PROPOSITION XCIII.

Falsity, in the judicial act itself, is justly attributed to the will.

PROLEGOMENON.

The present Proposition does not attempt to determine the root, (or roots), from which springs the numerous errors in its Judgments to which the human intellect is liable. These are manifold; and differ, according to the process adopted in the investigation or acquisition of Truth. Thus, for instance, when knowledge is learnt from a teacher, there is no more common root of Falsity than a blind adherence to the mere authority of him who teaches. Though such submission is obviously necessary at the beginning; yet, with a sincere seeker after truth, whose intellect is sufficiently matured to justify him in thinking for himself, that submission is always temporary and conditional. He accepts as true what he receives; till he is conscious that he is in a condition to judge for himself. Then, and not till then, will he think of maintaining a settled and definite opinion. But the majority of men is not of this intellectual shape. Hence, so many students cherish errors, their life through, with almost a factious spirit. The evidence they possess is of the weakest, for it is mainly extrinsic; and there arises an unwise disparity between the amount of evidence on the one hand, and the tenacity of opinion on the other. This is a most fatal obstacle to all philosophic progress. In subjects which are competent to the natural reason, (and to such subjects alone can reference be appropriately made in a work like the present), and which have not been in any way decided by some acknowledged infallible authority; no motto is more deserving of perpetual memory and of serving as a practical rule for the student of Philosophy, than this: Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. There are many other sources of error and Falsity; but they will be considered under a somewhat different form in the following Thesis.

THE PROOF of the Proposition is as follows. Though the intellect is a faculty which in itself is not free, so that in presence of its proper object, formal and material, it is compelled by its own nature to assent; yet, in the absence of its formal object, it is in nowise necessitated to its act. By the formal object is to be understood objective evidence or, in other words, the clear intelligibility of the object, which, as the Ideologist will tell us, is the general motive of all true and certain cognition. If, therefore, there be no objective evidence; there can be no real motive for judging either way. If the evidence be not clear; there can be no sufficient motive for a categorical, or unconditioned, Judgment. But, in a false Judgment, there can he no real objective evidence; as is plain. Consequently, the intellect is not forced to a decision; and, as its acts are either spontaneous and necessary or under order of the will, it follows that a false Judgment, (i.e. the act itself of judging), since it cannot be spontaneous, must be elicited at the dictation of the will. There is, however, an objection of sufficient gravity, which may be made to this argument. It may be said that, although there be an absence of real objective evidence, still there must be, at least, some sort of apparent evidence; otherwise, the judicial act would be inexplicable, and could scarcely be called human. But this apparent evidence may be sufficient to compel the assent of the mind, without any intervention of the will. What is to be said to this difficulty? Well, though the Antecedent will be willingly granted; yet the Consequent must be denied. It is most true that, in a false Judgment, the intellect is allured to an assent of apparent evidence under some form or another. But what does apparent evidence mean? Obviously, it cannot be objective evidence, or the clear intelligibility of the object; for that is real, and, when duly present to the intellect, forces its assent. It must, therefore, be subjective evidence; that is, evidence which exists only in the mind of the thinker. But how did it get there? The object itself did not cause it? The intellect cannot create evidence for itself at pleasure. Whence came it? Motives of course there will be, with more or less show of probability in them; and these will come to hand from various sources, with which we are not concerned for the present. But whence that inclination of the mind to make, as it were, this so-called evidence subjective, and to elicit the judicial act on the strength of it? The intellect cannot, in such cases, be compelled to its assent naturally; it must, therefore, have received its inclination from without. But there is no other faculty which has this directive power over the intellect, save the will. Hence, while admitting that there must be apparent evidence which allures the intellect to a false cognition; we deny that such evidence can be a sufficient motive to compel intellectual assent, without the intervention of the will.