CHAPTER VIII.

THEORIES OF CERTITUDE AND SKEPTICISM.

WE formerly adverted to the distinction between Dogmatic and Skeptical Atheism; and, believing that the latter is the form in which it is most prevalent, as well as most insidious and plausible, we now propose to review some recent theories both of Certitude and Skepticism, which have sometimes been applied to throw doubt on the evidence of Christian Theism.

The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in the French Institute announced in 1843 the theory of Certitude as the subject of a Prize Essay, and issued the following programme as a guide to the competitors in the selection of the principal topics of discussion:

"1. To determine the character of Certitude, and what distinguishes it from everything else. For example, Is Certitude the same with the highest probability?

"2. What is the faculty, or what are the faculties, which give us Certitude? If several faculties of knowledge are supposed to exist, to state with precision the differences between them.

"3. Of Truth and its foundations. Is truth the reality itself, -the nature of things falling under the knowledge of man?or is it nothing but an appearance, a conception, necessary or arbitrary, of the human mind?

“4. To expound and discuss the most celebrated opinions, ancient and modern, on the problem of Certitude, and to follow

them out into their theoretical and practical consequences. To subject to a critical and profound examination the great monuments of Skepticism, — the writings of Sextus, Huet, Hume, and Kant.

"5. To inquire what are, in spite of the assaults of Skepticism, the certain truths which ought to subsist in the Philosophy of our times."

Such was the comprehensive programme of the French Institute; and many circumstances concurred at the time to impart a peculiar interest to the competition. M. Franck's volume1 contains the Report of the Section of Philosophy on the papers which had been prepared, and offers a careful analysis and critical estimate of their contents. Various other works2 not concerned in the competition appeared before and after it, showing how much the philosophical mind of France had been occupied with this great theme, while in Britain it was attracting little or no attention.

This is the most recent discussion, on a great scale, of the theory of Certitude. But the question, far from being a new or modern speculation, is as old as Philosophy itself, and has been perpetually reproduced in every age of intellectual activity. Plato discusses it, chiefly in the Theætetus, Sophist, and Parmenides; it was agitated by Pyrrho, Enesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus, with that peculiar subtlety which belonged to the mind of Greece; and in more recent times it has reappeared in the writings of Montaigne and Bayle, Huet and Pascal, Glanville, Hume, and Kant. Even during the middle

1 M. A. FRANCK, "Rapport," Paris, 1847. M. A. JAVARY, “Ouvrage Couronné par l'Institut," 1847.

2 M. ED. MERCIER, "De la Certitude, dans ses Rapports avec la Science et la Foi," 1844. M. A. VERA, "Problème de la Certitude," 1845. ABBÉ GERBET, "Des Doctrines Philosophiques sur la Certitude, dans leur Rapports avec les Fondemens de la Theologie." ABBÉ DE LAMENNAIS, “Du Fondement de la Certitude," 1826. Vols. 11. and III. of the "Essai sur l'Indifference en Matiére de la Religion." 4 vols., 1844.

age, the controversy between the Nominalists and Realists had an important bearing on this subject: so that from the whole history of Philosophy we derive the impression of its fundamental importance, an impression which is deepened and confirmed by the transcendent interest of the themes to which it has been applied.

In our present argument, we are concerned with it only so far as it stands connected with the foundations of Theology, or as the right or wrong solution of the general question might affect the evidence for the Being and Perfections of God. We do no propose, therefore, to offer a full exposition of the philosophy of Certitude, still less to institute a detailed examination of the various theories which have been propounded respecting it. It will be sufficient for our purpose if we merely sketch a comprehensive outline of the subject, and select some of the more prominent points which have the most direct bearing on the grounds of our religious belief. Thus much may be accomplished by considering, first, the statement of the problem, and, secondly, the solution of it.

In regard to the statement of the problem, it is necessary, in the first instance, to ascertain its precise import, by determining the meaning of the term Certitude. The programme of the Academy very properly places this question on the foreground, Is Certitude the same with the highest probability? And it is the more necessary to give precedence to this part of the inquiry, because it is notorious that there is a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of Certitude, a difference which has often occasioned mutual misunderstanding between disputants, and a profitless warfare of words. In the philosophical sense of the term, that only is said to be certain which is either an axiomatic truth, intuitively discerned, or a demonstrated truth, derived from the former by rigorous deduction; while all that part of our knowledge which is gathered from experience and observation, however credible

in itself and however surely believed, is characterized as probable only. In the popular sense of the term, Certitude belongs to all those truths, of whatever kind and in whatever way acquired, in regard to which we have no reason to be in doubt or suspense, and which rest on sufficient and satisfactory evidence. A philosopher is certain, in his sense of the term, only of what he intuitively perceives or can logically demonstrate; a peasant is certain, in his sense of the term, of whatever he distinctly sees, or clearly remembers, or receives on authentic testimony. There is much reason, we think, to regret the existence of such a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of an expression, which must occur so often both in speculative discussion and in the intercourse of common life. It may be doubted whether the metaphysician is entitled to borrow the language of society, and to engraft upon it an arbitrary definition of his own, different from and even inconsistent with that which it bears in common usage. Nor can he plead necessity as a sufficient excuse, or the accuracy of his definition as an effectual safeguard, since, however needful it may be to discriminate between different species of Certitude, by marking their peculiar characteristics and respective sources, surely this might be done more safely and satisfactorily by designating one kind of it as Intuitive, another as Demonstrative, another as Moral, or Experimental, or Historical, than it can be by any arbitrary restriction of the generic term to one or two of the many species which are comprehended under it. No doubt there is a real distinction, and one of great practical importance, between certitude and probability; but this distinction is not overlooked in the language of common life; it is only necessary to determine what truths belong respectively to each: whereas when all the truths of Experience, and even, in some cases, those of scientific Induction, are ranked under the head of probability merely, is it not evident

that the language of Philosophy is in this respect at variance with the prevailing sense of mankind?

An attempt has sometimes been made to draw a distinction between popular and philosophical Certitude, or, in other words, between the unreflecting belief of the many and the scientific belief of the few. Thus, M. Franck distinguishes Certitude, first of all, from the blind faith which commences with the earliest dawn of intelligence: then, from the doubt which supervenes on the initial process of inquiry; and then, from that half-knowledge, that middle term between doubt and certainty, which is called probability. And M. Javari speaks of Certitude "as the complete demonstration, acquired by reflection, of the legitimacy of any judgment, or of the reality of any object: this is definitive and scientific certitude, which is contrasted with that belief, however strong, which springs, not from the reflective, but the direct and spontaneous exercise of our faculties."1 It must be evident that, according to this definition of the term, Certitude, in the scientific sense of it, as the product of philosophical reflection, must be the privilege and prerogative of the few, who have been led by taste or education to cultivate the study of Psychology; while the vast majority of men, who are nevertheless as certain of the truths which they believe, and, to say the very least, as little liable to doubt or skepticism, as any class of philosophers whatever, must be held to have no Certitude, just because they have no Science. It seems to be assumed that Certitude is the creation of Science, the product of reflective thought; whereas it may be demonstrably shown that without Certitude, Science would be impossible, and that reflection can give forth nothing but what it finds previously existing in the storehouse of human consciousness. It surveys the streams of belief, and may trace up these streams to their highest springs; but it does not, it cannot, create a new

1 M. FRANCK, p. 237. M. JAVARI, p. 28.