" rule--" nascitur, non fit."" This is the secret of that confidence which we place in those who devote themselves to special arts and become peerless masters in them, according to the ancient saying- Cuique in arte sua credendum est.'

This brief exposition will enable the reader to understand what Dr. Newman means by the Illative Sense, the treatment of which occupies so much of the latter part of his essay. The power of reasoning in all concrete matters, whether of present or of higher moment, is really reckoned by him a special gift. It is a faculty partly of insight and partly of grasp or comprehension, which seizes upon the truth in the departments for which it is specially fitted or has been specially cultivated. It is the quality of this faculty, and nothing else, according to him, which certifies or guarantees an act of inference. Every

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one who reasons is his own centre;' and when the question is put as to the force of an inference and our warrant that 'certitude is rightly elicited,' he has but one answer-The 'sole and final judgment on the validity of an inference in ' concrete matter is committed to a mental faculty, which I have called the Illative Sense; and I own I do not see any 6 way to go farther than this in answer to the question.'

The existence of such a sense or faculty, by whatever name named, all will admit. Nor will any be disposed to deny the great value of it as an instrument in discovering truth, whether in life, science, or religion. Such a faculty of divination has far more frequently penetrated and disclosed the secrets of nature than any formal processes, either of inductive or deductive reasoning; and in religion it is the soul of all genuine thought and comprehension. A Divine without insight and imaginative capacity to grasp the living meaning as well as the formal outline of the truths which he handles, would be a mere theological Dryasdust. But then again, we ask, What is all this to the point? To admit the existence and value of such a faculty, and to exalt it, as Dr. Newman does, into the only ultimate test of truth, are very different things. To maintain that the gift of discerning truth in all matters is largely personal, is well; and it is especially important, in relation to religion, to insist upon such a fact; but to maintain that the chief evidence of truth is also personal-that there is no ultimate test of truth besides the testimony borne to the truth by the mind itself'-is not only false in itself, but is to open the door to all manner of falsehood. It is to cut off men's assents from the broad basis of some common intellectual standard-from the ground of reason on which permanent unities of thought can alone arise-and to commit the course

of truth to the accident of authority. Let us trust to persons rather than to what Dr. Newman calls logical science,'* and the practical result must follow:-the strongest carries the day: majorities necessarily prevail. The voice of Ultramontane passion and prejudice drowns the voice of reason and of faith alike. The plainest truths are disregarded: the most shameless lies may triumph in the face of day.

All Truth is reasonable, and must be finally judged by reasonable considerations. That is to say, the testimony borne by any mind itself to the truth must be a testimony capable of being also felt and borne by other minds, or-to keep ourselves to the case of religious truth-by the higher spiritual sense of men in general. If there are classes, or even races, of men, who may be said to be entirely destitute of spiritual faculty, in other words, of the highest development of our rational nature, they may be put aside in such a case. Or at least the issue must be fought out betwixt what seems a higher and lower expression of our rational nature. But no truth can be committed independently of reason to the arbitration of a mere personal faculty, however richly charged with spiritual insight. The highest genius, even the soundest judgment in any department, is no guarantee of a right conclusion. Strangely enough, it is often the most richly gifted natures that fall into religious delusion and error. Nor yet can Truth be committed to any combination of intelligences acting in concert or council, however they may be endowed. It must be free to elicit all intelligences-to run the gauntlet of all, so to speak and to seek its ultimate test of authority, not merely in the personal sanction of any number of select minds, but in its conformity to the common instincts of truth and reason in all minds.

Nor is this all. Dr. Newman deals with spiritual truth, not in its transcendental realities, but in its propositional character, or as reduced to verbal statement by the Christian intelligence. His special topic is the apprehension of Propositions and the acceptance of Inferences or processes of argument. But what is a Proposition? It is a statement according to his own definition either of fact (Concrete), or of thought (Notional), consisting of a subject and predicate united by a copula. In other words, a proposition may be in single terms, such as- Philip was the father of Alexander;'The earth

He says, candidly enough:- Instead of trusting logical science, we must trust persons, namely those who by long acquaintance with 'their subject have a right to judge.' (P. 334.)

goes round the sun;' or it may be in general or abstract terms, as - Man is an animal,' 'A line is length without 'breadth.' Every argument or inference again, however summary, involves a major and minor premiss and a conclusion. The most concreted and living processes of thought must bear to be stretched on this syllogistic framework. Now, religious propositions and inferences, differing in no respect in their intellectual form from others, must bear to be tested or verified in the same manner. They may be discovered by special vision or inspiration, or deduced by an illative sense of the finest temper and range; but in so far as they claim to be intellectually received, they must be intellectually judged. simplest proposition must be understood, and of course, therefore, is capable of being misunderstood. In other words, it can only be received after rational examination and appre

hension.

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The

Dr. Newman has devoted a special chapter to this very point, which is not the least significant in its hints of the real tendency of his views. Supposing a child, he says, to be told that Lucern is Medicago sativa," the proposition is unintelligible to him. But if he is told that Lucern is food for cattle,' it becomes intelligible. The intelligible predicate explains the subject. So far, good. But, adds Dr. Newman, 'there is a way, in which the child can give an indirect assent even to a proposition in which he understood neither subject nor predicate.' Although the proposition Lucern is Medi'cago sativa' has no meaning to him, and therefore cannot be assented to; he may assent to the following propositionThat lucern is Medicago sativa is true,' because here, again, the predicate is intelligible to him. He apprehends the truth of the proposition on the authority of his teacher or mother, although the proposition itself is inapprehensible. But then the plain answer is-What is the use or value of such an apprehension? Supposing a child to assent to the truth of an inapprehensible proposition, what good is there in his assent? The utmost confidence in our mother's veracity can be no guarantee of the accuracy of her botanical knowledge. And even so, let us believe with all our heart in the veracity of Dr. Newman's ideal mother-the Church-this would be no guarantee to us of her truth, still less of her infallibility. While we trust to her, she may yet be utterly mistaken. We can only know that she is not mistaken in her propositions and deliverances by examining them at first hand and directly for ourselves.

Still more obviously is this true in the case of Inference.

We may have the most perfect confidence in the moral and intellectual judgment of those who set authoritative conclusions before us; but these conclusions can only be true to us in so far as we construe and test them for ourselves. Whether they or we reach them logically, we must verify them logically. Formal reasoning, or logic, may be an inadequate instrument in finding truth; but no reasoning is independent of it, or can stand unless it bear the strain of it. The syllogism may be a poor measure of life and the multiform contents of our concrete knowledge, as a sketch of a man is a mere outline of his likeness; but there is no fulness of intellectual experience can outrun the syllogism, any more than a complete portrait can outrun the formal lines of a proportioned sketch. (P. 281.)

All this becomes transparent when we turn to the application Dr. Newman makes of his principles. And here we refer particularly to his important chapter on Apprehensive Assents in Religious Matters.' The application which he makes in his concluding chapter on Religious Inferences' of his doctrine of the Illative Sense raises far fewer questions, as it is in itself a more beautiful exposition. It is impossible for any Christian thinker to read this chapter without coinciding with much of its argument, and confessing obligation to Dr. Newman for the clear and impressive light in which he places principles of real significance in their bearing both on natural and revealed religion. If the substance of its thought is not original, it has never yet been more happily expressed. There is little in that chapter, therefore, we feel called upon to criticise; but then there is also little, if anything, that can be said to be distinctive of Dr. Newman's thinking, or essentially dependent upon the principles which he lays down. The case is different with the tone and statements of much of his fifth chapter, in which he applies his doctrine of Propositions and of Apprehensive Assent in relation to them. Here he is not content with eliciting from the voice of nature and of conscience a living image of God apprehended by us, not abstractly but concretely as a real Person continually present with us and calling us to account. But he tries to bring within the range of real apprehension the complete Christian idea of God as formulated in the doctrine of the Trinity; and even indirectly, within the same range, the whole sphere of Catholic dogmatic theology. He professes to distinguish between Theology and Religion, and to separate the objects of the one from the other as respectively notional and real; but all the same he confounds them in the most obvious manner, while he hurries the reader forwards through the most singular

maze of subtilties-we might use the stronger expression, sophistries-to the latest developments of the Roman Creed. He loses all sense of discrimination between dogma and fact, and only reaches his final position through the aid of assumptions which, when embraced, supersede all religious knowledge and thought whatever,

A brief explanation must suffice. If we say that God is,' or that God is good,'' true or holy,' the propositions are such as come or may come within our real apprehension. They are the direct expression to us of the voice of conscience. But if we say that God is at the same time One and Three, such a proposition may be perfectly true; but beyond all doubt it is not a proposition to which we can give a direct or real Assent. Dr. Newman admits this. He admits that the doctrine of the Trinity as a systematised whole, or summation of distinct propositions, as in the Nicene Creed, can only be an object of notional Assent. But then he maintains that it may be broken up into separate propositions, and so lodged as a reality in the popular apprehension. Among these separate propositions are the following:- The Son is the One Eternal Personal God.' The Spirit is the One Eternal Personal God.' From the Father is, and ever has been, the Son.' From the Father

and the Son is, and ever has been, the Spirit.' Now-not to urge that the language of these propositions really begs the whole questions involved in the doctrine, and that one of them is an element of controversy to this very day between the Eastern and Western Churches-we may surely ask in what respect are such propositions more apprehensible, as objects of real Assent, than the dogma taken as a whole? Is the Eternal Generation of the Son, or the Procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, any more really apprehensible than the Consubstantiation of the Father and the Son? The words Father' and Son' may suggest images really apprehensible; but how do they help us to apprehend an Eternally-generated Son, or a Father and Son, both One and Eternal? The truth is that Dr. Newman here, as not unfrequently, has allowed his intellectual expertness to play tricks both upon himself and his readers; and we confess that it requires all our respect for him to make us write with patience of the manner in which he treats this subject as well as his lyrical enthusiasm about the Athanasian Creed. We almost feel for the moment that he has placed himself beyond reasonable argument, and the tests whether of logical or historical credibility altogether.

Nor can more be said for his statement in the last section of