220 SCEPTICISM AJST) CREDULITY. 



of the time of Galileo, 'a cette epoque la doute n'etait 

 pas inventee,' he is asserting what is a general truth as 

 regards both the ancient and the scholastic philosophy. 

 The subjective methods of thought (to use a German 

 neology) dominated in these ages over the objective. 

 Truth was sought for not by experimental proof, but 

 by abstract reasoning and logical formularies. In our 

 days, owing mainly to the methods and successes of 

 physical science, the demand for proof is ever becom- 

 ing more absolute in all departments of human enquiry, 

 and an enlarged scepticism in this sense is lawful and 

 well justified by its results. 



Questions, however, there are and will ever remain 

 in which the highest attainment of human reason can 

 be that of presumption only, and such questions are 

 those which best try the minds of different men in their 

 dealings with doubt. Our lot is cast among things 

 certain and things uncertain or unknown; the latter 

 more numerous where the senses fail us and thought is 

 occupied with objects unseen, or with those invisible 

 powers that cause the things we see. Here the approach 

 to truth is often through tortuous paths, along which 

 none but clear and strong intellects can find their way, 

 or rightly discover where this way is closed by obstacles 

 which human reason cannot surmount. Those so gifted 

 are alone able, while well defining the objects sought 

 for, to shun the many pitfalls which the placita philo- 

 sopliorum, the seduction of hypothesis, and the shiftings 

 and artifices of language put in their path. The right 

 balancing of presumptive evidence is the highest form 

 of natural logic. The reception and right use of the 



