• [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent by

    John Henry Newman

     

     

     

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no

    restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under

    the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or

    online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license

     

     

     

    Title: An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent

     

    Author: John Henry Newman

     

    Release Date: October 1, 2010 [Ebook #34022]

     

    Language: English

     

    Character set encoding: UTF‐8

     

     

    ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT***

     

     

     

     

     

                                     An Essay

     

                                    In Aid Of

     

                               A Grammar Of Assent.

     

                                        by

     

                                John Henry Newman,

     

                                 Of the Oratory.

     

           Non in dialecticà complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum.

     

                                   ST. AMBROSE.

     

                                     London:

     

                               Burns, Oates, & Co.

     

                17 & 18, Portman Street, and 63, Paternoster Row.

     

                                       1874

     

     

     

     

     

    CONTENTS

     

     

    Dedication.

    Part I. Assent And Apprehension.

       Chapter I. Modes Of Holding And Apprehending Propositions.

          § 1. Modes of Holding Propositions.

          § 2. Modes of apprehending Propositions.

       Chapter II. Assent Considered As Apprehensive.

       Chapter III. The Apprehension Of Propositions.

       Chapter IV. Notional And Real Assent.

          § 1. Notional Assents.

          § 2. Real Assents.

          § 3. Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.

       Chapter V. Apprehension And Assent In The Matter Of Religion.

          § 1. Belief in One God.

          § 2. Belief in the Holy Trinity.

          § 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology.

    Part II. Assent And Inference.

       Chapter VI. Assent Considered As Unconditional.

          § 1. Simple Assent.

          § 2. Complex Assent.

       Chapter VII. Certitude.

          § 1. Assent and Certitude Contrasted.

          § 2. Indefectibility of Certitude.

       Chapter VIII. Inference.

          § 1. Formal Inference.

          § 2. Informal Inference.

          § 3. Natural Inference.

       Chapter IX. The Illative Sense.

          § 1. The Sanction of the Illative Sense.

          § 2. The Nature of the Illative Sense.

          § 3. The Range of the Illative Sense.

       Chapter X. Inference And Assent In The Matter Of Religion.

          § 1. Natural Religion.

          § 2. Revealed Religion.

    Note.

    Footnotes

     

     

     

     

     

     

    DEDICATION.

     

     

    To

     

    Edward Bellasis,

     

    Serjeant At Law,

     

    In Remembrance

     

    Of A Long, Equable, Sunny Friendship;

     

    In Gratitude

     

    For Continual Kindnesses Shown To Me,

     

    For An Unwearied Zeal In My Behalf,

     

    For A Trust In Me Which Has Never Wavered,

     

    And A Prompt, Effectual Succour And Support

     

    In Times Of Special Trial,

     

    From His Affectionate

     

    J. H. N.

     

    _February 21, 1870._

     

     

     

     

     

    PART I. ASSENT AND APPREHENSION.

     

     

     

     

    Chapter I. Modes Of Holding And Apprehending Propositions.

     

     

     

    § 1. Modes of Holding Propositions.

     

     

    1. Propositions (consisting of a subject and predicate united by the

    copula) may take a categorical, conditional, or interrogative form.

     

    (1) An interrogative, when they ask a Question, (e. g. Does Free-trade

    benefit the poorer classes?) and imply the possibility of an affirmative

    or negative resolution of it.

     

    (2) A conditional, when they express a Conclusion (e. g. Free-trade

    therefore benefits the poorer classes), and both imply, and imply their

    dependence on, other propositions.

     

    (3) A categorical, when they simply make an Assertion (e. g. Free-trade

    does benefit), and imply the absence of any condition or reservation of

    any kind, looking neither before nor behind, as resting in themselves and

    being intrinsically complete.

     

    These three modes of shaping a proposition, distinct as they are from each

    other, follow each other in natural sequence. A proposition, which starts

    with being a Question, may become a Conclusion, and then be changed into

    an Assertion; but it has of course ceased to be a question, so far forth

    as it has become a conclusion, and has rid itself of its argumentative

    form—that is, has ceased to be a conclusion,—so far forth as it has become

    an assertion. A question has not yet got so far as to be a conclusion,

    though it is the necessary preliminary of a conclusion; and an assertion

    has got beyond being a mere conclusion, though it is the natural issue of

    a conclusion. Their correlation is the measure of their distinction one

    from another.

     

    No one is likely to deny that a question is distinct both from a

    conclusion and from an assertion; and an assertion will be found to be

    equally distinct from a conclusion. For, if we rest our affirmation on

    arguments, this shows that we are not asserting; and, when we assert, we

    do not argue. An assertion is as distinct from a conclusion, as a word of

    command is from a persuasion or recommendation. Command and assertion, as

    such, both of them, in their different ways, dispense with, discard,

    ignore, antecedents of any kind, though antecedents may have been a _sine

    quâ non_ condition of their being elicited. They both carry with them the

    pretension of being personal acts.

     

    In insisting on the intrinsic distinctness of these three modes of putting

    a proposition, I am not maintaining that they may not co-exist as regards

    one and the same subject. For what we have already concluded, we may, if

    we will, make a question of; and what we are asserting, we may of course

    conclude over again. We may assert, to one man, and conclude to another,

    and ask of a third; still, when we assert, we do not conclude, and, when

    we assert or conclude, we do not question.

     

    2. The internal act of holding propositions is for the most part analogous

    to the external act of enunciating them; as there are three ways of

    enunciating, so are there three ways of holding them, each corresponding

    to each. These three mental acts are Doubt, Inference, and Assent. A

    question is the expression of a doubt; a conclusion is the expression of

    an act of inference; and an assertion is the expression of an act of

    assent. To doubt, for instance, is not to see one’s way to hold that

    Free-trade is or that it is not a benefit; to infer, is to hold on

    sufficient grounds that Free-trade may, must, or should be a benefit; to

    assent to the proposition, is to hold that Free-trade is a benefit.

     

    Moreover, propositions, while they are the material of these three

    enunciations, are the objects of the three corresponding mental acts; and

    as without a proposition, there cannot be a question, conclusion, or

    assertion, so without a proposition there is nothing to doubt about,

    nothing to infer, nothing to assent to. Mental acts of whatever kind

    presuppose their objects.

     

    And, since the three enunciations are distinct from each other, therefore

    the three mental acts also, Doubt, Inference, and Assent, are, with

    reference to one and the same proposition, distinct from each other; else,

    why should their several enunciations be distinct? And indeed it is very

    evident, that, so far forth as we infer, we do not doubt, and that, when

    we assent, we are not inferring, and, when we doubt, we cannot assent.

     

    And in fact, these three modes of entertaining propositions,—doubting

    them, inferring them, assenting to them, are so distinct in their action,

    that, when they are severally carried out into the intellectual habits of

    an individual, they become the principles and notes of three distinct

    states or characters of mind. For instance, in the case of Revealed

    Religion, according as one or other of these is paramount within him, a

    man is a sceptic as regards it; or a philosopher, thinking it more or less

    probable considered as a conclusion of reason; or he has an unhesitating

    faith in it, and is recognized as a believer. If he simply disbelieves, or

    dissents, he is assenting to the contradictory of the thesis, viz. that

    there is no Revelation.

     

    Many minds of course there are, which are not under the predominant

    influence of any one of the three. Thus men are to be found of

    irreflective, impulsive, unsettled, or again of acute minds, who do not

    know what they believe and what they do not, and who may be by turns

    sceptics, inquirers, or believers; who doubt, assent, infer, and doubt

    again, according to the circumstances of the season. Nay further, in all

    minds there is a certain coexistence of these distinct acts; that is, of

    two of them, for we can at once infer and assent, though we cannot at once

    either assent or infer and also doubt. Indeed, in a multitude of cases we

    infer truths, or apparent truths, before, and while, and after we assent

    to them.

     

    Lastly, it cannot be denied that these three acts are all natural to the

    mind; I mean, that, in exercising them, we are not violating the laws of

    our nature, as if they were in themselves an extravagance or weakness, but

    are acting according to it, according to its legitimate constitution.

    Undoubtedly, it is possible, it is common, in the particular case, to err

    in the exercise of Doubt, of Inference, and of Assent; that is, we may be

    withholding a judgment about propositions on which we have the means of

    coming to some definitive conclusion; or we may be assenting to

    propositions which we ought to receive only on the credit of their

    premisses, or again to keep ourselves in suspense about; but such errors

    of the individual belong to the individual, not to his nature, and cannot

    avail to forfeit for him his natural right, under proper circumstances, to

    doubt, or to infer, or to assent. We do but fulfil our nature in doubting,

    inferring, and assenting; and our duty is, not to abstain from the

    exercise of any function of our nature, but to do what is in itself right

    rightly.

     

    3. So far in general:—in this Essay I treat of propositions only in their

    bearing upon concrete matter, and I am mainly concerned with Assent; with

    Inference, in its relation to Assent, and only such inference as is not

    demonstration; with Doubt hardly at all. I dismiss Doubt with one

    observation. I have here spoken of it simply as a suspense of mind, in

    which sense of the word, to have “no doubt” about a thesis is equivalent

    to one or other of the two remaining acts, either to inferring it or else

    assenting to it. However, the word is often taken to mean the deliberate

    recognition of a thesis as being uncertain; in this sense Doubt is nothing

    else than an assent, viz. an assent to a proposition at variance with the

    thesis, as I have already noticed in the case of Disbelief.

     

    Confining myself to the subject of Assent and Inference, I observe two

    points of contrast between them.

     

    The first I have already noted. Assent is unconditional; else, it is not

    really represented by assertion. Inference is conditional, because a

    conclusion at least implies the assumption of premisses, and still more,

    because in concrete matter, on which I am engaged, demonstration is

    impossible.

     

    The second has regard to the apprehension necessary for holding a

    proposition. We cannot assent to a proposition, without some intelligent

    apprehension of it; whereas we need not understand it at all in order to

    infer it. We cannot give our assent to the proposition that “x is z,” till

    we are told something about one or other of the terms; but we can infer,

    if “x is y, and y is z, that x is z,” whether we know the meaning of x and

    z or no.

     

    These points of contrast and their results will come before us in due

    course: here, for a time leaving the consideration of the modes of holding

    propositions, I proceed to inquire into what is to be understood by

    apprehending them.

     

     

     

    § 2. Modes of apprehending Propositions.

     

     

    By our apprehension of propositions I mean our imposition of a sense on

    the terms of which they are composed. Now what do the terms of a

    proposition, the subject and predicate, stand for? Sometimes they stand

    for certain ideas existing in our own minds, and for nothing outside of

    them; sometimes for things simply external to us, brought home to us

    through the experiences and informations we have of them. All things in

    the exterior world are unit and individual, and are nothing else; but the

    mind not only contemplates those unit realities, as they exist, but has

    the gift, by an act of creation, of bringing before it abstractions and

    generalizations, which have no existence, no counterpart, out of it.

     

    Now there are propositions, in which one or both of the terms are common

    nouns, as standing for what is abstract, general, and non-existing, such

    as “Man is an animal, some men are learned, an Apostle is a creation of

    Christianity, a line is length without breadth, to err is human, to

    forgive divine.” These I shall call notional propositions, and the

    apprehension with which we infer or assent to them, notional.

     

    And there are other propositions, which are composed of singular nouns,

    and of which the terms stand for things external to us, unit and

    individual, as “Philip was the father of Alexander,” “the earth goes round

    the sun,” “the Apostles first preached to the Jews;” and these I shall

    call real propositions, and their apprehension real.

     

    There are then two apprehensions or interpretations to which propositions

    may be subjected, notional and real.

     

    Next I observe, that the same proposition may admit of both of these

    interpretations at once, having a notional sense as used by one man, and a

    real as used by another. Thus a schoolboy may perfectly apprehend, and

    construe with spirit, the poet’s words, “Dum Capitolium scandet cum tacitâ

    Virgine Pontifex;” he has seen steep hills, flights of steps, and

    processions; he knows what enforced silence is; also he knows all about

    the Pontifex Maximus, and the Vestal Virgins; he has an abstract hold upon

    every word of the description, yet without the words therefore bringing

    before him at all the living image which they would light up in the mind

    of a contemporary of the poet, who had seen the fact described, or of a

    modern historian who had duly informed himself in the religious phenomena,

    and by meditation had realized the Roman ceremonial, of the age of

    Augustus. Again, “Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori,” is a mere

    common-place, a terse expression of abstractions in the mind of the poet

    himself, if Philippi is to be the index of his patriotism, whereas it

    would be the record of experiences, a sovereign dogma, a grand aspiration,

    inflaming the imagination, piercing the heart, of a Wallace or a Tell.

     

    As the multitude of common nouns have originally been singular, it is not

    surprising that many of them should so remain still in the apprehension of

    particular individuals. In the proposition “Sugar is sweet,” the predicate

    is a common noun as used by those who have compared sugar in their

    thoughts with honey or glycerine; but it may be the only distinctively

    sweet thing in the experience of a child, and may be used by him as a noun

    singular. The first time that he tastes sugar, if his nurse says, “Sugar

    is sweet” in a notional sense, meaning by sugar, lump-sugar, powdered,

    brown, and candied, and by sweet, a specific flavour or scent which is

    found in many articles of food and many flowers, he may answer in a real

    sense, and in an individual proposition “Sugar is sweet,” meaning “this

    sugar is this sweet thing.”

     

    Thirdly, in the same mind and at the same time, the same proposition may

    express both what is notional and what is real. When a lecturer in

    mechanics or chemistry shows to his class by experiment some physical

    fact, he and his hearers at once enunciate it as an individual thing

    before their eyes, and also as generalized by their minds into a law of

    nature. When Virgil says, “Varium et mutabile semper fœmina,” he both sets

    before his readers what he means to be a general truth, and at the same

    time applies it individually to the instance of Dido. He expresses at once

    a notion and a fact.

     

    Of these two modes of apprehending propositions, notional and real, real

    is the stronger; I mean by stronger the more vivid and forcible. It is so

    to be accounted for the very reason that it is concerned with what is

    either real or taken for real; f...

    [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • wzory-tatuazy.htw.pl