49 
sativa is true.” I deny that the child assents at, all in such a 
case. He believes in the general truthfulness of his mother, 
but it is absurd to say that he assents to the truth of the 
proposition if he comprehends neither of the terms “ lucern” 
or “ medicago sativa.” To believe that one's mother speaks 
the truth, and to assent to every proposition which she utters 
are two things which differ widely. I can hardly think that 
Dr. Newman would have taken such a position unless he had 
felt himself compelled to do so by the exigencies of his theo- 
logical system. 
7. Although Dr. Newman lays down that assents do not admit 
of degree, at p. 40 he distinctly tells us that “ there are 
assents so feeble and superficial that they are little more than 
assertions.” He treats of them under the heads of profession, 
credence, opinion, presumption, and speculation. Under the 
first head, he places such cases as when a man calls himself a 
Tory or a Liberal ; when he adopts, as a matter of course, the 
literary fashions of the day ; the popular and reigning notions 
about poetry, music, novels, costume, or wines. He is not 
insensible of the difficulty in which the common language of 
mankind involves him ; but he endeavours to evade it by 
saying that such opinions are assertions and not assents. He 
gives several instances of them which are very curious, and I 
subjoin them in a note.* “To say,” he adds, “'I do not 
understand a proposition, but I accept it on authority, is not 
formalism; it is not a direct assent to the proposition; still it 
is an assent to the authority which enunciates it.” This 
seems to me to be an admission of what I strongly contend 
for, that such assents are not assents to the proposition itself, 
but to something else; just like a boy who learns his Euclid 
by heart, without the smallest comprehension of the proof. 
8. Dr. Newman attaches a peculiar meaning to the word pre- 
sumption. He tells us that it is an assent to first principles, and 
that first principles are the propositions with which we start in 
reasoning on any given subject-matter. Among these are all 
the great truths which are generally assented to by mankind, 
which he considers to partake in the nature of instincts. The 
Such words are liberality, progress, fight, civilization ; such are justifi- 
cation by faith only, vital religion, private judgment, the Bible, and nothing 
but the Bible. Such again are rationalism, Gallicanism, Jesuitism, ultra- 
montanism ; all of which, in the mouth of conscientious thinkers, have a 
definite meaning, but are used by the multitude as war-cries ; such names 
and Shibboleths, with scarcely enough of the scantiest grammatical apprehen- 
sion of them to allow of their being considered more than assertions.” As, 
however, such assertions can be wielded vigorously, they are evidently a 
species of assent, and as such they overthrow Dr. Newman’s theory. 
VOL VI. E 
