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It is capable, therefore, of yielding, not a mere probability, but an absolute certainty. The fact that analogy is so far concerned in the process cannot weaken a conclusion which rests ultimately on a fundamental law of reason, the ground-principle of all induction.
These varieties are supposed to be more or less rational and salutary, according to the conception which they respectively exhibit of the nature and character of God, a conception which may be endlessly diversified by the intellect, or the imagination, or the passions of different men; while all the forms of belief are radically identical, since they all spring from the same ground-principle, and are only so many distinct manifestations of it.
May it not be, whether we can explain it or not, that the one set of facts is as directly presented, and needs as little to be proved, as the other? The doctrine of "Identity" constitutes a prominent and indispensable part of the theory of Idealism, and is the ground-principle of Philosophical Pantheism.
In the former shape, it appears in the speculations of Martineau; in the latter, it is advocated by Cousin; and in one or other of these shapes it constitutes the ground-principle of RATIONALISM. The theory, again, which places the principle of Certitude in AUTHORITY has also assumed two distinct shapes.
We are somewhat deficient in the faculty of self-examination and self-criticism. Want of clarity of ground-principle in higher ideals is apt to prove a hindrance to more than the individual only. It generally brings with it want of clarity in the sense of social obligation. And this sometimes extends even to our relations to other countries. It leads to our being misinterpreted as a nation.
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