Grammar of Assent

^1. I HAVE said that our apprehension of a proposition varies in strength, and that it is stronger when it is concerned with a proposition expressive to us of things than when concerned with a proposition expressive of notions; and I have given this reason for it, viz. that what is concrete exerts a force and makes an impression on the mind which nothing abstract can rival. That is, I have argued that, because the object is more powerful, therefore so is the apprehension of it.

I do not think it unfair reasoning thus to take the apprehension for its object. The mind is ever stimulated in proportion to the cause stimulating it. Sights, for instance, sway us, as scents do not; whether this be owing to a greater power in the thing seen, or to a greater receptivity and expansiveness in the sense of seeing, is a superfluous question. The strong object would make the apprehension strong. Our sense of seeing is able to open to its object, as our sense of smell cannot open to its own. Its objects are able to awaken the mind, take possession of it, inspire it, act through it, with an energy and variousness which is not found in the case of scents and their apprehension. Since we cannot draw the line between the object and the act, I am at liberty to say, as I have said, that, as is the thing apprehended, so is the apprehension.

And so in like manner as regards apprehension of mental objects. If an image derived from experience or information is stronger than an abstraction, conception, or conclusion—if I am more arrested by our Lord's bearing before Pilate and Herod than by the "Justum et tenacem" &c. of the poet, more arrested by His Voice saying to us, "Give to him that asketh thee," than by the best arguments of the Economist against indiscriminate almsgiving, it does not matter for my present purpose whether the objects give strength to the apprehension or the apprehension gives large admittance into the mind to the object. It is in human nature to be more affected by the concrete than by the abstract; it may be the reverse with other beings. The apprehension, then, may be as fairly said to possess the force which acts upon us, as the object apprehended.

2. Real apprehension, then, may be pronounced stronger than notional, because things, which are its objects, are confessedly more impressive and affective than notions, which are the objects of notional. Experiences and their images strike and occupy the mind, as abstractions and their combinations do not. Next, passing on to Assent, I observe that it is this variation in the mind's apprehension of an object to which it assents, and not any incompleteness in the assent itself, that leads us to speak of strong and weak assents, as if Assent itself admitted of degrees. In either mode of apprehension, be it real or be it notional, the assent preserves its essential characteristic of being unconditional. The assent of a Stoic to the "Justum et tenacem" &c. may be as genuine an assent, as absolute and entire, as little admitting of degree or variation, as distinct from an act of inference, as the assent of a Christian to the history of our Lord's Passion in the Gospel.

3. However, characteristic as it is of Assent, to be thus in its nature simply one and indivisible, and thereby essentially different from Inference, which is ever varying in strength, never quite at the same pitch in any two of its acts, still it is at the same time true that it may be difficult in fact, by external tokens, to distinguish given acts of assent from given acts of inference. Thus, whereas no one could possibly confuse the real assent of a Christian to the fact of our Lord's crucifixion, with the notional acceptance of it, as a point of history, on the part of a philosophical heathen (so removed from each other, toto cœlo, are the respective modes of apprehending it in the two cases, though in both the assent is in its nature one and the same), nevertheless it would be easy to mistake the Stoic's notional assent, genuine though it might be, to the moral nobleness of the just man "struggling in the storms of fate," for a mere act of inference resulting from the principles of his Stoical profession, or again for an assent merely to the inferential necessity of the nobleness of that struggle. Nothing, indeed, is more common than to praise men for their consistency to their principles, whatever those principles are, that is, to praise them on an inference, without thereby implying any assent to the principles themselves.

The cause of this resemblance between acts so distinct is obvious. Resemblance exists only in cases of notional assents; when the assent is given to notions, then indeed it is possible to hesitate in deciding whether it is assent or inference, whether the mind is merely without doubt or whether it is actually certain. And the reason is this: notional Assent seems like Inference, because the apprehension which accompanies acts of Inference is notional also,—because Inference is engaged for the most part on notional propositions, both premiss and conclusion. This point, which I have implied throughout, I here distinctly record, and shall enlarge upon hereafter. Only propositions about individuals are not notional, and these are seldom the matter of inference. Thus, did the Stoic infer the fact of our Lord's death instead of assenting to it, that proposition as inferred would have been as much an abstraction to him as the "Justum," &c.; nay further, the "Justus et tenax" was at least a notion in his mind, but "Jesus Christ" would, in the schools of Athens or of Rome, have stood for less, for an unknown being, the x or y of a formula. Except then in some of the cases of singular conclusions, inferences are employed on notions, unless, I say, they are employed on mere symbols; and, indeed, when they are symbolical, then are they clearest and most cogent, as I shall hereafter show. The next clearest are such as carry out the necessary results of previous classifications, and therefore may be called definitions or conclusions, as we please. For instance, having divided beings into their classes, the definition of man is inevitable.

4. We may call it then the normal state of Inference to apprehend propositions as notions; and we may call it the normal state of Assent to apprehend propositions as things. If notional apprehension is most congenial to Inference, real apprehension will be the most natural concomitant on Assent. An act of Inference includes in its object the dependence of its thesis upon its premisses, that is, upon a relation, which is an abstraction; but an act of Assent rests wholly on the thesis as its object, and the reality of the thesis is almost a condition of its unconditionality.

5. I am led on to make one remark more, and it shall be my last.

An act of assent, it seems, is the most perfect and highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions, which are apprehended as experiences and images, that is, which stand for things; and, on the other hand, an act of inference is the most perfect and highest of its kind, when it is exercised on propositions which are apprehended as notions, that is, which are creations of the mind. An act of inference indeed may be made with either of these modes of apprehension; so may an act of assent; but when inferences are exercised on things, they tend to be conjectures or presentiments, without logical force; and when assents are exercised on notions, they tend to be mere assertions without any personal hold on them on the part of those who make them. If this be so, the paradox is true, that, when Inference is clearest, Assent may be least forcible, and, when Assent is most intense, Inference may be least distinct;—for, though acts of assent require previous acts of inference, they require them, not as adequate causes, but as sine quâ non conditions; and, while the apprehension strengthens Assent, Inference often weakens the apprehension.

I shall consider Assent made to propositions which express abstractions or notions under five heads; which I shall call Profession, Credence, Opinion, Presumption, and Speculation.