speculation, and absolutely binds conduct | wise comprehends questions of conduct, in matter of practice. Such being the scope of the subject, and such the dangers to which it stands related, let us now proceed to its examination. which may be said to form a class apart, both from truths and from events: whereas the definition here given turns simply upon the preponderance of chances for the truth or falsehood of a proposition. How shall we broaden that definition? First we have to inquire, what is probability? Probability may be predicated The answer is that truths, events past whenever, in answer to the question and future, and questions of conduct, may whether a particular proposition be true, all be accurately reduced into the form of the affirmative chances predominate over propositions true or false, by the use of the negative, yet not so as (virtually) to their respective symbols: for the first, the exclude doubt. And, on the other hand, symbol is; for the second, has been or improbability may be predicated, whenever will be; and for the third, ought to be. In the negative chances predominate over the one or other of these forms, every conaffirmative, but subject to the same reser-ceivable proposition can be tried in respect vation that doubt be not precluded. For, to its probability. if doubt be precluded, then certainty, affirmatively or negatively, as the case may be, must be predicated. In mathematical language, certainly, affirmative or negative is the limit of probability on the one side, and of improbability on the other, as the circle is of the ellipse.* It is necessary also to observe upon an ambiguity in the use of the term probable. It has been defined in the sense in which it is opposed to the term improbable; but, in a discussion on the character of probable evidence, probable and improbable propositions are alike included. When, for this purpose, we are asked what does probability designate, the answer is, that which may or may not be. We have no word exclusively appropriated to this use. In the Greek, Aristotle conveniently designates it rò évdexóμevov üλλws exεiv, as opposed to rò údúvarov üλλws exeiv. Sometimes this is called contingent, as distinguished from necessary, matter; and safely so called, if it be always borne in mind that we are dealing with propositions, with certain instruments supplied by human language, and adapted to our thoughts, but not with things as they are in themselves; that the same thing may be subjectively contingent and objectively certain, as, for example, the question whether such a person as Homer has existed: which to us is a subject of probable inquiry, but in itself is manifestly of necessary matter, whether the proposition be true or false. again, in speaking of future events, to call them contingent in any sense except with regard to the propositions in which we discuss them, is no less an error; because, whether upon the Christian or the neces sitarian So, hypothesis, future events are manifestly certain and not contingent; it remaining as a separate question whether they are so fixed by necessity or as the offspring of free volition. It may be enough, then, for the present to observe that the "probable evidence" of Bishop Butler reaches over the whole sphere, of which it is common to speak as that of contingent matter; and that the element of uncertainty involved in the phrase concerns not the things themselves that are in question, but only the imperfection of the present means of conveying them to us. To the view of the Most High God, who knows all things, there is no probability and no contingency, but "all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him, with whom we have to do." In his case, and in every case of knowledge properly and strictly so called, the existence of the thing known is perceived without the intervention of any medium of proof. But evidence is, according to our use of the term, essentially intermediate; something apart both from the percipient and the thing perceived, and serving to substantiate to the former, in one degree or another, the existence of the latter. Thus we speak of the evidence of the senses, meaning those impressions upon our bodily organs which are made by objects visible, audible, and the like. These respectively make, as it were, their assertions to us; which we cross-examine by reflection, and by comparison of the several testimonies affecting the same object. And, with regard to things incorporeal, in the sphere of the probable, it seems that, in like manner, the impressions they produce upon our mental faculties, acting without the agency of sense, are also strictly in the nature of evidence, of presumption more or less near to demonstration, concerning the reality of what they represent, but subject to a similar process of verification and correction. The whole notion, therefore, of evidence seems to belong essentially to a being of limited powers. For no evidence can prove anything except what exists, and all that exists may be the object of direct perception. The necessity of reaching our end through the circuitous process implies our want of power to go straight to the mark. And it further appears that the same idea implies not only the limitation of range in the powers of the being who makes use of evidence, but likewise their imperfection even in the processes which they are competent to perform. The assurance possessed by such a being cannot be of the highest order, which the laws of the spiritual creation, so far as they are known to us, would admit. However truly it may be adequate, and even abundant, to sustain his mind in any particular conviction, it must be inferior to science in its proper signification, that of simple or absolute knowledge, which is the certain and exact, and also conscious coincidence of the intuitive faculty with its proper object. For it is scarcely conceivable that any accumu lation of proofs, each in itself short of demonstration, and therefore including materials of unequal degrees of solidity, should, when put together, form a whole absolutely and entirely equivalent to the single homogeneous act of pure knowledge. The same conclusion, that imperfection pervades all our mental processes, at which we have arrived by a consideration of their nature, we may also draw from the nature of the faculties by which they are conducted. For there is no one faculty of any living man of which, speaking in the sense of pure and rigid abstraction, we are entitled to say that it is infallible in any one of its acts. And no combination of fallibles can, speaking always in the same strictness, make up an infallible; however by their independent coincidence they may approximate towards it, and may pro duce a result which is for us indistinguishable from, and practically, therefore, equivalent to, it. Certainly that, which is fallible, does not therefore always err. It may, in any given case, perform its duty perfectly, and as though it were infallible. The fallibility of our faculties therefore may not prevent our having knowledge that in itself is absolute. But it prevents our separating what may be had with such knowledge from what we grasp with a hold less firm. In any survey, or classification, of what we have perceived, or concluded, since the faculty which discriminates is fallible, the reservations, which its imperfection requires, must attach to the results we attain by it. So that, although we might have this knowledge, if we consider knowledge simply as the exact coincidence of the percipient faculty with its proper object, we could not make ourselves conscious of the real rank of that knowledge in a given case; we could not know what things they are that we thus know, nor consequently could we argue from them as known. Since, then, nothing can be known except what exists, nor known otherwise than in the exact manner in which it exists, knowledge, in its scientific sense, can only be predicated-first, of perceptions which are absolutely and exactly true, and secondly, by a mind which in the same reflection that no one of our convictions or perceptions, can in strictness be declared to possess the character of scientific knowledge. Because, if such be the case, we cannot rebut this consequence: that, even if a demonstration intrinsically perfect were presented to us, the possibility of error would still exist in the one link remaining; namely, that subjective process of our faculties by which it has to be appropriated. This (so to speak) primordial element of uncertainty never could be eliminated, except by the gift of inerrability to the individual mind. But such a gift would amount to a fundamental change in the laws of our nature. And again, such a change would obviously dislocate the entire conditions of the inquiry before us, which appears to turn upon the credibility of revealed religion as it is illustrated by its suitableness to what? not to an imaginable and unrealized, but to the actual, experienced condition of things. To the conclusion that scientific knowledge can never be consciously entertained by the individual mind, it is no answer, nor any valid objection, to urge that such a doctrine unsettles the only secure foundation on which we can build, destroys mental repose, and threatens confusion. For, even if a great and grievous fault in the condition of the world were thus to be exposed, we are not concerned here with the question whether our state is one o. abstract excellence, but simply with the facts of it such as they are. We cannot enter into the question whether it is abstractedly best that our faculties should be liable to error. That is one of the original conditions, under which we live. No objection can be drawn from it to an argument in favor of revelation, unless it can be shown either, first, that, on account of liability to error, they become practically useless for the business of inquiring, or else, secondly, that the materials to be examined in the case of revelation are not so fairly cognizable by them as the materials of other examinations, which, by the common judgment and practice of mankind, they are found to be competent to conduct and determine. It is desirable that we should fully realize this truth, in order that we may appreciate the breadth and solidity of the ground on which Bishop Butler has founded his doctrine of probable evidence. We ought to perceive that, observing his characteristic caution, he has kept within limits narrower than the ground which the laws of the human mind, viewed through a medium purely abstract, would have allowed him to occupy. His habit was to encamp near to the region of practice in all his philosophical inquiries; to appease, and thus to reclaim, the contemptuous infidelity of his age. A rigid statement of the whole case concerning our knowledge would probably have startled those whom he sought to attract, and have given them a pretext for retreating, at the very threshold, from the inquiry to which he invited them. Considerations of this kind are, indeed, applicable very generally to the form, in which Bishop Butler has propounded his profound truths for popular acceptation. But it is manifest that, if he even understated the case with regard to probable evidence, his argument is corroborated by taking into view all that residue of it, which he did not directly put into requisition. He was engaged in an endeavor to show to those, who demanded an absolute certainty in the proofs of religion, that this demand was unreasonable; But the state of things around us amply and the method he pursued in this demon- shows that this want of scientific cerstration was, to point out to them how tainty is in point of fact no reproach to much of their own daily conduct was pal- our condition, no practical defect in it. pably and rightly founded upon evidence Rather, it is a law, which associates harless than certain. The unreasonableness moniously with the remainder of its laws. of such a demand becomes still more glar- The nature of our intelligence, it is eviing in the eyes of persons not under ad- dent, makes no demand for such assurverse prepossession, when we find by lance; because we are not capable of only that of the stoical "perception." In the words of the academical philosophy, "Nihil est enim aliud, quamobrem nihil percipi mihi posse videatur, nisi quod percipiendi vis ita definitur a stoicis, ut receiving it. Nay, we cannot so much as arrive at the notion of it, without an effort of abstraction. Our moral condition appears still less to crave anything of the kind. If we allow that sin is in the world (no matter, for the purpose of this argu-negint quidquam posse percipi, nisi tale ment, how it came there), and that we are verum, quale falsum esse non possit.” * placed under the dominion of a moral But certainty of an order so high, as to governor who seeks by discipline to im- make doubt plainly irrational, applies to prove his creatures, it is not difficult to various classes of our ideas. give reasons in support of the proposition This is the region of the EπIOTηTÒV of that intellectual inerrability is not suited Aristotle,† and the faculties employed in to such a state. One such reason we may it are chiefly, according to him, vous for find in the recollection that the moral principles, Orhun for inferences from training of an inferior by a superior either them. It has been defined as the region essentially involves, or at the least suita- of the Vernunft in the modern German bly admits of, the element of trust. Now philosophy, as the reason by Coleridge. the region of probable evidence is that It seems to be largely recognized by the which gives to such an element the freest most famous schools of the ancients. It scope; because trust in another serves to contains both simple ideas, and demonsupply, within due limits, the shortcom- strations from them. It embraces moral, ings of direct argumentative proof; and as well as other metaphysical, entities. It when such proof is ample, but at the same had no place in the philosophy of Locke. time deals with materials which we are As regards the distinction of faculty benot morally advanced enough to appre- tween reason and understanding, Vernunft ciate, trust (as in the case of a child be- and Verstand, I am not inculcating an fore its parents) fulfils for us a function, opinion of my own, but simply stating one which could not otherwise be discharged which is widely current. at all. I must not, however, attempt to discuss, at any rate on the present occasion, the subject, a wide and deep subject, of the shares, and mutual relations of intellectual and moral forces in the work of attaining truth. The lower department is that in which doubt has its proper place, and in which the work of the understanding is to compare and to distinguish; to elicit approximations to unity from a multitude of particulars, and to certainty from a combination and equipoise of presumptions. Passing on, then, from the subject of It is taken to be the province of all those scientific certainty, let us observe that the faculties, or habits, of which Aristotle region next below this, to which all the treats under the several designations of propositions entertained in the human φρόνησις, τέχνη, εὐβουλία, σύνεσις, γνώμη, and mind belong, is divided principally into others; § of the Verstand of the Gertwo parts. The higher of these is that mans, of the understanding according to of what is commonly called necessary Coleridge. It embraces multitudes of matter: and certainty would, in its ordi- questions of speculation, and almost all nary sense, be predicated of all that lies questions of practice. Of speculation: as, within its range. That is to say, cer- for example, what are the due definitions tainty with a relation to our nature: a of cases in which verbal untruth may be a certainty subjectively not defective: a cer- duty, or in which it is right to appropriate tainty which fixes our perceptions, conclu- a neighbor's goods. Of practice, because sions, or convictions, in such a frame as every question of practice is embedded in to render them immovable: a certainty details: if, for example, we admit that it is not merely which is unattended with doubt, right to give alms, we have to decide but which excludes doubt, which leaves whether the object is good, and whether no available room for its being specula- we can afford the sum. Because, even tively entertained, which makes it on the where the principles are ever so absolute, whole irrational. With this certainty we simple, and unconditioned, they can rarely hold that bodies fall by the force of grav-be followed to conclusions, either in theory ity; that air is rarefied at great altitudes; or practice, without taking into view many that the limit of human age established by particulars, with various natures, and vari all modern experience is not very greatly beyond a century; that the filial relation entails a duty of obedience. The certainty repudiated in the antecedent argument is Cic. De Fin. v. 26. Eth. Nicom. b. vi. 4, 5, 9, 10, II. 0 0 ous degrees, of evidence. This is the The highest works achieved in it are those, in which the combinations it requires are so rapid and so perfect, that they are seen, like a wheel in very rapid revolution, as undivided wholes, not as assemblages of parts; in a word that they resemble the objects of intuition. Towards this, at the one end of the scale, there may be indefinite approximation: and below these, there are innumerable descending degrees of evidence, down to that in which the presumption of truth in any given proposition is so faint as to be scarcely perceptible. From what has now been said, it is manifest that the province of probable evidence, thus marked off, is a very wide one. But, in fact, it is still wider than it appears to be. For many truths, which are the objects of intuition to a well-cultivated mind of extended scope, are by no means such to one of an inferior order, or of a less advanced discipline. By such, they can only be reached through circuitous processes of a discursive nature, if at all. In point of fact there appear to be many, who have scarcely any clear intuitions, any perceptions of truths as absolute, self-dependent, and unchanging. If so, then not only all the detailed or concrete questions of life and practice, to which the idea of duty is immediately applicable, for all minds, but likewise the entire operations of some minds, are situated in the region of probable evidence. There is, thirdly, a kind of mental assent, to which also in common speech, but yet less properly, the name of knowledge is frequently applied. It is generically inferior to knowledge, but approaches and even touches it at points where the evidence on which it rests is in its highest degrees of force: descending below this to that point of the scale at which positive and negative presumptions are of equal weight and the mind is neutral. There is a possibility that the very same subjectmatter which at one time lies, for a particular person, in the lower of these regions, may at another time reside in the higher. The mode in which the understanding performs its work is by bringing together things that are like, and by separating things that are unlike. To this belong its various processes of induction and discourse, of abstraction and generalization, and the rest. Therefore Bishop Butler teaches that the chief element of proba bility is that which is expressed "in the word likely, i.e. like some truth or true event." The form of assent, which belongs to the result of these processes, may properly be termed belief. It is bounded, so to speak, by knowledge on the one hand where it becomes not only plenary, so as to exclude doubt, but absolute and selfdependent, so as not to rest upon any support extrinsic to the object. It is similarly bounded on the other side by mere opinion; where the matter is very disputable, the presumptions faint and few, The tastes of many, and the understand-or the impression received by a slight proings of some, will suggest that this qualified mode of statement is disparaging to the dignity of conclusions belonging to religion and to duty. But let not the suggestion be hastily entertained. It is in this field that moral elements most largely enter into the reasonings of men, and the discussion of their legitimate place in such reasonings has already been waived. For the present let it suffice to bear in mind that there is no limit to the strength of working, as distinguished from abstract certainty, to which probable evidence may not lead us along its gently ascending paths. There is, therefore, a kind of knowledge of which we are incapable: namely, that which necessarily implies the existence of an exactly corresponding object. There is a kind of knowledge, less properly so called, which makes doubt irrational, and which may often be predicated in a particular case, whether it be by an act of intuition, or by a process of demonstration. cess and (as it were) at haphazard, without an examination proportioned to the nature of the object and of the faculties concerned. Of course no reference is here made to the case in which, by a modest or lax form of common speech, opinion is used as synonymous with judgment. Opinion, as it has now been introduced, corresponds with the dóga of the Greeks: and approaches to the signification in which it is used by St. Augustine, who, after commending those who know, and those who rightly inquire, proceeds to say, "Tria sunt alia hominum genera, profecto improbanda ac detestanda. Unum est opinantium; id est eorum, qui se arbitrantur scire quod nesciunt."* It may indeed, or may not, be convenient to attach † the name of belief to such judgments as are formed where some living or moral agent, and his qualities, enter *S. Aug. De Utilitate Credendi, c. xi. † With Bishop Pearson. On the Creed, Art. I., sect. I. |