87 
I have only perused, — the Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, hut I have 
collected one thing from it — the entirely sceptical character of Dr. Newman’s 
philosophy. Mr. Kow says that “ the whole of Dr. Newman’s observations 
are based on a confusion of thought which we should have hardly imagined 
possible in such a man.” So far from imagining it hardly possible, I think it 
extremely possible and probable. His object is to involve us in this diffi- 
culty : either you must have an infallible external authority, or you can 
have nothing at all. What is all this to bring us to, as a grammar of 
assent ? Is it to the decrees and catechism of the Council of Trent, or to 
the Homo Apostolicus of Liguori? Dr. Newman draws a distinction at 
the outset between assent to a proposition as a proposition, and as being true. 
There is a difference between assenting, intelligently, to the proposition 
that all A is some B, and merely accepting the proposition A is B. You 
may assent to the proposition that A is B, without understanding it at all ; 
you may put it in Chinese, if you accept it as true, and assent to it. Now 
Dr. Newman tries to confuse the mind between these two kinds of assent — 
the intellectual and understanding assent, and the blind accordance of those 
who give their assent to an infallible authority without understanding the 
terms in which the proposition is couched. You need not accept the terms as 
absolutely true — you may accept them as probably true, — but in either case you 
accept the proposition on authority, and not necessarily because you under- 
stand it. That is the result which Dr. Newman wishes to arrive at, but he 
has merged into one the two kinds of assent, — the theoretical and the prac- 
tical. We take up in science a theoretical certainty — we take up an uncon- 
ditional proposition as being demonstrated. But since most of the propositions 
with which we have to deal have reference to our action here, we assent, in 
non-scientific matter, to a proposition not theoretically but practically, and 
arrive not at a theoretical, but at a moral conclusion, which is enough to act 
upon. We take the proposition that A is B. Some A is probably some B, 
and we say to ourselves, that though it is not absolutely true that all A is 
some B, yet for the purposes of our action we may act as if it ivere abso- 
lutely true, although we know the real fact is that some A is probably or 
possibly some B. We accept an inferior kind of truth as sufficient to act 
upon, and get, not theoretical, but moral certainty. If we draw this dis- 
tinction between theoretical assent and practical assent and moral certainty, 
we shall be in no danger of falling into the conclusion into which Dr. 
Newman would have us glide, that there is no resting-place between utter 
scepticism on the one side, or that infallible external authority to which 
he wishes to bring us on the other. (Cheers.) 
Mr. Kow. — I have two strong allies outside this room. One is the Edin- 
burgh Review^ in which an essay on this subject has appeared. I had written my 
paper before I saw it, but I find that that essay and my paper are substantially 
agreed upon all first principles ; the other is the London Quarterly , which has 
also appeared since my paper was written, and there again I find that we are 
substantially agreed upon all first principles. We cannot mistake the first 
