ART. II.-FAITH AND REASON.

THE relations of Faith to Reason are so complicated and so delicate, that to present a complete view of the nature and offices of the two faculties would be matter for an extended work; the aim of the present paper, therefore, is merely to sketch the outline map of a theory on the subject which shall serve to guide the traveler's course over this difficult ground, and we hope to speak not entirely in vain unless we shall fail entirely in this attempt.

At the outset we shall avoid half the confusion we are liable to fall into if we understand precisely what meaning we attach to the terms we use; it is of less consequence to be philologically accurate in the signification we intend, than it is to know clearly ourselves what signification we intend. Faith, then, we will define generally as a persuasion of the truth of anything asserted to the mind, independently of any evidence for it, and even in some cases in spite of the mind's inability to comprehend it. Reason, as the word is popularly understood, is the process which establishes the truth of a proposition by showing its necessary consequence upon another proposition previously ascertained to be true. At first sight it appears that the results of the one process must be far less certain than those of the other; that the former can only be matter of opinion, while the latter are matter of knowledge. But this is a superficial view; for retrace the reasoning process to its beginning, and it is plain that the first proposition, by near or remote connection with which all the others are proved to be true, has not itself been established by this process. The structure of demonstration rests upon that which has not been demonstrated, and consequently demonstration cannot be the source of certainty. To refuse certainty to what cannot be demonstrated is thus to strike away the foundation of demonstration itself. Herbert Spencer "All knowledge is relative because all explanation i. e., says: the reducing of a cognition to a more general-must eventually bring us down to the inexplicable." But if, as he maintains, the inexplicable is the unknowable, the proper conclusion is rather that no knowledge is possible than that all knowledge is relative. If all knowledge is relative, the knowledge of this fact is also relative, and it does not appear how such a relative knowledge, based on that which cannot be known, can be properly called knowledge at

all. But let us turn round this statement that "all explanation will bring us down to the inexplicable,” and look at its other side: (1) If to explain a notion is to reduce it to a more general one, the alternate inexplicable is the alternate genus, i. e., the universal; (2) but the more general the more simple (as Logic has it, the greater the Extension, the less the Comprehension), and the alternate genus is the purely simple; (3) but the simpler the more clearly known, therefore the purely simple (or inexplicable) is the perfectly clearly known. Hence Intuition or Contemplation (German, Anschauung) is the primordial faculty, and the source of our knowledge. The mind recognizes Truth because it is constituted to do so; and to say that human ignorance and error are evidence of its natural incapacity, is much like saying that feebleness of sight is an effect of being blind from one's birth.

But although there may be nothing magical in demonstration, and although we admit that the source of certainty for both Reason and Faith is nothing but the spontaneous activity of the mind, yet do not the results of these two mental processes differ widely in certainty? To comprehend is surely a different thing from believing. Will not Faith, which accepts less evidence than reason demands, or even none at all, go astray much the sooner? We answer, not necessarily. For we must remember that to reason correctly is not an easy thing, but a very difficult thing; reasoning, even for masters of the art, is by no means a perfectly sure process; that which one man seems to establish conclusively, another will show to be fallacious. Again, if Faith is satisfied with less evidence than Reason, it is on this account, that it is mainly influenced by antecedent presumptions; so that Faith seems to approach nearly to a rapid and condensed mode of reasoning—a reasoning enthymematically, or from suppressed premises. Now when our prepossessions are groundless, our assumptions invalid, our notions mistaken, our faith may properly be called irrational, and will probably lead us into error; but when all these are unexceptionable, then we are justified in believing upon slender evidence. Here the language and conduct of the Apostles throw light upon our way. Faith, as the word is used by the New Testament writers, signifies chiefly a certain moral temper of mind; a submission or quiescence of the reasoning faculty, and an inclination, even an eagerness to believe. This was the regeneration of heart the spiritual new birth. And this was the starting-point. Until this religious spirit had mani

fested itself the hearer of the word had not taken the first step towards conversion. The Apostle might labor to inspire or evoke it, but in doing so he looked upon himself as a mere instrument; Faith was a gift of the "natural man beheld not the things grace of the Spirit of God." A painful sense of sin, a feeling of helplessness, a yearning towards an infinite Father and Friend, a glow of humility, reverence, and love—such things as these made up the change of heart in which Faith had its being. A very little, therefore, was sufficient to admit one into the company of the faithful. He was not required to believe, he was expressly required to "have Faith to believe." That earnest cry, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief," was an exact expression of Faith in the Gospel sense. We may discriminate then between Faith and Belief. The essence of Faith is not to believe, but earnestly to wish and strive to believe. The latter springs from the former as the plant springs from the germ. There is already a certain rational activity in Faith, for with the laying down of arms by the reasoning faculty is combined a reaching forth toward Truth an endeavor to apprehend; but Belief is entirely a rational activity; it is the apprehension which Faith aspires to it is conviction. It may be more or less well-grounded, it may be utterly erroneous, but it is never anything else than the simplest exercise of Reason, taking that word now in its extended use as signifying the intellectual principle of our nature. The essential in Belief is not its truth or falsity, but its sincerity. To be properly a belief it must be a free personal conviction, not an opinion adopted from others; it must be possessed, not merely embraced. This distinguishes it from superstition, a standing upon a platform of doctrine, a hanging up of one's belief on the peg of authority, a saying we believe without caring that such an assertion is in fact empty and unmeaning. It shows strikingly how extremes meet, to find nearly the same language in the mouths of infidels who arrogate the name of rationalists, and in the mouth of so unquestionably a devout and earnest Christian as the late F. W. Robertson. The one refuse to believe what cannot be comprehended; the other says that that cannot be belief which does not understand what it asserts. With the former this language comes from contempt of Faith; with the latter from insistance upon the importance of a Faith more real and living than he saw about him. There is indeed too much tendency to rest in a conventional dogmatism. How shall lip-service of the head be more acceptable

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than lip-service of the heart? Piety is incumbent upon the intellect as well as upon the affections. My duty towards God is to believe in Him," says our Catechism, putting this duty before those of reverence and love. Now the earnestness with which we believe may be our safeguard against error. If Belief is a serious thing for us, if it is the work of our own minds, it will be guided by the love of Truth which is natural to our minds, and we shall not easily be blown about by every vain wind of doctrine.

We should distinguish two kinds of Belief; one which springs from the individual bias of our minds, from past education and habits of feeling. This is to some degree voluntary; it is called confidence; in excess, credulity, and its absence, suspicion or distrust. It has to deal with probabilities, and since it is the very nature of probabilities to have no definite ascertained value, what are such to each individual depends upon his individual cast of mind. The other kind of Belief is one which is common to the human mind, which depends upon its nature and constitution, and which the will cannot affect. It deals with realities, and it simply recognizes them. Neither activity has any affinity to Reasoning, which works to the comprehension of relations, nor is the subjectmatter of either akin to that of reasoning. Probabilities have no necessary connection, hence they cannot be reasoned about and reduced to certainty; while self-evident truths are self-related, and thus are unsusceptible of demonstration because they go back of reasoning, and form its postulates and data.

This second kind of Belief, which we spoke of above as Intuition, we may call Knowledge, if we agree that it is a perception of Truth. To argue this point thoroughly would be to enter into a refutation of the profound Kantian skepticism. We can only say here that such a refutation is possible and in substance already exists in the later German philosophy — and pass on to some considerations that may satisfy the ordinary view. That Intuition is a perception of Truth appears from the fact that the individuality in no way intermeddles with it. The expression "individual reason," which appears in the declamations of some upholders of authority, is a blundering one; there is nothing less individual than reason. Individuality is the freedom in us; the will is free to move the muscular system, it is not free to change a mathematical conception. Not only does the human mind believe, e. g., in what it calls Duty, but it cannot help believing so. A man may disobey and

blunt his conscience, but, till he ceases to be a man, he cannot bring himself to believe in the indifference of right and wrong. If the primary conceptions of reason were individual in character, if they were opinions, and not truths we should not impose them, as now we do, upon others; we should not call those insane who differ with us as to mathematical axioms, or the distinction between right and wrong. Thus reason appears to be something absolute, to be the law of all individuals. Convictions so universal, so positive, so invariable, seem to require nothing beside themselves to guarantee their certainty; and at all events it is plain, that if there is no certainty here, at the fountain-head of the mind's being, there is none anywhere for man. Readers of Cousin will remember how eloquently he enlarges upon the character and the sphere of the intuitional reason. Intuition, he says, is necessarily free from any doubt, because it is anterior to reflection; it does not belong to us, it comes of itself; it is an activity, no doubt, but not a personal activity. He calls it inspiration, considers it equivalent to a revelation of truth, and as such the ground of natural religion. "In the infancy of civilization he who possesses the gift of inspiration in a higher degree than his fellows, passes for the confidant and interpreter of God, and in fact he is so in a profoundly philosophic sense; hence the origin of prophecies and priesthoods. Again when man, hurried away by the rapid and vivid perception of truth, tries to express in words what passes within him, he can only do so in phrase as elevated as the ideas he seeks to convey. The natural language of inspiration is Poetry. Mankind does not begin with prose, but with Poetry, because it begins not with reflection but with intuition; not with Science but with Faith.". . . . “No man thinks but puts faith in his thought, and if he has Faith in his thought he puts Faith in the principle of thought, and this principle, whether he know it or not, is God. Every serious conviction rests on a hidden Faith in thought, in reason, in God. Every utterance is an act of Faith; every primitive conception a religious movement of the soul. Search the earliest records of a language, and you will find nothing anterior to hymns and litanies. The state of mind before reflection comes is a state of innocence, the golden age of thought." Inspiration, quickened and exalted, becomes Enthusiasm, whose etymology, beòs ev uv, shows it to be the source of whatever is most noble in human action. What we call Genius, also, is a spontaneous activity akin to Faith, though rather