Charles Robert Newman

“ But if the nomenclature adopted by Locke be the right one, there ought to be a change in these current modes of speaking and writing. One who should reject the proofs of Euclid, would be unreasonable; one who should maintain that Thurtel or Greenacre were innocent of murder, would be unreasonable; but, one who should deny the truth of any self-evident proposition, would not be unreasonable; for to say this, would be to say that reason has cognisance of such propositions, whereas, according to him, it is expressly not reason, but intuition that takes this office. ”

“ I had undertaken to prove that this principle—which, for distinction’s sake, I will call the unanimity principle—is the proper and only criterion of scientific truth to the great non-scientific world, and consequently that modern philosophy necessarily appeals to it when it comes before the public. ”

“ What I am doing in tracing the unanimity principle from its first instinctive use by the public to its secondary and meditated one by philosophy, is a purely critical act, comparable to that of the rhetorician who appreciates the character of certain modes of thinking which have long since been practised by mankind, and shows what therein is approvable—all the rest being liable to censure. ”

“ So that Locke’s side, instead of being warranted by the decisive verdict he imagines, is but one of two suitors in an undetermined cause, neither having yet attracted the votes of the whole jury, and neither consequently yet occupying the position of ascertained truth. Giving everyone a fair hearing is that trial and test of competency which yields the only means of learning who said competent judges are. ”

“ It is, no doubt, a principle infinitely inferior in dignity, for it is blind and unintelligent, while design sees and understands, but this is not the question. The question, superseded by an answer derived from human experience, is to this effect—that nature and natural things are, with no less propriety, assignable as the doers of a certain non-designing kind of order, than man is assignable as the doer of the designing kind ”

“ Premising that it is a way of certifying truth that has been immemorially used by mankind in their daily affairs, and which they have always, to some extent, instinctively transferred to their judgments in philosophy, and that it is the only possible general and summary criterion of truth, I may describe it as consisting in the unanimous assent to some idea or assertion of all who are thought competent to pronounce concerning it. ”

“ Accordingly religion cannot be said hitherto to have been an advocate of the rights of reason. Whatever good things she may have achieved in this cause have been incidental to her advocacy of the Rights of Conscience. Here reason was her weapon (sharpened for this use, and so far valued and treasured) , against authority. Her tendency meanwhile, is to impel conscience to infringe on the rights of reason.
Science alone has hitherto been the immediate champion of these rights. But it seems he cannot expect to make that advocacy complete and effectual till he allies himself with religion. ”

“ Indeed, I will incidentally remark that I suspect the word “intuition” has been a very good addition to our vocabulary, and I suppose its proper import might be represented as follows:—Reason has two modes of his exercise, the one is called reasoning, and the other intuition. Intuition is the decision of reason on one single point; reasoning—a word proper to demonstrative truth—seems to be nothing more than intuition looking not merely at one point, but at several points successively. ”

“ A little consideration, even in Locke’s time of less advanced thought, might have informed an intelligent mind, if free from prejudice, that mere prohibitory laws must be of themselves less adverse to the free expression of people’s sentiments than that averted state of the public mind of which they are one of the symptoms. Both from theory and experience we may collect that very much the same laws of supply and demand obtain in matters of opinion as in those of food and raiment ”

“ Conscience, early or late, must receive almost all his light from authority; and, therefore, in respect to opinion, may generally be called the creature of authority. Yet, in a moral aspect, authority is confessedly of no account, and conscience has a sole jurisdiction. A large portion of mankind have, in our [60] times, outgrown the error of resting their sense of duty on the mere dictate of other men. The only legitimate directors of human conduct are now generally admitted to be conscience and reason ”

“ His own existence is, indeed, to every one the first principle, by means of which he infers the existence of other things and beings.
In coming now to the other kind of first principles, consisting of propositions formed by reason, we perceive that these show symptoms of still further difference from the above, than that which results from the difference of their source, of difference that affects their philosophical character, and their technical right to the name under which they present themselves to us. In short, the primary philosophy has not yet settled their title. ”

“ That double-minded way of inquiring into truth, which only in part reasons, while it in part dogmatises, imagines, and assumes, is, it is obvious, in morals, metaphysics, and religion, one of our inheritances from former times. ”

“ For even where at first sight you might think it most out of place, I mean in relation to that kind of truth whose primary evidence is the consciousness of the individual, so that the competent witness of truth is necessarily but one person, there is oneness of opinion, there is unanimity, and the testimony of the one competent witness is not contradicted or doubted by that of any other presumably competent. ”

“ The sensible horizon of subjective vision can, by no mediation, be exalted into the real horizon of truth, wherein the genuine first principles that bound human capability are exclusively to be found. ”

“ For authority, as above intimated, though the venerable instructor of conscience, is yet morally subjected to him; and, not dissimilarly, have conscience and reason reciprocal claims of precedence on each other. Reason is the judge, but he is bound, under conscience, to give a sufficient and attentive hearing to any pleadings that conscience may have to offer, and conscience is the pleader, but he is bound, under reason, to conform to whatever verdicts reason declares himself competent to render. ”

“ In defining the word reason, in its proper and specific sense wherein it is used to denote a certain well-known quality of the human mind—that is, as approvedly ascertained and appreciated under this name, as are certain weights and measures under those of pound, gallon, or mile, he assigns a meaning to it that comes short of the proportions thus justly prefigured as belonging to it. ”

“ But the iron had already entered his soul; he was an Atheist and an outcast. Forced to receive the bounty of relatives who deplored his opinions, he seems to have resented their kindness as an attempt to bribe his intellectual conscience. The world rang with the fame—as theologian, historian, poet, and preacher—of the elder, whose creed he had outgrown and despised; while his convictions, to the full as honest, everywhere stood in his way, and were contemned as an offence against faith and morals. ”

“ Not similarly, however, does our reason inform us that they really are first principles, and our science is hitherto unequal to this inquiry.
Take, for instance, the following celebrated thesis, so often cited as the most fundamental of all the propositions of reason, insomuch as to be tacitly implied in all our reasonings; which yet we are not sure is a first principle, all that can be said in favor of its pretensions being that we can find no one who is able to reduce it to more primary elements:—
It is impossible for a thing at the same time to be and not to be. ”

“ Thus the essential point of the existence of the two principles has always been known, but the idea of their respective spheres and limits, of the efficient prevalence of each within our experience, has fluctuated in society. Art and handicraft are, of course, peculiarly competent to appreciate the artificial principle of order, while physical science is especially conversant with the natural one. ”

“ The new philosophy was the first to separate these two departments; perceiving that the communication of truth is a distinct office from its investigation, and that that difference of office in each case necessitates a corresponding difference in the public, that is the proper object of its exercise. Since, moreover, society may be discriminated into two sorts of mind, admitting [38] of being pictured as the childish and the adults, it is evident that the instructor must find his audience more especially in the former, while the investigator of truth must appeal exclusively to the latter. ”

“ In regard to the first of these tests, the literature of all sects and parties has been accustomed to assert that, both in matters of science and of worldly business, reason is the judge of all truth whatever, without exception. ”

“ Every one, further, believes in certain deductions derived from these facts by naturalists, geologists, astronomers, and so forth. The belief is owing to the unanimous testimony of all these confessedly competent authorities; but whenever they are seen to differ among themselves, the public withholds its entire belief, and either doubts or disbelieves the things asserted. Thus the public is at this day doubtful and divided whether there is such a creature as the sea-serpent. ”

“ Any one agreeing, as every one must, that this is [31] true, might still justly put the query, Why is it impossible? thereby calling its assertion in question, demanding its credentials of proof, seeking some ground for its truth other than its own testimony, and hypothesising some other proposition more fundamental than it of which it would be a derivative, and by all and each of these proceedings, rejecting its claim to be a first principle.
Its resisting our analysis is a good subjective ground for our ranking this and other similar propositions among our first principles. ”

“ Locke seems to have battled mainly for the principle that ideas that every one allows to be inferences, should be acknowledged by philosophy to be such, while the adherents of the old ideas maintained, in opposition to him, that ideas that every one allows to be inferences, should not be acknowledged by philosophy to be such. ”

“ In reference to almost every kind of truth there is always a certain portion of the community better able to judge than the rest. Hence it becomes clearly the part of the latter, if they wish to be rightly informed, to defer to the opinion of those confessedly better judges—confessed to be such from the general opinion to that effect. ”

“ Very few of the public are able to examine the proof of any of the theorems of Euclid, yet there is none of them who would think of seriously doubting the truth of anything contained in that book, the [53] ground of their confidence being solely their knowledge of the fact, that the learned in these matters have unanimously so decided.
Every one, again, believes in certain facts that are asserted by navigators, explorers, and geographers, respecting the existence, position, and products of various countries of the globe. ”

“ As the ancients were equal to the [26] moderns in the former pursuits, but vastly inferior to them in the latter, they must so far have had a tendency to think more of the designing principle, and less of the other principle than we do. But it must be remembered, that one or other of these two principles, or at least the arbitrament between them, is the animating basis of all religion, and of all religious sects and persuasions ”

“ Professor Newman has told me that in any further edition of his little book upon his brother, the Cardinal, [19] he will, on my authority, correct his description of Robert Owen as an Atheist. Charles owed his Atheism to himself, as his brothers owed their opinions to their own conclusions and reflections. Charles not taking a degree was less likely to be owing to means not being furnished to him than to his intermittent indecision of mind and his strong discernment, which produced satisfaction with the world, with others, and with himself. ”

“ The relation of the public to these conceptions of theirs is the same as that of the constituencies to the members of Parliament, in the point of one being the choosers and the others the chosen, with a common object in view.
I suppose, to stop the current of my discourse, and adjourn its topic, for the sake of at once bringing the general principle discussed to the test of exemplification, would have its want of logical harmony excused by its being desiderated by the reader. ”

“ It may be asked, apart from the inquiry what first principles there are, Is there a necessity that some first principles should be? So it seems from the data of the case. It is patent to common observation that the mind of man is recipient of ideas from the things that surround it. The contact of its apprehending faculty with the things it apprehends, must, it would seem, constitute first principles. ”