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 volume[233] 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 works[234] 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 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 not 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."[235] 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 truth, or give birth to a higher certitude. We have no disposition, assuredly, to underrate the value of philosophical reflection, or to disparage the science of Psychology; the former may collect the materials and the latter may attempt the construction, of a goodly and solid fabric: but we cannot admit that the certainty of all our knowledge depends upon either of them, or that it is confined exclusively to the metaphysical inquirer. Reflection adds nothing to the contents of human consciousness: it examines our fundamental beliefs, but originates none of them; it discerns the elements and sources of certainty, but can neither produce nor alter them. Its sole province is to examine and report. If Certitude, in the philosophical sense of it, belongs to the reflex, Certainty, in the popular sense, belongs to the direct and spontaneous, operations of the human mind. We see and believe, we remember and believe, we compare and believe, we hear and believe, and that, too, with a feeling of confidence which needs no argument to confirm it, and to which all the philosophy in the world could impart no additional strength. Certitude is not the creation of Philosophy, but the object of its study; it exists independently of Science, and is only recognized by it; and it would still exist as a constituent and indestructible element of human consciousness were Metaphysics scattered to the wind.
It appears, again, to have been assumed in some recent treatises, that Certitude belongs only to that portion of truth the denial of which would imply a contradiction, or amount to the annihilation of reason. Is it, then, to be restricted to necessary and absolute, as contrasted with contingent and relative truths? Am I not as certain that I see four objects before me, as that two and two make four? Yet the former is a contingent, the latter a necessary truth. Is not my personal consciousness infallibly certain? And yet can it be said to belong to the head of necessary truth? Surely Certitude is unduly restricted when we exclude from it many of our surest and strongest convictions, which relate to truths attested by experience, but the denial of which would involve no contradiction.
The question has been still further complicated by extreme opinions of another kind. It seems to have been assumed that there can be no Certitude, unless we can explain the rationale of our knowledge, and even account for the objects of our knowledge by tracing them up to their First Cause, as the ground and reason of their existence.[236] Now, if the question were, Can you account for your own existence, or for the existence of the world around you, without having recourse to a supreme First Cause? we would answer, No: but if the question be, Can there be any Certitude prior to the idea of God, not deduced from it, and capable of existing without it? we would answer, Yes: the little child is certain of its mother's existence before it is capable of knowing God, and the veriest Atheist is certain of his own existence and that of his fellow-men, even when he professes to doubt or to disbelieve the existence of God. It may be true that the essential nature and omniscient knowledge of God is the ultimate and eternal standard of truth and certainty, or, in the words of Fenelon, that "il n'y a qu'une seule verité, et qu'une seule manière de bien juger, qui est, de juger comme Dieu même;"[237] and yet it may not be true that all our knowledge is derived by deduction from our idea of God, or that its entire certainty is dependent on our religious belief. Surely we may be certainly assured of the facts of consciousness, of the phenomena of Nature, and of many truths, both necessary and contingent, before we have made any attempt to explain the rationale of our knowledge, or to connect it with the idea of the great First Cause; nay, it may be, and we believe it is, by means of these inferior and subordinate truths that we rise to the belief of a supreme, omniscient Mind.
Some writers seem to confound Certitude with Infallibility, or at least to hold that there can be no Certitude without it. The impersonal reason of Cousin, the common sense or generic reason of Lamennais, and the authoritative tradition of the Church, have all been severally resorted to, for the purpose of obtaining a ground of Certitude in the matters both of Philosophy and Faith, such as is supposed to be unattainable by the exercise of our own proper faculties, or by the most careful study of evidence. According to these theories, Certitude belongs to our knowledge, only because that knowledge is derived from a reason superior to our own,—a reason not personal, but universal; not individual, but generic. When they are applied, as they have been, to undermine the authority of private judgment, and to supersede the exercise of free inquiry; when they are urged as a reason why we should defer to the authority of the Race in matters of Philosophy and to the authority of the Church in matters of Faith; when we are told that the certainty of our own existence depends on our knowledge of God, and that our knowledge of God depends on the common consent or invariable traditions of mankind,—we do feel that the grounds of Certitude, so far from being strengthened, are sapped and weakened by such speculations, and that we have here a new and most unexpected application of the Scottish doctrine of Common Sense, such as may be highly serviceable to the Church of Rome. Protestant writers, indeed, have sometimes appealed to common consent as a collateral proof, auxiliary to that which is more direct and conclusive; but they have done so merely because they regarded it as a part of the evidence, well fitted to prove what Dr. Cudworth calls "the naturality of the idea of God," and not because they confounded it with the faculty by which alone that evidence can be discerned and appreciated. They never regarded it as the sole ground of certainty either in matters of Philosophy or Faith. Nor can it be so considered by any thoughtful mind. For how can I be more assured of an impersonal reason than of my own? How can I be more certain of the existence and the traditions of other men, than of the facts of my own consciousness, and the spontaneous convictions of my own understanding? or how can I be assured that, in passing from the impersonal reason to the individual mind, from the generic reason to the personal, the truth may not contract some taint of weakness or impurity from the vessel in which it is ultimately contained,—from the finite faculties by which alone it is apprehended and believed?
The fact is that any attempt to prove the truth of our faculties must necessarily fail. Did we set ourselves to the task of proving by argument or by authority that we are not wrong in believing in our own existence or that of an external world, or did we attempt to establish the trustworthiness of our faculties by resolving it into the veracity of God, our effort must needs be as abortive as it is superfluous, since it involves the necessity not only of proving the fact, but of proving the proof itself, and that, too, by the aid of the very faculties whose trustworthiness is in question! There are certain ultimate facts beyond which it is impossible to push our speculative inquiries; certain first or fundamental principles of Reason, which are in themselves indemonstrable, but which constitute the ground or condition of all demonstration; certain intuitive perceptions, which are widely different from rational deductions, but which determine and govern every process of reasoning and every form of belief. To deny the certainty of our intuitive perceptions, merely because we cannot prove by argument the truth of our mental faculties, would virtually amount to a rejection of all evidence except such as comes to us only through one channel, and that the circuitous one of a process of reasoning; while, by the constitution of our nature, we are qualified and privileged to draw it fresh, in many cases, at its spring and fountain-head. It may be as impossible for man to prove the trustworthiness of his intellectual faculties as it is for the bee to prove the truth of its marvellous instinct; but, in either case, the reason may be that any such proof is unnecessary, that it is superseded by the laws of Instinct in the one, and by the laws of Thought in the other, and that by these laws a better and surer provision is made for our guidance than any that could have been found in a mere logical faculty,—a natural and irresistible authority, which the Skeptic may dispute, but cannot destroy, and which, however disowned in theory, must be practically obeyed.
It must be evident that the various meanings which have been attached to the term Certitude must materially affect both the statement and solution of the general problem, and, more particularly, that they must have an important bearing on the question, whether the doctrine which affirms the Being, Perfections, and Providence of God, should be ranked under the head of certain, or only of probable, truth. If, in making use of the term Certitude, I mean to denote by it something different from the certainty which belongs to the most assured convictions of the human mind, something that arises, not from the spontaneous and direct exercise of its faculties, but from a process of reflective thought or philosophical speculation, something, in short, that is peculiar to the metaphysical inquirer, and is not the common heritage of the race at large; then, unquestionably, the problem, as thus understood, must leave out of view many of the surest and most universal beliefs of mankind,—beliefs which may be illustrated and confirmed by Philosophy, but which are anterior to it in respect to their origin, and independent of it in respect of the evidence on which they severally rest. In the case of Certitude, just as in the case of every similar term expressive of a simple, elementary idea, the ultimate appeal must be made to individual consciousness. No one can convey to another a conception of Certitude by means of words, apart from an experimental sense of it in the mind of the latter, any more than he could give the idea of color to the blind or of music to the deaf. It is because we have had experience of it in our own breasts that we recognize and respond to the descriptions which others give of it. Every one knows what it is to be certain in regard to many things, just because, constituted as he is, he cannot doubt or disbelieve them. He is certain of his own existence, of the existence of other men, of the facts of his familiar consciousness, of many events long since past which are still clearly remembered, of certain abstract truths which are intuitively discerned or logically demonstrated. These various objects of his thought may differ in other respects, and may occasion a corresponding difference in the kind of Certitude which is conceived to belong to them; but they all possess the same generic character, and admit, therefore, of being classified under the same comprehensive category, as objects of our certain knowledge.