partakes of the character of both; which, while it is contingent in reality, is demonstrative in form.

What is the most appropriate specific appellation that could be adopted for that reasoning which is not demonstrative, is a question of some nicety; nor will I pertinaciously contend that I have made the best possible choice in selecting the term contingent.

Some authors, as already stated, call this species of reasoning moral, and others probable, while a third class use the two epithets interchangeably. To the term moral there is the objection that it is already used in several acceptations; and further, that the reasoning so designated frequently relates to purely physical or material subjects. To the term probable there is the objection that it is usually employed in the sense of likely, and is qualified by epithets expressive of degrees. Cases might easily be imagined in which these two senses would clash e. g. it might happen that we should have to prove by probable reasoning that an event was exceedingly improbable. *

*

"The word probable," says Mr. Stewart, "does not imply [i. e. when philosophically used] any deficiency in the proof, but only marks the particular nature of that proof, as contradistinguished from another species of evidence. It is opposed, not to what is certain, but to what admits of being demonstrated after the manner of mathematicians. This differs widely from the meaning annexed to the same word in popular discourse; according to which, whatever event is said to be probable is understood to be expected with some degree of doubt." Elements, vol. ii. p. 252.

Perhaps, one of the best designations is inductive, which was employed by Dr. Reid in his earliest work, but which he appears to have subsequently laid aside. Since induction, however, as commonly understood, denotes a complex operation, viz. collecting and scrutinizing facts, preparatory to inferring a general law from them, and sometimes inferring the general law itself, the designation seems hardly appropriate in simple cases, where, as is often done in this species of reasoning, we infer one particular fact from another.

The terms moral, probable, inductive, contingent, and demonstrative, direct the attention to the nature of the proofs or evidence before the mind, but we might select names which would point to the intellectual operations themselves.

Hume and other writers, in discussing the origin of the inferences we draw from the past to the future, from the known to the unknown, have ascribed them to instinct; and philosophers generally have referred our discernment of the steps in demonstrative deductions to intuition.

Adopting this view and this phraseology, we might denominate the first species of reasoning

* See several passages in his "Sceptical Doubts," and "Sceptical Solution of these Doubts." I will quote, however, a passage from his "Academical Philosophy on account of its brevity, certainly not of its consistency. "Nothing leads us to this inference but custom, or a certain instinct of our nature." Essays and Treatises, vol. ii. p. 161.

instinctive, and the second, intuitive. We infer instinctively that the bread we are eating will nourish the body as other bread has done: we conclude intuitively that the lines A and B being respectively equal to c are equal to each other.

On giving the subject, however, the best consideration in my power, I have preferred the terms contingent and demonstrative, without precluding myself from the occasional use of any others when no misunderstanding can arise. If the former is not absolutely the most appropriate (in regard to which there is fair scope for diversity of taste and judgment), it will at all events enable me to explain my views with sufficient precision: respecting the latter, I am not aware that there ever has been any difference of opinion whatever.

SECTION II.

Contingent Reasoning distinguished from Knowing on the one hand and Conjecturing on the other.

There is one objection which, I am aware, may be urged against the view now presented of the reasoning process in contingent matters, and it is this, that it would dignify nearly every intellectual act with the name of reasoning; that it would, on the one hand, confound reasoning with positive knowing, and, on the other, with mere conjectur

ing; embracing many cases of instantaneous and habitual apprehension which it would seem puerile to term cases of inference, and many others which are bare guesses or whims of the imagination.

The allegations here supposed might, however, be allowed, might even be true, without at all invalidating the representation of the reasoning process against which they are directed. It would be no impeachment of the doctrine of this treatise to admit, that although there is a broad distinction between the mental acts alleged to be confounded, when we consider very decided cases, yet in many instances it would be difficult to draw a line of demarcation on either side. The colours of the rainbow which are sufficiently contrasted when we regard the middle of each stripe, are so insensibly blended together that it is impossible to perceive where one ends and the other begins, yet no one on this account denies the existence of the seven prismatic colours or the propriety of giving them separate names: and, in the same way, whatever difficulty there might be in drawing a line between knowing and reasoning, and reasoning and conjecturing, in certain instances, these operations might still be regarded as perfectly distinct.

Such a line, nevertheless, may I think be drawn in the former and principal of these cases, although it may not be altogether coincident with common phraseology.

The doctrine of the preceding pages is, that when our minds are determined by present facts, conjoined with experience or knowledge, to believe some fact past, absent, or future, we reason.

From the sounds which at the moment of writing I hear through the open window of my room, I am led to conclude that there is a lark warbling in the sky, although I am unable to see it. The printed page before me superinduces upon my mind the belief that, at some antecedent period, human beings put together the words and impressed the characters on the paper, although I have not the slightest information regarding the individuals who did so. In like manner, I feel assured that the buds on the rose-trees in the

shrubbery will soon expand into full-blown flowers, and that the stone which I see a boy about to throw into the fish-pond will sink in the

water.

These according to the definition are all cases of reasoning. On examining them they all agree in this, that from something actually present to my senses conjoined with past experience, I feel satisfied that something has happened, or will happen, or is happening, beyond the sphere of my personal observation.

The objection we are considering would go to maintain that these are not all cases of reasoning, but that some of them are cases of knowledge. "We know," it may be said, "that the stone which