Our beneficent Creator has so formed our minds and our bodies that, in their natural, healthy state, our perceptions correspond with the reality of things uniformly, while, as before stated, our belief or faith also thus corresponds.
It is very rarely the case that disease or other causes prevent this uniform correct perception and belief in regard to all things that come within the reach of our own senses.
It is only in regard to that knowledge that we gain from the experience and testimony of others, or from the process of reasoning, that we become liable to a false belief.
Men often impart their conceptions of things to us, and we find that they do not correspond with realities.
We also, by a process of reasoning, often come to conceptions of things, and a belief in them, which we find to be false.
Evidence may be defined as all those causes which tend to produce correct ideas of truth or the reality of things.
Inasmuch as we find by experience that human testimony and the process of reasoning do not uniformly conduct us to right conceptions of realities, we find that there are different degrees of belief according to the nature of the evidence presented.
The highest kind of evidence is intuitive knowledge, which is a uniform result of the constitution of mind and its inevitable circumstances. This is called intuitive knowledge or intuitive belief.
All other evidence is gained by experience or by reasoning. The experience of other minds we gain by testimony. This is called the evidence of testimony.
Belief differs in degrees according to the nature and amount of evidence perceived. The highest kind of evidence produces what is called certainty. It is the kind which is felt in reference to the intuitive truths. There are all degrees of faith, from the highest certainty to entire incredulity or unbelief.