An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent Part 6

-- 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology.

It is a familiar charge against the Catholic Church in 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 meeting 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 quotes and comments on the Emperor's letter: "The Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the truth, and chides them both for commencing the question, 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 wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, 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 contention 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.(4)"

Moreover, Taylor is of opinion that "they both did believe One G.o.d, 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 knowledge." 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 pa.s.sed 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, cla.s.s, 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' 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 a.s.sent? such as "Christ is G.o.d;" "This is My Body;" "Baptism gives life to the soul;" "The Saints intercede for us;" "Death, judgment, heaven, h.e.l.l, 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 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 just.i.tia, per quam n.o.bis meruit, justificari, aut per eam ipsam formaliter justos esse, anathema sit;" or "Siquis dixerit justificatum peccare, dum intuitu aeternae mercedis bene operatur, anathema sit." Or again, consider the very anathema 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 a.s.sent. Devotion is excited doubtless by the plain, categorical truths of revelation, such as the articles of the Creed; on these it depends; with these it is satisfied. It accepts them one by one; it is careless about intellectual consistency; it draws from each of them the spiritual nourishment which it was intended 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 exercise 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 a.n.a.lyzes them, whether into first principles really such, or into hypotheses of an ill.u.s.trative 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 characteristic disadvantage of being abstract and notional statements.

Nor is this all: error gives opportunity to many more additions than truth. There is another set of deductions, inevitable also, and also part or not part of the revealed _credenda_, according as we please to view them. If a proposition is true, its contradictory is false. If then a man believes that Christ is G.o.d, he believes also, and that necessarily, that to say He is not G.o.d is false, and that those who so say are in error.

Here then again the prospect opens upon us of a countless mult.i.tude 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 theological science.

Such is theology in contrast to religion; and as follows from the circ.u.mstances 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 repudiations 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 uncontroversial mind; for what have good Christians to do, in the ordinary course of things, with the subtle hallucinations 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 cannot understand, in what sense can the Canons of Councils and other ecclesiastical determinations be included in those _credenda_ which the Church presents to every Catholic as if apprehensible, and to which every Catholic gives his firm interior a.s.sent?

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 G.o.d, she would be bound to use the authority which G.o.d 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 themselves 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 ma.s.ses 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 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 it, 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 profession, nor is it the fact, that the Church imposes dogmatic statements on the interior a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent. 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 understand, at least he can believe to be true; and he believes it to be true because he believes in the Church.

The _rationale_ of this provision for unlearned devotion 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 mult.i.tude of propositions is included 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 G.o.d, 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 prospect 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.

And so, in like manner, of the whole _depositum_ 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 truthful, 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 Revelation, 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 portions 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 prospective belief is called a believing _implicite_; and it follows from this, that, granting that the Canons of Councils and the other ecclesiastical doc.u.ments and confessions, 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 virtually contained in the revealed word," for this is the 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 interpretation 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 a.s.sent, including all particular a.s.sents, 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, according to his intellectual capacity, supplements the shortcomings of his knowledge without blunting his real a.s.sent to what is elementary, and takes upon himself from the first the whole truth of revelation, progressing from one apprehension of it to another according to his opportunities of doing so.

PART II. a.s.sENT AND INFERENCE.

Chapter VI. a.s.sent Considered As Unconditional.

I have now said as much as need be said about the relation of a.s.sent to Apprehension, and shall turn to the consideration of the relation existing between a.s.sent and Inference.

As apprehension is a concomitant, so inference is ordinarily the antecedent of a.s.sent;-on this surely I need not enlarge;-but neither apprehension nor inference interferes with the unconditional character of the a.s.sent, viewed in itself. The circ.u.mstances of an act, however necessary to it, do not enter into the act; a.s.sent is in its nature absolute and unconditional, though it cannot be given except under certain conditions.

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 a.s.sent; 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 "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 a.s.sent to a proposition, which act is unconditional; next, of the act of inference, which goes before the a.s.sent 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.

-- 1. Simple a.s.sent.

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 for 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 a.s.sent, and that, as the reasons for a proposition are strong or weak, so is the a.s.sent. It follows from this that absolute a.s.sent 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 conclusion which we draw is the measure of our a.s.sent to that conclusion. Thus a.s.sent 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 regarding a.s.sent in its relation to inference. It condemns an unconditional a.s.sent in concrete matters on what may be called the nature of the case. a.s.sent cannot rise higher than its source; inference in such matters is at best conditional, therefore a.s.sent is conditional also.

Abstract argument is always dangerous, and this instance is no exception to the rule; 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent, still the absurdity lies in the circ.u.mstances of each particular case, as it is taken by itself, not in their common violation of the pretentious axiom that probable reasoning can never lead to cert.i.tude.

Locke's remarks on the subject are an ill.u.s.tration of what I have been saying. This celebrated writer, after the manner of his school, speaks freely of degrees of a.s.sent, and considers that the strength of a.s.sent given to each proposition varies with the strength of the inference on which the a.s.sent 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 mankind is too strong for the antecedent theorem, to which he is desirous to subject it.

First he says, in his chapter "On Probability," "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 _a.s.sent_ to them _as firmly_, and act according to that a.s.sent 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 "a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent," 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, "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 a.s.surance._" Here again, "probabilities" may be so strong as to "govern our thoughts as absolutely" as sheer demonstration, so strong that belief, grounded on them, "rises to a.s.surance," that is, cert.i.tude.

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 pa.s.sage which follows in his chapter on "Enthusiasm," he is aiming at superst.i.tious extravagances which I should repudiate 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 n.o.body, in the commonwealth 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 a.s.surance than the proofs it is built on will warrant_. Whoever goes beyond this measure of a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent he affords it _beyond the degrees of that_ evidence, it is plain _all that surplusage of a.s.surance_ 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 a.s.sent above the evidence_ there is to me that it is true, as that the love of truth should make me a.s.sent 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.(5)"

Here he says that it is not only illogical, but immoral to "carry our _a.s.sent above_ the _evidence_ that a proposition is true," to have "a surplusage of _a.s.surance 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 a.s.surance beyond the degrees of evidence" when in the case of those strong probabilities, we permit "our belief, thus grounded, to rise to a.s.surance," as he p.r.o.nounces we are rational in doing? Of course he had in view one set of instances, when he implied that demonstration was the condition of absolute a.s.sent, and another set when he said that it was no such condition; but he surely cannot be acquitted of slovenly thinking in thus treating a cardinal subject. A philosopher should so antic.i.p.ate 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 denounce, 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 a.s.sent, which to me seems theoretical and unreal. Reasonings and convictions which I deem natural and legitimate, he apparently would call irrational, enthusiastic, 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. Instead of going by the testimony of psychological facts, and thereby determining our const.i.tutive faculties and our proper condition, and being content with the mind as G.o.d 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 immoral, if (so to speak) they take to the water, instead of remaining under the narrow wings of his own arbitrary theory.

1. Now the first question which this theory leads me to consider is, whether there is such an act of the mind as a.s.sent 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 recessary and immediate repet.i.tion of another act, if a.s.sent is a sort of reproduction and double of an act of inference, if when inference determines that a proposition is somewhat, or not a little, or a good deal, or very like truth, a.s.sent 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 of subtle minds, and the sooner it is got out of the way the better. When I a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent and in inference, I merely drop the thought of the premisses when I a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent forsooth as to do nothing else than infer. Then, I say, if this be really the state of the case, if a.s.sent 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 recognition, though distinct from an act of knowledge, is after all only its repet.i.tion. 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 repet.i.tion 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 a.s.sent 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 repet.i.tion, as I am sure it is not, supposing the word "a.s.sent" does hold a necessary 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent.

(1.) First, we know from experience that a.s.sents 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 enriched by a great mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sents, and they const.i.tute, as it were, the clothing and furniture of the mind. I have already spoken of them under the head of "Credence" and "Opinion." Sometimes we are fully conscious of them; sometimes they are implicit, or only now and then come directly before our reflective faculty. Still they are a.s.sents; and, when we first admitted them, we had some kind of reason, slight or strong, recognized or not, for doing so. However, 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 a.s.sent, any how we received the matters in question into our minds as true, and gave them a place there. We a.s.sented to them, and we still a.s.sent, 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 a.s.sent stands out as distinct from inference.

(2.) Again; sometimes a.s.sent fails, while the reasons for it and the inferential act which is the recognition of those reasons, are still present, and in force. Our reasons may seem to us as strong as ever, yet they do not secure our a.s.sent. 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 a.s.sent had become an a.s.sertion. 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 reasonings; or some misgiving that the subject-matter of them was beyond the reach of the human mind; or a consciousness that we had gained a broader view of things in general than when we first gave our a.s.sent; or that there were strong objections to our first convictions, 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 out of our condition, age, company, occupations, fortunes, are at the bottom.

However, what once was a.s.sent is gone; yet the perception of the old arguments remains, showing that inference is one thing, and a.s.sent another.

(3.) And as a.s.sent sometimes dies out without tangible 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 the law of our mental const.i.tution, obedience is quite distinct from faith, and men may believe without practising, so is a.s.sent also independent of our acts of inference. Again, prejudice hinders a.s.sent 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 a.s.sents.

(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 conclusion at which they point. But why is it that we do not a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent to it at all, until we can a.s.sent to it altogether. The proof is capable of growth; but the a.s.sent either exists or does not exist.

(5.) I have already alluded to the influence of moral motives in hindering a.s.sent to conclusions which are logically unimpeachable. According to the couplet,-

"A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still;"-

a.s.sent then is not the same as inference.