230 NATURE AND MAN. 



tlie new proposition may not in the first instance find any place 

 in our fabric of thought into which it can be received ; and yet 

 its want of accordance may be so slight, as to lead us to examine 

 whether we cannot make it fit by some process of accommoda- 

 tion ; — either our recess being widened by argument and dis- 

 cussion, or the proposition being narrowed by the Hmitation of its 

 terms. If we can thus bring about a satisfactory "fit," we accept 

 the proposition as part of our intellectual furniture; if not, we 

 dismiss it, — at any rate for a time. 



Now in this intellectual judgment, it seems clear to me that 

 the will is no more involved at the moment of making it, than it 

 is in that which is determined by the "preponderance of evidence." 

 For if there be a complete suitableness, or a complete unsuitable- 

 ness, between the new proposition and the vacant recess in our 

 fabric of thought, we accept it without hesitation in the one case, 

 we feel compelled to reject it in the other. So far, then, it is 

 true that " we are no more responsible for our opinions than we 

 "are for the colour of our skin." But, whenever the proposition 

 comes to be the subject of discussion, — whether we are simply 

 canvassing the practicability of fitting it into our recess, or are 

 carrying it through the whole procedure of a trial on its merits, 

 the will comes to exert a powerful influence on the result ; as 

 is truly expressed by that proverbial embodiment of universal 

 experience, that "we easily believe what we wish." How, then, 

 upon the theory of the instinctive or automatic nature of assent 

 which I have been endeavouring to establish, is this influence 

 exerted ? 



In those old political trials, which are now happily — so far as 

 our own country is concerned — only matters of history, it not 

 unfrequently happened that the prisoner's life or death, whilst 

 determined by the verdict of a jury honestly meaning to be im- 

 partial, really depended on the partizan conduct of the presiding 

 judge. For though the jury were all sworn, and really intended, 

 to give a " true verdict according to evidence," yet the judge had 

 it largely in his power to determine which way the balance should 

 incline. In the first place, he might refuse even to consider the 

 objections which the prisoner's counsel was fully justified in taking 

 to the indictment, and might accept the reply of the crown-lawyer 



