SCEPTICISM AND CREDULITY. 223 



tion so obtained. He seems to have ignored the fact 

 that probability is, after all, the great and necessary 

 guide in every part of human life. The scepticism of 

 Bayle was of a different kind ; but there was fitness in 

 the epithet he applied to himself of ^e^eXT/yepera 

 Zevs, from his habit of gathering doubts around every 

 topic he touched. 



Other instances might be quoted, but as regards 

 the question of excess they still leave the balance large 

 on the side of credulity. No one can better affirm this 

 than the physician of long and various experience. In 

 my volume of 'Medical Notes and Beflections,' first 

 published twenty- six years ago, there is a chapter on 

 c Medical Evidence,' in which, while admitting the in- 

 herent difficulties of the subject, I found occasion to 

 comment on the curious credulity of the world in all 

 that regards the nature and treatment of disease, and 

 the injurious reflex action which this often exercises 

 upon the minds of physicians themselves. Though I 

 had much reason to be satisfied with the success of this 

 work, I heard from several quarters the remark upon 

 it that I raised more questions than I solved. And 

 the comment was a just one. Mental temperament on 

 my own part had doubtless some influence in this ; but 

 the cause was chiefly to be found in the actual state of 

 medical knowledge, still far below the conditions of an 

 exact science, its evidences singularly complex in kind, 

 and fettered by numerous prejudices and antiquated 

 precepts, a hindrance to truth and the source of error 

 and various evils in practice. 



The sceptical temperament as applied to religion is 



