




                                 An Essay

                                In Aid Of

                           A Grammar Of Assent.

                                    by

                            John Henry Newman,

                             Of the Oratory.

       Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum.

                               ST. AMBROSE.

                                 London:

                           Burns, Oates, & Co.

            17 & 18, Portman Street, and 63, Paternoster Row.

                                   1874





CONTENTS


Dedication.
Part I. Assent And Apprehension.
   Chapter I. Modes Of Holding And Apprehending Propositions.
      § 1. Modes of Holding Propositions.
      § 2. Modes of apprehending Propositions.
   Chapter II. Assent Considered As Apprehensive.
   Chapter III. The Apprehension Of Propositions.
   Chapter IV. Notional And Real Assent.
      § 1. Notional Assents.
      § 2. Real Assents.
      § 3. Notional and Real Assents Contrasted.
   Chapter V. Apprehension And Assent In The Matter Of Religion.
      § 1. Belief in One God.
      § 2. Belief in the Holy Trinity.
      § 3. Belief in Dogmatic Theology.
Part II. Assent And Inference.
   Chapter VI. Assent Considered As Unconditional.
      § 1. Simple Assent.
      § 2. Complex Assent.
   Chapter VII. Certitude.
      § 1. Assent and Certitude Contrasted.
      § 2. Indefectibility of Certitude.
   Chapter VIII. Inference.
      § 1. Formal Inference.
      § 2. Informal Inference.
      § 3. Natural Inference.
   Chapter IX. The Illative Sense.
      § 1. The Sanction of the Illative Sense.
      § 2. The Nature of the Illative Sense.
      § 3. The Range of the Illative Sense.
   Chapter X. Inference And Assent In The Matter Of Religion.
      § 1. Natural Religion.
      § 2. Revealed Religion.
Note.
Footnotes






DEDICATION.


To

Edward Bellasis,

Serjeant At Law,

In Remembrance

Of A Long, Equable, Sunny Friendship;

In Gratitude

For Continual Kindnesses Shown To Me,

For An Unwearied Zeal In My Behalf,

For A Trust In Me Which Has Never Wavered,

And A Prompt, Effectual Succour And Support

In Times Of Special Trial,

From His Affectionate

J. H. N.

_February 21, 1870._





PART I. ASSENT AND APPREHENSION.




Chapter I. Modes Of Holding And Apprehending Propositions.



§ 1. Modes of Holding Propositions.


1. Propositions (consisting of a subject and predicate united by the
copula) may take a categorical, conditional, or interrogative form.

(1) An interrogative, when they ask a Question, (e. g. Does Free-trade
benefit the poorer classes?) and imply the possibility of an affirmative
or negative resolution of it.

(2) A conditional, when they express a Conclusion (e. g. Free-trade
therefore benefits the poorer classes), and both imply, and imply their
dependence on, other propositions.

(3) A categorical, when they simply make an Assertion (e. g. Free-trade
does benefit), and imply the absence of any condition or reservation of
any kind, looking neither before nor behind, as resting in themselves and
being intrinsically complete.

These three modes of shaping a proposition, distinct as they are from each
other, follow each other in natural sequence. A proposition, which starts
with being a Question, may become a Conclusion, and then be changed into
an Assertion; but it has of course ceased to be a question, so far forth
as it has become a conclusion, and has rid itself of its argumentative
form--that is, has ceased to be a conclusion,--so far forth as it has become
an assertion. A question has not yet got so far as to be a conclusion,
though it is the necessary preliminary of a conclusion; and an assertion
has got beyond being a mere conclusion, though it is the natural issue of
a conclusion. Their correlation is the measure of their distinction one
from another.

No one is likely to deny that a question is distinct both from a
conclusion and from an assertion; and an assertion will be found to be
equally distinct from a conclusion. For, if we rest our affirmation on
arguments, this shows that we are not asserting; and, when we assert, we
do not argue. An assertion is as distinct from a conclusion, as a word of
command is from a persuasion or recommendation. Command and assertion, as
such, both of them, in their different ways, dispense with, discard,
ignore, antecedents of any kind, though antecedents may have been a _sine
qua non_ condition of their being elicited. They both carry with them the
pretension of being personal acts.

In insisting on the intrinsic distinctness of these three modes of putting
a proposition, I am not maintaining that they may not co-exist as regards
one and the same subject. For what we have already concluded, we may, if
we will, make a