219 



SCEPTICISM AND CREDULITY. 



BENTLEY says, ' Commend me to an argument that, 

 like a flail, there's no defence against it.' But such 

 arguments are rarely to be found, even in physical 

 science, far less in that moral and metaphysical world 

 in which it is a part of our destiny to live and exercise 

 thought. 



In another of these papers I allude to the various 

 and vast disparity of the reasoning power in different 

 minds a fact, like many others, too familiar to be 

 seen in all its import. There is a logic, or want of 

 logic, peculiar to every mind. The perception of 

 truth, and the mode of arriving at conclusions upon 

 evidence, are curiously different in different men. Some 

 men are the ready slaves of dogmas, vague hypotheses, 

 or frauds upon the senses under the garb of science. 

 Others carry the shield of scepticism ever before them, 

 sometimes so closely as to exclude all sight of what is 

 beyond. The moral and intellectual temperament are 

 both concerned in this diversity, which shows itself in 

 religion, politics, art, literature, and every matter of 

 social life. 



Not merely individuals but races and ages of men 

 exhibit such dissimilarities. When Biot says, speaking 



