"Correctness of thought is conformity of thought . to things, and of thought to thought. I have never met any person who believed he did not know that which he knew; but nothing is more common than for us to think we know what we do not. We never mistake our knowl edge for ignorance, except perhaps in extreme metaphysics; but we constantly mistake our igno rance for knowledge. And the remedy for this, so far as there is a remedy, is the practice of men tal candor until it becomes a fixed habit, the cul tivation of an intellectual conscience. He whose opinions are all convictions is as reckless intel lectually as he is morally whose assertions are all categorical. Conviction has no more right to go beyond evidence and just inference than state ment has to go beyond conviction. A man should be hardly less careful not to deceive himself in thought than he is not to deceive others by ex pression. It is as hurtful to truth to decide when we ought to doubt, as to doubt when we ought to decide. We should feel no reluctance to confess our ignorance always to ourselves, and when cir cumstances call for it to others. The phrase, " I don't know," honestly and fairly used, humbles us; but when so used, it covers much the larger part of truth. We should use it honestly and fairly, both to ourselves and others; always, however, remembering that we are not to deny, even in thought, the existence of a thing because we do not know of its existence. It is the lack of such knowledge that constitutes ignorance. This lack is the very stuff of which ignorance is made. If we knew all existences, taking the term as includ ing both the actual and the potential, we should know everything, for there is nothing else to know. We have no more warrant for dogmatizing at ran dom negatively than affirmatively. The forms of language force us very often to be dogmatic in expression, but this does not oblige us to be dog matic in thought. If we attempted to communi cate in discourse all the qualifications and all the shades and degrees of qualification that we realize, or ought to realize, in thinking, we should only perplex or mislead our hearers. It has been re marked that no one ever means precisely what he says, for no one ever says precisely what he means. Doubt is a state of mind proper to any high de gree of uncertainty. It is a question whether any thing is uncertain in and of itself, - whether all contingency is not in knowledge, none of it in
the objects of knowledge. The so-called contin gent events of to-morrow are at this moment un certain to the whole human race; but if they are known to God, they have certainty relatively to him. He never doubts. Whether we will or not, we must live with uncertainty and die with it. Relatively to us it extends over a part of truth as surely as certainty does over another part. To doubt too much is to carry over by sell-deception the certain into the uncertain; to doubt too little is to carry over by self deception the uncertain into the certain. Not to do either should be a matter of solicitude with every lover of truth. The repose of conviction is very desirable and very seductive. To doubt is never pleasant, often painful, sometimes agonizing. And in so far as this prompts to inquiry and urges us to decision, it is very useful; but when it induces us to decide without inquiry or evidence, or without the proper use of them, the result is like declaring victory before fighting the battle. If we were so consti tuted that we could not doubt, what security would there be for truth? What could more cripple the mind than to deprive it either of the power of doubting or the power of believing? To face frankly and fairly the terrors of uncertainty requires courage. Indeed, to think at all, respon sibly, rationally, and with absolute fidelity to truth, upon many subjects requires the highest degree of courage. It is easier, perhaps, to stand before a loaded cannon and see the match applied, than to adopt a conclusion utterly destructive to past convictions long cherished, and 10 the authority upon which they rested, in a matter of vital inter est and of personal concern." In 1887, on the death of Chief-Justice Jackson, Judge Bleckley returned to the bench as his successor. Since that time he has done continuous work; but having found that the body is not an indestructible machine, he works with more regard for physical limitations. He has given much attention to the matter of reducing the unnecessary work of the court. An Act of the Legislature was recently passed, which allows the plaintiff in error to specify in his bill of exceptions only such parts of the record in the court below as bear upon the exceptions. The opposite party may
