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assent and inference. We do no such thing. We say that 
assent is involved in the inference ; hut while the mind is in 
the act of drawing the inference, its attention is chiefly con- 
centrated on the word therefore ; and when we simply assent, 
we contemplate the proposition without the therefore. So far, 
hut no further, there is a distinction in the act. I have 
pointed out how the acts are related, and therefore cannot 
agree with our author's conclusion, “that either assent is 
intrinsically distinct from inference, or the sooner we get rid 
of the word out of our philosophy the better." 
22. 2nd. In reasoning on contingent matter, our assents to 
the conclusions partake in the contingency of the premisses. 
While I lay down this as a general principle, I fully admit 
that some kinds of moral evidence commend themselves to our 
reason as certainties as much as those which we arrive at from 
demonstrative proof. Of these I will speak hereafter. But 
when this is not the case, the contingency of the foundation 
qualifies the absoluteness of the assent. Of this kind are 
most moral and political propositions. They are true, not 
absolutely, but for the most part. We yield what we call a 
general assent to them, but it is one subject to qualifications. 
To assert that such assents are no assents at all involves a 
mere verbal question. 
23. Dr. Newman's great objection to the possibility of there 
being degrees of assent is founded on the fact that assents 
may endure without the presence of the inferential acts on 
which they are founded. I am quite ready to admit the fact ; 
but I cannot see how it proves that assent does not admit of 
degrees. The actual inferential acts may have passed away 
from, the mind; but we can recollect that they once were 
there, and the strength of our assent will vary with the con- 
tingency or non-contingency of the conclusion, e.g., I once 
had the entire evidence on which Muller was convicted for the 
murder of Mr. Briggs before my mind. My recollection of its 
various stages is probably now less complete. My present 
assent to the justice of the sentence is founded on my recol- 
lection that it was established on irrefragable evidence that 
Mr. Briggs had been murdered ; and that no other man but 
Muller could have been the murderer. Therefore he was the 
murderer. I am quite unable to see how the presence of the 
word “ therefore " makes my assent conditional, or the taking 
it away involves an unconditional assent. 
24. 3rd. He alleges that assent sometimes fails while the 
reasons and the inferential act are still present. In one sense 
of these words I doubt the fact, but in another there is no 
question that a conclusion of the intellect does not neces- 
