PART I.

OF THE STANDARD OF TRUTH.

TH

HE love of truth has ever been accounted a good principle. Where it is known to prevail, we expect to find integrity and steadiness; a temper of mind favourable to every virtue, and tending in an eminent degree to public utility. To have no concern for the truth, to be falfe and fallacious, is a character which no perfon who is not utterly abandoned would chufe to bear, it is a character from which we expect nothing but levity and inconfiftence. Truth feems to be confidered by all mankind as fomething fixed, unchangeable, and eternal; it may therefore be thought, that to vindicate the permanency of truth is to difpute without an adverfary. And indeed, if these questions were propofed in general terms, - Is there fuch a thing as truth? Are truth and falfehood different and oppofite? Is truth permanent and eternal ? — few perfons would be hardy enough to answer in the negative. Attempts, however, have been made, fometimes through inadvertence, and fometimes (I fear) from defign, to undermine the foundations of

truth,

truth, and to render their stability questionable; and these attempts have been fo vigoroufly forwarded, and fo often renewed, that they now constitute a great part of what is called the philofophy of the human mind.

It is difficult, perhaps impoffible, to give a definition of Truth. But we fhall endeavour to give fuch a description of it, as may make others understand what we mean by the word. The definitions of former writers are not fo clear, nor fo accurate, as could be wifhed. These therefore we fhall overlook, without feeking either to explain or to correct them; and fhall fatisfy ourselves with taking notice of fome of the mental phenomena that attend the perception of truth. This seems to be the fafest way of introducing the subject.

CHAPTER İ.

Of the perception of Truth in general.

N hearing thefe propofitions, I exift, Things equal to one and the fame thing are equal to one another, The fun rofe today, There is a God, Ingratitude ought to be blamed and punished, The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, &c.—I am confcious, that my mind admits

and acquiefces in them. I fay, that I believe them to be true; that is, I conceive them to exprefs fomething conformable to the nature of things. Of the contrary propofitions I fhould fay, that my mind does not acquiefce in them, but difbelieves them, and conceives them to exprefs fomething not conformable to the nature of things. My judgement in this cafe, I conceive to be the fame that I fhould form in regard to thefe propofitions, if I were perfectly acquainted with all nature, in all its parts, and in all its laws t.

If I be asked, what I mean by the nature of things, I cannot otherwise explain myself, than by saying, that there is in my mind fomething which induces me to think, that every thing exifting in nature, is determined to exift, and to exift after a certain manner, in confequence of eftablished laws; and that whatever is agreeable to those laws is agreeable to the nature of things, because by those laws the nature of all things is determined. Of thofe laws I do not pretend to know any thing, except fo far as they feem to be intimated to me by my own feelings, and by the fuggeftions of my own under

* — ὥσθ' έκαςον ὡς ἔχει τὸ εἶναι, οὕτω καὶ τῆς ἀληθειας. Arioit. Metaph. lib. 2. cap. 1.

†This remark, when applied to truth in general, is fubject to certain limitations; for which fee part 2. chap. 1. fect. 3.

VOL. I.

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ftanding.

ftanding. But thefe feelings and fuggeftions are fuch, and affect me in fuch a manner, that I cannot help receiving them, and trusting in them, and believing that their intimations are not fallacious, but fuch as I fhould approve if I were perfectly acquainted with every thing in the univerfe, and fuch as I may approve, and admit of, and regulate my conduct by, without danger of any inconvenience.

It is not eafy on this fubject to avoid identical expreffions. I am not certain that I have been able to avoid them. And perhaps I might have expreffed my meaning more fhortly and more clearly, by faying, that I account That to be truth which the conftitution of our nature determines us to believe, and That to be falsehood which the conftitution of our nature determines us to difbelieve. Believing and disbelieving are fimple acts of the mind; I can neither define nor defcribe them in words; and therefore the reader muft judge of their nature from his own experience. We often believe what we afterwards find to be falfe; but while belief continues, we think it true;

* I might have faid more explicitly, but the meaning is the fame, "That I account that to be truth which the conftitution of human nature determines man to be"lieve, and that to be falsehood which the conftitution of human nature determines man to diíbelieve."

when

when we discover its falfity, we believe it no longer.

Hitherto I have used the word belief to denote an act of the mind which attends the perception of truth in general. But truths are of different kinds; fome are certain, others only probable: and we ought not to call that act of the mind which attends the perception of certainty, and that which attends the perception of probability, by one and the fame name. Some have called the former conviction, and the latter affent. All convictions are equally ftrong: but affent admits of innumerable degrees, from moral certainty, which is the highest degree downward, through the feveral stages of opinion, to that fufpenfe of judgement which is called doubt.

We may, without abfurdity, fpeak of probable truth, as well as of certain truth. Whatever a rational being is determined, by the constitution of his nature, to admit as probable, may be called probable truth; the acknowledgement of it is as univerfal as that rational nature, and will be as permanent. But, in this inquiry, we propofe to confine ourfelves chiefly to that kind of truth which may be called certain, which enforces our conviction, and the belief of which, in a found mind, is not tinctured with any doubt or uncertainty.

The investigation and perception of truth is commonly afcribed to our rational facul

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ties: