ON DOUBT. DOUBT is an intellectual tendency to deny a proposition resting upon a limited quantity of evidence, on the ground that the evidence is no greater; and it is always accompanied by an opposite intellectual tendency to affirm the same on the ground that the evidence is no less. Doubt is thus the complement of belief.' If a thing is known or certain, the evidence or reason for it must be complete, and it is impossible to doubt it. If, on the contrary, there is no evidence for it, or none known to us, we know that it is false, or are ignorant that it is true, and it is impossible to believe it. If, thirdly, there is a limited amount of evidence-much or little-short of that required for certainty, we believe the proposition, because there is evidence for it, but doubt it, because the amount of evidence forthcoming is insufficient to satisfy the demand made by the mind as a condition of its arriving at certainty. This demand varies indefinitely in different individuals, and in different sets of individuals under different circumstances. Thus, the preaching of an angel from heaven would be, to the majority of mankind, conclusive evidence of the truth of a doctrine; but for Christians, St. Paul says, this is not sufficient evidence, unless the doctrine be identical with that already received (Gal. i. 8). Or, again, what is sufficient evidence to produce certainty in an uninstructed, may be insufficient to assure an instructed, person. But apart from this variety in the demand actually made for evidence, there is a certain amount of evidence in every case which is ideally suffi 1 Belief is co-extensive with knowledge in the opinion of Prof. Flint. "Theism" (Blackwood, 1877), pp. 85-86. cient, and which is always taken for granted as a standard of certainty, however opinions may vary as to what or how much it is. Doubt, then, like belief, presupposes (a) that a proposition is no longer received in childlike simplicity without question. Absit," says St. Augustine, "ut ideo credamus ne rationem accipiamus sive quaeramus." (b) "Doubting necessarily implies some degree of evidence for that of which we doubt" (Butler, Anal., ii. 5); and as Archbishop Leighton has it, "when there is a great deal of smoke and no clear flame, it argues much moisture in the matter; yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire within. And therefore dubious questioning is much better evidence than that senseless dulness which most take for believing. Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts. He never truly believed who was not first made sensible and convinced of unbelief." Conversely, belief, as the acceptance of a proposition upon evidence less than the amount required for certainty, postulates a margin of doubt (cf. "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief"), which exactly corresponds to the difference between the amount of evidence on which I believe a thing, and the amount of evidence on which I should be certain of it. In common parlance, when the evidence for the truth of a proposition preponderates over that against it, when the area, so to speak, of our belief in it is more extensive than the area of our doubt about it, we say we believe it, and omit to make record of our doubts about it. Similarly, when our doubts about it preponderate over our belief in it, we say in common speech, that we doubt it, and take no account of our belief in it. And this is all the more the case when, as in most instances, either doubt or belief predominates out of all proportion to its respective opposite. But if we would describe the whole state of the mind in the consideration of incomplete evidence, we must regard it as a double (du-bito, di -σrálew, zwei-feln), and not a single state; we must say that we both believe and doubt a proposition which, upon the evidence, is at once probable and improbable. Doubt does not necessarily imply a state of indifference or suspension of judgment. On the contrary, this is only the case in those very few instances in which the evidence for and against a proposition is exactly equal, and our belief in and doubt about its truth are equal also. Neither does doubt involve disbelief, except in the same sense as it involves belief; for disbelief is itself a kind of belief, the belief, namely, that a particular proposition is not true. Belief, then, whether affirming or denying, is a positive, but a limited and imperfect, state of mind, as compared with faith and knowledge. And the limit or imperfection of belief, whether large or small, is doubt. Apparent States of Belief which exclude Doubt.-When the evidence for the truth of a proposition is complete, we are not said to believe it any longer, but to know it. And this is equally the case whether the evidence consist of an enumeration of the reasons, or rest upon the authority of an absolutely veracious person. The distinction, in truth, between believing in a fact, and believing in a person, will not bear close examination. When I believe in a fact, I assent to a proposition importing that the fact is real and is of a particular kind-as true, on the strength of what appear to me to be adequate reasons; when I believe in a person, I assent to the proposition, importing that the person in question is trustworthy-as true, on the strength of evidence, as in the former case. His trustworthiness, thus ascertained, then becomes itself the evidence for the proposition for which he vouches. But there are several other cases in which the words "implicit" and "steadfast" are applied to belief to signify the exclusion of doubt: (a) A belief is implicit or implied when it is not explicit or explained, i.e. when there is no reason or explanation "why I believe" to be given, but "that I believe" is taken for granted both by myself and others. This, just like implicit obedience, is the normal condition of the child, and the actual condition of the vast majority of the human race, in whom the mind is in a state of mere passive receptivity in relation to truth, and who are therefore not yet able to ask themselves "why they believe." (b) Belief is "steadfast" when the exclusion of doubt is not so much the result of natural condition as of voluntary effort. Steadfast" means, first, "permanent," or "unwavering," and, secondly, that this permanence is the work of the will, bringing the mind consciously under the sway of habit. "Steadfast belief," then, supposes the emergence of doubt, and its intentional and habitual suppression; not only the state of mind which says, "I believe," but that which, perhaps after experience of the double condition of belief and doubt, says, “I will believe," " I mean to believe," and consciously forms the permanent habit or state of believing. (c) The result of this process is again a state of implicit belief, which resembles the first in excluding any explanation or reason for believing, but differs from it in being acquired instead of natural. The child is not yet--the "steadfast" believer no longer-able to ask "why he believes;" because the attention of the child is not yet-that of the habitual believer no longer-attracted to the fact that he does believe. To sum up doubt can only be excluded from belief, either when the evidence for the truth of a proposition is complete, in which case belief itself vanishes in knowledge; or, as in the three cases last mentioned, by the interposition of some determinant external to the mental process of believing, as such, and due either (a) to natural condition, or (b) to voluntary effort, or (c) to the force of habit. In the first case, the completeness of the evidence, while it excludes doubt excludes belief also; in the last three, the intervention of alien causes excludes, along with doubt, the conscious repose of belief upon evidence at all. From this it follows that belief, if it rests upon any evidence whatever, must rest upon evidence that is not entirely complete; and as it is itself (apart from the operation upon it of external causes) essentially an imperfect assent, it postulates the co-existence of doubt, as its limit. Supposed States of Doubt which exclude Belief.—The attempt to make doubt absolute and thorough-going is still more illogical than the exclusion of doubt from the condition of belief. If doubt be the inherent imperfection of belief, it postulates the existence of that of which it is the imperfection; if it be the consciousness of the incompleteness of evidence, it supposes the existence of evidence which is thus incomplete. It is the recognition of this limit to doubt which distinguishes rational doubt from scepticism. "We doubt," says Descartes, " in order to obtain a ground of absolute certitude." In other words, we traverse the region of doubt in order to arrive at the belief which is its limit. The ancient followers of Pyrrho, however, in setting up doubt as an ultimate and final principle in thought, asserted that there was nothing on which the instructed intellect should allow itself to frame a definite judgment. Such a principle, were it possible to carry it out to its legitimate conclusions, puts an end to all action, as to all thought, and is as subversive of society as it is of religion and philosophy. consistent Pyrrhonist has no right to eat or drink; if his house is on fire, there is no reason that he should attempt to escape. Why? Because such an action presupposes a series of previous judgments, "I am in danger," "It is well to escape," "To escape, I must flee," &c., none of which he has any rational ground for framing. Fortunately, human instinct is better than philosophy in this case, and comes in to correct the extravagance of theory. But, also, the theory itself, if thought out, annihilates itself. When the Pyrrhonist has doubted the reality of the world and of thought, he at length The |