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النشر الإلكتروني

FINNEY'S LECTURES

ON

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

LECTURE XLV.

VARIOUS CLASSES OF TRUTHS,

AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THE HUMAN MIND ATTAINS TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THEM.

BEFORE We proceed further in these investigations, I must call your attention to a subject that properly belongs at the beginning of this course of study, and which will be found there, should these lectures ever be published in their proper order: I allude to the various classes of truths to come under consideration in this course of instruction, with the manner in which we arrive at a knowledge or belief of them. All human investigations proceed upon the assumption of the existence and validity of our faculties, and that their unequivocal testimony may be relied upon. To deny this, is to set aside at once the possibility of knowledge or rational belief, and to give up the mind to universal skepticism. The classes of truths to which we shall be called upon to attend in our investigations, may be divided with sufficient accuracy for our purpose, into truths that need no proof, and truths that need proof. The human mind is so constituted that by virtue of its own laws, it necessarily perceives, recognizes, or knows some truths without testimony from without. It takes direct cognizance of them, and can not but do so.

The first class, that is, truths that need no proof, may be subdivided into truths of the pure reason, and truths of sensation. These two classes are in some sense self-evident, but not in the same sense. Truths of the pure reason are

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