ism founded, not on the external phenomenon, but on the internal idea. But the logical necessity speedily chases the system from this refuge, and constrains the succeeding speculator to admit that self is not as it seems, or that it exists only as it is felt or when it is felt; and the terrible consequence cannot be avoided, that we cannot know whether there be objects before us or no, or whether there be an eye or a mind to perceive them. There is no way of avoiding this black and blank scepticism but by standing up for the trustworthiness of all our original intuitions, and formally maintaining that there is a reality wherever our intuitions declare that there is. The idealist has indeed a truth, which he weaves into the body of his system, but that truth is misapprehended and perverted. There are impressions and inferences ever mingling, naturally or inadvertently, lawfully or unlawfully, with our knowledge; and he confounds these, when it is his business, as a professed philosopher, to distinguish them in theory- as men of common sense ever distinguish them in practice. His system is not clearness, but confusion. He has dived below the surface, but has not, after all, gone down to the bottom so as to see all, and his view of the deep is more obscure than if he had remained above. Amazed or enraptured with the discovery of certain facts immediately below that which is patent to the vulgar eye, he looks on them as the main or sole facts, and henceforth overlooks all the superficial ones, forgetting that it is true in philosophy, as in geology, that the rock strata which jut out into the most prominent peaks are those which, if we follow them, dive down into the deepest interior. He has sought to attain a higher position, but has stopped half-way, and his views, after all, are not so clear as those obtained further down, and they are certainly much more confusing than those which he might have had, had he reached the clear height above all dimming influence; they are at best like those which the traveller gets on cloudy days when he has climbed a certain elevation up the Alps, and, in the midway mists, catches occasional glimpses of the green valleys below him, and of the imposing mountain-tops and sky yet far above him. CHAPTER III. SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. I. IN what I have to say on this subject I do not refer to the forms which scepticism takes in the common affairs of life, where it is often not only legitimate, but a very high duty to discharge in exposing lying and deceit, and generally, in clearing the moral atmosphere. I treat it only as setting itself against deeper and fundamental truth. Scepticism may take a variety of forms which, however, differ in some being more thorough-going than others, some denying the veracity of certain of our cognitions, others denying the trustworthiness of all. The most common form which it takes in the present day is what is called Agnosticism. The difference between this and absolute scepticism is, that while the one denies all truth the other tells us that truth cannot be found, especially in philosophy and religion. Agnosticism is Nescience in that it declares that we cannot find truth; Nihilism in that it asserts that there is nothing to be known. All these forms agree in this, that they set aside theoretically fundamental truths and practically deprive us of the benefit which we might derive from the lofty ideas and faiths which we ought to cherish. Like most kinds of folly, scepticism commonly does not reach its last stage at once, but advances step by step. Some philosopher of eminence sets aside one of our intuitions, and then an advancing thinker, impelled by logical con : sistency, or by the sharpness of his mind, or by levity or wantonness, or by the love of paradox or of notoriety, shows how, on the same ground, we may deny them all. It was thus that Berkeley, in denying the substantial existence of body, prepared the way for Hume, who denied the substantial existence of spirit; and thus that Kant, in affirming that space and time had no existence out of the mind, opened a path for Fichte, when he declared that the external object in space might also be the creation of the mind; and for Schelling and Hegel when they made mind and matter, Creator and creature, all and alike ideal. I have already discussed scepticism disguised as idealism; I am now to offer a few remarks on an avowed scepticism. II. Let us understand precisely how far a sceptic may go. In doing so it is essential to remember the distinction between the spontaneous and reflex use of our intuitions. Under the first of these aspects they not only claim authority, they secure practical concurrence and obedience. Every man knows that he has a bodily frame, and believes that it exists in space, and that if he would go in the nearest way to a given point, he must walk in a straight line. Doubt and denial are possible only in regard to the reflex statement of intuitive principles. Every man is in fact convinced that he has a solid bodily frame, and that the nearest way to a particular place is a straight line; but it is possible for him, if he chooses, to deny the propositions in which these truths are conveyed; it is quite competent for him speculatively to assert that he has not a body, and that the shortest road to a given point is a crooked line. And this leads me to point out in what respect scep ticism may be allowable, and wherein it may even be beneficial. The dogmatist often lays down and employs, for purposes lawful and unlawful, principles represented as indisputable, which have not the sanction of our constitution, or which may be expressed in a form only partially or approximately correct. Great interests may often be involved in having these principles doubted or disputed. Without this we may find, before we are aware of it, great moral or religious truths assaulted or undermined; or we may set up for defence of the citadel of truth a crazy and insecure turret, which is a positive weakness, and which, as it falls, may give an easier inlet to the enemy. This, then, is the special mission of the sceptic: it is to lay a restraint on the dogmatist; at times, if need be, to assail or to lash him. It would be wrong to deny that the scepticism of Hume has cleared the philosophic atmosphere of many weakening and deleterious influences which had been gathering for centuries. The great sin of scepticism lies in this, that it attacks indiscriminately the good and the evil, and would destroy both as by a consuming fire. But surely there may be a means of securing all the good ends which scepticism has produced, without the accompanying destruction of the good. Socrates seems to me to have succeeded in this, when he attacked the pretentious systems of his age, at the same time that he held resolutely by every great moral and spiritual truth. Let it be admitted that our spontaneous convictions guarantee a truth, but let it be avowed at the same time that any given philosophic expression of them is fallible, and may be doubted, disputed, and denied. Let it be understood, as to every philosophic principle proffered, that we are entitled, nay, in duty bound, to examine it before we assent to it, and that the burden of establishing that it is a |