3. However, characteristic as it is of a.s.sent, 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 certain acts of a.s.sent from certain acts of inference. Thus, whereas no one could possibly confuse the real a.s.sent 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 heathen (so removed from each other, _toto clo_, are the respective modes of apprehending it in the two cases, though in both the a.s.sent is in its nature one and the same), nevertheless it would be easy to mistake the Stoic"s notional a.s.sent, genuine though it might be, to the moral n.o.bleness of the 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 a.s.sent merely to the inferential necessity of the n.o.bleness of that struggle. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to praise men for their consistency to their principles, whatever those principles are, that is, to praise them on an inference, without thereby implying any a.s.sent to the principles themselves.
The cause of this resemblance between acts so distinct is obvious. It exists only in cases of notional a.s.sents; when the a.s.sent is given to notions, then it is possible to hesitate in deciding whether it is a.s.sent or inference, whether the mind is merely without doubt or whether it is actually certain. And the reason is this: notional a.s.sent 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 throughout, I here distinctly record, and shall enlarge upon hereafter. Only propositions about individuals are not notional, and they are seldom the matter of inference. Thus, did the Stoic infer the fact of our Lord"s death instead of a.s.senting to it, the proposition would have been as much an abstraction to him as the "Justum et tenacem," &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, inferences are employed on notions, that is, unless 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 cla.s.sifications, and therefore may be called definitions or conclusions, as we please. For instance, having divided beings into their cla.s.ses, the definition of man is inevitable.
4. We may call it then the normal state of Inference to apprehend propositions as notions:-and we may call it the normal state of a.s.sent to apprehend propositions as things. If notional apprehension is most congenial to Inference, real apprehension will be the most natural concomitant on a.s.sent. An act of Inference includes in its object the dependence of its thesis upon its premisses, that is, upon a relation, which is abstract; but an act of a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent; but, when inferences are exercised on things, they tend to be conjectures or presentiments, without logical force; and when a.s.sents are exercised on notions, they tend to be mere a.s.sertions without any personal hold on them on the part of those who make them. If this be so, the paradox is true, that, when Inference is clearest, a.s.sent may be least forcible, and, when a.s.sent is most intense, Inference may be least distinct;-for, though acts of a.s.sent require previous acts of inference, they require them, not as adequate causes, but as _sine qua non_ conditions: and, while the apprehension strengthens a.s.sent, Inference often weakens the apprehension.
-- 1. Notional a.s.sents.
I shall consider a.s.sent 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 a.s.sents so feeble and superficial, as to be little more than a.s.sertions. I cla.s.s them all together under the head of Profession. Such are the a.s.sents 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 a.s.sents 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 professed, and did not know to what they a.s.sented or why.
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 a.s.sent to it, infer it, or consider it highly probable. There are many cases, indeed, in which it is impossible to discriminate between a.s.sent, inference, and a.s.sertion, on account of the otiose, pa.s.sive, 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sent, sometimes a polite a.s.sertion or a wish.
Many a disciple of a philosophical school, who talks fluently, does but a.s.sert, when he seems to a.s.sent to the _dicta_ of his master, little as he may be aware of it. Nor is he secured against this self-deception by knowing 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 a.s.serting simply on authority, with the pretence and without the reality of a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent to the proposition, still it _is_ an a.s.sent 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 adopts them, till their use becomes popular, and then every one professes them, because every one else does. Such words are "liberality,"
"progress," "light," "civilization;" such are "justification by faith only," "vital religion," "private judgment," "the Bible and nothing but the Bible." Such again are "Rationalism," "Gallicanism," "Jesuitism,"
"Ultramontanism"-all of which, in the mouths of conscientious thinkers, have a definite meaning, but are used by the mult.i.tude as war-cries, nicknames, and shibboleths, with scarcely enough of the scantiest grammatical apprehension of them to allow of their being considered really more than a.s.sertions.
Thus, instances occur now and then, when, in consequence of the urgency of some fashionable superst.i.tion 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 a.s.sent, 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 apprehension and a.s.sent 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 a.s.sents which in themselves are little better than a.s.sertions, and which, so far as they are a.s.sents, can only be notional a.s.sents, as being a.s.sents, not to the propositions inferred, but to the truth of those propositions. For instance, it can be proved by irrefragable calculations, 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 a.n.a.lyze it into its factors, if we compare it with other numbers, or if we ill.u.s.trate it by a.n.a.logies or by its implications; but I am speaking of the vast number in itself. We cannot a.s.sent to a proposition of which it is the predicate; we can but a.s.sent to the truth of it.
This leads me to the question, whether belief in a mystery can be more than an a.s.sertion. I consider it can be an a.s.sent, and my reasons for saying so are as follows:-A mystery is a proposition conveying incompatible notions, or is a statement of the inconceivable. Now we can a.s.sent to propositions (and a mystery is a proposition), provided we can apprehend them; therefore we can a.s.sent to a mystery, for, unless we in some sense apprehended it, we should not recognize it to be a mystery, 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 a.s.senting 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 a.s.sertion. It is equally plain, that the a.s.sent which we give to mysteries, as such, is notional a.s.sent; for, by the supposition, it is a.s.sent to propositions which we cannot conceive, whereas, if we had had experience of them, we should be able to conceive them, and without experience a.s.sent is not real.
But the question follows, Can processes of inference end in a mystery?
that is, not only in what is incomprehensible, 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 contradictories? 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:-our 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 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 hardness takes a polish too."(1) 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 incompatible 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 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 quant.i.ty 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 c.u.mbrous 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 s.p.a.ce admitted of four dimensions, we should be enunciating a mystery, because we should be applying to s.p.a.ce a notion which belongs to quant.i.ty. In this case algebra is in excess of geometrical truth. Now let us take an instance in which it falls short of geometry,-What 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 ill.u.s.trating, it has sometimes been considered as an abortive effort to express, what is really beyond the capacity of algebraical notation, the direction and position of lines in the third dimension of s.p.a.ce, 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 number. 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 were an un-English or are 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, taken individually, no positive point of real agreement 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 Hannibals 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 unphilosophical 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, 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 ill.u.s.trated at the risk of digression, I observe, that an alleged fact is not therefore impossible because it is inconceivable; for the incompatible notions, in which consists its inconceivableness, need not each of them really belong to it in that fulness which involves their being incompatible with each other.
It is true indeed that I deny the possibility of two straight lines enclosing a s.p.a.ce, on the ground of its being inconceivable; but I 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 defined a straight line in my own way at my own pleasure; the question is not one of facts at all, but of the consistency with each other of definitions and of their logical consequences.
"s.p.a.ce is not infinite, for nothing but the Creator is such:"-starting from this thesis as a theological information, to be a.s.sumed as a fact, though not one of experience, we arrive at once at an insoluble mystery; for, if s.p.a.ce be not infinite, it is finite, and finite s.p.a.ce is a contradiction in notions, s.p.a.ce, as such, implying the absence of boundaries. Here again it is our notion that carries us beyond the fact, and in opposition to it, showing that from the first what we apprehend of s.p.a.ce does not in all respects correspond to the thing, of which indeed we have no image.
This, then, is another instance in which the juxtaposition 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 necessarily contradicts the free deductions from another. After proceeding in our investigations a certain way, suddenly a blank or a maze presents itself before 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 exact.i.tude in sanct.i.ty 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 a.s.sent to these theological truths as mysteries; did we not apprehend them at all, we should be merely a.s.serting; though even then we might convert that a.s.sertion into an a.s.sent, 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.
2. _Credence._
What I mean by giving credence to propositions is pretty much the same as having "no doubt" about them. It is the sort of a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent comprises a great variety of subject-matters; and is, as I have implied, of an otiose and pa.s.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 a.s.sent, const.i.tute 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; and, though education is discipline as well as 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 teachableness 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 ungrudging, prompt a.s.sents to what is offered to us so lavishly, that we become possessed of the principles, doctrines, sentiments, facts, which const.i.tute useful, and especially liberal knowledge. These various teachings, shallow though they be, are of a breadth which secures us against those _lacunae_ of knowledge which are apt to befall the professed student, and keep us up to the mark in literature, in the arts, in history, 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 patriotism, 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 a.s.sent; they are too manifold to be received in any other way. Even the most practised and earnest minds must needs be superficial in the greater part of their attainments. They 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 contrasted 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 a.s.similated with it. Yet of course there is nothing to hinder those who have even the largest stock of such notions from devoting 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 religion may be made a subject of notional a.s.sent 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 England. As to Catholic populations, such as those of medieval Europe, or the Spain of this day, or quasi-Catholic as those of Russia, among them a.s.sent to religious objects is real, not notional. To them the Supreme Being, our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, Angels and Saints, heaven and h.e.l.l, are as present as if they were objects of sight; but 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 Religion; I do not call the religion of Leighton, Beveridge, Wesley, Thomas Scott, or Cecil a mere sentiment; nor do I so term the high Anglicanism of the present generation. But these are only denominations, parties, schools, compared with the national religion of England in its length and breadth.
"Bible Religion" is both the recognized t.i.tle 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 England, 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 a.s.sociating 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 his creation to his end, and, above all, the words, deeds, and sacred sufferings of Him in whom all the Providences of G.o.d 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 consequence 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 a.s.sent which it inculcates and elicits is genuine as regards its contracted range of doctrine, but it is at best notional. What Scripture especially ill.u.s.trates from its first page to its last, is G.o.d"s Providence; and that is nearly the only doctrine held with a real a.s.sent by the ma.s.s of religious Englishmen. 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 the High Church or the Low, but of the ma.s.s of piously-minded and well-living people in all ranks of the community.
3. _Opinion._
That cla.s.s of a.s.sents which I have called Credence, being a spontaneous acceptance of the various informations, 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 a.s.sent; thus, if a man was every day changing his mind, that is, his a.s.sents, we might say, that he was very changeable in his opinions.
I shall here use the word to denote an a.s.sent, but an a.s.sent to a proposition, not as true, but as probably true, that is, to the probability of that which the proposition 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 inference varies with its premisses, and is a probability; but the two acts of mind are really distinct. Opinion, as being an a.s.sent, is independent of premisses. We have opinions which we never think of defending by argument, though, of course, we think they can be so defended. 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 conditional 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 connexion with Credence than with Inference. It differs from Credence in these two points, viz. that, while Opinion explicitly a.s.sents to the probability of a given proposition, Credence is an implicit a.s.sent 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 cert.i.tude. 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 a.s.sent to a probability-as even Butler has been understood or misunderstood to teach,-and therefore consistent with toleration of its contradictory.
Opinion, being such as I have described, is a notional a.s.sent, for the predicate of the proposition, on which it is exercised, is the abstract word "probable."
4. _Presumption._
By Presumption I mean an a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent is verified; but, in doing so, we imply no recognition of a general power or faculty, or of any capability or affection of our minds, over and above the particular 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 experience. 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 a.s.sent 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 ourselves. 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 mihi." Our consciousness of self is prior to all questions of trust or a.s.sent. 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 const.i.tution, 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 faculties of memory and reasoning one of our first principles.
2. Next, as to the proposition, that things exist 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 towards individual 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. What the human mind does is what brutes cannot do, viz. to draw from our ever-recurring experiences of its testimony 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 a.s.sent, 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 instinct 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 instinctively interprets these physical phenomena, as tokens of things beyond themselves, so from the sensations attendant upon certain cla.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.trating a general view by examples, I shall take this a.n.a.logy 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 G.o.d 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 perceiving 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 a.s.senting to the fact of a multiform and vast world, material and mental.
However, this a.s.sent is notional, because we generalize a consistent, methodical form of Divine Unity and Personality with Its attributes, from particular experiences 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 a.s.sent may become real of course, as may the a.s.sent to the external world, viz. when we apply our general knowledge to a particular instance of that knowledge, as, according to a former remark, the general "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.