represented is absent. It is not before the mind. It belongs to the category of things not seen. The conception which is present is the object of knowledge ; the thing represented is an object of faith. That is, we know we have the conception ; we believe that the thing which it represents, does or did exist. If we visit a particular place while present to our senses we know that it ex- ists ; when we come away and form an idea or conception of it, that is, when we recall it by an effort of memory, then we be- lieve in its existence. " Whenever we have passed beyond pre- sentative knowledge, and are assured of the reality of an absent object, there faith .... has entered as an element."1
Sir William Hamilton 2 says, " Properly speaking, we know only the actual and the present, and all real knowledge is an im- mediate knowledge. What is said to be mediately known, is, in truth, not known to be, but only believed to be." This, it may be remarked in passing, would apply to all the propositions of Euclid. For they are " mediately known," i. e., seen to be true by means of a process of proof. Speaking of memory, Hamilton says, " It is not a knowledge of the past at all ; but a knowledge of the present and a belief of the past." " We are said," accord- ing to Dr. McCosh, "to know ourselves, and the objects presented to the senses and the representations (always however as presen- tations) in the mind ; but to believe in objects which we have seen in time past, but which are not now present, and in objects which we have never seen, and very specially in objects which we can never fully know, such as an Infinite God." 3
Objections to this Definition.
According to this view, we know what is present to the mind, and believe what is absent. The first objection to this repre- sentation is the ambiguity of the words present and absent as thus used. When is an object present ? and when is it absent ? It is easy to answer this question when the object is something material or an external event. Such objects are present (" prae sensibus ") when they affect the senses ; and absent when they do not. A city or building is present when we actually see it ; absent, when we leave the place where it is, and recall the image of it. But how is it with propositions ? The Bible says all men are sinners. The truth thus announced is present to the mind.
1 McCosh| Intuitions of the Mind, part n. book ii. ch. 1, edit. New York, 1860, p. 197.
2 Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, vol. i. "Metaphysics," lect. xii. sub fin., edit. Boston, 1859, pp. 152, 153.
8 Intuitions of the Mind, p. 198.
56 PART HI. Ch. XVI. — FAITH.
We do not know it. We cannot prove it. But we believe it upon the authority of God. The Scriptures teach that Christ died as a ransom for many. Here, not only the historical fact that He died is announced, but the purpose for which He died. Here again, we have a truth present to the mind, which is an ob- ject of faith.
The second objection is involved in the first. The terms pres- ent and absent are not only ambiguous in this connection, but it is not true, as just stated, that an object must be absent in order to be an object of faith. The differentia, in other words, be- tween knowledge and faith, is not found in the presence or ab- sence of their objects. We can know what is absent, and we can believe what is present.
The third objection is, that the conviction we have of the real- ity or truth of what we distinctly remember is knowledge, and not distinctively faith, unless we choose to establish a new and arbitrary definition of the word knowledge. We know what is perceived by the senses; we know what the mind sees, either in- tuitively or discursively, is and must be true ; and we know what we distinctly remember. The conviction is in all these cases of the same nature. In all it resolves itself into confidence in the veracity of consciousness. We are conscious that we perceive sensible objects. We are conscious that we cognize certain truths. We are conscious that we remember certain events. In all these cases this consciousness involves the conviction of the reality or truth of what is seen, mentally apprehended or remembered. This conviction is, or may be, as strong in any one of these cases as in either of the others ; and it rests in ail ultimately on the same ground. There is, therefore, no reason for calling one knowledge and the other belief. Memory is as much a knowledge of the past, as other forms of consciousness are a knowledge of the present.
The fourth objection is that to deny that memory gives us the knowledge of the past, is contrary to established usage. It is true we are said to believe that we remember such and such events, when we are uncertain about it. But this is because in one of the established meanings of the word, belief expresses a less degree of certainty than knowledge. But men never speak of believing past events in their experience concerning which they are absolutely certain. We know that we were alive yesterday. No man says he believes he has seen his father or mother or any Ultimate friend, whom he had known for years. Things dis- tinctly remembered are known, and not merely believed.