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tional conceptions are those which are the pure creations 
of the mind, and which have no existence outside it; our 
real ones are those which we give to concrete things, 
which, however modified by the mind, have an objective 
existence. The logical intellect deals only with the no- 
tional conceptions of the mind; logical proof produces only 
notional assent. It is incapable of establishing any truth to 
which we yield a real assent, because the conceptions of the 
intellect are not capable of adequately measuring external 
realities. With these positions I agree to a certain extent; 
but 1 think that Dr. Newman goes too far when he ex- 
cludes all real conceptions from the cognisance of the 
logical intellect. Our real conceptions are not and cannot be 
adequate measures of external realities, but of those reali- 
ties as perceived by our own minds. The degree in which 
those realities correspond to our conceptions of them is a 
matter of inference only, or of our intuitive or instinctive 
beliefs. He is also of opinion that the processes of induction 
cannot be exhibited in any logical formula which is capable 
of being grasped by the understanding. In adopting this 
view he has abandoned the position taken by Whately, and, 
as far as the impossibility of exhibiting inductive reasoning 
in the form of the syllogism is concerned, I think rightly. 
But I cannot think that all efforts to evolve formulas which will 
aid us in detecting the imperfections of our mental processes 
must be abandoned, When, in the latter chapters of his 
work, he appears to lay down that the faculty which he 
designates “ the illative sense,” is the only means which 
we have of verifying our inductive processes, he appears to 
me essentially unsound, and dangerously to approximate to 
the assertion that to the individual truth is that which he 
troweth. 
5. The examination into the nature of these notional 
and real assents occupies a very important place in Dr. 
Newman’s system, and I must give it a brief consideration. 
The following passage will give a clear view of his distinction 
between things notional and real (p. 9) : — “ All things in the 
exterior world are unit and individual, and are nothing else ; 
but the mind not only contemplates these unit realities as 
they exist, but has the gift, by an act of creation, to bring 
before it abstractions and generalizations which have no 
existence, no counterpart out of it. - ” Here Dr. Newman seems 
to me to overlook the distinction between external things 
as they exist which are unit and individual, and the modifi- 
cation which they undergo when they become mental concep- 
tions. It should be observed, however, that he admits the 
