But the manner in which pre-judgments chiefly affect the mind in the hearing of a cause, still remains to be stated. In such pre-judgments, or assumptions, an assumption of this kind is almost invariably included, to wit: that all facts of whatever character bearing upon one side of the question, are wholly indecisive, while all others bearing upon the other side are equally decisive. In pre-judging, individuals do not merely pre-judge the real merits of the case, but the character of all the facts bearing upon it. They enter upon the investigation of a given subject, with an inflexible determination to treat all the facts and arguments they shall meet with, according to previous assumptions. Let the clearest light poured upon one side of the question, and the reply is, “After all, I am not convinced,” while the most trivial circumstances conceivable bearing upon the other side, will be seized upon as perfectly decisive. In all this, we do not meet with the operations of a deceived Intelligence, but of a “deceived heart,” that is, of a depraved Will, stubbornly bent upon verifying its own unauthorized, pre-formed assumptions. Such assumptions can withstand any degree of evidence whatever. The Intelligence did not give them existence, and it cannot annihilate them. They are exclusively creatures of Will, and by an act of Will, they must be dissolved, or they will remain proof against all the evidence which the tide of time can roll against them.