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of truth, and their value to aid us in the elimination of error. 
Dr. Newman is led into this by the necessity which he feels 
himself under of maintaining the unconditional character of 
our assents and certitudes. To do so is essential to the mental 
position which he occupies. This foregone conclusion has led 
him not only deliberately to depreciate the rational faculty, 
but to propound a theory which leaves us only two alternatives, 
viz., either submission to absolute authority, or that truth is to 
every man the unassisted conclusion of his own illative sense. 
59. “ I have already said,” observes Dr. Newman, “ that the 
sole and final judgment on the validity of an inference is com- 
mitted to a faculty, which I have called the illative sense, and 
I own I do not see any way to go further than this in answer 
to the question.” This assertion is hardly correct, for while I 
own that Dr. Newman cannot “ see his way,” yet the remain- 
ing chapters attempt to make a considerable advance; and, 
although they do not assert that authority is our final refuge, 
yet their obvious drift is to imply that it is so. In gifted 
persons Dr. Newman seems to think that the illative sense 
acts in a manner somewhat analogous to an inspiration from 
Heaven. On the man of genius it confers the power of intui- 
tive insight. On him who has devoted himself to a special 
department of study, it confers the power of discerning truth 
where to other men there is nothing but darkness or twi- 
light. It enables the man of moral discernment (answering 
to the Greek (ppovipog ) who has perfected his power by prac- 
tice, to discern instinctively the true course of moral action. 
The same principle exerts a similar power through the entire 
course of human knowledge. But what is the most serious 
matter of all is, that Dr. Newman has not only erected a court 
which possesses this extensive and summary jurisdiction, but 
he denies us the right of appealing from its decisions. 
60. I by no means deny the existence of these higher faculties 
of the mind, and their important influence on the discovery of 
truth. But between this and the summary assertion that all 
formal logic is worthless, the interval is wide. The truth 
is, that high genius, however necessary for enabling us to 
penetrate into the inner recesses of the temple of truth, does 
not confer infallibility. The most perfect practical judgments 
do sometimes fall into the most palpable errors. The acutest 
observers are guilty of hasty generalizations. The clearest 
intellects are subject to bias, and are warped by prejudice. 
The most practised reasoners at times commit errors in their 
reasoning. As often as the possessors of these high faculties 
require to vindicate their own positions even to themselves, 
they are compelled to fall back on the formal processes of the 
