CHAPTER XXV. 



OF THE GROUNDS OF DISBELIEF. 



1. THE method of arriving at general truths, or general 

 propositions fit to be believed, and the nature of the evidence 

 on which they are grounded, have been discussed, as far as 

 space and the writer's faculties permitted, in the twenty-four 

 preceding chapters. But the result of the examination of 

 evidence is not always belief, nor even suspension of judg- 

 ment; it is sometimes disbelief. The philosophy, therefore, 

 of induction and experimental inquiry is incomplete, unless 

 the grounds not only of belief, but of disbelief, are treated 

 of; and to this topic we shall devote one, and the final, 

 chapter. 



By disbelief is not here to be understood the mere absence 

 of belief. The ground for abstaining from belief is simply the 

 absence or insufficiency of proof; and in considering what is 

 sufficient evidence to support any given conclusion, we have 

 already, by implication, considered what evidence is not suffi- 

 cient for the same purpose. By disbelief is here meant, not 

 the state of mind in which we form no opinion concerning a 

 subject, but that in which we are fully persuaded that some 

 opinion is not true ; insomuch that if evidence, even of great 

 apparent strength, (whether grounded on the testimony of 

 others or on our own supposed perceptions,) were produced in 

 favour of the opinion, we should believe that the witnesses 

 spoke falsely, or that they, or we ourselves if we were the direct 

 percipients, were mistaken. 



That there are such cases, no one is likely to dispute. 

 Assertions for which there is abundant positive evidence are 

 often disbelieved, on account of what is called their improba- 

 bility, or impossibility. And the question for consideration is 



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