Chapter XI.
Of Derangement in the Principle of Faith, or the Believing Faculty.
As this faculty has not yet found its way into our systems of physiology, I shall briefly remark, that I mean by it that principle in the mind, by which we believe in the evidence of the senses, of reason, and human testimony. It is as much a native faculty as memory or imagination. The objects of human testimony are extensive and important. Saint Paul alludes to them in the following passage of the eleventh chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." The greatest part of all we believe of history, geography, and public events, and all that we believe of our relation to our parents, brothers, and sisters, by the ties of consanguinity, are derived from it. Hap-
