SOURCE: “John Henry Newman and the Grammar of Assent,” in Reason and the Heart: A Prolegomenon to a Critique of Passional Reason, Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 55-83.

In the following essay, Wainwright observes Newman's process of informal reasoning—his “illative sense”—as it is demonstrated in An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent.

Consider these chains of reasoning. (1) Our conviction that Great Britain is an island is well-founded. We have no doubt that it is true. But if asked to give our evidence for it, we can only respond that “first, we have been so taught in our childhood, and it is so on all the maps; next, we have never heard it contradicted or questioned; on the contrary; everyone whom we have heard speak on the subject of Great Britain, every book we have read, invariably took it for granted; our whole national history, the...