SCIENCE AND DEMONSTRATION 217 



and, in this sense, it may be had either for individual facts or for 

 general laws. The certitude of historical knowledge is of this 

 kind. But there is a sort of certitude, also called &quot; moral,&quot; which 

 is based upon intrinsic evidence. It is the certitude we have 

 concerning (a) the generalizations we form, from our own ex 

 perience, about the conduct and activities of free agents ; and (b] 

 concerning the individual facts, phenomena, or instances, to 

 which we apply these generalizations. Such generalizations we 

 call &quot; moral universals,&quot; liable to exceptions ; and their applica 

 tion to individual cases we know to be more or less precarious. 

 Such is the certitude we have, for instance, about the truth of 

 these judgments : &quot; Men are naturally truthful,&quot; and, therefore, 

 &quot; A.B., who has no inducement or temptation to deceive me, is 

 telling me the truth &quot; ; &quot; Parents naturally love their children,&quot; 

 and, therefore, &quot; A.B. and CD., whom I know to be good people, 

 love their children &quot; ; &quot; Men respect and protect the lives of their 

 fellow-men,&quot; and, therefore, &quot; My food at dinner to-day will not 

 be poisoned &quot;. Finally, we may have, whether for facts or for 

 laws, such a weight of cumulative evidence of various kinds as 

 will warrant that very high degree of probability which is com 

 monly called &quot; practical &quot; or &quot; moral &quot; certitude. 



250. NECESSARY TRUTH OF METAPHYSICAL LAWS; CON 

 TINGENT TRUTH OF PHYSICAL LAWS AND FACTS. There is 

 an inclination among modern philosophers and scientists not to 

 recognize as a &quot;scientific law&quot; any general formula or statement 

 to which we can conceive an exception. We should, they think, so 

 formulate our laws, by finding out accurately, and expressing 

 hypothetically, all the conditions for the truth of these, that they 

 may admit of no exception as stated. But when we pass from 

 the abstract world of mathematics, and from the first principles 

 of thought and being in logic and in metaphysics, where the mind 

 abstracts from the concrete reality and marks out clearly for itself 

 the grounds for its judgments ; l when we come to complex and 

 concrete reality as revealed in the physical world through sensa 

 tion, and try to grasp the laws according to which phenomena 

 take place, it is not so easy to apprehend all the causes and 

 conditions of their appearance, and so to embody these in our 

 formulae that the latter will be true by an absolute necessity of 

 thought? Of course, if such care be taken, our judgments in all 



1 Cf. WELTON, Logic, ii., p. 202 ; MELLONE, Introductory Text-book of Logic, 

 pp. 265-70. 



a WELTON, ibid., p. 205. 



