to succeed in proving
that it is the legitimate heir to that former religion.
Nor is it, on the other, of less importance to the sig-
nificance of those early traditions to be able to deter-
mine that they were not lost together with their
original store-house, but were transferred, on the
failure of Judaism, to the custody of the Christian
Church. And this apparent correspondence between
the two is in itself a presumption for such correspon-
dence being real. Next, I observe, that if the history
of Judaism is so wonderful as to suggest the presence
of some special divine agency in its appointments and
fortunes, still more wonderful and divine is the history
of Christianity ; and again it is more wonderful still,
that two such wonderful creations should span almost
the whole course of ages, during which nations and
states have been in existence, and should constitute a
professed system of continued intercourse between
earth and heaven from first to last amid all the vicissi-
tudes of human affairs. This phenomenon again
carries on its face, to those who believe in a God, the
probability that it has that divine origin which it pro-
fesses to have ; and, (when viewed in the light of the
strong presumption which I have insisted on, that in
God's mercy a revelation from Him will be granted to
us, and of the contrast presented by other religions,
no one of which professes to be a revelation direct,
definite, and integral as this is,) — this phenomenon, I
440 Inference and Assent in Religion.
say, of cumulative marvels raises that probability, both
for Judaism and Christianity, in religious minds, almost
to a certainty.
7.
If Christianity is connected with Judaism as closely
as I have been supposing, then there have been, by
means of the two, direct communications between man
and his Maker from time immemorial down to this
day — a great prerogative such, that it is nowhere else
even claimed. No other religion but these two pro-
fesses to be the organ of a formal revelation, certainly
not of a revelation which is directed to the benefit of
the whole human race. Here it is that Mahometanism
fails, though it claims to carry on the line of revelation
after Christianity ; for it is the mere creed and rite of
certain races, bringing with it, as such, no gifts to our
nature, and is rather a reformation of local corruptions,
and a return to the ceremonial worship of earlier times,
than a new and larger revelation. And while Chris-
tianity was the heir to a dead religion, Mahometanism
was little more than a rebellion against a living one.
Moreover, though Mahomet professed to be the Para-
clete, no one pretends that he occupies a place in the
Christian Scriptures as prominent as that which the
Messiah fills in the Jewish. To this especial promi-
nence of the Messianic idea I shall now advert ; that
is, to the prophecies of the Old Scriptures, and to the
argument which they furnish in favour of Christianity ;
and though I know that argument might be clearer
and more exact than it is, and I do not pretend here to
Revealed Religion. 441
do much more than refer to the fact of its existence,
still so far forth as we enter into it, will it strengthen
our conviction of the claim to divinity both of the
Keligion which is the organ of those prophecies, and of
the Keligion which is their object.
Now that the Jewish Scriptures were in existence
long before the Christian era, and were in the sole
custody of the Jews, is undeniable; whatever then
their Scriptures distinctly say of Christianity, if not
attributable to chance or to happy conjecture, is pro-
phetic. It is undeniable too, that the Jews gathered
from those books, that a great Personage was to be born
of their stock, and to conquer the whole world and to
become the instrument of extraordinary blessings to it ;
moreover, that he would make his appearance at a fixed
date, and that, the very date when, as it turned out,
our Lord did actually come. This is the great outline
of the prediction, and it nothing more could be said
about them than this, to prove as much as this is far
from unimportant. And it is undeniable, I say, both
that the J ewish Scriptures contain thus much, and that
the Jews actually understood them as containing it.
First, then, as to what Scripture declares. From the
book of Genesis we learn that the chosen people was set
up in this one idea, viz. to be a blessing to the whole
earth, and that, by means of one of their own race, a
greater than their father Abraham. This was the mean-
ing and drift of their being chosen. There is no room
for mistake here ; the divine purpose is stated from the
first with the utmost precision. At the very time of
Abraham's call, he is told of it : — " 1 will make of thee
44 2 Inference and Assent in Religion.
a great nation, and in thee shall all tribes of the earth be
blessed." Thrice is this promise and purpose announced
in Abraham's history ; and after Abraham's time it is
repeated to Isaac, " In thy seed shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed ;" and after Isaac to Jacob, when a
wanderer from his home, (< In thee and in thy seed shall
all the tribes of the earth be blessed. " And from Jacob
the promise passes on to his son Judah, and that with
an addition, viz. with a reference to the great Person
who was to be the world- wide blessing, and to the date
when He should come. Judah was the chosen son of
Jacob, and his staff or sceptre, that is, his patriarchal
authority, was to endure till a greater than Judah came,
so that the loss of the sceptre, when it took place, was
the sign of His near approach. " The sceptre," says
Jacob on his death-bed, " shall not be taken away from
Judah, until He come for whom it is reserved," or " who
is to be sent," " and He shall be the expectation of the
nations." 8
8 Before and apart from Christianity, the Samaritan Version reads,
" donee veniat Pacificus, et ad ipsum congregabnntur populi." The Tar-
gum, " donee veniat Messias, cnjna est regnnm, et obedient populi." The
Septuagint, " donee veniant qu» reservata sunt illi " (or " donee veniat
cui reservatum est "), " et ipse expectatio gentium." And so again the
Vulgate, " donee veniat qnimittendnsest, etipse erit ezpectatio gentium."
The ingenious translation of some learned men (" doneo venerit Juda
Siluntem," i. e. " the tribe-sceptre shall not depart from Judah till
Judah comes to Shiloh "), with the explanation that the tribe of Judah
had the leadership in the war against the Canaanites, vide Judges i. 1,
2 ; xx. 18 (i. e. after Joshua's death), and that possibly, and for what
we know, the tribe gave up that war-command at Shiloh, vide Joshua
xviii. 1 (i. e. in Joshua's life-time), labours under three grave difficulties :
1. That the patriarchal sceptre is a temporary war-command. 2. That
this command belonged to Judah at the very time that it belonged to
Joshua. And 3. That it was finally lost to Judah (Joshua living), before
it had beep committed to Judah (Joshua dead).
Revealed Religion. 443
Such was the categorical prophecy, literal and un-
equivocal in its wording, direct and simple in its scope.
One man, born of the chosen tribe, was the destined
minister of blessing to the whole world ; and the race,
as represented by that tribe, was to lose its old self in
gaining a new self in Him. Its destiny was sealed
upon it in its beginning. An expectation was the
measure of its life. It was created for a great end,
and in that end it had its ending. Such were the
initial communications made to the chosen people, and
there they stopped ; — as if the outline of promise, so
sharply cut, had to be effectually imprinted on their
minds, before more knowledge was given to them ; as
if, by the long interval of years which passed before
the more varied prophecies in type and figure, after
the manner of the East, were added, the original notices
might stand out in the sight of all in their severe
explicitness, as archetypal truths, and guides in inter-
preting whatever else was obscure in its wording or
complex in its direction.
And in the second place it is quite clear that the
Jews did thus understand their prophecies, and did
expect their great Ruler, in the very age in which our
Lord came, and in which they, on the other hand, were
destroyed, losing their old self without gaining their
new. Heathen historians shall speak for the fact.
" A persuasion had possession of most of them," says
Tacitus, speaking of their resistance to the Romans,
"that it was contained in the ancient books of the
priests, that at that very time the Bast should prevail,
that meu who issued from Juclea should obtain the
444 Inference and Assent in Religion.
empire. The common people, as is the way with
human cupidity, having once interpreted in their own
favour this grand destiny, were not even by their
reverses brought round to the truth of facts." And
Suetonius extends the belief: — "The whole East was
rife with an old and persistent belief, that at that time
persons who issued from Judea, should possess the
empire." After the event of course the Jews drew
back, and denied the correctness of their expectation,
still they could not deny that the expectation had
existed. Thus the Jew Josephus, who was of the
Roman party, says that what encouraged them in the
stand they made against the Romans was u an ambi-
guous oracle, found in their sacred writings, that at
that date some one of them from that country should
rule the world." He can but pronounce that the
oracle was ambiguous; he cannot state that they
thought it so.
Now, considering that at that very time our Lord
did appear as a teacher, and founded not merely a
religion, but (what was then quite a new idea in the
world) a system of religious warfare, an aggressive and
militant body, a dominant Catholic Church, which aimed
at the benefit of all nations by the spiritual conquest
of all ; and that this warfare, then begun by it, has
gone on without cessation down to this day, and now
is as living and real as ever it was ; that that militant
body has from the first filled the world, that it has had
wonderful successes, that its successes have on the
whole been of extreme benefit to the human race, that
it has imparted an intelligent notion about the Supreme
Revealed Religion. 445
God to millions who would have lived and died in
irreligion, that it has raised the tone of morality
wherever it has come, has abolished great social
anomalies and miseries, has elevated the female sex
to its proper dignity, has protected the poorer classes,
has destroyed slavery, encouraged literature and
philosophy, and had a principal part in that civilization
of human kind, which, with some evils, has still on
the whole been productive of far greater good, — con-
sidering, I say, that all this began at the destined,
expected, recognized season when the old prophecy
said that in one Man, born of the tribe of Judah, all
the tribes of the earth were to be blessed, — I feel I
have a right to say (and my line of argument does not
lead me to say more), that it is at the very least a
remarkable coincidence ; that is, one of those coinci-
dences which, when they are accumulated, come close
upon the idea of miracle, as being impossible without
the Hand of God directly and immediately in them.
When we have got as far as this, we may go on a
great deal farther. Announcements, which could not
be put forward in the front of the argument, as being
figurative, vague, or ambiguous, may be used validly
and with great effect, when they have been interpreted
for us, first by the prophetic outline, and still more by
the historical object. It is a principle which applies
to all matters on which we reason, that what is only a
maze of facts, without order or drift prior to the due
explanation, may, when we once have that explanation,
be located and adjusted with great facility in all its
separate parts, as we know is the case as regards the
446 Inference and Assent in Religion.
motions of the heavenly bodies since the hypothesis of
Newton. In like manner the event is the true key to
prophecy, and reconciles conflicting and 'divergent de-
scriptions by embodying them in one common repre-
sentative. Thus it is that we learn how, as the prophe-
cies said, the Messiah could both suffer, yet be victorious;
His kingdom be Judaic in structure, yet evangelic in
spirit ; and His people the children of Abraham, yet
" sinners of the G-entiles." These seeming paradoxes,
are only parallel and akin to those others which form
so prominent a feature in the teaching of our Lord and
His Apostles.
As to the Jews, since they lived before the event, it
is not wonderful, that, though they were right in their
general interpretation of Scripture as far as it went,
they stopped short of the whole truth ; nay, that even
when their Messiah came, they could not recognize Him
as the promised King as we recognize Him now ; — for
we have the experience of His history for nearly two
thousand years, by which to interpret their Scriptures.
We may partly understand their position towards those
prophecies, by ourownatpresenttowards the Apocalypse.
Who can deny the superhuman grandeur and impressive-
ness of that sacred book I yet, as a prophecy, though
some outlines of the future are discernible, how differently
it affects us from the predictions of Isaiah ! either
because it relates to undreamed-of events still to come,
or because it has been fulfilled long ago in events which
in their detail and circumstance have never become
history. And the same remark applies doubtless to
portions of the Messianic prophecies still ; but, if their
Revealed Religion. 44 Jr
fulfilment has been thus gradual in time past, we must
not be surprised though portions of them still await
their slow but true accomplishment in the future.
8.
When I implied that in some points of view Chris-
tianity has not answered the expectations of the old
prophecies, of which it claims to be the fulfilment, I
had in mind principally the contrast which is presented
to us between the picture which they draw of the
universality of the kingdom of the Messiah, and that
partial development of it through the world, which is
all the Christian Church can show ; and again the
contrast between the rest and peace which they said
He was to introduce, and the Church's actual history,
— the conflicts of opinion which have raged within its
pale, the violent acts and unworthy lives of many of
its rulers, and the moral degradation of great masses
of its people. I do not profess to meet these difficulties
here, except by saying that the failure of Christianity
in one respect in corresponding to those prophecies
cannot destroy the force of its correspondence to them
in others ; just as we may allow that the portrait of a
friend is a faulty likeness to him, and yet be quite
sure that it is his portrait. What I shall actually
attempt to show here is this, — that Christianity was
quite aware from the first of its own prospective
future, so unlike the expectations which the prophets
would excite concerning it, and that it meets the
difliculty thence arising by anticipation, by giving us
its own predictions of what it was to be in historical
448 Inference and Assent in Religion.
fact, predictions which are at once explanatory com-
ments upon the Jewish Scriptures, and direct evi-
dences of its own prescience.
I think it observable then, that, though our Lord
claims to be the Messiah, He shows so little of con-
scious dependence on the old Scriptures, or of anxiety
to fulfil them ; as if it became Him, who was the Lord
of the Prophets, to take His own course, and to leave
their utterances to adjust themselves to Him as they
could, and not to be careful to accommodate Himself
to them. The evangelists do indeed show some such
natural zeal in His behalf, and thereby illustrate what
I notice in Him by the contrast. They betray an
earnestness to trace in His Person and history the
accomplishment of prophecy, as when they discern it
in His return from Egypt, in His life at Nazareth,
in the gentleness and tenderness of His mode of
teaching, and in the various minute occurrences of
His passion ; but He Himself goes straight forward on
His way, of course claiming to be the Messiah of the
Prophets,* still not so much recurring to past pro-
phecies, as uttering new ones, with an antithesis not
unlike that which is so impressive in the Sermon on
the Mount, when He first says, " It has been said by
them of old time," and then adds, " But I say unto
you." Another striking instance of this is seen in
the Names under which He spoke of Himself, which
9 He appeals to the prophecies in evidence of His Divine mission, in
addressing the people of Nazareth (Luke iv. 18), St. John's disciples
(Matt. xi. 5), and the Pharisees (Matt. xxi. 42, and John v. 39), but
not in details. The appeal to details He reserves for His disciples. Vide
Matt. zi. 10 ; xxvi. 24. 31. 54 : Luke xxii. 37 : xxiv. 27, 46.
Revealed Religion. 449
have little or no foundation in anything which was
said of Him beforehand in the Jewish Scriptures.
They speak of Him as Kuler, Prophet, King, Hope
of Israel, Offspring of Judah, and Messiah ; and His
Evangelists and Disciples call Him Master, Lord,
Prophet, Son of David, King of Israel, King of the
Jews, and Messiah or Christ ; but He Himself, though,
I repeat, He acknowledges these titles as His own,
especially that of the Christ, chooses as His special
designations these two, Son of God and Son of Man,
the latter of which is only once given Him in the
Old Scriptures, and by which He corrects any narrow
Judaic interpretation of them ; while the former was
never distinctly used of Him before He came, and
seems first to have been announced to the world by
the Angel Gabriel and St. John the Baptist. In those
two Names, Son of God and Son of Man, declaratory
of the two natures of Emmanuel, He separates Him-
self from the Jewish Dispensation, in which He was
born, and inaugurates the New Covenant.
This is not • an accident, and I shall now give some
instances of it, that is, of what I may call the indepen-
dent autocratic view which He takes of His own reli-
gion, into which the old Judaism was melting, and of
the prophetic insight into its spirit and its future which
that view involves. In quoting His own sayings from
the Evangelists for this purpose, I assume (of which
there is no reasonable doubt) that they wrote before
any historical events had happened of a nature to
cause them unconsciously to modify or to colour the
language which their Master used.
o g
450 Inference and Assent in Religion.
1. First, then, the fact has been often insisted on as a
bold conception, unheard of before, and worthy of divine
origin, that He should even project a universal reli-
gion, and that to be effected by what may be called a
propagandist movement from one centre. Hitherto it
had been the received notion in the world, that each
nation had its own gods. The Romans legislated upon
that basis, and the Jews had held it from the first,
holding of course also, that all gods but their own God
were idols and demons. It is true that the Jews ought
to have been taught by their prophecies what was in
store for the world and for them, and that their first
dispersion through the Empire centuries before Christ
came, and the proselytes which they collected around
them in every place, were a kind of comment on the
prophecies larger than their own ; but we see what
was, in fact, when our Lord came, their expectation
from those prophecies, in the passages which I have
quoted above from the Roman historians of His day.
But He from the first resisted those plausible, but mis-
taken interpretations of Scripture. In His cradle in-
deed He had been recognized by the Eastern Sages as
their king ; the Angel announced that He was to reign
over the house of Jacob ; Nathanael, too, owned Him
as the Messiah with a regal title j but He, on entering
upon His work, interpreted these anticipations in His
own way, and that not the way of Theudas and Judas
of Galilee, who took the sword, and collected soldiers
about them, — nor the way of the Tempter, who offered
Him " all the kingdoms of the world/' In the words
of the Evangelists, He began, not to fight, but " to
Revealed Religion. 45 1
preach/* and further, to " preach the kingdom of
heaven/' saying, " The time is accomplished, and the
kingdom of God is at hand ; repent, and believe the
Gospel." This is the significant title, " the kingdom
of heaven," — the more significant, when explained by
the attendant precept of repentance and faith, — on
which He founds the polity which He was establishing
from first to last. One of His last sayings before He
suffered was, " My kingdom is not of this world." And
His last words, before He left the earth, when His dis-
ciples asked Him about His kingdom, were that they,
preachers as they were, and not soldiers, should " be His
witnesses to the end of the earth," should " preach to all
nations, beginning with Jerusalem," should "go into the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature," should
" go and make disciples of all nations till the consum-
mation of all things."
The last Evangelist of the four is equally precise in
recording the initial purpose with which our Lord began
His ministry, viz. to create an empire, not by force, but
by persuasion. " Light is come into the world : every
one that doth evil, hateth the light, but he that doth
truth, cometh to the light." " Lift up your eyes, and
see the countries, for they are white already to harvest."
" No man can come to Me, except the Father, who
hath sent Me, draw him/' " And I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all things to Myself."
Thus, while the Jews, relying on their Scriptures
with great appearance of reason, looked for a deliverer
who should conquer with the sword, we find that Chris-
tianity, from the first, not by an afterthought upon
o g 2
452 Inference and Assent in Religion.
trial and experience, but as a fundamental truth, magis-
terially set right that mistake, transfiguring the old
prophecies, and bringing to light, as St. Paul might
say, " the mystery which had been hidden from ages
and generations, but now was made manifest in His
saints, the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
which is Christ in you," not simply over you, but in
you, by faith and love, t€ the hope of glory ."
2. I have partly anticipated my next remark, which
relates to the means by which the Christian enterprise
was to be carried into effect. That preaching was to
have a share in the victories of the Messiah was plain
from Prophet and Psalmist; but then Charlemagne
preached, and Mahomet preached, with an army to
back them. The same Psalm which speaks of those
" who preach good tidings/' speaks also of their King's
" foot being dipped in the blood of His enemies /' but
what is so grandly original in Christianity is, that on
its broad field of conflict its preachers were to be simply
unarmed, and to suffer, but to prevail. If we were not
so familiar with our Lord's words, I think they would
astonish us. " Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst
of wolves." This was to be their normal state, and so
it was ; and all the promises and directions given to
them imply it. " Blessed are they that suffer perse-
cution;" " blessed are ye when they revile you;" " the
meek shall inherit the earth ;" " resist not evil ;" " you
shall be hated of all men for My Name's sake ;" " a
man's enemies shall be they of his own household ;''
11 he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved.''
What sort of encouragement was this for men who were
Revealed Religion. 453
to go about an immense work ? Do men in this way
send out their soldiers to battle, or their sons to India
or Australia? The King of Israel hated Micaiah,
because he always " prophesied of him evil." " So
persecuted they the Prophets that were before you/'
says our Lord. Yes, and the Prophets failed \ they
were persecuted and they lost the battle. " Take, my
brethren," says St. James, t€ for an example of suffering
evil, of labour and patience, the Prophets, who spake in
the Name of the Lord." They were " racked, mocked,
stoned, cut asunder, they wandered about, — of whom
the world was not worthy," says St. Paul. What an
argument to encourage them to aim at success by
suffering, to put before them the precedent of those
who suffered and who failed !
Yet the first preachers, our Lord's immediate dis-
ciples, saw no difficulty in a prospect to human eyes
so appalling, so hopeless. How connatural this strange,
unreasoning, reckless courage was with their regenerate
state is shown most signally in St. Paul, as having been
a convert of later vocation. He was no personal asso-
ciate of our Lord's, yet how faithfully he echoes back
our Lord's language ! His instrument of conversion
is "the foolishness of preaching;" "the weak things
of the earth confound the strong ;" " we hunger and
thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no
home ;" " we are reviled and bless, we are persecuted,
and blasphemed, itnd are made the refuse of this world,
and the offscourijig of all things." Such is the intimate
comprehension, on the part of one who had never seeu
our Lord on earth, and knew little from His original
454 Inference and Assent in Religion.
disciples of the genius of His teaching ; — and consider-
ing that the prophecies, upon which he had lived from
his birth, for the most part bear on their surface a
contrary doctrine, and that the Jews of that day did
commonly understand them in that contrary sense, we
cannot deny that Christianity, in tracing out the method
by which it was to prevail in the future, took its own,
independent line, and, in assigning from the first a rule
and a history to its propagation, a rule and a history
which have been carried out to this day, rescues itself
from the charge of but partially fulfilling those Jewish
prophecies, by the assumption of a prophetical character
of its own.
3. Now we come to a third point, in which the
Divine Master explains, and in a certain sense corrects,
the prophecies of the Old Covenant, by a more exact
interpretation of them from Himself. I have granted
that they seemed to say that His coming would issue
in a period of peace and religiousness. " Behold," says
the Prophet, " a king shall reign in justice, and princes
shall rule in judgment. The fool shall no more be
called prince, neither shall the deceitful be called great.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
lie down with the kid. They shall not hurt nor kill
in all My holy mountain, for the earth is filled with
the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of
the sea/'
These words seem to predict a reversal of the con-
sequences of the fall, and that reversal has not yet been
granted to us, it is true ; but let us consider how dis-
tinctly Christianity warns us against any such anticipa-
Revealed Religion. 455
fcion. "While it is so forcibly laid down in the Gospels
that the history of the kingdom of heaven begins in
suffering and sanctity, it is as plainly said that it results
in unfaithfulness and sin ; that is to say, that, though
there are at all times many holy, many religious men in
it, and though sanctity, as at the beginning, is ever
the life and the substance and the germinal seed of the
Divine Kingdom, yet there will ever be many too, there
will be more, who by their lives are a scandal and
injury to it, not a defence. This again is an astonishing
announcement, and the more so when viewed in contrast
with the precepts delivered by our Lord in His Sermon
on the Mount, and His description to the Apostles of
their weapons and their warfare. So perplexing to
Christians was the fact when fulfilled, as it was in no
long time on a large scale, that three of the early here-
sies more or less originated in obstinate, unchristian
refusal to readmit to the privileges of the Gospel those
who had fallen into sin. Yet our Lord's words are
express : He tells us that " Many are called, few are
chosen •" in the parable of the Marriage Feast, the
servants who are sent out gather together " all that they
found, both bad and good ;" the foolish virgins " had
no oil in their vessels ;" amid the good seed an enemy
sows seed that is noxious or worthless ; and " the king-
dom is like to a net which gathered together all kind
of fishes ; " and " at the end of the world the Angels
shall go forth, and shall separate the wicked from
among the just."
Moreover, He not only speaks of His religion as
destined to possess a wide temporal power, such, that,
456 Inference and Assent in Religion.
as in the case of the Babylonian, " the birds of the air
should dwell in its branches," but He opens on us the
prospect of ambition and rivalry in its leading mem-
bers, when He warns His disciples against desiring the
first places in His kingdom ; nay, of grosser sins, in
His description of the Ruler, who " began to strike
his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink and be
drunken," — passages which have an awful significance,
considering what kind of men have before now been
His chosen representatives, and have sat in the chair
of His Apostles.
If then it be objected that Christianity does not, as
the old prophets seem to promise, abolish sin and
irreligion within its pale, we may answer, not only that
it did not engage to do so, but that actually in a pro-
phetical spirit it warned its followers against the ex-
pectation of its so doing.
9.
According to our Lord's announcements before the
event, Christianity was to prevail and to become a
great empire, and to fill the earth ; but it was to ac-
complish this destiny, not as other victorious powers
had done, and as the Jews expected, by force of arms
or by other means of this world, but by the novel ex-
pedient of sanctity and suffering. If some aspiring
party of this day, the great Orleans family, or a branch
of the Hohenzollern, wishing to found a kingdom,
were to profess, as their only weapon, the practice of
virtue, they would not startle us more than it startled
Revealed Religion. 457
a Jew eighteen hundred years ago, to be told that his
glorious Messiah was not to fight, like Joshua or
David, but simply to preach. It is indeed a thought
so strange, both in its prediction and in its fulfilment,
as urgently to suggest to us that some Divine Power
went with him who conceived and proclaimed it. This
is what I have been saying ; — now I wish to consider
the fact, which was predicted, in itself, without refer-
ence to its being the subject whether of a prediction
or of a fulfilment : that is, the history of the rise and
establishment of Christianity ; and to enquire whether
it is a history that admits of being resolved, by any
philosophical ingenuity, into the ordinary operation of
moral, social, or political causes.
As is well known, various writers have attempted to
assign human causes in explanation of the phenomenon :
Gibbon has especially mentioned five, viz. the zeal of
Christians, inherited from the Jews, their doctrine of
a future state, their claim to miraculous power, their
virtues, and their ecclesiastical organization. Let us
briefly consider them.
He thinks these five causes, when combined, will
fairly account for the event ; but he has not thought
of accounting for their combination. If they are ever
so available for his purpose, still that availableness
arises out of their coincidence, and out of what does
that coincidence arise ? Until this is explained, nothing
is explained, and the question had better have been let
alone. These presumed causes are quite distinct from
each other, and, I say, the wonder is, what made them
come together. How came a multitude of Gentiles tc
458 Inference and Assent in Religion.
be influenced with Jewish zeal? How came zealots
to submit to a strict, ecclesiastical regime ? What con-
nexion has a secular regime with the immortality of
the soul ? Why should immortality, a philosophical
doctrine, lead to belief in miracles, which is a supersti-
tion of the vulgar ? What tendency had miracles and
magic to make men austerely virtuous ? Lastly, what
power was there in a code of virtue, as calm and en-
lightened as that of Antoninus, to generate a zeal as
fierce as that of Maccabaeus ? Wonderful events before
now have apparently been nothing but coincidences,
certainly ; but they do not become less wonderful by
cataloguing their constituent causes, unless we also
show how these came to be constituent.
However, this by the way ; the real question is this,
— are these historical characteristics of Christianity,
also in matter of fact, historical causes of Christianity ?
Has Gibbon given proof that they are? Has he
brought evidence of their operation, or does he simply
conjecture in his private judgment that they operated ?
Whether they were adapted to accomplish a certain
work, is a matter of opinion ; whether they did accom-
plish it is a question of fact. He ought to adduce
instances of their efficiency before he has a right to
say that they are efficient. And the second question
is, what is this effect, of which they are to be con-
sidered as causes ? It is no other than this, the con-
version of bodies of men to the Christian faith. Let
us keep this in view. We have to determine whether
these five characteristics of Christianity were efficient
causes of bodies of men becoming Christians. I think
Revealed Religion. 459
they neither did effect such conversions, nor were
adapted to do so, and for these reasons : —
1. For first, as to zeal, by which Gibbon means party
spirit, or esprit de corps; this doubtless is a motive
principle when men are already members of a body,
but does it operate in bringing them into it ? The
Jews were born in Judaism, they had a long and glori-
ous history, and would naturally feel and show esprit
de corps ; but how did party spirit tend to transplant
Jew or Gentile out of his own place into a new society,
and that a society which as yet scarcely was formed in
a society ? Zeal, certainly, may be felt for a cause, or
for a person ; on this point I shall speak presently ;
but Gibbon's idea of Christian zeal is nothing better
than the old wine of Judaism decanted into new Chris-
tian bottles, and would be too flat a stimulant, even if
it admitted of such a transference, to be taken as a
cause of conversion to Christianity without definite
evidence in proof of the fact. Christians had zeal for
Christianity after they were converted, not before.
2. Next, as tc the doctrine of a future state.
Gibbon seems to mean by this doctrine the fear of
hell ; now certainly in this day there are persons con-
verted from sin to a religious life, by vivid descriptions
of the future punishment of the wicked ; but then it
must be recollected that such persons already believe
in the doctrine thus urged upon them. On the con-
trary, give some Tract upon hell-fire to one of the wild
boys in a large town, who has had no education, who
has no faith; and instead of being startled by it, he
will laugh at it as something frightfully ridiculous.
460 Inference and Assent in Religion.
The belief in Styx and Tartarus was dying out of the
world at the time that Christianity came in, as the parallel
belief now seems to be dying out in all classes of our
own society. The doctrine of eternal punishment does
only anger the multitude of men in our large towns now,
and make them blaspheme ; why should it have had
any other effect on the heathen population in the age
when our Lord came ? Yet it was among those popu-
lations, that He and His made their way from the first.
As to the hope of eternal life, that doubtless, as well
as the fear of hell, was a most operative doctrine in
the case of men who had been actually converted, of
Christians brought before the magistrate, or writhing
under torture, but the thought of eternal glory does
not keep bad men from a bad life now, and why should
it convert them then from their pleasant sins, to a
heavy, mortified, joyless existence, to a life of ill-usage,
fright, contempt, and desolation.
3. That the claim to miracles should have any wide
influence in favour of Christianity among heathen
populations, who had plenty of portents of their own,
is an opinion in curious contrast with the objection
against Christianity which has provoked an answer
from Paley, viz. that " Christian miracles are not
recited or appealed to, by early Christian writers
themselves, so fully or so frequently as might have
been expected." Paley solves the difficulty as far as
it is a fact, by observing, as I have suggested, that
"it was their lot to contend with magical agency,
against which the mere production of these facts was
not sufficient for the convincing of their adversaries :"
Revealed Religion. 461
" I do not know," he continues, " whether they them-
selves thought it quite decisive of the controversy."
A claim to miraculous power on the part of Christians,
which was so unfrequent as to become now an objec-
tion to the fact of their possessing it, can hardly have
been a principal cause of their success.
4. And how is it possible to imagine with Gibbon
that what he calls the " sober and domestic virtues " of
Christians, their " aversion to the luxury of the age,"
their " chastity, temperance, and economy," that these
dull qualities were persuasives of a nature to win and
melt the hard heathen heart, in spite too of the dreary
prospect of the barathrum, the amphitheatre, and the
stake ? Did the Christian morality by its severe beauty
make a convert of Gibbon himself? On the contrary,
he bitterly says, " It was not in this world that the
primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves
either agreeable or useful." " The virtue of the primi-
tive Christians, like that of the first Komans, was very
frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance." " Their
gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the
common business and pleasures of life, and their fre-
quent predictions of impending calamities, inspired the
Pagans with the apprehension of some danger which
would arise from the new sect." Here we have not
only Gibbon hating the moral and social bearing, but
his heathen also. How then were those heathen over-
come by the amiableness of that which they viewed
with such disgust ? We have here plain proof that the
Christian character repelled the heathen ; where is the
evidence that it converted them ?
462 Inference and Assent in Religion.
5. Lastly, as to the ecclesiastical organization, this,
doubtless, as time went on, was a special characteristic
of the new religion; but how could it directly contribute
to its extension ? Of course it gave it strength, but it
did not give it life. We are not born of bones and
muscles. It is one thing to make conquests, another to
consolidate an empire. It was before Constantino that
Christians made their great conquests. Rules are for
settled times, not for time of war. So much is this
contrast felt in the Catholic Church now, that, as is well
known, in heathen countries and in countries which
have thrown off her yoke, she suspends her diocesan
administration and her Canon Law, and puts her chil-
dren under the extraordinary, extra-legal jurisdiction
of Propaganda.
This is what I am led to say on Gibbon's Five Causes.
I do not deny that they might have operated now and
fchen ; Simon Magus came to Christianity in order to
learn the craft of miracles, and Peregrinus from love of
influence and power; but Christianity made its way,
not by individual, but by broad, wholesale conversions,
and the question is, how they originated ?
It is very remarkable that it should not have oc-
curred to a man of Gibbon's sagacity to inquire, what
account the Christians themselves gave of the matter.
Would it not have been worth while for him to have let
conjecture alone, and to have looked for facts instead ?
Why did he not try the hypothesis of faith, hope, and
charity? Did he never hear of repentance towards
God, and faith in Christ ? Did he not recollect the
many words of Apostles, Bishops, Apologists, Martyrs,
Revealed Religion. 463
all forming one testimony ? No ; such thoughts are
close upon him, and close upon the truth ; but he cannot
sympathize with them, he cannot believe in them, he
cannot even enter into them, because he needs the due
formation for such an exercise of mind.1 Let us see
whether the facts of the case do not come out clear and
unequivocal, if we will but have the patience to endure
them.
A Deliverer of the human race through the Jewish
nation had been promised from time immemorial. The
day came when He was to appear, and He was eagerly
expected ; moreover, One actually did make His appear-
ance at that date in Palestine, and claimed to be He.
He left the earth without apparently doing much for
the object of His coining. But when He was gone,
His disciples took upon themselves to go forth to
preach to all parts of the earth with the object of
preaching Him, and collecting converts in His Name.
After a little while they are found wonderfully to have
succeeded. Large bodies of men in various places are
to be seen, professing to be His disciples, owning Him
as their King, and continually swelling in number and
penetrating into the populations of the Eoman Empire ;
at length they convert the Empire itself. All this is
historical fact. Now, we want to know the farther
historical fact, viz. the cause of their conversion ; in
other words, what were the topics of that preaching
which was so effective ? If we believe what is told us
by the preachers and their converts, the answer is
plain. They " preached Christ •" they called on men
1 Tide supra, pp. 341, 375, 413— 416.
464 Inference and Assent in Religion.
to believe, hope, and place their affections, in that De-
liverer who had come and gone ; and the moral instru-
ment by which they persuaded them to do so, was a
description of the life, character, mission, and power of
that Deliverer, a promise of His invisible Presence and
Protection here, and of the Vision and Fruition of Him
hereafter. From first to last to Christians, as to
Abraham, He Himself is the centre and fulness of the
dispensation. They, as Abraham, " see His day, and
are glad."
A temporal sovereign makes himself felt by means
of his subordinate administrators, who bring his
power and will to bear upon every individual of his
subjects who personally know him not ; the universal
Deliverer, long expected, when He came, He too,
instead of making and securing subjects by a visible
graciousness or majesty, departs; — but is found,
through His preachers, to have imprinted the Image 2
or idea of Himself in the minds of His subjects indi-
vidually ; and that Image, apprehended and worshipped
in individual minds, becomes a principle of association,
and a real bond of those subjects one with another,
who are thus united to the body by being united to
that Image; and moreover that Image, which is
their moral life, when they have been already con-
verted, is also the original instrument of their con-
version. It is the Image of Him who fulfils the one
great need of human nature, the Healer of its wounds,
the Physician of the soul, this Image it is which
both creates faith, and then rewards it.
8 Vide supra, pp. 23—30 and 75—80.
Revealed Religion. 465
When we recognize this central Image as the
vivifying idea both of the Christian body and of
individuals in it, then, certainly, we are able to take
into account at least two of Gibbon's causes, as
having, in connexion with that idea, some influence
both in making converts and in strengthening them
to persevere. It was the Thought of Christ, not a
corporate body or a doctrine, which inspired that
zeal which the historian so poorly comprehends ;
and it was the Thought of Christ which gave a life
to the promise of that eternity, which without Him
would be, in any soul, nothing short of an intolera-
ble burden.
Now a mental vision such as this, perhaps will be
called cloudy, fanciful, unintelligible ; that is, in other
words, miraculous. I think it is so. How, without
the Hand of God, could a new idea, one and the
same, enter at once into myriads of men, women,
and children of all ranks, especially the lower, and
have power to wean them from their indulgences
and sins, and to nerve them against the most cruel
tortures, and to last in vigour as a sustaining influ-
ence for seven or eight generations, till it founded
an extended polity, broke the obstinacy of the
strongest and wisest government which the world has
ever seen, and forced its way from its first caves
and catacombs to the fulness of imperial power ?
In considering this subject, I shall confine myself to
the proof, as far as my limifcs allow, of two points, —
first, that this Thought or Image of Christ was the
principle of conversion and of fellowship ; and next, that
H h
466 Inference and Assent in Religion.
among the lower classes, who had no power, influence,
reputation, or education, lay its principal success.3
As to the vivifying idea, this is St. Paul's account of
it : "I make known to you the gospel which I preached
to you, which also you have received, and wherein you
stand ; by which also you are saved. For I delivered
to you first of all that which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,"
&c., &c. " I am the least of the Apostles ; but,
whether I or they, so we preached^ and so you be-
lieved." " It has pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe." " We preach
Christ crucified." " I determined to know nothing
among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified/'
" Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ,
who is your life, shall appear, then you also shall ap-
pear with Him in glory." " I live, but now not I, but
Christ liveth in me."
St. Peter, who has been accounted the master of a
separate school, says the same : " Jesus Christ, whom
you have not seen, yet love ; in whom you now believe,
and shall rejoice."
And St. John, who is sometimes accounted a third
master in Christianity : " It hath not yet appeared
what we shall be ; but we know that, when He shall
appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see
Him as He is."
3 Had my limits allowed it, I ought, as a third subject, to have de-
scribed the existing system of impure idolatry, and the wonderful
phenomenon of such multitudes, who had been slaves to it, escaping: from
it by the power of Christianity, — under the guidance of the great work
(" On the Gentile and the Jew ") of Dr. Dollinger.
Revealed Religion. 467
That their disciples followed them in this sovereign
devotion to an Invisible Lord, will appear as I proceed.
And next, as to the worldly position and character
of His disciples, our Lord, in the well-known passage,
returns thanks to His Heavenly Father, " because,"
He says, " Thou hast Kid these things " — the mysteries
of His kingdom — " from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them to little ones/' And, in accord-
ance with this announcement, St. Paul says that " not
many wise men according to the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble/' became Christians. He, indeed, ia
one of those few ; so were others his contemporaries,
and, as time went on, the number of these exceptions
increased, so that converts were found, not a few, in
the high places of the Empire, and in the schools of
philosophy and learning ; but still the rule held, that
the great mass of Christians were to be found in those
classes which were of no account in the world, whether
on the score of rank or of education.
We all know this was the case with our Lord and His
Apostles. It seems almost irreverent to speak of their
temporal employments, when we are so simply accus-
tomed to consider them in their spiritual associations;
but it is profitable to remind ourselves that our Lord
Himself was a sort of smith, and made ploughs and
cattle-yokes. Four Apostles were fishermen, one a
petty tax collector, two husbandmen, and another is
said to have been a market gardener.4 When Peter
4 On the subjects which follow, vide Laini, De JSruditione A.posto~
lorwn ; Mamachius, Origines Christ. ; Ruinart, Act. Mart. ; Lardner,
Credibility, &c. ; ¥\enry,Eccles.lIist.; Kortholt, Column. Pagan. ; and
De Morib. Christ., &c.
H h 2
468 Inference and Assent in Religion.
and John were brought before the Council, they are
spoken of as being, in a secular point of view, ' ' illiterate
men, and of the lower sort/' and thus they are spoken
of in a later age by the Fathers.
That their converts were of the same rank as them-
selves, is reported, in their favour or to their discredit
by friends and enemies, for four centuries. " If a man
be educated," says Celsus in mockery, " let him keep
clear of us Christians ; we want no men of wisdom, no
men of sense. We account all such as evil. No ; but,
if there be one who is inexperienced, or stupid, or un-
taught, or a fool, let him come with good heart."
" They are weavers/' he says elsewhere, " shoemakers,
fullers, illiterate, clowns." " Fools, low-born fellows/'
says Trypho. " The greater part of you," says Caeci-
lius, " are worn with want, cold, toil, and famine ; men
collected from the lowest dregs of the people ; ignorant,
credulous women ;" " unpolished, boors, illiterate, ig-
norant even of the sordid arts of life; they do not
understand even civil matters, how can they under-
stand divine ? " " They have left their tongs, mallets,
and anvils, to preach about the things of heaven,0
says Libanius. " They deceive women, servants, and
slaves," says Julian. The author of Philopatris speaks
of them as "poor creatures, blocks, withered old
fellows, men of downcast and pale visages." As to
their religion, it had the reputation popularly, accord-
ing to various Fathers, of being an anile superstition,
the discovery of old women, a joke, a madness, an in-
fatuation, an absurdity, a fanaticism.
The Fathers themselves confirm these statements, so
Revealed Religion. 469
far as they relate to the insignificance and ignorance of
their brethren. Athenagoras speaks of the virtue of
their " ignorant men, mechanics, and old women/'
" They are gathered," says St. Jerome, " not from the
Academy or Lyceum, but from the low populace.0
"They are whitesmiths, servants, farm-labourers,
woodmen, men of sordid trades, beggars/' says Theo-
doret. " We are engaged in the farm, in the market,
at the baths, wine-shops, stables, and fairs ; as seamen,
as soldiers, as peasants, as dealers/' says Tertullian.
How came such men to be converted ? and, being con-
verted, how came such men to overturn the world ?
Yet they went forth from the first, " conquering and
to conquer."
The first manifestation of their formidable numbers
is made just about the time when St. Peter and St.
Paul suffered martyrdom, and was the cause of a terrible
persecution. We have the account of it in Tacitus.
" Nero," he says, " to put an end to the common talk
[that Rome had been set on fire by his order] , imputed
it to others, visiting with a refinement of punishment
those detestable criminals who went by the name of
Christians. The author of that denomination was
Christus, who had been executed in Tiberius's time by
the procurator, Pontius Pilate. The pestilent super-
stition, checked for a while, burst out again, not only
throughout Judea, the first seat of the evil, but even
throughout Koine, the centre both of confluence and
outbreak of all that is atrocious and disgraceful from
every quarter. First were arrested those who made
no secret of their sect ; and by this clue a vast multi-
Inference and Assent in Religion.
tude of others, convicted not so much of firing the
city, as of hatred to the human race. Mockery was
added to death; clad in skins of beasts, they were
torn to pieces by dogs; they were nailed up to
crosses; they were made inflammable, so that, when
day failed, they might serve as lights. Hence, guilty
as they were, and deserving of exemplary punishment,
they excited compassion, as being destroyed, not for
the public welfare, but from the cruelty of one man."
The two Apostles suffered, and a silence follows of a
whole generation. At the end of thirty or forty years,
Pliny, the friend of Trajan, as well as of Tacitus, is
sent as that Emperor's Propraetor into Bithynia, and
is startled and perplexed by the number, influence,
and pertinacity of the Christians whom he finds there,
and in the neighbouring province of Pontus. He has
the opportunity of being far more fair to them than
his friend the historian. He writes to Trajan to know
how he ought to deal with them, and I will quote
some portions of his letter.
He says he does not know how to proceed with
them, as their religion has not received toleration from
the state. He never was present at any trial of them ;
he doubted whether the children among them, as well
as grown people, ought to be accounted as culprits ;
whether recantation would set matters right, or
whether they incurred punishment all the same ;
whether they were to be punished, merely because
Christians, even though no definite crime was proved
against them. His way had been to examine them,
and put questions to them; if they confessed the
Revealed Religion. 471
charge, lie gave them one or two chances, threatening
them with punishment; then, if they persisted, he
gave orders for their execution. "For," he argues,
" I felt no doubt that, whatever might be the character
of their opinions, stubborn and inflexible obstinacy
deserved punishment. Others there were of a like
infatuation, whom, being citizens, I sent to Rome."
Some satisfied him; they repeated after him an
invocation to the gods, and offered wine and incense
to the Emperor's image, and in addition, cursed the
name of Christ. " Accordingly," he says, " I let them
go; for I am told nothing can compel a real Christian
to do any of these things." There were others, too,
who sacrificed ; who had been Christians, some of them
for as many as twenty years.
Then he is curious to know something more definite
about them. " This, the informers told me, was the
whole of their crime or mistake, that they were accus-
tomed to assemble on a stated day before dawn, and
to say together a hymn to Christ as a god, and to bind
themselves by an oath [sacramento] (not to any crime,
but on the contrary) to keep from theft, robbery,
adultery, breach of promise, and making free with
deposits. After this they used to separate, and then
to meet again for a meal, which was social and harm-
less. However, they left even that off, after my Edict
against their meeting."
This information led him to put to the torture two
maid-servants, " who were called ministers," in order
to find out what was true, what was false in it ; but he
says he could make out nothing, except a depraved
472 Inference and Assent in Religion.
and excessive superstition. This is what led him to
consult the Emperor, "especially because of the
number who were implicated in it ; for these are, or
are likely to be, many, of all ages, nay, of both sexes.
For the contagion of this superstition has spread, not
only in the cities, but about the villages and the open
country/' He adds that already there was some
improvement. "The almost forsaken temples begin
to be filled again, and the sacred solemnities after a
long intermission are revived. Victims, too, are again
on sale, purchasers having been most rare to find."
The salient points in this account are these, that, at
the end of one generation from the Apostles, nay;
almost in the lifetime of St. John, Christians had so
widely spread in a large district of Asia, as nearly to
suppress the Pagan religions there ; that they were
people of exemplary lives ; that they had a name for
invincible fidelity to their religion ; that no threats or
sufferings could make them deny it ; and that their
only tangible characteristic was the worship of our Lord.
This was at the beginning of the second century ;
not a great many years after, we have another
account of the Christian body, from an anonymous
Greek Christian, in a letter to a friend whom he was
anxious to convert. It is far too long to quote,
and difficult to compress; but a few sentences will
show how strikingly it agrees with the account of the
heathen Pliny, especially in two points, — first, in the
numbers of the Christians, secondly, on devotion to
our Lord as the vivifying principle of their association.
" Christians," says the writer, " differ not from other
Revealed Religion. 473
men in country, or speech, or customs. They do not
live in cities of their own, or speak in any peculiar
dialect, or adopt any strange modes of living. They
inhabit their native countries, but as sojourners ; the}
take their part in all burdens, as if citizens, and in all
sufferings, as if they were strangers. In foreign
countries they recognize a home, and in every home
they see a foreign country. They marry like other
men, but do not disown their children. They obey the
established laws, but they go beyond them in the
tenor of their lives. They love all men, and are perse-
cuted by all; they are not known, and they are
condemned; they are poor, and make many rich;
they are dishonoured, yet in dishonour they are glori-
fied ; they are slandered, and they are cleared ; they
are called names, and they bless. By the Jews they
are assailed as aliens, by the Greeks they are perse-
cuted, nor can they who hate them say why.
" Christians are in the world, as the soul in the body.
The soul pervades the limbs of the body, and Christians
the cities of the world. The flesh hates the soul, and
wars against it, though suffering no wroog from it ; and
the world hates Christians. The soul loves the flesh
that hates it, and Christians love their enemies.
Their tradition is not an earthly invention, nor is it
a mortal thought which they so carefully gnard, nor a
dispensation of human mysteries which is committed
to their charge; but God Himself, the Omnipotent
and Invisible Creator, has from heaven established
among men His Truth and His Word, the Holy and
Incomprehensible, and has deeply fixed the same in
474 Inference and Assent in Religion.
their hearts ; not, as might be expected, sending any
servant, angel, or prince, or administrator of things
earthly or heavenly, but the very Artificer and Demi-
urge of the Universe. Him God hath sent to man,
not to inflict terror, but in clemency and gentleness,
as a King sending a King who was His Son ; He sent
Him as God to men, to save them. He hated not,
nor rejected us, nor remembered our guilt, but showed
Himself long-suffering, and, in His own words, bore
our sins. He gave His own Son as a ransom for us,
the just for the unjust. For what other thing, except
His Righteousness, could cover our guilt? In whom
was it possible for us, lawless sinners, to find justifica-
tion, save in the Son of God alone ? 0 sweet inter-
change ! O heavenly workmanship past finding out !
0 benefits exceeding expectation ! Sending, then, a
Saviour, who is able to save those who of themselves
are incapable of salvation, He has willed that we
should regard Him as our Guardian, Father, Teacher,
Counsellor, Physician; our Mind, Light, Honour,
Glory, Strength, and Life/' 8
The writing from which I have been quoting is of
the early part of the second century. Twenty or
thirty years after it St. Justin Martyr speaks as
strongly of the spread of the new Religion : " There
is not any one race of men/' he says, "barbarian or
Greek, nay, of those who live in waggons, or who are
Nomads, or Shepherds in tents, among whom prayers
and eucharists are not offered to the Father and
Maker of the Universe, through the name of the cruci-
fied Jesua.
6 Ep. ad Diognet.
Revealed Religion. 475
Towards the end of the century, Clement : — " The
word of our Master did not remain in Judea, as philo-
sophy remained in Greece, but has been poured out
over the whole world, persuading Greeks and Bar-
barians alike, race by race, village by village, every
city, whole houses, and hearers one by one, nay, not a
few of the philosophers themselves."
And Tertullian, at the very close of it, could in his
Apologia even proceed to threaten the Roman Govern-
ment:— "We are a people of yesterday/' he says;
" and yet we have filled every place belonging to you,
cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very
camp, your tribes, companies, palaces, senate, forum.
We leave you your temples only. We can count your
armies, and our numbers in a single province will be
greater. In what war with you should we not be
sufficient and ready, even though unequal in numbers,
who so willingly are put to death, if it were not in this
Eeligion of ours more lawful to be slain than to slay ?
Once more, let us hear the great Origen, in the
early part of the next century : — " In all Greece and
in all barbarous races within our world, there are tens
of thousands who have left their national laws and cus-
tomary gods for the law of Moses and the word of Jesus
Christ ; though to adhere to that law is to incur the
hatred of idolaters, and the risk of death besides to
have embraced that word. And considering how, in
so few years, in spite of the attacks made on us, to
the loss of life or property, and with no great store
of teachers, the preaching of that word has found its
way into every part of the world, so that Greek and
476 Inference and Assent in Religion.
barbarians, wise and unwise, adhere to the religion of
Jesus, doubtless it is a work greater than any work of
man."
We need no proof to assure us that this steady and
rapid growth of Christianity was a phenomenon which
startled its contemporaries, as much as it excites the
curiosity of philosophic historians now ; and they too
had their own ways then of accounting for it, different
indeed from Gibbon's, but quite as pertinent, though
less elaborate. These were principally two, both lead-
ing them to persecute it, — the obstinacy of the Chris-
tians and their magical powers, of which the former
was the explanation adopted by educated minds, and
the latter chiefly by the populace.
As to the former, from first to last, men in power
magisterially reprobate the senseless obstinacy of the
members of the new sect, as their characteristic offence.
Pliny, as we have seen, found it to be their only fault,
but one sufficient to merit capital punishment. The
Emperor Marcus seems to consider obstinacy the ulti-
mate motive-cause to which their unnatural conduct
was traceable. After speaking of the soul, as " ready,
if it must now be separated from the body, to be extin-
guished, or dissolved, or to remain with it ;" he adds'
" but the readiness must come of its own judgment, not
from simple peverseness, as in -the case of Christians,
but with considerateness, with gravity, and without
theatrical effect, so as to be persuasive/' And Diocletian,
in his Edict of persecution, professes it to be his
" earnest aim to punish the depraved persistence of
those most wicked men/'
Revealed Religion. 477
As to the latter charge, their founder, it was said, had
gained a knowledge of magic in Egypt, and had left
behind him in his sacred books the secrets of the art.
Suetonius himself speaks of them as " men of a magical
superstition •" and Celsus accuses them of " incantations
in the name of demons/' The officer who had custody
of St. Perpetua, feared her escape from prison " by
magical incantations/' When St. Tiburtius had walked
barefoot on hot coals, his judge cried out that Christ
had taught him magic. St. Anastasia was thrown into
prison as dealing in poisons ; the populace called out
against St. Agnes, " Away with the witch ! away
with the sorceress ! " When St. Bonosus and St.
Maximilian bore the burning pitch without shrink-
ing, Jews and heathen cried out, u Those wizards and
sorcerers ! " " What new delusion/' says the magistrate
concerning St. Romanus, in the Hymn of Prudentius,
" has brought in these sophists who deny the worship
of the Gods ? how doth this chief sorcerer mock us,
skilled by his Thessalian charm to laugh at punish-
ment?"6
It is indeed difficult to enter into the feelings of
irritation and fear, of contempt and amazement, which
were excited, whether in the town populace or in the
magistrates, in the presence of conduct so novel, so un-
varying, so absolutely beyond their comprehension.
The very young and the very old, the child, the youth
in the heyday of his passions, the sober man of middle
age, maidens and mothers of families, boors and slaves
as well as philosophers and nobles, solitary confessors
6 Essay on Development of Doctrine, ch. iv. § 1.
478 Inference and Assent in Religion.
and companies of men and women, — all these were seen
equally to defy the powers of darkness to do their worst.
In this strange encounter it became a point of honour
with the Roman to break the determination of his
victim, and it was the triumph of faith when his most
savage expedients for that purpose were found to be in
vain. The martyrs shrank from, suffering like other
men, but such natural shrinking was incommensurable
with apostasy. No intensity of torture had any means
of affecting what was a mental conviction ; and the
sovereign Thought in which they had lived was their
adequate support and consolation in their death. To
them the prospect of wounds and loss of limbs was not
more terrible than it is to the combatant of this world.
They faced the implements of torture as the soldier
takes his post before the enemy's battery. They
cheered and ran forward to meet his attack, and as it
were dared him, if he would, to destroy the numbers who
kept closing up the foremost rank, as their comrades
who had filled it fell. And when Rome at last found
she had to deal with a host of Scaevolas, then the
proudest of earthly sovereignties, arrayed in the com-
pleteness of her material resources, humbled herself
before a power which was founded on a mere sense of
the unseen.
In the colloquy of the aged Ignatius, the disciple of
the Apostles, with the Emperor Trajan, we have a sort of
type of what went on for three, or rather four centuries.
He was sent all the way from Antioch to Rome to
be devoured by the beasts in the amphitheatre. As
he travelled, he wrote letters to various Christian
Revealed Religion. 479
Churches, and among others to his Roman brethren,
among whom he was to suffer. Let us see whether, as
I have said, the Image of that Divine King, who had
been promised from the beginning, was not the living
principle of his obstinate resolve. The old man is
almost fierce in his determination to be martyred.
"May those beasts," he says to his brethren, "be my
gain, which are in readiness for me ! I will provoke and
coax them to devour me quickly, and not to be afraid
of me, as they are of some whom they will not touch.
Should they be unwilling, I will compel them. Bear
with me ; I know what is my gain. Now I begin to be
a disciple. Of nothing of things visible or invisible am
I ambitious, save to gain Christ. Whether it is fire or
the cross, the assault of wild beasts, the wrenching of
my bones, the crunching of my limbs, the crushing of my
whole body, let the tortures of the devil all assail me,
if I do but gain Christ Jesus." Elsewhere in the same
Epistle he says, " I write to you, still alive, but longing
to die. My Love is crucified ! I have no taste for
perishable food. I long for God's Bread, heavenly
Bread, Bread of life, which is Flesh of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. I long for God's draught, His Blood,
which is Love without corruption, and Life for ever-
more/' It is said that, when he came into the presence
of Trajan, the latter cried out, " Who are you, poor
devil, who are so eager to transgress our rules?"
" That is no name," he answered, "for Theophorus."
" Who is Theophorus ? " asked the Emperor. " He
who bears Christ in his breast." In the Apostle's
words, already cited, he had " Christ in him, the hope
480 Inference and Assent in Religion.
of glory." All this may be called enthusiasm: but
enthusiasm affords a much more adequate explanation
of the confessorship of an old man, than do Gibbon's
five reasons.
Instances of the same ardent spirit, and of the living
faith on which it was founded, are to be found wherever
we open the Ada Marty rum. In the outbreak at
Smyrna, in the middle of the second century, amid
tortures which even moved the heathen bystanders to
compassion, the sufferers were conspicuous for their
serene calmness. " They made it evident to us all/'
says the Epistle of the Church, "that in the midst oi
those sufferings they were absent from the body, or
rather, that the Lord stood by them, and walked in
the midst of them."
At that time Polycarp, the familiar friend of St.
John, and a contemporary of Ignatius, suffered in his
extreme old age. When, before his sentence, the
Proconsul bade him " swear by the fortunes of Csesar,
and have done with Christ," his answer betrayed that
intimate devotion to the self-same Idea, which had
been the inward life of Ignatius. " Eighty and six
years," he answered, <f have I been His servant, and
He has never wronged me, but ever has preserved me ;
and how can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?"
When they would have fastened him to the stake, he
said, t( Let alone ; He who gives me to bear the fire,
will give me also to stand firm upon the pyre without
your nails."
Christians felt it as an acceptable service to Him
who loved them, to confess with courage and to suffer
Revealed Religion. 48 1
with dignity. In this chivalrous spirit, as it may be
called, they met the words and deeds of their perse-
cutors, as the children of men return bitterness for
bitterness, and blow for blow. " What soldier," says
Minucius, with a reference to the invisible Presence of
our Lord, " does not challenge danger more daringly
under the eye of his commander ? " In that same
outbreak at Smyrna, when the Proconsul urged the
young Germanicus to have mercy on himself and on
his youth, to the astonishment of the populace he pro-
voked a wild beast to fall upon him. In like manner,
St. Justin tells us of Lucius, who, when he saw a
Christian sent off to suffer, at once remonstrated
sharply with the judge, and was sent off to execution
with him; and then another presented himself, and
was sent off also. When the Christians were thrown
into prison, in the fierce persecution at Lyons, Vettius
Epagathus, a youth of distinction who had given him-
self to an ascetic life, could not bear the sight of the
sufferings of his brethren, and asked leave to plead
their cause. The only answer he got was to be sent
off the first to die. What the contemporary account
sees in his conduct is, not that he was zealous for his
brethren, though zealous he was, nor that he believed
in miracles, though he doubtless did believe ; but that
he " was a gracious disciple of Christ, following the
Lamb whithersoever He went/'
In that memorable persecution, when Blandina, a
slave, was seized for confessorship, her mistress and
her fellow-Christians dreaded lest, from her delicate
make, she should give way under the torments ; but
i i
482 Inference and Assent in Religion.
she even tired out her tormentors. It was a refresh-
ment and relief to her to cry out amid her pains, " I
am a Christian." They remanded her to prison, and
then brought her out for fresh suffering a second day
and a third. On the last day she saw a boy of fifteen
brought into the amphitheatre for death ; she feared
for him, as others had feared for her; but he too went
through his trial generously, and went to God before
her. Her last sufferings were to be placed in the
notorious red-hot chair, and then to be exposed in a
net to a wild bull ; they finished by cutting her throat.
Sanctus, too, when the burning plates of brass were
placed on his limbs, all through his torments did but
say, "I am a Christian," and stood erect and firm,
"bathed and strengthened," say his brethren who
write the account, "in the heavenly well of living
water which flows from the breast of Christ," or, as
they say elsewhere of all the martyrs, " refreshed with
the joy of martyrdom, the hope of blessedness, love
towards Christ, and the spirit of God the Father."
How clearly do we see all through this narrative what
it was which nerved them for the combat ! If they love
their brethren, it is in the fellowship of their Lord ; if
they look for heaven, it is because He is the Light of it.
Epipodius, a youth of gentle nurture, when struck
by the Prefect on the mouth, while blood flowed from
it, cried out, " I confess that Jesus Christ is God,
together with the Father and the Holy Ghost."
Symphorian, of Autun, also a youth, and of noble
birth, when told to adore an idol, answered, " Give me
leave and I will hammer it to pieces." When Leoni-
Revealed Religion. 483
das, the father of the young Origen, was in prison for
his faith, the boy, then seventeen, burned to share his
martyrdom, and his mother had to hide his clothes to
prevent him from executing his purpose. Afterwards
he attended the confessors in prison, stood by them
at the tribunal, and gave them the kiss of peace
when they were led out to suffer, and this, in spite of
being several times apprehended and put upon the
rack. Also in Alexandria, the beautiful slave, Pota-
miaena, when about to be stripped in order to be
thrown into the cauldron of hot pitch, said to the
Prefect, " I pray you rather let me be dipped down
slowly into it with my clothes on, and you shall see
with what patience I am gifted by Him of whom you
are ignorant, Jesus Christ." When the populace in
the same city had beaten out the aged Apollonia's
teeth, and lit a fire to burn her, unless she would
blaspheme, she leaped into the fire herself, and so
gained her crown. When Sixtus, Bishop of Borne,
was led to martyrdom, his deacon, Laurence, followed
him weeping and complaining, " 0 my father, whither
goest thou without thy son ? " And when his own turn
came, three days afterwards, and he was put upon the
gridiron, after a while he said to the Prefect, " Turn
me; this side is done." Whence came this tremen-
dous spirit, scaring, nay, offending, the fastidious
criticism of our delicate days ? Does Gibbon think to
sound the depths of the eternal ocean with the tape
and measuring-rod of his merely literary philosophy ?
When Barulas, a child of seven years old, was
scourged to blood for repeating his catechism before
I i 2
484 Inference and Assent in Religion.
the heathen judge — viz. " There is but one God, and
Jesus Christ is true God" — his mother encouraged
him to persevere, chiding him for asking for some
drink. At Merida, a girl of noble family, of the age
of twelve, presented herself before the tribunal, and
overturned the idols. She was scourged and burned
with torches; she neither shed a tear, nor showed
other signs of suffering. When the fire reached her
face, she opened her mouth to receive it, and was
suffocated. At Caesarea, a girl, under eighteen, went
boldly to ask the prayers of some Christians who were
in chains before the Praetorium. She was seized at
once, and her sides torn open with the iron rakes,
preserving the while a bright and joyous countenance.
Peter, Porotheus, Gorgonius, were boys of the imperial
bedchamber; they were highly in favour with theii
masters, and were Christians. They too suffered
dreadful torments, dying under them, without a
shadow of wavering. Call such conduct madness, if
you will, or magic : but do not mock us by ascribing
it in such mere children to simple desire of immortality,
or to any ecclesiastical organization.
When the persecution raged in Asia, a vast multi-
tude of Christians presented themselves before the
Proconsul, challenging him to proceed against them.
" Poor wretches ! " half in contempt and half in
affright, he answered, " if you must die, cannot you
find ropes or precipices for the purpose?" At Utica,
a hundred and fifty Christians of both sexes and all
ages were martyrs in one company. They are said to
have been told to burn incense to an idol, or they
Revealed Religion. 485
should be thrown into a pit of burning Hme; they
without hesitation leapt into it. In Egypt a hundred
and twenty confessors, after having sustained the loss
of eyes or of feet, endured to linger out their lives in
the mines of Palestine and Cilicia. In the last perse-
cution, according to the testimony of the grave
Eusebius, a contemporary, the slaughter of men,
women, and children, went on by twenties, sixties,
hundreds, till the instruments of execution were worn
out, and the executioners could kill no more. Yet he
tells us, as an eye-witness, that, as soon as any Chris-
tians were condemned, others ran from all parts, and
surrounded the tribunals, confessing the faith, and
joyfully receiving their condemnation, and singing
songs of thanksgiving and triumph to the last.
Thus was the Koman power overcome. Thus did
the Seed of Abraham, and the Expectation of the
Gentiles, the meek Son of man, " take to Himself His
great power and reign " in the hearts of His people, in
the public theatre of the world. The mode in which
the primeval prophecy was fulfilled is as marvellous, as
the prophecy itself is clear and bold.
" So may all Thy enemies perish, O Lord ; but let
them that love Thee shine, as the sun shineth in his
rising ! "
I will add the memorable words of the two great
A pologists of the period : —
" Your cruelty," says Tertullian, " though each act
be more refined than the last, doth profit you nothing.
486 Inference and Assent in Religion.
To our sect it is rather an inducement. We grow up
in greater numbers, as often as you cut us down. The
blood of the martyrs is their seed for the harvest."
Origen even uses the language of prophecy. To the
objection of Celsus that Christianity from its principles
would, if let alone, open the whole empire to the irrup-
tion of the barbarians, and the utter ruin of civilization,
he replies, " If all Eomans are such as we, then too
the barbarians will draw near to the Word of God, and
will become the most observant of the Law. And
every worship shall come to nought, and that of the
Christians alone obtain the mastery, for the Word is
continually gaining possession of more and more souls."
One additional remark : — It was fitting that those
mixed unlettered multitudes, who for three centuries
had suffered and triumphed by virtue of the inward
Vision of their Divine Lord3 should be selected, as we
know they were, in the fourth, to be the special cham-
pions of His Divinity and the victorious foes of its
impugners, at a time when the civil power, which had
found them too strong for its arms, attempted, by
means of a portentous heresy in the high places of the
Church, to rob them of that Truth which had all along
been the principle of their strength.
10.
I have been forestalling all along the thought with
which I shall close these considerations on the subject
of Christianity ; and necessarily forestalling it, because
it properly comes first, though the course which my
argument has taken has not allowed me to introduce it
Revealed Religion. 487
in its natural place. Revelation begins where Natural
Religion fails. The Religion of Nature is a mere
inchoation, and needs a complement, — it can have but
one complement, and that very complement is Chris-
tianity.
Natural Religion is based upon the sense of sin ; it
recognizes the disease, but it cannot find, it does but
look out for the remedy. That remedy, both for guilt
and for moral impotence, is found in the central doc-
trine of Revelation, the Mediation of Christ. I need
not go into a subject so familiar to all men in a Chris-
tian country.
Thus it is that Christianity is the fulfilment of the
promise made to Abraham, and of the Mosaic revela-
tions; this is how it has been able from the first to
occupy the world and gain a hold on every class of
human society to which its preachers reached ; this is
why the Roman power and the multitude of religions
which it embraced could not stand against it ; this is
the secret of its sustained energy, and its never-flag-
ging martyrdoms; this is how at present it is so
mysteriously potent, in spite of the new and fearful
adversaries which beset its path. It has with it that
gift of staunching and healing the one deep wound of
human nature, which avails more for its success than a
full encyclopedia of scientific knowledge and a whole
library of controversy, and therefore it must last while
human nature lasts. It is a living truth which never
can grow old.
Some persons speak of it as if it were a thing of his-
tory, with only indirect bearings upon modern times ;
488 Inference and Assent in Religion.
I cannot allow that it is a mere historical religion.
Certainly it has its foundations in past and glorious
memories, but its power is in the present. It is no
dreary matter of antiquarianism ; we do not contem-
plate it in conclusions drawn from dumb documents
and dead events, but by faith exercised in ever-living
objects, and by the appropriation and use of ever-
recurring gifts.
Our communion with it is in the unseen, not in the
obsolete. At this very day its rites and ordinances are
continually eliciting the active interposition of that
Omnipotence in which the Religion long ago began.
First and above all is the Holy Mass, in which He
who once died for us upon the Cross, brings back and
perpetuates, by His literal presence in it, that one and
the same sacrifice which cannot be repeated. Next>
there is the actual entrance of Himself, soul and body,
and divinity, into the soul and body of every wor-
shipper who comes to Him for the gift, a privilege
more intimate than if we lived with Him during
His long-past sojourn upon earth. And then, more-
over, there is His personal abidance in our churches,
raising earthly service into a foretaste of heaven.
Such is the profession of Christianity, and, I repeat,
its very divination of our needs is in itself a proof
that it is really the supply of them.
Upon the doctrines which I have mentioned as
central truths, others, as we all know, follow, which
rule our personal conduct and course of life, and our
social and civil relations. The promised Deliverer, the
Expectation of the nations, has not done His work by
Revealed Religion. 489
halves. He has given us Saints and Angels for our
protection. He has taught us how by our prayers and
services to benefit our departed friends, and to keep
up a memorial of ourselves when we are gone. He
has created a visible hierarchy and a succession of
sacraments, to be the channels of His mercies, and the
Crucifix secures the thought of Him in every house
and chamber. In all these ways He brings Himself
before us. I am not here speaking of His gifts as gifts,
but as memorials ; not as what Christians know they
convey, but in their visible character ; and I say, that,
as human nature itself is still in life and action as much
as ever it was, so He too lives, to our imaginations, by
His visible symbols, as if He were on earth, with a prac-
tical efficacy which even unbelievers cannot deny, so
as to be the corrective of that nature, and its strength
day by day, — and that this power of perpetuating His
Image, being altogether singular and special, and the
prerogative of Him and Him alone, is a grand evidence
how well He fulfils to this day that Sovereign Mission
which, from the first beginning of the world's history,
has been in prophecy assigned to Him.
I cannot better illustrate this argument than by re-
curring to a deep thought on the subject of Chris-
tianity, which has before now attracted the notice of
philosophers and preachers,7 as coming from the
wonderful man who swayed the destinies of Europe in
the first years of this century. It was an argument
not unnatural in one who had that special passion for
human glory, which has been the incentive of so many
7 Fr. Lacordaire and M. Nicolas.
490 Inference and Assent in Religion.
heroic careers and of so many mighty revolutions in
the history of the world. In the solitude of his im-
prisonment, and in the view of death, he seems to
have expressed himself to the following effect : —
"I have been accustomed to put before me the
examples of Alexander and Caesar, with the hope of
rivalling their exploits, and living in the minds of men
for ever. Yet, after all, in what sense does Caesar, in
what sense does Alexander live ? Who knows or
cares anything about them ? At best, nothing but
their names is known ; for who among the multitude
of men, who hear or who utter their names, really
knows anything about their lives or their deeds, or
attaches to those names any definite idea ? Nay, even
their names do but flit up and down the world like
ghosts, mentioned only on particular occasions, or
from accidental associations. Their chief home is the
schoolroom; they have a foremost place in boys'
grammars and exercise books ; they are splendid
examples for themes; they form writing-copies. So
low is heroic Alexander fallen, so low is imperial
Csesar, ' ut pueris placeat et declamatio fiat.'
" But, on the contrary " (he is reported to have
continued), "there is just One Name in the whole
world that lives ; it is the Name of One who passed
His years in obscurity, and who died a malefactor's
death. Eighteen hundred years have gone since
that time, but still it has its hold upon the human
mind. It has possessed the world, and it maintains
possession. Amid the most varied nations, under
the most diversified circumstances, in the most
Revealed Religion. 491
cultivated, in the rudest races and intellects, in all
classes of society, the Owner of that great Name
reigns. High and low, rich and poor, acknowledge
Him. Millions of souls are conversing with Him, are
venturing on His word, are looking for His Presence.
Palaces, sumptuous, innumerable, are raised to His
honour; His image, as in the hour of His deepest
humiliation, is triumphantly displayed in the proud
city, in the open country, in the corners of streets, on
the tops of mountains. It sanctifies the ancestral hall,
the closet, and the bedchamber ; it is the subject for
the exercise of the highest genius in the imitative arts.
It is worn next the heart in life ; it is held before the
failing eyes in death. Here, then, is One who is not a
mere name, who is not a mere fiction, who is a reality.
He is dead and gone, but still He lives, — lives as a
living, energetic thought of successive generations, as
the awful motive-power of a thousand great events.
He has done without effort what others with life-long
struggles have not done. Can He be less than
Divine ? Who is He but the Creator Himself ; who
is sovereign over His own works, towards whom our
eyes and hearts turn instinctively, because He is our
Father and our God ? " 8
Here I end my specimens, among the many which
might be given, of the arguments adducible for Chris-
tianity. I have dwelt upon them, in order to show
how I would apply the principles of this Essay to the
proof of its divine origin. Christianity is addressed,
both as regards its evidences and its contents, to
8 Occas. Serin., pp. 49—51.
492 Inference and Assent in Religion.
minds which are in the normal condition of human
nature, as believing in God and in a future judgment.
Such minds it addresses both through the intellect
and through the imagination ; creating a certitude of
its truth by arguments too various for direct enumera-
tion, too personal and deep for words, too powerful
and concurrent for refutation. Nor need reason come
first and faith second (though this is the logical order),
but one and the same teaching is in different aspects
both object and proof, and elicits one complex act
both of inference and of assent. It speaks to us one
by one, and it is received by us one by one, as the
counterpart, so to say, of ourselves, and is real as we
are real.
In the sacred words of its Divine Author and
Object concerning Himself, " I am the Good Shepherd,
and I know Mine, and Mine know Me. My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
And I give them everlasting life, and they shall never
perish j and no man shall pluck them oat of My
hand."
NOTE I.
On Hooker and Chillingworth, vid. supr. 226.
1. ON the first publication of this volume, a Correspondent did
me the favour of marking for me a list of passages in Chilling-
worth's celebrated work, besides that which I had myself quoted,
in which the argument was more or less brought forward, on
which I have animadverted in ch. vii. § 2, p. 226. He did this
with the purpose of showing, that Chillingworth's meaning, when
carefully inquired into, would be found to be in substantial
agreement with the distinction I had myself made between in-
fallibility and certitude ; those inaccuracies of language into which
he fell, being necessarily involved in the argumentum ad hominem,
which he was urging upon his opponent, or being the accidental
result of the peculiar character of his intellect, which, while full
of ideas, was wanting in the calmness and caution which are con-
spicuous in Bishop Butler. Others more familiar with Chilling-
worth than I am must decide on this point ; but I can have no
indisposition to accept an explanation, which deprives controver-
sialists of this day of the authority of a vigorous and acute mind in
their use of an argument, which is certainly founded on a great
confusion of thought.
I subjoin the references with which my Correspondent has
supplied me : —
(1.) Passages tending to show an agreement of Chillingworth's
opinion on the distinction between certitude and infallibility
with that laid down in the foregoing essay : —
1. " Religion of Protestants," ch. ii. § 121 (vol. i. p. 243,
Oxf. ed. 1838), " For may not a private man," &c.
2. Ibid. § 152 (p. 265). The last sentence, however, after
" when they thought they dreamt," is a fall into the
error which he had been exposing.
3. Ibid. § 160 (p. 275).
4. Ch. iii. § 26 (p. 332), "Neither is your argument," &c.
5. Ibid. §36 (p. 346).
6. Ibid. § 50 'p. 363), " That Abraham," &c.
494 Note I.
7. Ch. v. § 63 (vol. ii, p. 215).
8. Ibid. § 107 (p. 265).
9. Ch. vii. § 13 (p. 452).
Vide, also vol. i. pp. 115, 121, 196, 236, 242, 411.
(2.) Passages inconsistent with the above : —
1. Ch. ii. § 25 (vol. i. p. 177). An argumentum ad hominem.
2. Ibid. § 28 (p. 180).
3. Ibid. § 45 (p. 189). An argumentum ad kominem.
4. Ibid. § 149 (p. 263). An argumentum ad hominem.
6. Ibid. § 154 (p. 267). Quoted in the text, p. 226.
6. Ch. v. § 45 (vol. ii. p. 391). He is arguing on his
opponent's principles.
2. Also, I have to express my obligation to another Corre-
spondent, who called my attention to a passage of Hooker
(" Eccles. Pol." ii. 7) beginning " An earnest desire," &c., which
seemed to anticipate the doctrine of Locke about certitude. It
is so difficult to be sure of the meaning of a writer whose style
is so foreign to that of our own times, that I am shy of attempting
to turn this passage into categorical statements. Else, 1 should
ask, does not Hooker here assume the absolute certainty of the
inspiration and divine authority of Scripture, and believe its
teaching as the very truth unconditionally and without any
admixture of doubt ? Yet what had he but probable evidence as
a warrant for such a view of it? Again, did he receive the
Athanasian Creed on any logical demonstration that its articles
were in Scripture P Yet he felt himself able without any mis-
giving to say aloud in the congregation, " Which faith except every
one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish
everlastingly.' ' In truth it is the happy inconsistency of his school
to be more orthodox in their conclusions than in their premisses ;
to be sceptics in their paper theories, and believers in their own
persons.
3. Also, a friend sends me word, as regards the controversy on
the various readings of Shakespeare to which I have referred
(supra, ch. viii. § 1, p. 271) in illustration of the shortcomings of
Formal Inference, that, since the date of the article in the magazine,
of which I have there availed myself, the verdict of critics has been
unfavourable to the authority and value of the Annotated Copy,
discovered twenty years ago. I may add, that, since my first edition,
Note II. 495
I have had the pleasure of reading Dr. Ingleby's interesting disser-
tation on the " Traces of the Authorship of the Works attributed to
NOTE II.
On the alternative intellectually between Atheism and
Catholicity, vid. supr. p. 141, &c.
December, 1880.
As I am sending the last pages of the New Edition of this Essay
to the press, I avail myself of an opportunity which its subject
makes apposite, to explain a misunderstanding, as appearing in a
London daily print, of a statement of mine used in controversy,
which has elicited within the last few days a prompt and effective
defence from the kind zeal of Mr. Lilly. I should not think it
necessary to make any addition to what he has said so well, except
that it may be expected that what is a great mistake concerning me
should be set right under my own hand and in my own words.
It has been said of me that " Cardinal Newman has confined his
defence of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only
possible alternative to Atheism." I understand this to mean, that
I have given up, both in my religious convictions and my contro-
versial efforts, any thought of bringing arguments from reason to
bear upon the question of the truth of the Catholic faith, and that
I do but rely upon the threat and tint consequent scare, that, unless
a man be a Catholic he ought to be an Atheist. And I consider it
to be said, not only that I use no argument in controversy in behalf
of my creed besides the threat of atheism as its alternative ; but
also that I have not even attempted to prove by argument the
reasonableness of that threat.
Now, what do I hold, and what do I not hold ? The present
volume supplies an answer to this question. From beginning to
end it is full of arguments, of which the scope is the truth of the
Catholic religion, yet no one of them introduces or depends upon
the alternative of Catholicity or Atheism ; how, then, can it be said
that that alternative is the only defence that I have proposed for my
creed ? The Essay begins with refuting the fallacies of those who
say that we cannot believe what we cannot understand. No appeal to
the argument from Atheism here. Incidentally and obiter reasons
49 ^ Note II.
are given for Baying that causation and law, as we find them in the
universe, bespeak an infinite Creator ; still no argumentum nb
atheismo. This portion of the work finished, I proceed to justify
certitude as exercised upon a cumulation of proofs, short of demon-
stration separately ; nothing about atheism. Then I go to a direct
proof of theism (which, indeed, has been in a great measure antici-
pated in a former chapter) as a conclusion drawn from three depart-
ments of phenomena ; still the threat of atheism is away. I pass
on to the proof of Christianity; and where does the threat of
atheism come in here ? I begin it with prophecy ; then I proceed
to the coincident testimony of the two covenants, and thence to the
overpowering argument from the testimony borne to the divinity
of Catholicism by the bravery and endurance of the primitive
martyrs. And there I end.
Nor is this my only argumentative work in defence of my
" creed " which I have given to the public. I have published an
"Essay on Development of Doctrine," "Theological Tracts," "A
Letter to Dr. Pusey," " A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk," works
all more or less controversial, all defences of the Catholic creed ;
does the very word " atheism " occur in any one of them ?
So much, then, on what I do not hold and have not said : — now
as to what I have avowed and do adhere to. This brings me at
once to the saying to which I have committed myself in " Apologia,"
page 198, viz., "that there is no medium, in true philosophy,
between Atheism and Catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent
mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself here below
must embrace either the one or the other ;" — a saying which doubt-
less my critic has in mind, and which, I am aware, has been before
now a difficulty with readers whom I should be sorry to perplex.
Now, if we found it asserted in Butler's Analogy that there is
no consistent standing or logical medium between the acceptance of
the Gospel and the denial of a Moral Governor, for the same diffi-
culties can be brought against both beliefs, and if they are fatal as
against Christianity, they are fatal against natural religion, should
we not have understood what was meant? It might be taken,
indeed, as a threat against denying Christianity, but would it not
have an argumentative basis and meaning, and would such an in-
terpretation be fair ? It would be quite fair indeed to say, as some
have said, " It drives me the wrong way," and its advocates could
Note //. 497
only reply, " What is one man's meat is another man's poison," but
would it be fair to accuse Butler of putting aside all scientific
reasoning for a threat P No one would say, " Butler confine* the
defence of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only
possible alternative of the denial of the Moral Law," putting aside
as nothing to the purpose his Sermons at the Bolls' Chapel. Yet
what have I said more dangerous or more obscure than Butler's
argument? Could he be said to destroy all logical proof of a God,
because he paralleled the difficulties of grace to the difficulties of
nature P Nay, even should he go on to say with me, " if on account
of difficulties we give up the gospel, then on account of parallel
difficulties we must give up nature; for there is no standing-ground
between putting up with the one trial of faith, and putting up with
the other P"
Nor is this all. It seems, insistence on this analogy between the
mysteries of nature and those of grace is my sole argument for
the truth of my creed. How can this be, from the very nature of
the case P The argument from Analogy is mainly negative, but
argument which tends to prove must be positive. Butler does not
prove Christianity to be true by his famous argument, but he
removes a great obstacle of a primd facie character to listening to
the proofs of Christianity. It is like the trenches soldiers dig to
shield them when they propose to storm a fort. No one would say
that such trenches dispense with soldiers. So far, then, from " con-
fining " myself to the argument from Analogy in behalf of my
creed, I absolutely imply the presence and the use of independent
arguments, positive arguments, by the fact of using what is mainly
a negative one. And that I was quite aware of this, and acted upon
it, the following passage from my Sermon on Mysteries shows
beyond mistake :—
" If I must submit my reason to mysteries, it is not much matter
whether it is a mystery more or a mystery less ; the main difficulty
is to believe at all ; the main difficulty for an inquirer is firmly to
hold that there is a living God, in spite of the darkness which
surrounds Him, the Creator, Witness, and Judge of men. When
once the mind is broken in, as it must be, to the belief of a Power
above it, when once it understands that it is not itself the measure
of all things in heaven and earth, it will have little difficulty in
going forward. I do not say it will, or can, go on to other truth*
K k
498 Note II.
without conviction; I do not gay it ought to believe the Catholic
Faith, without grounds and motives ; but I say that, when once it
believes in God, the great obstacle to faith has been taken away, a
proud, self-8uffi(jient spirit, &c."-— (Discourses.)
I must somewhat enlarge what I have last been saying, but it is
in order to increase the force and fulness of this explanation. There
is a certain sense in which Analogy may be said to supply a positive
argument, though it is not its primary and direct purpose. The
coincidence of two witnesses independently giving the same account
of a transaction is an argument for its truth ; the likeness of two
effects argues one cause for both. The fact of Mediation so promi-
nent in Scripture and in the world, as Butler illustrates it, is a
positive argument that the God of Scripture is the God of the world.
This is the immediate sense in which I speak in the " Apologia "
of the objective matter of Religion, Natural and Revealed, of the
character of the evidence, and of the legitimate position and exercise
of the intellect relatively towards it Religion has, as such, certain
definite belongings and surroundings, and it calls for what Aristotle
would call a irfiraibfv^voy investigator, and a process of investi-
gation sui similis. This peculiarity I first found in the history of
doctrinal development ; in the first instance it had presented itself to
me as a mode of accounting for a difficulty, viz. for what are called
" the Variations of Popery," but next I found it a law, which was
instanced in the successive developments through which revealed
truth has passed. And then I reflected that a law implied a law-
giver, and that so orderly and majestic a growth of doctrine in the
Catholic Church, contrasted with the deadness and helplessness, or
the vague changes and contradictions in the teaching of other
religious bodies, argued a spiritual Presence in Rome, which was
nowhere else, and which constituted a presumption that Rome was
right ; if the doctrine of the Eucharist was not from heaven, why
should the doctrine of Original Sin be P If the Athanasian Creed
was from heaven, why not the Creed of Pope Pius ? This was a use
of Analogy beside and beyond Butler's use of it ; and then, when I
had recognized its force in the development of doctrine, I was led
to apply it to the Evidences of Religion, and in this sense I
came to say what I have said in the " Apologia." " There is no
medium in true philosophy," " to a perfectly consistent mind,"
" between Atheism and Catholicity/
Note II. 499
The multitude of men indeed are not consistent, logical, or
thorough ; they obey no law in the course of their religious views ;
and while they cannot reason without premisses, and premisses
demand first principles, and first principles must ultimately be (in
one shape or other) assumptions, they do not recognize what this
involves, and are set down at this or that point in the ascending or
descending scale of thought, according as their knowledge of facts,
prejudices, education, domestic ties, social position, and opportunities
for inquiry determine ; but nevertheless there is a certain ethical
character, one and the same, a system of first principles, sentiments
and tastes, a mode of viewing the question and of arguing, which is
formally and normally, naturally and divinely, the organum in-
vestigandi given us for gaining religious truth, and which would lead
the mind by an infallible succession from the rejection of atheism
to theism, and from theism to Christianity, and from Christianity
to Evangelical Religion, and from these to Catholicity. And again
when a Catholic is seriously wanting in this system of thought, we
cannot be surprised if he leaves the Catholic Church, and then in
due time gives up religion altogether. I will add, that a main
reason for my writing this Essay on Assent, to which I am adding
these last words, was, as far as I could, to describe the organum
investigandi which I thought the true one, and thereby to illustrate
and explain the saying in the " Apologia " which has been the
subject of this Note.
I have only one remark more before concluding. I have said
of course there was a descending as well as an ascending course of
inquiry and of faith. However, speaking in my " Apologia " of
Evidences, and, following the lead of what I have said there about
doctrinal development, I have mainly in view the ascending scale,
not the descending. I have meant to say, " I am a Catholic, for the
reason that I am not an Atheist." This makes the misinterpreta-
tion of my words which I am exposing the more striking, for it
paraphrases me into a threat and nothing else, viz. " If you are
not a Catholic, you must be an Atheist, and will go to hell" Mr.
Lilly, in his letter in my defence, sees this, and most happily adopts
the positive interpretation which is the true one.
This explanation, also, is an answer to some good, but easily
frightened men, who have fancied that I was denying that the
Being of a God was a natural truth, because I said that to deny
K k 2
500 Note //.
revelation was the way to deny natural religion. I have but argued
that the same sophistry which denies the one may deny the other.
That the ascending scale of my abstract alternative has been thfe
prominent idea in my mind, may be argued from the following
passage of a Lecture delivered many years before the " Apologia : " —
" A Protestant is already reaching forward to the whole truth,
from the very circumstance of his really grasping any part of it.
So strongly do I feel this, that I account it no paradox to say that,
let a man but master the one doctrine of the Being of a God, let
him really and truly, and not in words -only, or by inherited pro-
fession, or in the conclusions of reason, but by a direct apprehension
be a Monotheist," (that is, with what in the foregoing Essay I
have called a " real assent " as following upon " Inference," and
acting as a fresh start) "and he is already three-fourths of the way
towards Catholicism."
I end by placing before the reader Mr. Lilly's apposite Letter,
dated Nov. 18.
" SIE, — I observe in your issue of this evening a statement against
which I must beg your permission to protest in the strongest
manner as a most serious, although, I am quite sure, an unin-
tentional, misrepresentation of my deeply venerated friend Cardinal
Newman. The statement is that 'he has confined his defence
of his own creed to the proposition that it is the only possible
alternative to atheism.' It certainly is true that Cardinal
Newman has said, ' There is no medium, in true philosophy,
between Atheism and Catholicism ' (* Apologia/ p. 198, Third
Edition); and it as certainly is not true that he confines his
defence of his creed to this proposition. He expressly recognizes
' the formal proofs on which the being of a God rests ' (they may
be seen in any text-book of Catholic theology) as affording ' irre-
fragable demonstration* ('Discourses to Mixed Congregations,'
p. 262, Fourth Edition) ; but the great argument which comes home
to him personally with supreme force is that derived from the wit-
ness of Conscience — ' the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its
informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its bless-
ings and anathemas.' The existence of God, * borne in upon him
irresistibly ' by the voice within, is ' the great truth of which his
whole being is full ' (' Apologia,' p. 241).'
After quoting the words of M. Benan, Mr. Lilly proceeds, " Thie
Note IIL 501
is the point from which he (Cardinal Newman) starts. Conscience,
the ' great internal teacher,' ' nearer to us than any other means of
knowledge,' informs us (as he judges) that God is ; * the special
Attribute under which it brings Him before us, to which it sub-
ordinates all other Attributes, being that of justice— retributive
justice ' (' Grammar of Assent,' p. 385, Third Edition). * The
sense of right and wrong ' he considers to be ' the first element ' in
natural religion (' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' p. 67, Fourth
Edition). And Catholicism, which he regards as the sole form of
Christianity historically or philosophically tenable, is for him the
only possible complement of natural religion. I cannot venture to
ask you to allow me space to do more than thus indicate the nature
of the argument by which he ascends from his first to his final
religious idea. I would refer those who would follow it step by
step to his ' Grammar of Assent,' ' Apologia,' and ' Discourses to
Mixed Congregations ; ' or, if a mere summary will suffice, to an
article of my own in the Fortnightly Review of July, 1879.
Cardinal Newman's main defence — not his sole defence — of his creed
amounts, then, to this : that religion is an integral part of our
nature, and that Catholicism alone adequately fulfils the expectation
of a revelation which natural religion raises. This may be a good
or a bad defence ; but, whether good or bad, it is very different from
the nude proposition ' that Catholicism is the only possible alterna-
tive to atheism.' " He ends with a few kind words about myself
personally.
Vid. my answer to Principal Fairbairn in the Contemporary
Review of October, 1885.
NOTE III.
On the punishment of the wicked having no termination,
vid. supr. 422.
December, 1882.
A serious misrepresentation of a passage in this volume, which
appeared last year in a Review of great name, calls for some notice
here.
502 Note ///.
Petavius says, that, according to Fathers of high authority, a
refrigerium or refrigeria may be conceived as granted to the lost,
amid their endless penal suffering; that is, that their punishment,
though without end, is not without cessation. I have quoted his
words in the footnote on pu 422; and in the text I have ventured
on a suggestion of my own, hut short of his, to the effect that a
refrigerium was conceivable, which was not strictly a cessation of
punishment, though it acted as such ; I mean, the temporary absence
in the lost soul of the consciousness of its continuity or duration.
The story is well known of the monk who, going out into the
wood to meditate, was detained there by the song of a bird for three
hundred years, which to his consciousness passed as only one hour.
Now pain as well as joy, may be an ecstasy, and destroy for the
time the sense of succession ; even in this life, and when not
great, it sometimes has this effect ; and, supposing such an insensi-
bility to time to last for three hundred years, for three hundred years
pain might be gathered up into a point ; and there would be for that
interval a refrigerium. And, if for three hundred years, so it might
be for three million, or million million, according to the degrees of
guilt with which individual souls were severally laden.
It may be objected, that such a view of future punishment explains
away its severity, and blunts its moral force as a threat and
restraint upon crime. Not so ; on this view the fact of suffering and
of its eternity remains intact ; and of suffering, it may be, " as by
fire." Also, the eternity of punishment remains in its negative
aspect, viz., that there never will be change of state, annihilation or
restoration. Mere eternity, though without suffering, if realized in
the soul's consciousness, is formidable enough ; it would be insup-
portable even to the good, except for, and as involved in, the Beatific
Vision ; it would be a perpetual solitary confinement. It is this
which makes the prospect of a future life so dismal to our present
agnostics, who have no God to give them " mansions *' in the
unseen world.
On the other hand, it may be objected, that the longest possible
series of refrigeria, to whatever extent, added together, they may
run, is as nothing after all compared with an eternity of punish-
ment. But this is to misconceive what 1 have been advancing.
As belonging to an eternity, the refrigeria which I contemplate
match in their recurrence, and reach as far as, that eternity, and
Note ///. 503
are themselves in number infinite, as being exceptions in a course
which is infinite.
Further, it may be objected that this view of future punishment is
at first sight inconsistent with the teaching of St. Thomas, 2. 2, qu.
xviii. 3, where he says that, if the lost are condemned to eternal
punishment, they must know that it is eternal, because such know-
ledge is necessarily a part of their punishment.
I understand him to argue thus : —
1. It is de ratione pcensB that it should voluntati repugnare.
2. But there cannot be this repugnantia, unless there is present
to the party punished a consciousness of the fact of that pcena.
3. Therefore pcena implies a consciousness of the fact of the
pcena.
4. And, if the poana is perpetual, so is its consciousness.
Certainly : but I do not predicate anything of the pcena, nor of
the consciousness of the pcena, nor of its perpetuity, nor of the
consciousness of its perpetuity ; I do but speak of the consciousness
(perpetuity apart,) of the lapse of time or successiveness of
moments, through which that pcena and consciousness of pcena
passes. The lost may be conscious of their lost state and of
its irreversibility, yet it may be a further question, whether, how-
ever conscious that it is irreversible, they are always or ever con-
scious of the fact of its long course, in memory and in prospect,
through periods and seons.
The song of the bird, which the monk heard without taking
note of the passage of time, might have been, " And they shall
reign for ever and ever ;M though of the many thousand times of the
bird's repeating the words, there sounded in the monk's ear but
one song once sung. And if this may be in the case of holy souls,
why not, if it should so please God, in the instance of the unholy ?
In what I have been saying, I have considered eternity as infinite
time, because this is the received assumption.
And I have been speaking all along under correction, as sub-
mitting absolutely all I have said to the judgment of the Church
and its head.
Vid. my arti^e in the Contemporary above referred to.
THE END.
A CLASSIFIED LIST OF WORKS
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WORKS BY CARDINAL NEWMAN . . . . .22
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10 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
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CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT. By the Very Rev.
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Henry Newman — Newman and Manning — Appendix
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 1 1
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THROUGH AN ANGLICAN SISTERHOOD TO
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LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. The Father of
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THE THREE SISTERS OF LORD RUSSELL OF
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SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI : a Biography. By
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12 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Biography , etc* — continued.
LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. By Father
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THE ROMANTICISM OF ST. FRANCIS: and other
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LIFE OF ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY,
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LIFE OF THE VISCOUNTESS DE BONNAULT
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Jesus, 1781-1858. By the Rev. FATHER STANISLAUS, F.M.,
Capuchin of the Province of Paris. Translated from the French by one of
her daughters. With Prefaces by His Eminence CARDINAL BOURNE,
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HISTORY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, Founder of
the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), and of the Sisters of Charity.
By Monseigneur BOUGAUD, Bishop of Laval. Translated from the
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IN ST. DOMINIC'S COUNTRY. By C. M. ANTONY.
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S.T.L. With 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
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A GARDEN OF GIRLS, OR FAMOUS SCHOOL-
GIRLS OF FORMER DAYS. By Mrs. THOMAS CONCANNON,
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- •
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 13
The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures.
Newly Translated from the Original Text, with Introduction, Critical and
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JOSEPH KEATING, S.J., Editor of The Month.
Demy 8vo.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
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14 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Belles Lettres.
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16 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 17
For Young People*
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A LIFE OF CHRIST FOR CHILDREN. With 20
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BIBLE STORIES TOLD TO "TODDLES". By Mrs.
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STORIES ON THE ROSARY. By LOUISE EMILY
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18 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Fiction.
GRACECHURCH. By JOHN AYSCOUGH. Crown 8vo. 6s.
CATHERINE SIDNEY. By FRANCIS DEMING HOYT,
Crown 8vo. 6s.
A READER'S GUIDE TO IRISH FICTION. By
STEPHEN J. BROWN, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
Novels by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward.
ONE POOR SCRUPLE. Crown 8vo. 6s.
OUT OF DUE TIME. Crown 8vo. 6s.
GREAT POSSESSIONS. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE LIGHT BEHIND. Crown 8vo. 6s.
THE JOB SECRETARY. An Impression. Crown 8vo.
4s. 6d.
Novels by M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell).
DORSET DEAR: Idylls of Country Life. Cr. 8vo. 2s.6d.«^
THE MANOR FARM. With Frontispiece by Claude C
du Pre" Cooper. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
FIANDER'S WIDOW. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
CHRISTIAN THAL : A Story of Musical Life. Crown 8vo,
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LYCHGATE HALL : A Romance. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net*
WILD WHEAT : A Dorset Romance. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net*
SIMPLE ANNALS. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
YEOMAN FLEETWOOD. With Frontispiece. Crown
8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
PASTORALS OF DORSET. With Illustrations by Claude
C. du Pre Cooper. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 19
Works by the
Very Rev. P. A* Canon Sheehan, D.D.
THE GRAVES AT KILMORNA. A Story of the
Fenian Rising of 1867 and After. Crown 8vo. 6s.
MIRIAM LUCAS. A Story of Irish Life. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net.
THE QUEEN'S FILLET. A Tale of the French
Revolution. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
LISHEEN ; or, The Test of the Spirits. A Novel. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net.
LUKE DELMEGE. A Novel. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
GLENANAAR : a Story of Irish Life. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net.
THE BLINDNESS OF DR. GRAY; or, the Final Law:
a Novel of Clerical Life. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
"LOST ANGEL OF A RUINED PARADISE": a
Drama of Modern Life. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
THE INTELLECTUALS : An Experiment in Irish Club
Life. 8vo. 6s.
PARERGA : being a Companion Volume to " Under the
Cedars and the Stars ". Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
EARLY ESSAYS AND LECTURES. Crown 8vo.
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CONTENTS.
.Essays.
Religious Instruction in Intermediate
Schools — In a Dublin Art Gallery — Emerson
— Free-Thought in America — German Uni-
versities (Three Essays) — German and Gallic
Muses — Augustinian Literature — The Poetry
of Matthew Arnold — Recent Works on St.
Augustine— Aubrey de Vere (a Study).
Lectures.
Irish Youth and High Ideals— The Two
Civilisations— The Golden Jubilee of O'Con-
nelPs Death— Our Personal and Social Re-
sponsibilities— The Study of Mental Science
— Certain Elements of Character — The
Limitations and Possibilities of Catholic
Literature.
20 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Education.
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR CATHOLIC
SCHOOLS. By E. WYATT-DAVIES, M.A. With 14 Maps.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
OUTLINES OF BRITISH HISTORY. By E. WYATT-
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A CHILD'S HISTORY OF IRELAND. From the
Earliest Times to the Death of O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.,
M.R.I. A. With specially constructed Map and 160 Illustrations, including
Facsimile in Full Colours of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of
MacDurnan, A.D. 850. Fcp. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF IRELAND.
From the Earliest Times to 1905. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A.
Fcp. 8vo. 9d.
A READING BOOK IN IRISH HISTORY. By
P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. With 45 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
Is. 6d.
A HISTORY OF IRELAND FOR AUSTRALIAN
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. From the Earliest Times to the Death of
O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. With specially
constructed Map and 160 Illustrations, including Facsimile in Full Colours
of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of MacDurnan, A.D. 850.
Fcap. 8vo. 2s.
The authorised Irish History for Catholic Schools and Colleges throughout Australasia*
AN EXPERIMENT IN HISTORY TEACHING. By
EDWARD ROCKLIFF, S.J. With 3 Coloured Charts. Crown 8vo.
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HISTORICAL ATLAS OF INDIA, for the Use of High
Schools, Colleges and Private Students. By CHARLES JOPPEN, S.J.
33 Maps in Colours. Post 4to. 2s. 6d. Pocket Edition. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d. net.
GRAMMAR LESSONS. By the PRINCIPAL OF ST.
MARY'S HALL, Liverpool. Crown 8vo. 2s.
THE CLASS TEACHING OF ENGLISH COMPOSI-
TION. By the PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY'S HALL, Liverpool.
Crown 8vo. 2s.
ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.
By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
A GRAMMAR OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE.
By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Fcp. 8vo. Is.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 2\
Education — continued.
HANDBOOK OF HOMERIC STUDY. By HENRY
BROWNE, S.J., M.A., New College, Oxford. With 22 Plates.
Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
HANDBOOK OF GREEK COMPOSITION. With
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M.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. net.
Key for the Use of Masters only, 5s. 2d. net.
HANDBOOK OF LATIN COMPOSITION. With
Exercises. By HENRY BROWNE, S.J., M.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. net.
Key for the Use of Masters only, 5s. 2d. net.
THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC GIRLS. By
JANET ERSKINE STUART. With a Preface by the CARDINAL
ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
TEACHER AND TEACHING. By the Rev. RICHARD
H. TIERNEY, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
A HANDBOOK OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
AND METHODS OF TEACHING. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.,
M.R.I.A. Fcp. 3s. 6d.
QUICK AND DEAD? To Teachers. By Two of
Them. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d.
THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. To Catholic Teachers.
By One of the Authors of "Quick and Dead". Crown 8vo. Is. net.
PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC. By G. H. JOYCE, S.J., M.A.,
Oxford, Professor of Logic at Stonyhurst. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net.
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS. By JOHN HENRY
CARDINAL NEWMAN. With Introduction and Notes by MAURICE
FRANCIS EGAN, D.D., LL.D. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d.
LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM NEWMAN. With
Introduction and Notes by A SISTER OF NOTRE DAME. Crown
8vo. Is. 6d. (Longmans'1 Class-Books of English Literature.}
FIVE CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY. From
Chaucer to De Vere. Representative Selections with Notes and Remarks
on the Art of Reading Verse Aloud. By the Rev. GEORGE O'NEILL,
S.J., M.A., Professor of English, University College, Dublin. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d. net.
22 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Cardinal Newman's Works.
i. SERMONS.
PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Edited by
the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. 8 vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
The first six volumes are reprinted frcm the six volumes of Parochial Sermons.
first published in 1834, 1835, 1836, 1838, 1840, and 1842 respectively; the seventh and
eighth formed the fifth volume of Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts
for the Times, originally published in 1843.
The fame of these sermons has been celebrated by Froude, Principal Shairp. James
Mozley, Dean Church, and others. " The Tracts," writes the last-named in his Oxford
Movement, "were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to the
movement. None but those who heard them can adequately estimate the effect of Mr.
Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's. The world knows them . . . but it hardly
realizes that without these sermons the movement might never have gone on. . . . While
men were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the sermons ; and in
the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, and bearing of the Tracts.
. . . The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged the questions in
debate." The Parochial Sermons fell out of print between 1845 and 1868, at which
latter date they were republished by Newman's former curate at St, Mary's, Mr.
Copeland. The success of this re-issue was a striking testimony to the degree to
which Newman had recovered his popularity and prestige by the Apologia. He recorded
in his private journal that in six months 3500 copies of the first volume were sold.
Ward's Life of Newman, vol. ii. p. 241.
SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF
THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR, from the "Parochial and Plain
Sermons". Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d.
This volume consisting of fifty-four sermons was first published in 1878.
CONTENTS: — Advent: Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness — Divine Calls —
The Ventures of Faith— Watching. Christmas Day : Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday :
The Lapse of Time — Epiphany: Remembrance of Past Mercies — Equanimity — The
Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — Christian
Sympathy. Septuagesima : Present Blessings. Sexagesima : Endurance, the Christian's
Portion. Quinquagesima : Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent ; The Individuality of
the Soul— Life, the Season of Repentance— Bodily Suffering— Tears of Christ at the Grave
of Lazarus— Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians— The Cross of Christ the
Measure of the World. Good Friday : The Crucifixion. Easter Day : Keeping Fast and
Festival. Easter Tide: Witnesses of the Resurrection— A Particular Providence as
revealed in the Gospel — Christ Manifested in Remembrance — The Invisible World —
Waiting for Christ. Ascension : Warfare the Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascen-
sion : Rising with Christ. Whitsun Day : The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : The
Mysteriousness of Our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : Holiness Necessary for
Future Blessedness— The Religious Use of Excited Feelings— The Self-wise Inquirer-
Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow — The Danger of Riches — Obedience without Love,
as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The
Greatness and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — The
Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The Power of the Will— The Gospel Palaces-
Religion a Weariness to the Natural Man— The World our Enemy— The Praise of Men-
Religion Pleasant to the Religious— Mental Prayer— Curiosity a Temptation to Sin—
Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief — Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — The Shep-
herd of our Souls — Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the World.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 23
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE
DAY. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
This volume was first published in 1843, and republished by Mr. Copeland in 1869.
This collection contains the celebrated sermons " Wisdom and Innocence,' ' and " The
Parting of Friends ". Mr. Copeland appended to it very important chronological lists,
giving the dates at which the sermons contained in it and the eight volumes of Parochial
and Plain Sermons were first delivered.
CONTENTS. — The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent —
Our Lord's Last Supper and His First— Dangers to the Penitent— The 'Three Offices of
Christ— Faith and Experience— Faith unto the World— The Church and the World-
Indulgence in Religious Privileges — Connection between Personal and Public Improve-
ment— Christian Nobleness — Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers — Elisha a Type
of Christ and His Followers — The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish — The
Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches — The Christian
Church an Imperial Power— Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire — Condition of
the Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolic Christian — Wisdom and Innocence
— Invisible Presence of Christ — Outward and Inward Notes of the Church — Grounds for
Steadfastness in our Religious Profession — Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days —
Feasting in Captivity — The Parting of Friends.
FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, between 1826 and 1843. Cr.Svo. 3s.6d.
The first edition of these sermons was published in 1843 ; the second in 1844. The
original title was " Sermons, chiefly on the Theory of Religious Eelief, Preached," etc.
The third edition was published in 1870, with (i) a new Preface, in which the author ex-
plains, inter alia, the sense in which he had used the term " Reason" in the sermons ;
and (2) notes " to draw attention to certain faults which are to be found in them, either of
thought or language, and, as lar as possible, to set these right ". This preface and the
notes are of great value to students of the Grammar of Assent. Among the sermons con-
tained in this volume is the celebrated one delivered in 1843 on " The Theory of Develop-
ments in Religious Doctrine ".
CONTENTS. — The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel — The Influence
of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively — Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of
Natural Virtue— The Usurpations of Reason — Personal Influence, the Means of Pro-
pagating the Truth — On Justice as a Principle of Divine Governance — Contest between
Faith and Sight — Human Responsibility, as independent of Circumstances — Wilfulness,
the Sin of Saul — Faith and Keason, contrasted as Habits of Mind — The Nature of Faith
in Relation to Reason — Love, the Saleguard of Faith against Superstition — Implicit and
Explicit Reason — Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry — The Theory of
Developments in Religious Doctrine.
DISCOURSES TO MIXED CONGREGATIONS.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1849.
" These sermons have a definite tone and genius of their own . . . and though they
have not to me quite the delicate charm of the reserve, and I might almost say the shy pas-
sion, of his Oxford sermons, they represent the full-blown blossom of his genius, while
the former shows it only in the bud. . . . The extraordinary wealth of detail with which
Newman conceives and realises the various sins and miseries of the human lot has, per-
haps, never been illustrated in all his writings with so much force as in the wonderful
sixteenth sermon on ' The Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion,' " etc.
The late Mr. R. H. HUTTON.
CONTENTS. — The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher — Neglect of
Divine Calls and Warnings — Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel — Purity and
Love— Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle— God's Will the End of Life-
Perseverance in Grace — Nature and Grace — Illuminating Grace — Faith and Private
Judgment — Faith and Doubt — Prospects of the Catholic Missioner — Mysteries of Nature
and of Grace — The Mystery of Divine Condescension — The Infinitude ot the Divine Attri-
butes— Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion — The Glories of Mary for the Sake
of Her Son — On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary.
24 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
SERMONS PREACHED ON VARIOUS OCCA-
SIONS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
This volume, which was first published in 1857, consists of eight sermons preached
before the Catholic University of Ireland in 1856-1857, and seven sermons delivered on
different occasions between 1850 and 1872. Among the latter are the celebrated " Second
Spring " and " The Pope and the Revolution " preached 1850-1872 at St. Chad's, the
Oratory, Oscott, and Farm Street, London, with Notes.
CONTENTS.— Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training— The Religion of the
Pharisee— The Religion of Mankind— Waiting for Christ— The Secret Power of Divine
Grace — Dispositions for Faith — Omnipotence in Bonds — St. Paul's Characteristic Gift
— St. Paul's Gift of Sympathy — Christ upon the Waters — The Second Spring — Order, the
Witness and Instrument of Unity— The Mission of St. Philip Neri— The Tree beside the
Waters— In the World but not of the World— The Pope and the Revolution— Notes.
2. TREATISES.
LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICA-
TION. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
These Lectures were first published in 1838. They were reprinted in 1874 with an
" Advertisement to the Third Edition " and some additional notes.
CONTENTS.— Faith considered as the Instrumental Cause of Justification— Love con-
sidered as the Formal Cause of Justification — Primary Sense of the term "Justification" —
Secondary Senses of the term "Justification"— Misuse of the term "Just " or " Righteous "
—The Gift of Righteousness— The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteousness— Right-
eousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality— Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's
Resurrection— The Office of Justifying Faith— The Nature of Justifying Faith— Faith
viewed relatively to Rites and Works— On Preaching the Gospel— Appendix— On the
Formal Cause of Justification.
AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIS-
TIAN DOCTRINE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
" In this New Edition of the Essay, first published in 1845, various important altera-
tions have been made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in
its matter, but in its text." — Preface to Third Edition, 1878.
THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY DEFINED AND
ILLUSTRATED. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
I. In Nine Discourses delivered to the Catholics of Dublin.
II. In Occasional Lectures and Essays addressed to the members of the Catholic
University.
Part I. was first published in 1852 under the title of Discourses on the Scope an i
Nature of University Education, etc.
CONTENTS.— I. Introductory— II. Theology a Branch of Knowledge— III. Bearing of
Theology on other Knowledge — IV. Bearing of other Knowledge on Theology — V. Know-
ledge its own End — VI. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning — VII. Knowledge
viewed in Relation to Professional Skill — VIII. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Religious
Duty— IX. Duties of the Church towards Knowledge.
Part II. was first published in 1859 under the title of Lectures and Essays on Uni-
versity Subjects.
CONTENTS. — I. Christianity and Letters — II. Literature— III. Catholic Literature in the
English Tongue— IV. Elementary Studies— V. A Form of Infidelity of the Day— VI.
University Preaching — VII. Christianity and Physical Science — VIII. Christianity and
Scientific Investigation— IX. Discipline of Mind— X. Christianity and Medical Science.
%* Part I. is also issued separately as follows : —
UNIVERSITY TEACHING CONSIDERED IN NINE DIS-
COURSES. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. Fcp.
8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 25
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1870, with Notes at the end of the volume added to the later editions.
AN INDEXED SYNOPSIS OF CARDINAL NEW-
MAN'S " AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT ".
By the Rev. JOHN J. TOOHEY, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
3. HISTORICAL.
HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Three vols. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d. each.
VOL. I.— The Turks in their Relation to Europe— Marcus Tullius Cicero— Apollonius
of Tyana — Primitive Christianity.
The Essay on " The Turks in their Relation to Europe " was first published under the
title of Lectures onthe History of the Turks by the Author of^Loss and Gain, in 1854. As
is well known, Newman took what was then the unpopular side. The Czar was " attack-
ing an infamous power, the enemy of God and Man ". " Many things are possible ; one
is inconceivable — that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept of modern civilisa-
tion ; and in default of it, that they should be able to stand their ground amid the
encroachments of Russia, the interested and contemptuous patronage of Europe, and
the hatred of their subject populations."
Personal and Literary Character of Cicero. First published in 1824.
Apollonius of Tyana. First published in 1826.
Primitive Christianity.
I. What does St. Ambrose say about it?— II. What says Vincent of Lerins ?— III. What
says the History of Apollinaris ? — IV. What sayjovinian and his companions? — V. What
say the Apostolical Canons ?
This series formed part of the original Church of the Fathers as it appeared in the
British Magazine of 1833-36, and as it was published in 1840. " They were removed
from subsequent Catholic editions, except the chapter on Apollinaris, as containing
polemical matter, which had no interest for Catholic readers. Now [1872] they are
republished under a separate title."
VOL. II. — The Church of the Fathers — St. Chrysostom — Theodoret — Mission of St.
Benedict — Benedictine Schools.
The Church of the Fathers.
I. Trials of Basil— II Labours of Basil— III. Basil and Gregory— IV. Rise and Fall of
Gregory— V. Antony in Conflict— VI. Antony in Calm— VII. Augustine and the Vandals—
VIII. Conversion of Augustine — IX. Demetrias — X. Martin and Maximus.
St. Chrysostom. Reprinted from the Rambler, 1859-60.
Trials of Theodoret. First published in 1873.
The Mission of St. Benedict. From the Atlantis, 1858.
The Benedictine Schools. From the Atlantis, 1859.
VOL. III.— Rise and Progress of Universities (originally published as " Office and
Work of Universities ") — Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland — Mediaeval
Oxford — Convocation of Canterbury.
Rise and Progress of Universities.
The following illustrations of the idea of a University originally appeared in 1854 in
the columns of the Dublin Catholic University Gazette. In 1856 they were published in
one volume under the title of The Office and Work of Universities, etc.
Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland. From the Rambler of 1859.
Mediaeval Oxford. From the British Critic of 1838.
The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. From the British Magazine of
1834-35-
THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. Reprinted from " Historical
Sketches". Vol. II. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS.
Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 2s net. Leather. 3s. net.
26 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
4. ESSAYS.
TWO ESSAYS ON MIRACLES. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
CONTENTS. — I. The Miracles of Scripture compared with those reported elsewhere as
regards their nature, credibility, and evidence— II. The Miracles of Early Ecclesiastical
History compared with those of Scripture as regards their nature, credibility, and evidence.
The former of these Essays was written for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 1825-
26; the latter in 1842-43 as Preface to a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclesi-
astical History. They were republished in 1870 with some additional notes.
DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
i. How to accomplish it. 2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scripture and the
Creed. 4. Tamworth Reading-room. 5. Who's to Blame ? 6. An Internal Argument for
Christianity.
How to Accomplish It originally appeared in the British Magazine of 1830 under the title
of "Home Thoughts Abroad". "The discussion on this Paper is carried on by two
speculative Anglicans, who aim at giving vitality to their church, the one by uniting
it to the Holy See, the other by developing a nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism.
The narrator sides on the whole with the latter of these."
The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. This was the Eighty-third Number of the Tracts
for the Times, published in 1838.
Holy Scripture in its Relation to the Catholic Creed. This was the Eighty-fifth
Number of the Tracts for the Times.
The Tamworth Reading Room. A series of seven letters, signed " Catholicus," first
printed in the Times during February, 1841, and published as a pamphlet. They were
provoked by addresses delivered by Lord Brougham at Glasgow and Sir Robert Peel
at the opening of a Library and Reading Room at Tamworth, in which those distin-
guished statesmen exalted secular knowledge into the great instrument of moral
improvement. They ran as follows: (i) Secular Knowledge in contrast with Religion.
(2) Secular Knowledge not the principle of Moral Improvement. (3) Not a direct means
of Moral Improvement. (4) Not the antecedent of Moral Improvement. (5) Not a
principle of social unity. (6) Not a principle of action. (7) But without personal
religion a temptation to unbelief.
Who's to Blame? A series of letters addressed to the Catholic Standard in 1855. There
was at that time a great deal of blame attributed to the Government on account of its
management of the Crimean War. Newman threw the blame on the British constitu-
tion, or rather on those who clamoured for a foreign war, for the conduct of which
this constitution is singularly ill-adapted. The letters are a valuable study of the
genius of the Anglo-Saxon race and the British constitution.
An Internal Argument for Christianity. A review, originally published in the Month
of June, 1866, of Ecce Homo.
ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. Two vok,
with Notes. Crown 8vo. 7s.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. — I. Poetry with reference to Aristotle's Poetics. With Note —
II. The Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion. With Note— III
Apostolical Tradition. With Note— IV. The Fall of la Mennais. With Note— V.
Palmer's View of Faith and Unity. With Note— VI. The Theology of St. Ignatius. With
Note— VII. Prospects of the Anglican Church. With Note— VIII. The Anglo-American
Church. With Note— IX. Selina Countess of Huntingdon. With Note.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.— X. The Catholicity of the Anglican Church. With Note-
XL The Protestant View of Antichrist. With Note— XII. Milman's View of Christianity.
With Note— XIII. The Reformation of the Eleventh Century. With Note— XIV. Private
Judgment. With Note— XV. John Davison. With Note— XVI. John Keble. With Note.
The first Essay was written in 1828 for the London Review ; the second in 1835 for the
Tracts for the Times; the last in 1846 for the Dublin Review ; the rest for the British
Critic between 1837 and 1842. The original title of VII. was Home Thoughts Abroad.
The " Notes " were written when the Essays were republished in 1871.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 27
Cardinal Newman's Works— continued.
5. PATRISTIC.
THE ARIANS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1833. Republished, with an Appendix containing over seventy
pages of additional matter, in 1871.
CONTENTS OF APPENDIX.— I. The Syrian School of Theology— II. The Early Doctrine
of the Divine Genesis— III. The Confessions at Sirmium— IV. The Early use of usia and
hypostasis— V. Orthodoxy of the Faithful during Arianism— VI. Chronology of the Councils
—VII. Omissions in the Text of the Third Edition (1871). •- i
(5) is a long extract from the article published in the Rambler of 1859, " On con-
sulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine". In the fourth (1876) and subsequent
editions of the A rians the author appended to the extract an explanation of a passage
in the original article which had been seriously misunderstood in some quarters.
SELECT TREATISES OF ST. ATHANASIUS UN
CONTROVERSY WITH THE ARIANS. Freely Translated.
Two vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
First published in 1881. The first volume contains the " Treatises " ; the second the
notes alphabetically arranged so as to form a kind of theological lexicon to St.
Athanasius's writings.
In 1842 Newman contributed to the Oxford Library of the Fathers two volumes
entitled Select Treatises of St. A thanasius in Controversy with the A rians. This work was
described by the late Canon Bright as ranking " among the richest treasures of English
Patristic literature" ; by the late Canon Liddon as " the most important contribution to the
Library " ; and in later prospectuses of the Library, after Newman's connection with it
had ceased, as " the most important work published since Bishop Bull ". The present
edition differs from that of the Oxford Library in four important points, viz. : (i) the
freedom of the translation ; (2) the arrangement of the notes ; (3) the omission of the
fourth " Discourse against the Arians " ; (4) the omission of some lengthy Dissertations.
A Latin version of these last is included in Tracts : Theological and Ecclesiastical.
TRACTS : THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
CONTENTS.— I. Dissertatiunculae Quatuor Critico-Theologicae [Rome 1847]— II. On the
Text of the Epistles of St. Ignatius[i87o]— III. Causes of the Rise and Success of Arianism
[1872]— IV. The Heresy of Apollinaris— V. St. Cyril's Formula MIA 4>Y2I2 SESAPKfl-
MENH. (Atlantis, 1858)— VI. The Ordo de Tempore in the Breviary. (Atlantis, 1870)—
VII. History of the Text of the Douay Version of Scripture. (Rambler, 1859).
6. POLEMICAL.
THE VIA MEDIA OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
Illustrated in Lectures, Letters and Tracts written between 1830 and 1841.
Two vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
This collection was first published in 1877.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.— The Prophetical Office of the Church, etc., originally published in
1837, reprinted with Notes and a Preface.
The Preface, which extends to about ninety pages, is one of Newman's most im-
portant polemical writings. His adversary is his former self. In his " Essay on
Development," he dealt with one of the two great charges he used to bring against the
Catholic Church ; in this Preface he deals with the other.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II. — I. Suggestions in behalf of the Church Missionary Society, 1830
—II. Via Media, 1834 (being Nos. 38 and 40 of Tracts for the Times)— III. Restoration of
Suffragan Bishops, 1835 — IV. On the Mode of Conducting the Controversy with Rome (being
No. 71 of Tracts for the Times)— V. Letter to a Magazine in behalf of Dr. Pusey's Tracts
on Holy Baptism, 1837 — VI. Letter to the Margaret Professor of Divinity on Mr. R. H.
Froude's Statements on the Holy Eucharist, 1838 — VII. Remarks on Certain Passages in the
Thirty-nine Articles, 1841 (being No. 90 of Tracts for the Times) — VIII. Documentary
Matter consequent upon the foregoing Remarks on the Thirty-nine Articles — IX. Letter to
Dr. Jelf in Explanation of the Remarks, 1841 — X. Letter to the Bishop of Oxford on the
same Subject, 1841— XI. Retractation of Anti-Catholic Statements, 1843-45
=V No. VII. in this Volume is the famous Tract 90 of Tracts for the Times, the
whole with new Notes.
28 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES FELT BY ANGLICANS
IN CATHOLIC TEACHING CONSIDERED. Two vols. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. — Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the party of the Religious
Movement of 1833.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II. — I. Letter addressed to Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of
his Eirenicon of 1864— II. A Letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr.
Gladstone's Expostulation of 1874.
LECTURES ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF
CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND. Addresses to the Brothers of the
Oratory in the Summer of 1851. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, being a History of his
Religious Opinions.
First published in 1864.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net. Leather, 3s. 6d. net.
Popular Edition. 8vo. Paper covers, 6d. net.
The " Pocket " Edition and the " Popular " Edition of this book contain a letter, hitherto
unpublished, written by Cardinal Newman to Canon Flanagan in 1857, which may be said
to contain in embryo the " Apologia " itself.
7. LITERARY.
LOSS AND GAIN : The Story of a Convert. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1848.
" Of his experience as a Catholic, Loss and Gain, published in 1848, was the first
fruit . . . the book has been a great favourite with me, almost ever since its first publi-
'
cation, partly for the admirable fidelity with which it sketches young men's thoughts
and difficulties, partly for its happy irony, partly for its perfect representation of the
academical life and tone at Oxford. ... In the course of the story there are many
happy sketches of Oxford society, such as. for example, the sketch of the evangelical
pietism which Mr. Freeborn pours forth at Bateman's breakfast, or the sketch of the Rev.
Dr. Brownside's prim and pompous Broad Church University sermon. . . . Again, there
is one very impressive passage not taken from Oxford life, in which Newman makes . . .
[one of his characters] insist on the vast difference between the Protestant and Roman
Catholic conception of worship." — R. H. MUTTON'S Cardinal Newman.
CALLISTA : A Tale of the Third Century. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1855, with postscripts of 1856, 1881, 1888.
" It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view, the feelings
and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period to which it belongs."
Author's Preface.
VERSES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Gilt top, Cloth, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net.
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.
1 6mo. Paper covers, 6d. Cloth, 1 s. net.
With Introduction and Notes by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, D.D.,
LL.D. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d.
Presentation Edition, with an Introduction specially written for this Edition by
E. B(L). With Photogravure Portrait of Cardinal Newman, and 5 other
Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cream cloth, with gilt top, 3s. net.
LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM NEWMAN. With
Introduction and Notes by A SISTER OF NOTRE DAME.
Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. Longmans' Class-Books of English Literature.
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 29
Cardinal Newman's Works — continued.
8. DEVOTIONAL.
MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS.
Oblong crown 8vo. 5s. net.
CONTENTS. — Prefatory Notice by the Rev. W. P. Neville. Part I. Meditations for the
Month of May. Novena of St. Philip. Part II. The Stations of the Cross. Meditations
.and Intercessions for Good Friday. Litanies, etc. Part III. Meditations on Christiar
Doctrine. Conclusion.
In Parts as follows. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, Is. nt t each. Limp leather, 2s. net each,
Part I. THE MONTH OF MAY.
Part II. STATIONS OF THE CROSS.
Part III. MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
Three Parts in One Volume. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net.
9. BIOGRAPHIES.
THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL
NEWMAN. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. B)
WILFRID WARD.
With 1 5 Portraits and Illustrations (2 Photogravures). 2 Vols. 8vo. 36s. net
With 2 Portraits. 2 vols. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.
LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN
HENRY NEWMAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH
CHURCH. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's
request, by ANNE MOZLEY. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
" Materials for the present work were placed in the Editor's hands towards the close o
1884. The selection from them was made, and the papers returned to Cardinal Newmai
in the summer of 1887." — Editor's Note.
" It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism, that the true life of £
man is in his letters. . . . Not only for the interest of a biography, but for arriving a
the inside of things, the publication of letters is the true method. Biographers varnish
they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, they interpret Lord Burleigh's nods; bu
contemporary letters are facts." — Di. Newman to his sister, Mrs. John Mozley, May 18
1863.
10. POSTHUMOUS.
ADDRESSES TO CARDINAL NEWMAN, WITH
HIS REPLIES, 1879-81. Edited by the Rev. W. P. NEVILLE (Cong
Orat.). With Portrait Group. Oblong crown 8vo. 6s. net.
NEWMAN MEMORIAL SERMONS: Preached at th<
Opening of the Newman Memorial Church, The Oratory, Birmingham
8th and 12th December, 1909. By Rev. Fr. JOSEPH R1CKABY, S.J.
B.Sc. (Oxon.), and Very Rev. Canon McINTYRE, Professor of Scriptur.
at St. Mary's College, Oscott. 8vo. Paper covers, 1 s. net.
.SERMON NOTES, 1849-78. Edited by the FATHER;
OF THE BIRMINGHAM ORATORY. With Portrait. Crown 8vo
5s. net.
Cardinal Newman left behind him two MS. volumes filled with notes or memorand
of Sermons and Catechetical Instructions delivered by him during the years 1847 t
1879.
Besides their utility to priests and teachers, it is hoped that the notes will appeal t
all lovers of Newman's writings. So characteristic of him are they, in spite of thei
brevity, that their authorship would beat once recognised even if they appeared withou
his name. Those of an earlier date are specially interesting. Ihey introduce th
reader to Newman in the first days of his Catholic life, settling down to the ordinar
duties of an English priest, and instructing a " Mixed Congregation " in the rudiment
of Catholic Doctrine.
INDEX TO THE WORKS OF CARDINAL NEWMAN
By the Rev. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J., B.Sc. (Oxon.). Crown 8vc
6s. net.
INDEX.
Page
A dventures of King James II. of England g
Antony (C. M.) In St. Dominic's Country 12
Ayscough (J.) Gracechurch 18
Levia Pondera 14
Balfour (Mrs. Reginald) The Life and
Legend of the Lady Saint Clare ... 12
Barnes (A. S.) Early Church in the Light
of the Monuments 3
Barrett (E. Boyd) Motive Force and
Motivation-Tracks 4
Barry (W.) The Tradition of Scripture ... 3
Batiffol (P.) Credibility of the Gospel ... 4
History of the Roman Breviary 4
Primitive Catholicism ... 4
Bennett (A. H.) Through an Anglican
Sisterhood to Rome u
Benson (R. H.) Child's Rule of Life ... 17
Christ in the Church ... 15
Confessions of a Convert 10
Cost of a Crown 17
Friendship of Christ ... 15
Maid of Orleans 17
Mystery Play 17
Non-Catholic Denomina-
tions 3
Old Testament Rhymes ... 17
Paradoxes of Catholicism 15
Spiritual Letters 15
— Upper Room 17
Vexilla Regis 15
Boedder (B.) Natural Theology 2
Bosch (Mrs. H.) Bible Stories told to
" Toddles " 17
Bougaud (Mgr.) History of St. Vincent
de Paul 12
Brown (S. J.) A Guide to Books on
Ireland 14
A Reader's Guide to Irish
Fiction 18
Browne (H.) Handbook of Greek Composi-
tion 21
. Homeric Study 21
— Latin Composi-
tion
Burton (E. H.) Life ana Times of Bishop
Challoner 7
and Myers (E.) New Psal-
ter and its Use ... ' 3
and Pollen (J. H.) Lives
of the English Martyrs n
Camm (B.) Lives of the English Martyrs n
Catholic Church from Within 6
Cecilia (Madame) Spiritual Gleanings for
Marian Sodalists 16
Challoner, Life and Times of Bishop ... 7
Chapman (J.) Bishop Gore and Catholic
Claims 6
Chase (B.) Through a Dartmoor Window 14
Page
Christ, Life of, for Children 17-
Clarke (R. F.) Logic 2
Class-Teaching (The) of English Com-
position 20-
Coffey (P.) Ontology ' 4
The Science of Logic 4
Concannon (Mrs. T.) A Garden of Girls 12
Cronin (M.) The Science of Ethics ... 5
Curious Case of Lady Purbeck t>
Cuthbert(Fr.)Lt/«o/S^ Francis of A ssisi 12
Romanticism of St. Francis 12
De Bonnault d'Houet, Life of Viscountess,
by Fr. Stanislaus 12
Delehaye (H.) The Legends of the Saints 3.
De Montalembert (Count) Life of St.
Elizabeth of Hungary 12
Devas (C. S.) Political Economy 2
Key to the World's Progress 5,
Devas (R.) Dominican Revival in the
Nineteenth Century 7
De Vere (Aubrey), Memoir of, by Wilfrid
Ward u
.Dewe (J. A.) Psychology of Politics and
History 6
De \Vu\f(M.) History of Medieval Philo-
* sophy 4
Scholasticism, Old and New 4
Dobree (L. E.) Stories on the Rosary ... 17
Drane (A. T.) History of St. Catherine of
Siena . n
Memoir (Mother Francis
Raphael) n
Driscoll (J. T.) Pragmatism 6
Emery (S. L.) The Inner Life of the Soul 16
English (E.) Sermons and Homilies ... 15
Falklands c>
First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-on-
Tyne 9
Fortescue (A.) The Mass 3
Fouard (Abbd) St. John and the Close of
the Apostolic Age 2
St. Paul and his Missions 2
St. Peter 2
The Christ the Son of God *
Last Years of St. Paul 2
Fountain of Life (The) 21
Francis (M. E.) Christian Thai i&
Dorset Dear i&
Fiander's Widow ... i&
Lychgate Hall ... ... i&
. Manor Farm 18-
——Pastorals of Dorset ... 18
• — Simple Annals i&
. Wild Wheat 18
— Y eoman Fleet-wood ... i&
INDEX.
31
Page
•Gerard (J.) The Old Riddle and the
Newest Answer 5
•Grammar Lessons, by the Principal of
St. Mary's Hall Liverpool 20
•Graves (A. P.) Welsh Poetry 16
-Guilday (P.) English Catholic Refugees 7
Mealy (T. M.) Stolen Waters 8
Hedley (J. C.) Holy Eucharist 3
IHoyt (F. D.) Catherine Sidney 18
-Hughes (T.) History of the Society of
Jesus in North America 8
iHunter (S. J.) Outlines of Dogmatic
Theology 5
ilndex to The Month 6
Joppen (C.) Historical Atlas of India ... 20
Jorgensen (J.) Lourdes 8
St. Francis of Assisi ... n
Joyce (G. H.) Principles of Logic ... 21
Joyce (P. W.) Ancient Irish Music ... 16
Child's History of Ireland 20
English as we Speak it in
Ireland . 20
Language
-Grammar of the Irish
'.
-Handbook of School
Management
-History of Ireland for
Australian Catholic Schools ...
Irish Peasant Songs
Old Celtic Romances
Old Irish Folk Music ...
-Origin and History of
Irish Names of Places
-Outlines of the History of
Ireland . ,. 20
History
— Reading Book in Irish
Short History of Ireland
Smaller Social History
of Ancient Ireland
Social History of Ireland
Story of Irish Civilisation
Wonders of Ireland
20
8
Joyce (R. D.) Ballads of Irish Chivalry 16
Kane (R.) From Fetters to Freedom ... 15
Good Friday to Easter Sunday 15
Plain Gold Ring 15
of the Sea 15
Lives of the English Martyrs n
JLockington (W. J.) Bodily Health and
Spiritual Vigour 5
Page
Maher (M.) Psychology 2
Mann (J. E. F .), Sievers (N. J.) and Cox
(R. W. T.) Real Democracy 6
Martindale (C. C.) In God's Nursery ... 14
Waters of Twilight ... 14
Maturin (B. W.) Laws of the Spiritual
Life ............... 15
-- Price of Unity ... 6
- Self-Knowledge and
Self-Discipline ... ........ , 15
Maxwell-Scott (Hon. Mrs ) Life of the
Marquise de la Rochejaquelein ... n
Montalembert (Count de) St. Elizabeth.
of Hungary ............ 12
Month .................. 6
Moyes (J.) Aspects of Anglicanism ... 6
Mulhall (M. M.) Beginnings, or Glimpses
of Vanished Civilizations ...... 7
Nesbitt (M.) Our Lady in the Church ... 16
Newman (Cardinal) Addresses to, 1879-81 29
--- Apologia pro Vita
sua ............ 10,28
---- Avians of the Fourth
Century ............... 27
------ Callista, an Histori-
cal Tale ............ ... 28
- Church of the Fathers 25
---- Critical and Histori-
cal Essays ............ 26
D evelopment of
Christian Doctrine 24
Difficulties of Angli-
Discourses to Mixed
28
Congregations 23
Discussions and
Arguments 26
Dream of Gerontius 21,28
— Essays on Miracles 26
Grammar of Assent 25
Historical Sketches 25
Idea of a University 24
Index to Works ... 29
Justification 24
Letters and Corre-
spondence 29
- Life, by Wilfrid
Ward 10, 29
Literary Selections 21,28
Loss and Gain ... 28
Meditations and De-
votions 29
Memorial Sermons... 29
Oxford University
Serntons 23
Parochial Sermons... 22
• Present Position of
Catholics ... .. 28
Select Treatises of St.
Athanasius 27
32
INDEX.
Page
Newman (Cardinal) Selections from Ser-
mons 22
Sermon Notes ... 29
Sermons on Subjects
of the Day 23
Sermons Preached on
Various Occasions 24
Theological Tracts 27
University Teaching 24
Verses on Various
Occasions 28
Via Media 27
O'Boyle (J,) Life of George Washington n
O'Brien (Mrs. William) Unseen Friends n, 14
O'Malley (A.) and Walsh (J. J.) Pastoral
Medicine 5
O'Neill (G.) "Five Centuries of English
Poetry 21
Petre (M. D.) Reflections of a N on-Com-
batant 8
Phelan (M. J.) Straight Path 6
Plater (C.) Priest and Social Action ... 3
Policy and Paint 9
Pryings among Private Papers 9
Quick and Dead ... 21
Rickaby (John) First Principles of Know-
ledge 2
General Metaphysics ... 2
Index to Cardinal New-
man's Works 29
Rickaby (Joseph) Moral Philosophy ... 2
and Mclntyre (Canon)
Newman Memorial Sermons 29
Rochester and other Literary Rakes ... g
Roche ( W. ) Child's Prayers to Jesus ... 17
The House and Table of God 17
Rockliff (E.) An Experiment in History
Teaching 20
Rose (V.) Studies on the Gospels 5
Rosmini (A.) Theodicy 5
Russell (M.) Among the Blessed 15
At Home with God 15
— The Three Sisters of Lord
Russell of Killowen n
Ruville (A. Von) Back to Holy Church 10
Ryder (I. D.) Essays 10, 14
Scannell (T.) The Priest's Studies
Seton (W. W.) Blessed Agnes of Bohemia
Sheehan (P. A.) Blindness of Dr. Gray
Early Essays and Lee-
Page
Sheehan (P. A.) " Lost Angel of a Ruined
Paradise" ... ... ... ... in.
-Luke Delmege i^
-Miriam Lucas 19
-Parerga 19.
Queen's Fillet 19-
Stockl (A.) Handbook of the History of
Philosophy 4.
STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL
SERIES
Stuart (J. E.) The Education of Catholic
Girls
Terry (R. R.) Old Rhymes with New Tunes 17
Thesaurus Fidelium i&
Thurston (H.) Lent and Holy Week ... 6
Tierney (R. H.) Teacher and Teaching... 21
Toohey (J. J.) Synopsis of Newman's
" Grammar of Assent" 25
Turenne (Marshal) 9,
Vassall-Phillips (O. R.) Work of St.
Optatus ... 7
Vaughan (J. S.) Happiness and Beauty... 14
Vices in Virtues g
Vonier (Anscar) Personality of Christ ... 5
Walker (L. J .) Theories of Knowledge ... z-
Ward (B.) Dawn of the Catholic Revival
in England 7
Eve of Catholic Emancipation 7
Sequel to Catholic Emancipa-
tion 7
Ward (J.) William Pardow of the Com-
pany of Jesus 12
Ward (Wilfrid) A ubrey de Vere, a Memoir 1 1
Essays on Men and
Matters 10
Life of Cardinal New-
man 10, 29
Life of Cardinal Wise-
man 10
Ten Personal Studies ... 10
William G. Ward and
-Glenanaar
-Graves at Kilmorna .-
-Intellectuals
-Lisheen
the Catholic Revival 10
Ward (Mrs. Wilfrid) Great Possessions ... 18
— — Job Secretary ... 18
. Light Behind ... 18
One Poor Scruple 18
Out of Due Time... 18
WESTMINSTER LIBRARY 3
WESTMINSTER VERSION OF THE
SACRED SCRIPTURES 13
Wiseman (Cardinal) Life, by Wilfrid Ward 10
Wyatt-Davies (E.) History of England
for Catholic Schools 20
. Outlines of British
History ...
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