the difficulty. It was beautiful and religious, but it did not
even profess to be logical; and accordingly I tried to complete it by
considerations of my own, which are implied in my University sermons,
Essay on Ecclesiastical Miracles, and Essay on Development of
Doctrine. My argument is in outline as follows: that that absolute
certitude which we were able to possess, whether as to the truths of
natural theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result
of an _assemblage_ of concurring and converging probabilities, and
that, both according to the constitution of the human mind and the
will of its Maker; that certitude was a habit of mind, that certainty
was a quality of propositions; that probabilities which did not reach
to logical certainty, might create a mental certitude; that the
certitude thus created might equal in measure and strength the
certitude which was created by the strictest scientific
demonstration; and that to have such certitude might in given cases
and to given individuals be a plain duty, though not to others in
other circumstances:--

Moreover, that as there were probabilities which sufficed to create
certitude, so there were other probabilities which were legitimately
adapted to create opinion; that it might be quite as much a matter of
duty in given cases and to given persons to have about a fact an
opinion of a definite strength and consistency, as in the case of
greater or of more numerous probabilities it was a duty to have a
certitude; that accordingly we were bound to be more or less sure, on
a sort of (as it were) graduated scale of assent, viz. according as
the probabilities attaching to a professed fact were brought home to
us, and, as the case might be, to entertain about it a pious belief,
or a pious opinion, or a religious conjecture, or at least, a
tolerance of such belief, or opinion, or conjecture in others; that
on the other hand, as it was a duty to have a belief, of more or less
strong texture, in given cases, so in other cases it was a duty not
to believe, not to opine, not to conjecture, not even to tolerate the
notion that a professed fact was true, inasmuch as it would be
credulity or superstition, or some other moral fault, to do so. This
was the region of private judgment in religion; that is, of a private
judgment, not formed arbitrarily and according to one's fancy or
liking, but conscientiously, and under a sense of duty.

Considerations such as these throw