CHAP. XV. BOOK IV. tion and experience1. In the testimony of others, is to be considered: 1. The number. 2. The integrity. 3. The skill of the witnesses. 4. The design of the author, where it is a testimony out of a book cited. 5. The consistency of the parts, and circumstances of the relation. 6. Contrary testimonies 2. ence, In this, all the Argu and con 5. Probability wanting that intuitive evidence which infallibly determines the understanding and produces certain ments pro knowledge, the mind, if it will proceed rationally, ought to examine all the grounds of probability, and see how they ought to be examined, make more or less for or against any proposition, before it assents to or dissents from it; and, upon a due balancing the Judgment. whole, reject or receive it, with a more or less firm assent, proportionably to the preponderancy of the greater grounds of probability on one side or the other 3. For example: before we come to a If I myself see a man walk on the ice, it is past probability; it is knowledge. But if another tells me he saw a man in England, in the midst of a sharp winter, walk upon water hardened with cold, this has so great conformity with what is usually observed to happen, that I am disposed by the nature of the thing itself to assent to it; unless some manifest 1 This is called by some 'foreign,' in contrast to personal experiencefounded by the witnesses in like manner on the custom of their experience, and 'conformity' with its analogies. 2 This section suggests the consideration of testimony in its wide meaning, including historical criticism and credibility; also the weight due to the evidence of authority in disputed questions of science, and of philosophical and religious thought. 3 In questions which have to be determined by presumptions of probability, there are reasons on both sides, and objections to every conceivable conclusion. Yet unless we resolve to remain in suspense, which is itself a negative judgment, we are bound in reason to seek for the conclusion that is least open to objection, and most in analogy with our previous experience: this, when recognised, we are naturally 4 6 induced to assent to. As human life turns upon judgments of probability, this balancing' of reasons and objections, in the light of the analogies of personal and foreign experience, is the chief intellectual employment of mankind. The different judgments they are led to form depend upon differences in the history and spiritual experience of the individual judges. Seeing' is 'knowing,' according to ch. xi, only when the body that is seen is present. In the supposed instance, the 'man,' so far forth as his visible qualities go, is present; but, as visible qualities alone do not constitute the nominal essence of man, I cannot, on Locke's teaching, know that a man is walking on ice, only by what I see. The sight involves a 'judgment' of probability about absent coexisting qualities in the thing seen. CHAP. XV. suspicion attend the relation of that matter of fact. But if BOOK IV. the same thing be told to one born between the tropics, who never saw nor heard of any such thing before1, there the whole probability relies on testimony2: and as the relators are more in number, and of more credit, and have no interest to speak contrary to the truth, so that matter of fact is like to find more or less belief. Though to a man whose experience has always been quite contrary, and who has never heard of anything like it, the most untainted credit of a witness will scarce be able to find belief. As it happened to a Dutch ambassador, who entertaining the king of Siam The king with the particularities of Holland, which he was inquisitive after, amongst other things told him, that the water in his country would sometimes, in cold weather, be so hard, that men walked upon it, and that it would bear an elephant, if he were there. To which the king replied, Hitherto I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober fair man, but now I am sure you lie*. of Siam. arguments Variety. 6. Upon these grounds depends the probability of any Probable proposition and as the conformity of our knowledge, as the capable of certainty of observations, as the frequency and constancy of great experience, and the number and credibility of testimonies do more or less agree or disagree with it, so is any proposition in itself more or less probable. There is another, I confess, So that it has no 'conformity' with the analogies of his experience. * That is, on the analogy between the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual witness and one's own standard of trustworthy testimony. 3 Because it more accords with the analogies of his personal experience to find testimony (intentionally or unintentionally) in error, than to sup. pose the truth of what is wholly out of analogy with all that he has ever experienced. He is thus induced to reject the testimony-his own experience being for him the ultimate standard of probability. This is Hume's reason for rejecting à priori all testimony to miracles. It was probably suggested by this sentence. The case Judgments of probability are there- CHAP. XV. BOOK IV. which, though by itself it be no true ground of probability, yet is often made use of for one, by which men most commonly regulate their assent, and upon which they pin their faith more than anything else, and that is, the opinion of others; though there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on, nor more likely to mislead one; since there is much more falsehood and error among men, than truth and knowledge. And if the opinions and persuasions of others, whom we know and think well of, be a ground of assent, men have reason to be Heathens in Japan, Mahometans in Turkey, Papists in Spain, Protestants in England, and Lutherans in Sweden. But of this wrong ground of assent I shall have occasion to speak more at large in another place 1. that experience; and the degree to 1 See chh. xvii. § 19; xx. §§ 17, 18. sion to human authority in matters of science and opinion. Yet we cannot dispense with the authority of experts and, in many cases, dependence on men of higher intelligence and larger experience than our own is the most reasonable means we can use for the attainment of truth. CHAPTER XVI. OF THE DEGREES OF ASSENT. 1. THE grounds of probability we have laid down in the BOOK IV. foregoing chapter: as they are the foundations on which our СНАР. XVI. Assent of Prob assent is built, so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are, or ought to be regulated: only we are to take Our notice, that, whatever grounds of probability there may be, ought to they yet operate no further on the mind which searches after be regulated by truth, and endeavours to judge right, than they appear; at the least, in the first judgment or search that the mind makes. Grounds I confess, in the opinions men have, and firmly stick to in the ability. world, their assent is not always from an actual view of the reasons that at first prevailed with them: it being in many cases almost impossible, and in most, very hard, even for those who have very admirable memories, to retain all the proofs which, upon a due examination, made them embrace that side of the question. It suffices that they have once with care and fairness sifted the matter as far as they could; and that they have searched into all the particulars, that they could imagine to give any light to the question; and, with the best of their skill, cast up the account upon the whole evidence: and thus, having once found on which side the probability appeared to them', after as full and exact an inquiry as they can make, 1 Assent on ground of probability is a better test of the man by whom it is given than intellectual perception of what is intuitively or demonstratively certain; for what is considered probable by each man depends upon the extent and variety of his physical and spiritual experience; also upon the degree of development of his higher VOL. II. faculties, under the laws by which they Bb 1441 BOOK IV. they lay up the conclusion in their memories, as a truth they have discovered; and for the future they remain satisfied with the testimony of their memories, that this is the opinion that, by the proofs they have once seen of it, deserves such a degree of their assent as they afford it. CHAP. These cannot actually in View; and then we must content with the remem brance that we once saw 2. This is all that the greatest part of men are capable of always be doing, in regulating their opinions and judgments; unless a man will exact of them, either to retain distinctly in their memories all the proofs concerning any probable truth, and that too, in the same order, and regular deduction of conseourselves quences in which they have formerly placed or seen them; which sometimes is enough to fill a large volume on one single question or else they must require a man, for every opinion that he embraces, every day to examine the proofs: both ground which are impossible. It is unavoidable, therefore, that the Degree of memory be relied on in the case, and that men be persuaded of several opinions, whereof the proofs are not actually in their thoughts; nay, which perhaps they are not able actually to recall. Without this, the greatest part of men must be either very sceptics; or change every moment, and yield themselves up to whoever, having lately studied the question, offers them arguments, which, for want of memory, they are not able presently to answer 1. for such a Assent. The ill conse 3. I cannot but own, that men's sticking to their past quence of judgment, and adhering firmly to conclusions formerly made, this, if our is often the cause of great obstinacy in error and mistake. former Judg. ments were not rightly made. But the fault is not that they rely on their memories for what they have before well judged, but because they judged before they had well examined 2. May we not find a great number (not to say the greatest part) of men that think they have formed right judgments of several matters; and that for no other reason, but because they never thought otherwise? that 1 This is virtually faith in myself, as to judgments formerly reached by me, in which I regard myself as having been sufficiently an expert to make them now worthy of acceptance by me as true. 2 In other words, one often exag gerates his own claim to be treated as an expert, in regard to any of his past judgments, even to the extent of taking the mere fact that he has long so judged as a sufficient reason for continuing so to judge. |