Note B — Chapter XXIX · A RETURN TO MYSELF.

Where we meet with many such comforting passages as the following:—

(Page 108.) “Until we account for the knowledge which an infant has of his mother, or his nurse, what reason have we to take exception at the doctrine as strange and difficult, that in the dictate of conscience, without previous experiences or analogical reasoning, he is able gradually to perceive the voice, or the echoes of the voice, of a Master, living, personal, and sovereign?”

(Page 195.) “Again, this intellectual anxiety, which is incompatible with certitude, shows itself in our running back in our minds to the arguments on which we came to believe, in not letting our conclusions alone, in going over and strengthening the evidence, and, as it were, getting it by heart, as if our highest assent were only an inference. And such, too, is our unnecessarily declaring that we are certain, as if to re-assure ourselves, and our appealing to others for their suffrage in behalf of the truths of which we are so sure; which is like our asking another whether we are weary or hungry, or have eaten and drunk to our satisfaction.”

(Page 209.) “Introspection of our intellectual operations is not the best means for preserving us from intellectual hesitations. To meddle with the springs of thought and action is really to weaken them; and as to that argumentation which is the preliminary to certitude, it may indeed be unavoidable, but, as in the case of other serviceable allies, it is not so easy to discard it, after it has done its work, as it was in the first instance to obtain its assistance * * *

“Objections and difficulties tell upon the mind; it may lose its elasticity, and be unable to throw them off. And thus, even as regards things which it may be absurd to doubt, we may, in consequence of some past suggestion of the possibility of error, or of some chance association to their disadvantage, be teased from time to time, and hampered by involuntary questionings, as if we were not certain when we are.”