He holds the evidence of testimony to be distinct from that of experience, and resolvible into a separate and original principle of its own. It serves unnecessarily to complicate a subject, when first principles are multiplied without cause. But, when to serve a cause, that which is pronounced upon as a first principle, is far from being obviously so it goes to mystify a subject, and to weaken exceedingly the impression of the argument which is founded thereupon. 12. The reason which Dr. Campbell alleges for faith in testimony being an instinctive and original principle, and not derived from any other, is, that it is strongest in infancy, and that it becomes weaker as we advance to manhood and old age. He would hold it, therefore to be apart from the faith of experience-seeing, that experience does not strengthen, but rather weaken our faith in testimony. It is our diffidence, rather than our confidence in testimony, which seems to be the result of experience. And, on the unsuspecting trust and simplicity of childhood, contrasted with the growing jealousy and slowness of belief, which are characteristic of those who have had many years of experience and been much conversant with the world-would he ground the conclusion, that our faith in testimony is one of the primary and independent principles of our nature.. 13. We have already said, that even though this were conceded to Dr. Campbell, it is by no means sure, that it ought to be regarded as of any service in his argument. Though we should grant, that it was not experience which originated Faith our credit in testimony-yet from his own account, it would appear, that experience limited the degree of credit which was due to it. in testimony would seem, by his own account, to operate as a blind and undiscerning instinct which led, in the first instance, astray, till rectified by a subsequent experience. If it be the office of experience to regulate and restrain the headlong tendencies of the original instinct, Dr. Campbell will not deny that this is her rightful office; and that, on the whole, she discharges it rightly. This is very like bringing the decisions of our intuitive faith in testimony to the test of experience -or making experience the arbiter of when we ought and when we ought not to repose our confidence in the testimony of others. At this rate experience, if not the originator, is at least the corrector of our belief in testimony-and, after all, supplies the rule or the measure, by which we ascertain the degree of credit, that is due to it. This would leave Hume's argument, such as it is, as much or as little in possession of the ground as before and, we fear, that this assertion of our faith in testimony, as a separate and original principle of man's constitution, has in no way helped, but on the contrary injured the It seems to have been a very general faith of our Scottish Philosophers, that belief in testimony is an independent principle of our nature. The following passage, not to instance other authors, occurs in the writings of Dr. Adam Smith:-"There seems to be in young children an instinctive disposition to believe whatever they are told. Nature seems to have judged it necessary for their preservation that they should, for some 13. But let us try to ascertain what this argument of Dr. Campbell amounts to. There is really nothing in that diffidence of the veracity of others which he has noticed, that is at all inconsistent with its derivation from experience. The child who has observed, once, the conjunction between an event and the testimony which relates it, is in the same circumstances, with regard to this sequence as the child who has observed, once, the conjunction between a stroke on the table with his spoon and the noise that proceeds from it. In the latter case, it will anticipate a repetition of the noise from any stroke upon any substance and in the former case, it will infer the truth of an event from any testimony of any witness. The confidence, in both instances, is alike strong and alike indiscriminating; and in both instances is checked and limited in the very time at least, put implicit confidence in those to whom the care of their childhood, and of the earliest and most necessary part of their education is intrusted. Their credulity, accordingly, is excessive, and it requires long and much experience, of the falsehood of mankind, to reduce them to a reasonable degree of diffidence and distrust. In grown up people, the degrees of credulity are, no doubt, very different. The wisest and most experienced are generally the least credulous. But the man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be, and who does not, upon many occasions, give credit to tales, which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a very moderate degree of reflection and attention might have taught him could not well be true. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of us all, frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing."--Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Vol. II., p. 363, eleventh edition. See also Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, Chap. vi., Sect. 24. same way. So long as the child continues to strike on the table, or on any sonorous substance whatever, it will experience the wonted noise. So long as it hears the testimony of a sincere witness, it will experience in the corresponding fact the truth of his attestation. But, at this stage, it will expect a noise from all sorts of substances -and at this stage, too, it will count on the truth of all sorts of testimony. The whole amount of the matter is, that it has not yet learned to sort and to discriminate and the precise office of experience is, to enable it to do so. This is all the amount of the growing diffidence which Dr. Campbell speaks of. In the one case, the child has experienced that all impulsion will not be followed up by noise. In the other case, it has experienced that, all testimony has not been preceded by the reality of that which the testimony affirms. There is a growing diffidence in the truth of testimony, just as there is a growing diffidence in the effect of impulsion. This phenomenon is realized in the one process which is by all allowed to be strictly experimental-and there is therefore nothing in this same phenomenon, that bespeaks the other process not to have been strictly experimental also. 14. Let us now attend more narrowly to what the diffidence in both cases precisely is. The child has struck its spoon upon the table, and elicited a noise; and it expects to elicit the same noise by a stroke on all sorts of substances. tries to obtain it, by a like application of the instrument in its hand on other smooth surfaces, It and is disappointed as on the surface of water, on the surface of the sandy beach, or on the surface of the bed upon which it happens to be seated. There is a growing diffidence as to the effect of impulsion, in the general. There is a check upon the largeness and universality of this expectation. And with just as good reason as Dr. Campbell affirms that experience begets a growing diffidence in the evidence of testimony, may it be said, that experience begets a growing diffidence in the evidence of experience. The truth is, that experience does not appear, either to augment or diminish our general faith in the constancy of nature's sequences-though it may either augment or diminish our expectation of a given result in particular cases. The reason of this we have already endeavoured to make plain. We are born with the tendency to expect similar results in similar circumstances. But there is often an apparent without a real similarity, or a similarity in some circumstances though not a similarity in all, and these perhaps the essential circumstances. It is just because at the outset of observation, we overlook the differences, and are more impressed by the similarities of things, that in virtue of our native instinct we expect the same result in cases which have an apparent sameness, though they be really distinct from each other. The diffidence in question arises from nothing else than the correction which is subsequently laid on the indefiniteness and generality of this expectation. Experience, whose proper office is not to instruct us in the constancy of nature's sequences but to |