etymologists," says Richardson, " do not attempt to account for this important word : it is undoubtedly formed on the Dut. Le- ven ; Ger. Leben; A.-S. Lif-ian, Be-lif-ian ; Goth. Liban, vivere, to live, or be-live, to dwell. Live or leve, be- or bi-live or leve, are used indifferently by old writers, whether to denote vivere or
credere To believe, then, is to live by or according to, to
abide by ; to guide, conduct, regulate, govern, or direct the life by ; to take, accept, assume or adopt as a rule of life ; and, con- sequently, to think, deem, or judge right ; to be firmly persuaded of, to give credit to ; to trust, or think trustworthy ; to have or give faith or confidence ; to confide, to think or deem faithful."
The Primary Idea of Faith is Trust.
From all this it appears that the primary idea of faith is trust. The primary idea of truth is that which is trustworthy ; that which sustains our expectations, which does not disappoint, be- cause it really is what it is assumed or declared to be. It is opposed to the deceitful, the false, the unreal, the empty, and the worthless. To regard a thing as true, is to regard it as worthy of trust, as being what it purports to be. Faith, in the compre- hensive and legitimate meaning of the word, therefore, is trust.
In accordance with this general idea of faith, Augustine 1 says, " Credere, nihil aliud est, quam cum assensione cogitare." Thus, also, Reid 2 says, " Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance There are many opera- tions of the mind in which .... we find belief to be an essen- tial ingredient Belief is an ingredient in consciousness,
in perception, and in remembrance We give the name of
evidence to whatever is a ground of belief. .... What this evi- dence is, is more easily felt than described The common
occasions of life lead as to distinguish evidence into different kinds, .... such as the evidence of sense, the evidence of mem- ory, the evidence of consciousness, the evidence of testimony, the
evidence of axioms, the evidence of reasoning They seem
to me to agree only in this, that they are all fitted by nature to produce belief in the human mind."
i De Prcedestinatione Sanctorum [n.], 5; Works, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1838, vol. x. p. 1349 b.
2 On the Intellectual Powers, Essay n. ch xx. ; Works, Edinburgh, 1849, pp. 327 b, 828 a, b.
44 PART 111. Ch. XVI. — FAITH.
The more limited Sense of the Word. There is, however, in most cases a great difference between the general signification of a word and its special and characteristic meaning. Although, therefore, there is an element of belief in all our cognitions, there is an important difference between what is strictly and properly called faith, and those states or acts of the mind which we designate as sight or perception, intuition, opinions, conclusions, or apodictic judgments. What that characteristic difference is, is the point to be determined. There are modes of statement on this subject current among a certain class of philos- ophers and theologians, which can hardly be regarded as defini- tions of faith. They take the word out of its ordinary and estab- lished meaning, or arbitrarily limit it to a special sphere of our mental operations. Thus Morell 1 says, " Faith is the intuition of eternal verities." But eternal verities are not the only objects »f faith ; nor is intuition the only mode of apprehending truth which is of the nature of belief. The same objections bear against the assertion that "Faith is the organ for the supernatural and divine; "or, as Eschenmayer expresses it,2 "Ein vom Denken, Fuhlen und Wollen verschiedenes, eigenthumliches Organ f iir das Ewige und Heilige ; a special organ for the eternal and the holy." The supernatural and divine, however, are not the exclusive ob- jects even of religious faith. It is by faith we know that the worlds were made by the word of God ; it was by faith Noah prepared the ark, and Abraham, being called of God, went out not knowing whither he went. The objects of faith in these cases are not what is meant by - eternal verities." It is, moreover, an arbitrary assumption that faith is "a special organ," even when things supernatural and divine are its object. Our nature is adapted to the reception of all kinds of truth of which we can have any idea. But it is not necessary to assume a special organ for historical truths, a special organ for scientific truths, and an- other for th al truths Qf reyelation^ and stm another
t» t Tl and thf h°ly'" G°d has constituted us capable of belief, and the complex state of mind involved in the act of faith
11 r^ ?**?* aCC°rding t0 the nature of the ^uth believed, and the nature of the evidence on which our faith is founded.
for ft W o^rutr8^ ^ "^ °f a dlStinCt ***
J Philosophy of Religion.
1 Die einfachste Dogmatik, § 338; Tubingen, 1826, p. 376.