79 
so-and-so, and I adopt and embrace the ‘ certitude ’ which belongs to the 
Church, that being, as it were, God Himself, and that certitude becomes 
my i certitude 7 by an act of faith and of adoption.” Thus he teaches us 
that we either have our certitudes at first hand from our own personal 
assurance, and from the embrace and assent of our own minds and under- 
standing, or else we adopt them on the authority of another in whom we 
confide, and that they relate sometimes, it may be, to a proposition which 
we understand, but often, as he elaborately explains, to a proposition which 
we do not understand at all, but which he declares we accept in virtue 
of the authority of some one who commends it to us. Then there is another 
consequence which follows from all this. He teaches us that the man who 
embraces religion on the ground of reason gives one sort of acceptance, while 
the man who takes it from faith gives quite another ; and Dr. Newman 
says that these are two different and mutually exclusive modes of acceptance, 
and that the man who takes his religion from reason is in so far not a 
believer, while he who takes it from faith is in so far not a man of reason. 
The divine blending of faith and reason into the one blessed assurance 
of truth, Dr. Newman distinctly rejects in the philosophy of his book. 
Then as to assent : Mr. Row has illustrated the points on this subject very 
ably, but it does appear to me that nothing can be more unreasonaole 
than Dr. Newman’s doctrine on this subject. He teaches us that by 
some means or other, when we accept a proposition, the assent which we 
give to it is voluntary, distinct, absolute, and our own act, and he tells us 
very emphatically that it is a voluntary act. Now I do not hold that 
assent is a voluntary act ; in the majority of cases I do not believe that it is 
a, matter which is affected by the will ; but that is what Dr. Newman teaches ; 
and he tells us that when once we accept a conclusion, and make it our own 
by an act of complete assent, we may then cast down whatever ladder we may 
have used in order to climb up to and grasp that conclusion or proposition, 
that we may cast down the ladder and have nothing more to do with it on 
the mere strength of a strong, wilful faith, and be, as it were, suspended in 
mid air without any sort of basis on which to rest. Dr. Newman goes on to 
try to prove that position by a variety of illustrations, one of which seems 
curiously weak. He asks, is it not a fact that persons retain their assents 
without the slightest memory of the reasons for them ? and does not that 
prove that assent is independent of the reason ? It is just as true that 
we retain our probable conclusions after we have forgotten all the reasons 
for them. Dr. Newman draws a distinction between assents and probable 
conclusions, and he says that “assent” stands by itself, and is independent of 
the reasons which generated it ; but it is just as true that we retain our pro- 
bable conclusions after we have forgotten all the reasons on which we assented 
to them, as it is that we hold to our absolute assents after we have forgotten 
all the reasons on which they were based. If, therefore, there is any force 
in the argument at all, it goes to prove that probabilities are as independent 
as assents, and have as little to do with the reasons on which they rest - -that 
