I OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 67 



which our understandings are not suited, and of which we 

 cannot frame in our minds any clear and distinct percep- 

 tion, or whereof (as it has, perhaps, too often tyappened) we 

 have not any notion at all .... Men may find matter suf- 

 ficient to busy their heads and employ their hands with 

 variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly 

 quarrel with their own constitution and throw away the 

 blessings their hands are filled with because they are not 

 big enough to grasp everything. We shall not have much 

 reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we 

 will but employ them about what may be of use to us: for 

 of that they are very capable : and it will be an unpardon- 

 able, as well as a childish peevishness, if we undervalue the 

 advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to 

 the ends for which it was given us, because there are some 

 things that are set out of reach of it. It will be no excuse 

 to an idle and untoward servant who would not attend to 

 his business by candlelight, to plead that he had not broad 

 sunshine. The candle that is set up in us shines bright 

 enough for all our purposes .... Our business here is not 

 to know all things, but those which concern our conduct."* 



Hume develops the same fundamental con- 

 ception in a somewhat different way, and with 

 a more definite indication of the practical benefits 

 which may be expected from a critical philosophy. 

 The first and second parts of the twelfth section 

 of the " Inquiry " are devoted to a condemnation 

 of excessive scepticism, or Pyrrhonism,, with which 

 Hume couples a caricature of the Cartesian 

 doubt; but, in the third part, a certain " mitigated 

 scepticism" is recommended and adopted, under 

 the title of " academical philosophy." After 



* Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, 

 Book I. chap. i. 4, 5, 6. 

 148 



