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Fosteriana: Consisting of Thoughts, Reflections and Criticisms, Selected and Ed. by H.G. Bohn
Fosteriana Consisting of Thoughts Reflections and Criticisms Selected and Ed by HG Bohn Author:John Foster General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1858 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: ON MORAL EVIDENCE. 7 Mankind, therefore, in general, and even the cultivated and intellectual part of them, have occasion to bring a thousand -- perhaps ten thousand -- questions to a decision, on this species of proof, for one which requires or admits a process of demonstration. We may be disposed to lament, that the nature of things makes it impossible to apply this most infallible method of decision to incomparably the greatest proportion of the subjects of our knowledge ; but this regret for the exclusive nature of the most perfect of mental operations, should make us anxious to attain a finished mode of performing the next, which is of less pure intellectual dignity indeed, but of infinitely greater value, on account of the extent of its application. ON MATHEMATICAL DEMONSTRATION. In common with every rational man, Mr. Gambier expresses his high respect for demonstrative reasoning ; but say?, he has had many occasions of observing how little it qualifies a person for forming right opinions on moral and practical subjects. Since the methods of demonstration are necessarily confined to science, it is only its spirit, its severe accuracy, that can be transferred to the investigation of these more general subjects. This intellectual severity, carried into moral reasonings, would be of the greatest advantage, provided the inquirer would constantly recollect the nature of his subject, and let this spirit operate in the way of producing a vigorous exactness in the development and combination of such arguments as those subjects admit, instead of exciting an impatience for such as in their very nature t...« less