An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent

The Grammar was an apologia for faith. Newman was concerned with defending faith as a legitimate product of rational human activity—that assent is not contrary to human nature. He wrote this book against the background of British Empiricism which restricted the strength and legitimacy of assent to the evidence presented for it.  John Locke,  David Hume and John Stuart Mill, a contemporary of Newman, were the primary Empiricists that Newman was engaged with philosophically.