The great changes which thus take place in the history of science, the revolutions of the intellectual world, have, as a usual and leading character, this, that they are steps of generalization; — transitions from particular truths to others of a wider extent, in which the former are included. This progress of knowledge, from individual facts to universal laws, — from particular propositions to general ones, — and from these to others still more general, with reference to which the former generalizations are particular,— is so far familiar to men’s minds, that without here entering into further explanation, its nature will be understood sufficiently to prepare the reader to recognise the exemplifications of such a process, which he will find at every step of our advance.
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Since the advance of science consists in collecting by induction general laws from particular facts, and in combining several laws into one higher generalization, in which they still retain their former truth, we might form a Chart, or Table, of the progress of each science, by setting down the particulars which thus flow together, so as to form general truths, and marking the junction of these general truths into others more comprehensive. The table of the progress of any science would thus resemble the map of a river, in which the waters from separate sources unite and make rivulets, which again meet with rivulets from other fountains, and thus go on forming by their junction trunks of a higher and higher order. The representation of the state of a science in this form, would necessarily exhibit all the principal doctrines of the science; for each general truth contains the particular truths from which it was derived, and may be followed backwards till we have these before us in their separate state.
What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
Truth is as much the first want as it is the first good of mankind: yes, truth in religion, which by giving us high and pure ideas of the Divinity, teaches us that our homage ought to be worthy of it; truth in morality, which without rigour, as without weak indulgence, traces out to men in all situations their respective duties; truth in policy, which by rendering authority more just, and subjects more submissive, protects governments from the passions of the multitude, and the multitude from the tyranny of governments; truth in our tribunals, which makes vice afraid, reassures and comforts the innocent, and conduces to the triumph of justice; truth in education, which by rendering conduct accordant with doctrine, makes teachers to be the models, as well as the masters of infancy and youth; truth in literature and in the arts, which preserves them from the contagion of bad taste, from false ornaments, and from false thoughts; truth in the commerce of life, which by banishing fraud and imposture, warrants the common safety; truth in every thing, truth before every thing, this is that which the whole human race from its inmost soul is ever seeking, so thoroughly convinced are all men that truth is useful and falsehood hurtful.
Truth is as much the first want as it is the first good of mankind: yes, truth in religion, which by giving us high and pure ideas of the Divinity, teaches us that our homage ought to be worthy of it; truth in morality, which without rigour, as without weak indulgence, traces out to men in all situations their respective duties; truth in policy, which by rendering authority more just, and subjects more submissive, protects governments from the passions of the multitude, and the multitude from the tyranny of governments; truth in our tribunals, which makes vice afraid, reassures and comforts the innocent, and conduces to the triumph of justice; truth in education, which by rendering conduct accordant with doctrine, makes teachers to be the models, as well as the masters of infancy and youth; truth in literature and in the arts, which preserves them from the contagion of bad taste, from false ornaments, and from false thoughts; truth in the commerce of life, which by banishing fraud and imposture, warrants the common safety; truth in every thing, truth before every thing, this is that which the whole human race from its inmost soul is ever seeking, so thoroughly convinced are all men that truth is useful and falsehood hurtful. ¶ When the doctrines of truth are universally inculcated, when they have penetrated into all hearts, and when they animate all classes of society, if they should not succeed in applying a remedy to all disorders, they would certainly have the happy effect of arresting the progress of very many; they would become the fruitful sources of generous sentiment and virtuous action; and they would make us feel that truth is the principle of all life to the social body. But if, on the other hand, error should obtain an ascendancy over the minds of men, and more particularly over the minds of those who are called upon to serve as guides and as examples, it will, by corrupting thought, sentiment, and action, become a principle of dissolution and of death.
Denis Frayssinous, trans. by John Benjamin Jones, Chapter One in A Defence of Christianity (Gilbert & Rivington: December 1835), pp. 33-62.
Go
Frayssinous, a French academic and
preacher of the highest stature under Louis XVIII, begins his defense
of Christianity with an ode to truth. Along with happiness, it is our
greatest need and longing. But not only are we "made for truth", we
are, accordingly, equipped with faculties to discover it. Against
skepticism, Frayssinous advances a particularist epistemology,
arguing that some beliefs arise in us in such a way that they serve
as anchor points by which we can considerably extend our knowledge.
These moorings are marked by several qualities, namely: "perspicuity,
antiquity, universality, and immutability". For example, propositions
that are immutable "resist ignorance, prejudice, and passion". We can
no more make it so that "there should be effects without causes, than
to appoint that for the future men should live without food". Our
abilities to discern these basic truths "serve us as guides and
torches". "We are compelled to admit the existence of primary truths,
felt and perceived as soon as announced, incapable of proof, because
they themselves are the proof of every thing, primary in their
existence, they precede the experienced use of reason, as the seed
precedes the plant." Conceding that his principles for establishing
such truths avails only a meager handful of knowledge, Fraysinnous
argues that by these lights much can be inferred. "If then the chain of
our reasonings are suspended on any one of these primary and immutable
principles; if they are united together like the links of that chain,
the last held by the one preceding, until they reach the fixed point
which sustains the whole, then will the very last consequence be
inseparably united to its principle." Finally, Frayssinous addresses
the inevitable objection that, if these faculties are so wonderfully
veracious, why then the persistence of such disagreement and so many erroneous beliefs. He
continues his abbreviated response here in his second discourse, "On the Causes of Our Errors".
Disposed as I am to well-qualified particularism, Frayssinous' brief but artful
defense is a welcome alternative to his less
epistemically sanguine countrymen, such as Foucalt and Derrida. ~ Afterall
Although to “be ready to give every one a reason of the hope that is in you,” is the absolute command of inspiration, still it is undeniable, that too many members of the Christian Church possess not that distinct knowledge of the proofs establishing the Divine origin of their religion, which could enable them to satisfy the minds of others, or even to content their own. One obvious excuse for this ignorance on the most important of all subjects, is, that throughout the long list of modern theological publications, few, devoted exclusively to the evidences, are to be found, which can be considered as likely to invite and retain the attention of an anxious but unlearned Christian. In fact, by far the greater number of our excellent apologists, pious, learned, and eloquent as they are, seem to have been tacitly consigned to the closet of the student.
Christianity — and that is its greatest merit — has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. … Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder … comes rolling somewhat slowly, but .. its crash … will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. [W]hen you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world’s history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.
Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed, and by half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness, my Indifferentism towards men; and the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted, as my favorite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was but a buckram case, wherein I had striven to envelope myself; that so my own poor Person might live safe there, and in all friendliness, being no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it. But how many individuals did I, in those days, provoke into some degree of hostility thereby! An ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading ways, more especially a young ironic man, from whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest to society.
We desiderate in it somewhat more of what becomes all men, but, most of all, a young man, to whom the struggles of life are only in their commencement, and whose spirt cannot yet have been wounded, or his temper embittered by hostile collision with the world, but which, in young men especially, is apt to be wanting — a slowness to condemn. A man must now learn, by experience, what once came almost by nature to those who had any faculty of seeing; to look upon all things with a benevolent, but upon great men and their works with a reverential spirit; rather to seek in them for what he may learn from them, than for opportunities of showing what they might have learned from him; to give such men the benefit of every possibility of their having spoken with a rational meaning; not easily or hastily to persuade himself that men like Plato, and Locke, and Rousseau, and Bentham, gave themselves a world of trouble in running after something which they thought was a reality, but which he Mr. A. B. can clearly see to be an unsubstantial phantom; to exhaust every other hypothesis, before supposing himself wiser than they; and even then to examine, with good will and without prejudice, if their error do not contain some germ of truth…
Let not the unlearned Christian be alarmed, “as though some strange thing had happened to him,” and modern philosophy had discovered arguments to demolish religion, never heard of before. The old ornaments of deism have been “broken off” upon this occasion, “and cast into the fire, and there came out this calf.” These same difficulties have been again and again urged and discussed in public; again and again weighed and considered by learned and sensible men, of the laity as well as the clergy, who have by no means been induced by them to renounce their faith.
Indeed, why should they? For is any man surprised that difficulties should occur in the books of Scripture, those more particularly of the Old Testament? Let him reflect upon the variety of matter on which they treat; the distance of the times to which they refer; the wide difference of ancient manners and customs, from those of the age in which we live; the very imperfect knowledge we have of these, as well as of the language in which they are described; the conciseness of the narratives, sufficient for the purpose intended, but not for gratifying a restless curiosity; above all, the errors and defects of translations.
Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of that kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject. And as people in general, for one reason or another, like short objections better than long answers, in this mode of disputation (if it can be styled such) the odds must ever be against us; and we must be content with those for our friends who have honesty and erudition, candor and patience, to study both sides of the question. — Be it so.