To Miss Grace Norton.

[1866 or 1867.]

... I beg you will not believe that I understood your objection to being called a “positivist” as an expression of serious dissent from the doctrine, and, indeed, I was but half in earnest in propounding the question; for I should myself be averse to accepting the name, except in the spirit in which many other appellations have been received by thinkers from their opponents, — as reproaches willingly borne for the sake of truth, or else humorously assumed as really harmless.

Besides, “positivism” is not a catechizing faith, and allows large latitude for beliefs, so far as they are professed as personal convictions, and are not imposed on all minds alike, on the penalty of forfeiting respect for intelligence or character.

Such a penalty properly applies only where the evidence is common to all minds, or where all admit the same fundamental facts of experience, as in physical science and in the elements of moral science. All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control. Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief; though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which ought to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds have or can be made to have through their agreements. And positivism maintains (to give the obverse of your formula) that, if the existence and character of God are to any mind not proved, they cannot be proved. If one cannot help believing it, then one has arrived, through other evidence than what can compel all minds, to a state of belief, perhaps fortunate, which is dependent on individual characters and experiences rather than on universal experience. Every mind has many similar beliefs, on many subjects beside theology, and holds them with various degrees of confidence. All that positivism demands in regard to theological beliefs is that they be put, intellectually and morally, on the same footing with others of this class; that the education, the experiences, and the type of character which produce such beliefs, shall not be regarded as intellectually and morally superior to those which fail to produce them. In other words, positivism holds that the intellect and the moral character, which ought to be the measures of each individual’s proficiency, rest in the concurrent, unquestioned experiences in nature and in human life of all minds and hearts;

for this is the widest experience. . . . Considerations which practically amount to proof — that is, actually do “determine the intellect to give or withhold assent”— are not regarded by positivism as on this account of equal weight with those by which unquestionable beliefs ought to be determined. But positivism does not demand that we should question to the extent of ejecting from the mind all questionable beliefs; for this would be to accept the equally questionable contradictory beliefs. It only prescribes that we shall try continually to test and correct our beliefs by the particulars of concrete experiences of a kind common to all, when this is possible; and, when it is not possible, that we shall hold our beliefs in a spirit which recognizes the absence of the most perfect proof, however great the interests or the hopes may be which our faith sustains.

Diversities of mind and character, resulting in differences of practical belief or faith, are not to be altogether deplored, but rather welcomed as parts of the riches of human life, provided they be subject to principles, which, whether we call them liberal or positive, are, I am sure, both yours and mine.