Index for Chapter XVI

Of the Degrees of Assent

1. Our assent ought to be regulated by the grounds of probability.
2. These cannot always be actually in view;
3. The ill consequence of this, if our former judgments were not rightly made.
4. The right use of it, mutual charity and forbearance, in a necessary diversity of opinions.
5. Probability is either of sensible matter of fact, capable of human testimony, or of what is beyond the evidence of our senses.
6. The concurrent experience of all other men with ours, produces assurance approaching to knowledge.
7. II.
8. III.
9. Experience and testimonies clashing infinitely vary the degrees of probability.
10. Traditional testimonies, the further removed the less their proof becomes.
11. Yet history is of great use.
12. In things which sense cannot discover, analogy is the great rule of probability.
13. One case where contrary experience lessens not the testimony.
14. The bare testimony of divine revelation is the highest certainty.

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first edition 1994/10/29 last modified 1999/8/31