The only difference, then,
between what I have called absolute inconceivability and what I have called
relative inconceivability consists in this--that while the latter admits of
_degrees_, the former does not.[33]
With this distinction clearly understood, I may now proceed to observe that
in everyday life we constantly apply the test of relative inconceivability
as a test of truth. And in the vast majority of cases this test of relative
inconceivability is, for all practical purposes, as valid a test of truth
as is the test of absolute conceivability. For as every man is more or less
in harmony with his environment, his habits of thought with regard to his
environment are for the most part stereotyped correctly; so that the most
ready and the most trustworthy gauge of probability that he has is an
immediate appeal to consciousness as to whether he _feels_ the probability.
Thus every man learns for himself to endow his own sense of probability
with a certain undefined but massive weight of authority. Now it is this
test of relative conceivability which all men apply in varying degrees to
the question of Theism. For if, from education and organised habits of
thought, the probability in this matter appears to a man to incline in a
certain direction, when this probability is called in question, the whole
body of this organised system of thought rises in opposition to the
questioning, and being individually conscious of this strong feeling of
subjective opposition, the man declares the sceptical propositions to be
more inconceivable to him than are the counter-propositions.
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