ning.

If not, what is Mr. Balfour's book? By his own definition, _that_ is
'outside the sphere of Reason,' inasmuch as it is a series of negative
propositions which, like their denied contraries, must be 'incapable of
proof.' What term, then, would he apply to his argument, if he admits
that he is arguing?

The philosophic skeptic, it would appear, has logically overreached
himself--a very usual consummation. There is little sign that any of the
religious skeptics above named ever made any converts to religion; and
there is much 'reason' to think that they turned many to unbelief. Mr.
Balfour from time to time speaks of 'reasonable people' and of
'absurdity.' But he leaves us in the dark as to what absurdity means,
and his thesis excludes from the 'reasonable' class alike all religious
persons and all scientific persons, unless, possibly, mathematicians as
such. Since there is no 'reasonable assurance' for the belief that the
sun will rise to-morrow, and politicians have no ground in reason for
anything they say as such, the mass of the ordinary beliefs of educated
mankind are not reasonable or rational; and since we have no 'reason'
for believing in either mortality or immortality, we can have no reason
for believing (whether we do or not) in Mr. Balfour, who avowedly
believes in both without reason. His book, by implication, is not an
appeal to reason, is not a process of reasoning, and can give no
'reasonable assurance' of anything, positive or negative, to anybody.
All this by his own showing.

The rationalist, it should seem, has small cause to deprecate such
antagonism. He could hardly have a more comprehensive clearing of the
field of dialectic for the formulation of his own conception of reason
and reasoning, and his own appeal to the reason of reasonable people. As
thus:--

1. _Reason_ is our name for (_a_) the sum of all the judging processes;
(_b_) the act of reflex judgment; (_c_) 'private judgment' as against
obedience to authority; and (_d_) the state of sanity contrasted with
that of insanity; and '_a_ reason' is a fact or motive or surmise which
we judge sufficient to induce us or others to believe or do (or doubt or
not do) something without much or any danger of error, failure, or
injury.

2. _Reasoning_ is our name for the process of comparing or stating
'reasons why' certain propositions or judgments should be believed or
disbelieved, or certain acts done or not done.

3. We are emphatically