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. February 21, 1870. 1. Propositions (consisting of a subject and predicate united by the copula) may take a categorical, conditional, or interrogative form. (1) An interrogative,

In insisting on the intrinsic distinctness of these three modes of putting a proposition, I am not maintaining 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, 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

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,” 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 i

Now apprehension, as I have said, has two subject-matters:—according as language expresses things external 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, a

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 certain acts of assent from certain acts of inference. Thus, whereas no one could possibly confuse the real assent of a Christian to the fact of our Lord's cr

There is one God , such and such in Nature and Attributes. I say “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, Sustainer, and Finisher of all things, the life of Law and Order, the Moral Gover

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 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

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 Cæsar once invaded it, that it has been conquered by successive races, that it has had great political and social changes, and that at 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 drawin

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 w

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 questions (nay, even in abstract, for though the reasoning is 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

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 o

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. 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