Note (return) — Chapter VII

Here we have, first, an attempted distinction between faith and knowledge. "We know what rests upon reason;" that is, whatever we obtain by deduction or induction, whatever is capable of explication and proof, is knowledge. "We believe what rests upon authority;" that is, whatever we obtain by intellectual intuition or pure apperception, and is incapable of explication and of proof, is "a belief or trust." These instinctive beliefs, which are, as it were, the first principles upon which all knowledge rests, are, however, indiscriminately called by Hamilton "cognitions," "beliefs," "judgments." He declares most explicitly "that the principles of our knowledge must themselves be knowledges;" 345 and these first principles, which are "the primary condition of reason," are elsewhere called "à priori cognitions;" also "native, pure, or transcendental knowledge," in contradistinction to "à posteriori cognitions," or that knowledge which is obtained in the exercise of reason. 346 All this confusion results from an attempt to put asunder what God has joined together. As Clemens of Alexandria has said, "Neither is faith without knowledge, nor knowledge without faith." All faith implies knowledge, and all knowledge implies faith. They are mingled in the one operation of the human mind, by which we apprehend first principles or ultimate truths. These have their light and dark side, as Hamilton has remarked. They afford enough light to show that they are and must be, and thus communicate knowledge; they furnish no light to show how they are and why they are, and under that aspect demand the exercise of faith. There must, therefore, first be something known before there can be any faith. 347