KNOWLEDGE AND FAITH. 511 
portion of our absolute knowledge. But every proposition that is based either wholly 
or in part, on data that are not fully comprehended, or on ideas the necessary truth of 
which is not clearly evident to our own minds, may or may not be true; it can only form 
a portion of our belief, and our belief will be stronger or weaker, in proportion to the 
number of self-evident truths, or of mere probabilities, that enters into our chain of rea- 
soning. , 
197. The revelation or immediate judgment is always necessary and infallible, but par- 
tial—expressing a decision only on the premises that are laid before it. The ultimate judg- 
ment is more subject to our control by study and care. The man who has fully investigated 
all his premises, as well as all their relative bearings, will be less in e7vor (so far as his 
positive knowledge is concerned), even though his conclusions may be further from the 
truth, than those of another who decides hastily and without investigation, but rather from 
prejudice. This thorough. investigation of all the details of our belief is impossible. We 
are necessarily and properly compelled to place great reliance on authority, and “we should 
have so much faith in authority, as shall induce us to repeatedly observe and attend to 
that which is said to be right, even though at present we may not feel it to be so,”* 
198. The perception of spiritual existence has generally been regarded as one of the 
characteristics that distinguish man from the lower animals.t+ 
199. If this perception is in reality a distinctive mark of human nature, it should be 
possessed most highly by those who have the highest spiritual culture. 
200. In each faculty of our merely animal nature, there are many of the lower animals 
which surpass us. Acuteness of vision, quickness of scent, readiness of hearing, are quali- 
ties that mark birds and beasts of prey, rather than man. But superior skill, judgment, 
the capability of indefinite mental development, intellectual and reasoning power, belong 
to man, if not exclusively, at least in a higher degree than to any other animal. 
201. Every faculty, sensual or spiritual, is susceptible of culture. The trained hound 
will follow the scent of game more steadily than one that is wholly unused to the chase ; 
the educated musician is more sensitively alive to the slightest discord, than the tiro; the 
thorough mathematician will immediately detect an error of demonstration that would 
escape the notice of an elementary student. 
202. Which of our faculties are the most fully developed, the most diligently and thor- 
oughly educated ? 
203. The senses and the perceptive faculties whose principal office is merely to take 
* Ruskin ; Modern Painters. 
{ Solly says (p. 8), “It is the essence of an intellectual nature, to be able to convey its results only to a similar 
intellectual nature.’”’ This is one of the many. postulates that lead to the recognition of a Supreme Intelligence. 
y-P gs P g 
VoL. X1I.—6)d 
