The judge may be of opinion that the prisoner's guilt is highly probable and yet be bound to acquit.Is he to believe that the prisoner's innocence is demonstrated?The case really shows the opposite:simply that as we have to act upon probabilities,we are not the less,but the more,bound to guard against the illusion that they are certainties.At every moment and in every relation of our lives,we are forced to act upon imperfect knowledge.The obvious inference is that we are bound to keep in mind that it is imperfect;or otherwise we shall be morally bound to commit intellectually error.If,therefore,a creed be not demonstrably true,we may wisely act as if it were true,but have no right to deny that we are acting upon probability.Butler's famous doctrine that 'probability must be the guide of life,'is true if 'properly explained.'But the difficulty is that,in religious questions,'certitude'is declared to be essential;it must correspond to something more than a 'balance of arguments';(250)and yet the certitude rests upon faith,and faith is 'assumption.'The probability must be somehow converted into certainty.In the Essay on Development,Newman meets Locke by declaring that 'calculation never made a hero,'and praising the Fathers for 'believing first and proving afterwards.'(251)Though calculation does not make a hero,it is essential to making heroism useful.The true hero is the man who is ready to act,though he fairly estimates the chances and knows perhaps that they mean a probability of death.
This gives the real dilemma.Allow conviction to be influenced by the will,and you must admit that a belief morally right may be intellectually wrong.You justify the judge for mistaking presumption for demonstration,and the child for believing that a drunken parent is strictly sober.If so,you sanction erroneous beliefs.And this admittedly applies in particular to religious beliefs.The world,it is granted,is full of false beliefs,attained precisely by your method.Not one man in ten of all that have lived has belonged to the true Church.Newman,in fact,admits that his ultimate proof is 'subjective.'There is no ultimate test of truth beside 'the testimony borne to truth by the mind itself.'(252)He does not,indeed,deny the possibility of demonstration:he often asserts it;but he holds that the demonstration will not in fact convince.Men differ in their first principles,and he cannot change a man's principles more than he can make a crooked man straight or a blind man see.(253)Hence we have the final answer.We have really to desert a logical ground and to take our stand upon instinct.Our instincts are in one respect infallible.
Belief in revealed religion depends upon belief in natural religion.Natural religion is founded on the conscience.The conscience means the sense of sin,and therefore the desire for intercession which is satisfied by the priesthood.The religion of philosophy ignores the conscience,though it recognises the moral sense.(254)The order of the world,indeed,seems to contradict this.What strikes the mind 'so forcibly and so painfully'is God's absence from His own world.He has left men in ignorance,and is a 'hidden God.'We are forced to the conclusion that 'either there is no Creator or He has disowned His creatures.'(255)Such doubts 'call for the exercise of good sense and for strength of will to put them down with a high hand as irrational or preposterous.'(256)Why 'irrational,'if they cannot be answered?Newman,indeed,declares that he is as certain of the existence of God as of his own,although he has a difficulty in putting the grounds of his certitude into 'mood and figure.'(257)The position is illustrated by a remarkable sermon(258)in which,after his conversion,he again applies the old 'kill-or-cure'remedy.He puts the various difficulties of theistic belief with his usual force.He declares that there are 'irrefragable'demonstrations of the doctrine;but he admits the difficulties.(259)They are so great,indeed,that if you once believe in God you need not shrink from accepting any of the mysteries of the Catholic creed.The result seems to be that while Newman declares that 'demonstrations'exist,he also emphatically declares that they will not practically convince.
The proof for the ordinary mind must depend upon the 'illative sense';and the illative sense implies the existence of the conscience,and,moreover,of the conscience as distinguished from the 'moral sense.'The 'moral sense'leads only to the hollow morality of 'so-called civilisation'and of superficial philosophy.To convince men we must appeal to their conscience.
