the particular case possess it in the highest degree, so that it should have all the certainty of knowledge; just as we can readily conceive two stations, the one at the head of a pillar, and the other at the head of a stair, yet the two of equal altitude.

33. Now, the fundamental proposition on which we rest, and for the proof of which we appeal, without fear of a disputed reply, to the universal practice of mankind, is this: that the whole system of our moral conduct, and much also of our conduct that is not directly moral, rests upon belief as contradistinguished from knowledge, and not always upon belief in the very highest degree which utterly extinguishes doubt, but in every diversity of degree so long as any appreciable portion of comparative likelihood remains, although many of these degrees may be hampered with very considerable doubt as they actually subsist in the mind, and many more cases would be open to serious doubts if they were subjected to speculative examination. And further, that this, which is indisputable in point of fact, is not less irrefragable in point of reason; and that any other rule for the guidance of human life would be not irreligious, but irrational in the extreme. We take first a case of the highest practical certainty. How do we know that the persons who purport to be our parents, brothers and sisters, really are what they pass for ? It is manifest that the positive evidence producible in each case often falls far short of a demonstrative character; nay more, it is perfectly well known that in many cases these relations have been pretended where they did not exist, and the delusion has been long or even permanently maintained. And yet every man carries in his mind a conviction upon the subject, as it regards himself, utterly exclusive of doubt

And those who should raise doubts upon it, in consequence of the want of mathematical certainty, would be deemed fitter for Bedlam than for the pursuit of philosophical inquiries. Here then is an absolute contradiction, supplied by that universal conviction and practice of mankind, from whence by a legitimate induction we infer the true laws of our nature, to the theorems of Mr. Blanco White, or perhaps rather to his grand inference from them, namely, that the demand made upon men for the reception of Christianity is greater than can be warranted by the reasons, on which it purports to rest.

34. But again, there are numberless instances in which a very great practical uncertainty prevails, and yet where we must act just as we should if there were no doubt at all. A man with many children will prepare them all for after-life, though probably one or more will die before attaining maturity. A tells B that his house is on fire; A may have motives for deceiving him, but B, if he be a rational man, quits the most interesting occupation, and goes to see. But there is no end to the multiplication of instances; let any man examine his own daily experience, and he will find that its whole tissue is made up of them; or, in the words of that "inferior" work of Bishop Butler, "to us probability is the very guide of life." Mr. Blanco White might indeed have received very useful lessons on this subject from an ingenious and really philosophical brochure of Archbishop Whately's, entitled 'Historic Doubts concerning the Existence of Napoleon Buonaparte;' in which he shows how open to abstract objections are the

p. 4.

Introduction to the Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion,'

grounds upon which, as individuals, we receive undoubtingly facts even of common notoriety.

35. Now it will not be enough for the opponent to retort that probability will do for small matters, but that in great ones, and especially in what regards the salvation of the soul, we must have demonstration. For the law of credibility, upon which our common and indeed universal practice is founded, has no more dependence upon the magnitude of the objects to which it is applied than have the numbers of the arithmetical scale, which, with exactly the same propriety, embrace motes and mountains. It is not the greatness or minuteness of the proposition, but the balance between likelihood and unlikelihood, which we have to regard whenever we are called to determine upon assent or rejection. It is true, indeed, that when the matter is very small, the evil of acting against probability will be small also. But this shows that, in a

practical view, the obligation of the law becomes not less but more stringent, as the rank of the subject in question rises; because the best and most rational method of avoiding a very great evil, or of realising a very great good, has a higher degree of claim upon our consideration and acceptance, in proportion to the degree of greatness 'belonging to the object in view.

36. But, next, is Mr. Blanco White correct in saying that the Christianity of Churches demands from all its disciples, at all stages of their progress, an absolute and mathematical conviction? Where did he learn so severe a theology? Hooker* has shown in his sermon on the certainty and perpetuity of faith in the elect, of which the doctrine is by no means lax, that true faith does not imply the

*Works, iii. p. 585, ed. Keble, 1836.

exclusion of all doubt whatever. He even says, speaking of revealed truths, "of them at some time who doubteth not?" Bishop Pearson defines Christian belief to be an assent to that which is credible, as credible. But clearly, much that is on the whole credible is open to a degree of doubt; although it could not be credible, unless the doubt were outweighed, upon a comparison, by the evidences in its favour. What, again, is the meaning of "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief ?" There is in such a case a conflict within the mind; it is divided, though unequally divided. This, however, is the exception, not the rule. In general we do not imagine that even the nascent belief of Christians is seriously troubled with substantive doubts; but it clearly has not, and cannot have, nor have the great majority of our most rational acts in common life, a foundation in that philosophical completeness of conviction, which is de jure an essential condition of permanent and absolute freedom from doubt. But in point of fact, the formation of this mature belief, the mode of dealing with temptation when it arises in the form of doubt, is a high portion of the discipline of the soul; all that we need here lay down is this: to hold that an absolute intellectual certainty belongs of necessity to the reception of Christianity, is a proposition altogether

erroneous.

37. We shall note one other and gross error, as it appears to us, in this part of the philosophy of Mr. Blanco White. The stages of mental assent and dissent are almost innumerable; but the alternatives of action proposed by the Catholic faith are two only. There is a narrow way and other of these every man,

a broad one; in the one or the according to its testimony, must walk. It will not do to say, I see this difficulty about the Christian theory,

so I cannot adopt it; and that difficulty about the AntiChristian theory, so I cannot embrace that; I will wait and attach myself to neither. Could our whole being, except the sheer intellect, be laid in abeyance, such a notion would at least be intelligible; but in the meantime, life and its acts proceed:

"E mangia, e bee, e dorme, e veste panni:"

*

and not only as to these functions, but also our moral habits are in the course of formation or destruction; character receives its bias; there are appetites to be governed, powers to be employed; and these matters cannot be wholly, nor at all, adjourned. The discharge of the daily duties of our position must (more or less perfectly) be adapted beyond question either to the supposition that we have a Creator and a Redeemer, or to the supposition that we have not. There is no intermediate verdict of "not proven," which leaves the question open: the question to us is, Is there such proof as to demand obedience? and there eutro are no possible replies in act, whatever there may be in word, except aye and no. The lines of conduct are but two; and our liberty is limited to the choice between them.

38. Here it is, therefore, that we perceive the stringent obligation of the law of credibility, as applied to the belief of Christianity, upon man. On a subject purely abstract, or not entailing moral responsibilities, upon the generation of the present structure of the world by fire or water, upon the theory of vibrations in optics, upon the system of Copernicus or of Descartes, we might have taken refuge in a philosophical suspense, while the evidence fell short of demonstration; and even after the proof has been com

*Inferno,' xxxiii. 141.

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