Thus, an establishment affording the inhabitants and visitors of the capital a means of healthy and instructive recreation and exercise; which had been a centre of supply to all France of useful and ornamental species of birds and quadrupeds; lending important co-operation, also, to the State Commissioners in re-stocking the rivers of the country with useful and valuable fishes-in short, having the same relations to Paris as the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park to London--was destroyed. The capital originally invested in

the formation of the Jardin d'Acclimatation,' the sums annually laid out in its development during a period of ten years, embodying, in the additional build. ings and arrangements, the instructive experience of an able, accomplished, and devoted staff, were wasted; and the finest and rarest collection of animals which was ever got together within the same period of time was annihilated.

After the General Meeting of Shareholders, on August 1, 1871, before which the circumstances above briefly named were submitted in detail,' an Extraordinary Meeting was held. At this meeting divers propositions were made and discussed, of which four were reduced to form and printed for the consideration of the 'actionnaires, preliminary to a meeting for the purpose of arriving at a final resolution :

1. That the locality of the

'Jardin' should be at once returned into the possession of the City of Paris, on condition of an equitable indemnity being paid to the Society for its outlay thereon.

2. On the supposition that the City would thereupon restore and maintain so useful and popular an establishment, it was suggested that the municipality should be asked to entrust the work to the existing Society, granting it an annual subvention for the period requisite for the restoration of the Jardin' to its state prior to the siege.

3. It was proposed to form a new Society for the purchase of the Jardin,' with the rights conceded to it by the City of Paris.

4.

It was suggested that fresh capital might be raised on preference shares, with the view, not only of restoring, but of extending, the utility and commercial relations of the establishment.

SIR,

NIR,-In a remote part of the world I read the following notice in a number of the Spectator published in April last:

This is an extremely good number of the Dublin. The first article, aimed at the doctrine that certainty,' however legitimate, may generally in ordinary human affairs be exactly proportioned to evidence-may be pared down in proportion as old evidence fails, and made to mount higher in proportion as new evidence accrues--is evidently by the editor, and extremely able. We cannot, of course, go with it in the application which Dr. Ward makes to the faith of Catholics; but its philosophical principle, that certainty, whether legitimate or not, is a state of mind not liable to vary by the subtraction or addition of new items of evidence-i.e. neither is, nor generally ought to be, proportionate to the number of valid arguments by which it may be defended, or in inverse proportion to the number of valid arguments by which it may be assailed, is established beyond all

refutation.

As I happen to hold an opinion diametrically opposed to that which you are here said to have 'established beyond all refutation,' I procured and read your article. It interested me SO much that I decided to take this mode of giving you my thoughts on the subject. Whether or not I have the advantage of addressing Dr. Ward (as the writer in the Spectator suggests), I cannot, of course, say; but if it is so, I am very fortunate in having to do with so able an opponent.

Your article begins by stating the views you ascribe to a class of persons for whom you invent the name of equationists.' Having refuted them, or I should say us, to your own satisfaction, you go on to say that we may hope to meet the first of your objections by asking leave to amend' our 'plea.' You then are good enough to make the amend

ment, and to observe that 'their doctrine certainly deserves much more respectful consideration in its new shape than it deserved in its old,' and then you proceed to demolish the amended plea.

Permit me to observe that to draw your antagonist's pleadings, to pick holes in them, to amend his pleas, to compliment him on comparative good sense, and finally to refute him, is a little like playing a game at chess, with your right hand against your left, allowing

your

left hand to make a bad move, and advising it to be more cautious for the future. If the plea of the

equationists' required amendment, you drew it, and not they, and your compliment about respectful consideration is in reality a reproof to yourself for beginning your argument by misstating your antagonist's case. It is surely a good rule in controversy to begin by deciding clearly what it is that you propose to encounter. It would have been of inventing better if, instead imaginary pleas and imaginary amended pleas, for men for whom you have found it necessary to coin a completely new and not, I think, a very felicitous nickname, you referred to the views of some adequate exponent of the doctrine to which you object, and had refuted those views as stated by him. This is the course which Dr. Newman took in the Grammar of Assent, to which you so frequently refer. addressed himself (with what success I do not now enquire) to the refutation of Locke's doctrine on the matter in question, and was thus freed from the necessity of adopting the curious procedure to which you have resorted.

had

He

This is a matter of no great im

portance, but it serves as an introduction to what follows. As you want an antagonist, will you kindly accept me as one for fault of a better? I will state my views in my own way, showing incidentally how the arguments advanced in your article apply to them; and if you think it worth while, you will be able to show me where and why I am wrong.

I. In what follows I use the following words in the following senses, unless the contrary appears from the context:

(a) BELIEF.-All states of mind
described by such words as
conviction, persuasion, opinion,
faith, and the like.

(b) ASSENT.-When one person
signifies to another the fact
that he believes a given propo-
sition, he is said to assent to
that proposition.
(c) EVIDENCE.-All arguments in
support of the truth of propo-
sitions drawn from matters of
fact, and all matters of fact
from which any such argu-
ments are drawn.

II. Belief may be absolute or qualified.

Absolute belief is belief unaccompanied by present doubt. It is consistent with a present consciousness of the possibility of future doubt.

Qualified belief is belief accompanied by present doubt as to the truth of the matter believed.

All belief is susceptible of degrees of stability.

III. Belief may be produced in many ways, and amongst others by evidence; but there is no assignable connection between belief and the truth of the matter believed, except in so far as the belief, however produced, is supported by evidence.

IV. If belief is supported by evidence, the probability of its truth depends upon the degree in which the evidence by which it is supported satisfies, or approaches to

the satisfaction of, the recognised canons of induction and deduction.

V. Whether belief is supported by evidence or not, there is no assignable connection between its truth and the degree of assurance or stability with which it is held.

I proceed to explain more fully the purport and effect of these propositions; which I will take in their order.

First, as to the sense in which the different words are used. The definition of the word 'belief' is intended, amongst other things, to express the opinion that all language which relates to mental operations is of necessity vague and metaphorical. We are obliged to use many words about them which differ from each other only by indefinable shades of meaning, and we.gain nothing, and lose a great deal, by attempting to invest them with a precision which is really unattainable. Thus a persuasion may perhaps be an opinion adopted without repugnance; a 'conviction' probably originally meant an opinion which a man struggled against, but was compelled to adopt with regret; 'faith' rather implies some degree of personal confidence in and affection for a person on whose authority a proposition is believed;

་

opinion' and belief' are much more nearly neutral, but opinion' has, so to speak, an intellectual, and 'belief' more or less of a moral, complexion. These words, however, and many others, do not denote different things, but rather the same thing looked at from different points of view, namely, the habit of thinking that certain words are true. If I could find a more colourless word than belief to express this idea, I would use it.

The definition of the word 'assent,' as distinguished from belief, is intended to guard against an ambiguity which continually recurs in Dr. Newman's Grammar of Assent, and upon the neglect of which a great

part of his argument appears to me to be founded. Assent' is sometimes used as equivalent to belief, but its more proper use, I think, is the acceptance by one of two persons of a statement or offer made by another. When the word is used as equivalent to belief, the idea conveyed surely is, that the proposition to be assented to is suggested to the person assenting by some one else, the person assenting being called upon to say yes or no, just as he might have a contract offered to him which he must either take or leave. Taking the word 'assent' in this sense, it is no doubt perfectly true that assent must be absolute and unqualified. A qualified acceptance of a contract is no acceptance at all. It is a new offer, itself requiring acceptance; and in the same sense it may be denied that a qualified assent to a proposition is an assent to it. It seems to me, however, that when we speak of absolute or unqualified assent, or indeed of assent at all, we refer rather to the way in which a man agrees with somebody else to treat a proposition, than to the way in which he regards it in his own mind. If, for instance, two men discuss a subject, and the one affirms and the other assents to a particular proposition, the discussion must proceed throughout on the supposition that that proposition is true.

I think, however, that Dr. Newman's view as to the absolute character of assent is a matter of no importance, for he does not say that this absolute assent is irrevocable; and whether we are to speak of an absolute assent revocable when the evidence on which it was founded is altered, or of an assent which admits of degrees, is a question about the use of language. The allegation that when I have once assented to the proposition A is true,' I can never revoke it, is no doubt of immense importance, but

I should think that no one ever made it. If it is admitted that for an absolute assent to the proposition A is true,' I may, as I see cause, substitute an absolute assent to the propositions A is most probably true,' A is probably true," 'It is altogether doubtful whether A is or is not true,' A is probably false,' 'A is false,' I do not see that it much matters whether you do or do not call assent absolute. It seems to me very much the same thing whether you say that the degrees of assent depend on the amount of the evidence; or that assent is always absolute, but that the nature of the proposition to which it is given depends upon the evidence. Does it matter whether a man is absolutely certain that A B's guilt is highly probable, or whether he gives a degree of assent not quite reaching to certainty, to the proposition that A B is guilty?

The sense in which I use the word 'evidence' requires three remarks. First, I use it in that wide popu lar sense in which it is used, for instance, in the title of Paley's Evidences.

Secondly, I restrict the word to arguments founded upon facts and to the facts upon which the arguments are founded; and by facts I understand things which have an independent existence, of which existence we are assured by some means of perception on which mankind usually rely. That which we see, hear, or touch, is a fact; the internal feelings, to which we give the names of love, hope, fear, will, and the like are facts: and when we assert the existence of anything to be a fact, what we mean is that we or some other sentient being does, or if favourably situated for the purpose would perceive it.

Thirdly, I do not confine the word 'evidence' to sound arguments. I comprehend in it all arguments drawn from facts and all the facts from which they are drawn. The

conditions under which evidence is a test of truth are referred to in proposition No. IV.

My second proposition consists of several parts, which I will explain successively.

'Belief may be absolute or qualified.' This distinction I need not dwell upon, as you would admit it.

"Absolute belief is belief unaccompanied by present doubt.' This again requires no explanation, but the succeeding clause does. 'It is consistent with a present consciousness of the possibility of future doubt.' Almost every incident of our daily life is an illustration of this. Every man absolutely believes a great number of propositions, which, if he thinks of the subject at all, he would admit himself to be ready to doubt if circumstances altered, or if facts now unknown to him came to his knowledge. His confidence in what he believes is in fact measured accurately by his confidence in the nonexistence of such present or future facts. This applies equally to cases to which we attach the very highest and the very lowest importance. An illustration from each end of the scale will set this in a clear light. A man believes absolutely in his wife's virtue. No shadow of a doubt on the subject has ever crossed his mind even in imagination, yet every man would admit that if he had before him ocular demonstration of the contrary he would believe it, or that if he were to see love letters written by his wife to another man he would be forced to doubt. His absolute belief in his wife is a belief that he never has had, has not now, and never will at any future time have, reasonable grounds for changing it. If it were a mere determination never to change it, even in the event of his having reasonable grounds for doing so, he would be an object of contempt, and his wife would feel that the belief in question was not belief in her

virtue, but obstinate attachment to his own fancies.

To pass to the other end of the scale, a man reads in the newspaper a list of the births, deaths, and marriages of people who are strangers to him. He absolutely believes the assertions made to be true; that is, he feels no doubt whatever on the subject, because he knows that such announcements are usually true, and does not care to enquire into matters with which he has no concern. Next day he reads in the same paper a contradiction as to one of the deaths announced. He absolutely believes that, and surely under the circumstances his conduct is perfectly rational.

6

I may here introduce an incidental remark upon your argument on what you consider the more rational form of what you call equationism.' As stated by you, that doctrine is as follows: Everyone should take heed that he hold no proposition with absolute assent for which he does not possess evidence abundantly sufficient,' and you yourself concede that with certain exceptions, it would be a great advantage if no one yielded more unreserved assent to any proposition than is warranted by the evidence he possesses." Surely you

leave, out of account a further equation which you might have noticed, namely, an equation between the trouble of an enquiry, and the value of the result. The faintest rumour is evidence amply sufficient for the absolute belief of an indifferent proposition which a man is ready at a moment's notice, if need be, to exchange for absolute disbelief or for any other state of mind which the evidence may warrant. Did any author of reputation ever maintain the proposition, that all persons ought expressly to aim at holding no proposition with absolute assent for which they do not possess evidence abundantly sufficient, whatever may be the