CHAPTER IV.

THE EXTENT, TESTS, AND POWER OF OUR NATIVE BELIEFS

THE above are some of the principal-I will not venture to say that they are the whole-of our native beliefs. As they grow upon our native cognitions, so they attach themselves to our primitive judgments, in most of which there is more or less of the faithelement, that is, belief in the existence of an object not directly known. There is belief, for instance, involved in the judgment that this effect has a cause, which cause may be unknown. There is belief, too, exercised in certain of our moral judgments, as when we believe in the integrity of a good man, or trust in the word of God, even when His providence seems in opposition. But these are topics which fall to be discussed specially in subsequent books.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that faith is an affection of mind, not limited to our primary convictions. Faith collects round our observational knowledge, and even around the conclusions reached, by inference. We believe the course of nature being unchanged by its Author-that the seed cast into the ground in spring will yield a return in autumn, that the sun will rise tomorrow as he has done to-day, and that the planet Saturn a year hence will be found in the very place calculated for us by the astronomer. We exercise faith, every one of us, in listening to the testimony of credible witnesses, and faith is in one of its liveliest forms when it becomes trust in the ability, the excellence, and the love of a fellow-creature. Our highest faiths are those in which there is a mixture of the observational and intuitional elements,

the observational supplying the object, and the intuitional imparting to them a profundity and a power as resting on an immovable foundation and going out into the vast and unbounded. In particular, when God has been revealed, faith ever clusters round Him as its appropriate object.

There are canons whereby to try the trustworthiness of our beliefs. First, so far as our intuitive beliefs are concerned, there are the general tests of intuition. Take our belief in the infinite. We have to ask, Is the truth believed in self-evident, or does it lean on something else? Is it necessary? Can we believe that space and time and the Being dwelling in them have limits? Is it universal, that is, do men ever practically believe that they can come to the verge of time and space? Such queries as these will settle for us at once what beliefs are original and fundamental. We should put these questions to every belief that may suggest itself to our own minds. We are entitled to put them to every faith which may be pressed on us by others. Then, secondly, as to our derivative or observational beliefs, there are the ordinary rules of evidence, as enunciated in works of special or applied logic, or as stated in books on the particular departments of knowledge, or, more frequently, as caught up by common experience, and incorporated into the good sense of mankind. In no such case are wo to believe without proof being supplied, and we are entitled and required to examine the evidence. Thirdly, as to mixed cases in which our faith proceeds partly on intuition, and partly on observation, our business is carefully to separate the two, and to judge each by its appropriate tests. In the use of such rules as these, while led to yield to the faith sanctioned by our rational nature, we shall at the same time be saved from those extravagant credences which are recommended to us by unauthorized authority, by mysticism which has confused itself, by superstition, by bigotry, by fanaticism, by pride, or by passion.

Looked at under one aspect, belief might be considered as so far a weakness cleaving to man, for where he has faith, other and higher beings may have immediate knowledge. But when contemplated under other aspects, it is an element of vast strength. In heaven, much of what faith is here, will be brightened into sight,

but even in heaven faith abideth. Our faiths widen indefinitely the sphere of our convictions, they surround our solid cognitions with an atmosphere in which it is bracing and exhilarating to walk, which no doubt has its mists and clouds, but has also a kindling and irradiating capacity, and may be warmed into the fervour, and reflect the very light of heaven in a thousand varied colours. He who would tear off from the mind its proper beliefs, would in the very act be shearing it of one of its principal glories.

What a power even in our earthly faiths, as when men sow in the assurance that they shall reap after a long season, and labour in the confidence of a reward at a far distance! What an efficacy in the trust which the child reposes in the parent, which the scholar puts in his master, which the soldier places in his general, and which the lover commits to the person beloved! These are among the chief potencies which have been moving mankind to good, or, alas! to evil. As it walks steadfastly on it discovers an outlet where sense thought that the path was shut in and closed. Difficulties give way as it advances, and impossibilities to prudence speedily become accomplishments before the might and energy of faith. To it we owe the greatest achievements which mankind have effected in art, in travel, in conquest; setting out in search of the unseen, they have made it seen and palpable. It was thus that Columbus persevered till the long hoped-for country burst on his view,-- it is always thus that men discover new lands and new worlds outside those previously known.

But faith has ever a tendency to go out with strong pinions into infinity, which it feels to be its proper element. It has a telescopic power, whereby it looks on vast and remote objects, and beholds them as near and at hand. There is a constancy in its course and a steadiness in its progress, because its eye is fixed on a pole-star far above our earth. How lofty its mien as it moves on, looking upward and onward, and not downward and backward, with an eye kindled by the brilliancy of the object at which it looks! Hence its power, a power drawn from the attraction of the world above. No element in all nature so potent. The lightning cannot move with the same velocity; light does not travel so quick from the sun to the earth, as faith does from earth to heaven. It heaves

up, as by an irresistible hydrostatic pressure, the load which would press on the bosom. It glows like the heat, it burns like the fire, and obstacles are consumed before its devouring progress. Persecution coming like the wind to extinguish it, only fans it into a brighter flame.

The proper object of faith is, after all, the Divine Being. Time and space and infinity seem empty and dead and cold, till faith fills them with the Divine presence, quickens them with the Divine life, and warms them with the Divine love. When thus grounded, how stable! firmer than sense can ever be, for the objects at which it looks are more abiding. "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal." When thus fixed, the soul is at rest, as secure in Him to whom it adheres. When thus directed, all its acts, even the meanest, become noble, being sanctified by the Divine end which they contemplate. All doubts are now decided on the right side by eternity being cast into the scale. When thus associated, its might is irresistible. It carries with it, and this according to the measure of it, the power of God. It is, no doubt, weak in that it leans, but it is strong in that it leans on the arm of the Omnidotent. It is a creature impotency which makes us lay hold of the Creator's power.

BOOK III.

PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THEIR GENERAL NATURE, AND A CLASSIFICATION OF THEM.

THE mind of man has a set of Simple Cognitive-called by Sir William Hamilton Presentative-Powers, such as Sense-Perception and Self-Consciousness, by which it knows objects before it. From these we obtain our Primitive Cognitions. It has also a set of Reproductive Powers, such as the Memory and the Imagination, by which it recalls the past in old forms or in new dispositions. Out of them arise many of our Faiths, as in the existence of objects which have fallen under our notice in time past, and in an infinity surpassing our utmost powers of imagination. But the mind has also a Power of Comparison by which it perceives Relations and forms Judgments.

Our Primitive Judgments are formed from our Primitive Cognitions and Primitive Beliefs. On comparing two or more objects known or believed in,' or, we may add, imagined, we discover that they bear a necessary relation to each other. The necessity of the re

A judgment is usually defined as a comparison of two notions. Upon which Mr. J. S. Mill remarks, that "propositions (except where the mind itself is the subject treated of) are not assertions respecting our ideas of things, but assertions respecting things themselves," adding, "My belief has not reference to the ideas, it has reference to the things" (Logic, 1. v. 1). There is force in the criticism, yet it does not give the exact truth. In propositions about extra-mental objects, we are not comparing the two notions as states of mind; so far as logicians have proceeded on this view, they have fallen into confusion and error. But still, while it is true that our predications are made, not in regard to our notions, but of things, it is in regard to things apprehended, or of which we have a notion, as Mr. Mill admits: "In order to believe that gold is yellow, I must indeed have the idea of gold and the idea of yellow, and something having reference to those ideas must take place in my mind."

(208)