SECTION XII.

Of the ACADEMICAL OF SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY.

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PART I.

HERE is not a greater number of philofophical reafonings, difplayed upon any subject, than thofe, which prove the existence of a Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheifts; and yet the most religious philofophers ftill difpute whether any man can be fo blinded as to be a speculative atheist. How fhall we reconcile these contradictions? The knighterrants, who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and giants, never entertained the leaft doubt with regard to the existence of these monsters.

THE Sceptic is another enemy of religion, who naturally provokes the indignation of all divines and graver philofophers; tho' 'tis certain, that no man ever met with any fuch abfurd creature, or converfed with a man, who had no opinion or principle con

cerning any fubject, either of action or speculation. This begets a very natural queftion; What is meant by a fceptic? And how far it is poffible to push thefe philofophical principles of doubt and uncertainty ?

THERE is a fpecies of fcepticism, antecedent to all ftudy and philofophy, which is much inculcated by DES CARTES and others, as a fovereign prefervative against error and precipitate judgment. It recom. mends an univerfal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties; of whofe veracity, fay they, we must affure ourselves, by a chain of reasoning, deduced from fome original principle, which cannot poffibly be fallacious or deceitful. But neither is there any fuch original principle, which has a prerogative above others, that are felf-evident and convincing: Or if there were, could we advance a step beyond it, but by the use of these very faculties, of which we are supposed to be already diffident. The CARTESIAN doubt, therefore, were it ever poffible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state of affurance and conviction upon any fubject.

Ir must, however, be confeffed, that this fpecies of fcepticism, when more moderate, may be understood in a very reasonable sense, and is a necessary preparative to the study of philofophy, by preferving a pro

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per impartiality in our judgments, and weaning our mind from all those prejudices, which we may have imbibed from education or rafh opinion. To begin with clear and felf-evident principles, to advance by timorous and fure fteps, to review frequently our conclufions, and examine accurately all their confequences; tho' by this means we fhall make both a flow and a fhort progress in our fyftems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to reach truth, and attain a proper ftability and certainty in our determinations.

THERE is another fpecies of fcepticism, confequent to science and enquiry, where men are supposed to have discovered, either the abfolute fallaciousness of their mental faculties, or their unfitnefs to reach any fixed determination in all those curious fubjects of fpeculation, about which they are commonly employed. Even our very fenfes are brought into dif pute, by a certain fpecies of philofophers; and the maxims of common life are subjected to the fame doubt as the most profound principles or conclufions of metaphyfics and theology. As these paradoxical tenets (if they may be called tenets) are to be met with in fome philofophers, and the refutation of them in feveral, they naturally excite our curiofity, and make us enquire into the arguments, on which they may be founded.

I NEED. not infift upon the more trite topics, employed by the fceptics in all ages, against the evidence of fenfe; fuch as thofe derived from the imperfection and fallaciousness of our organs, on numberless occafions; the crooked appearance of an oar in water; the various aspects of objects, according to their different distances; the double images which arife from the preffing one eye; with many other appearances of a like nature. Thefe fceptical topics, indeed, are only fufficient to prove, that the senses alone are not implicitely to be depended on; but that we muft correct their evidence by reafon, and by confiderations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the difpofition of the organ, in order to render them, within their fphere, the proper criteria of truth and falfhood. There are other more profound arguments against the fenfes, which admit not of so easy a folution.

Ir feems evident, that men are carried, by a natural instinct or prepoffeffion, to repofe faith in their fenses; and that, without any reasoning, or even almoft before the ufe of reason, we always fuppofe an external univerfe, which depends not on our perception, but would exift, tho' we and every fenfible creature were absent or annihilated. Even the animal creation are governed by a like opinion, and preferve this belief of external objects, in all their thoughts, defigns, and actions.

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It seems also evident, that when men follow this blind and powerful inftinct of nature, they always suppose the very images, prefented by the fenfes, to be the external objects, and never entertain any fufpicion, that the one are nothing but representations of the other. This very table, which we fee white, and which we feel hard, is believed to exift, independent of our perception, and to be something external to our mind, which perceives it. Our presence beftows not being on it: Our absence annihilates it not. It preferves its existence uniform and entire, indepen dent of the fituation of intelligent beings, who pèrceive or contemplate it.

BUT this univerfal and primary opinion of all men is foon destroyed by the flightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the fenfes are only the inlets, thro' which thefe images are received, without being ever able to produce any immediate intercourfe between the mind and the object. The table, which we fee, feems to diminifh, as we remove farther from it: But the real table which exifts independent of us, fuffers no alteration: It was, therefore, nothing but its image, which was prefent to the mind. Thefe are the obvious dictates of reafon; and no man, who reflects, ever doubted, that the existences, which we confider, when we say, this house and that tree are nothing but perceptions in the

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mind,