224 SCEPTICISM AND CREDULITY. 



a topic by itself, yet seen here also under the same 

 antagonism to credulity as in other less momentous 

 concerns of human life. The diversity of human creeds 

 as regards Eevelation, and the utter inability of human 

 reason to comprehend the great mysteries of creation 

 and the Creator save under the simple aspects of de- 

 sign and power, may well explain the common direc- 

 tion of the sceptical mind to these points. But that 

 mind must be shallow in reason which refuses belief to 

 all it cannot understand, and rejects the notion of God 

 and Providential design, because it cannot measure the 

 greatness of the universe, or interpret the seeming 

 anomalies and evils affecting the little world on which 

 man has his being. The scepticism of the atheist, 

 strictly so called, halts at its first step ; and his theory, 

 if he has one, can only be expressed in terms as diffi- 

 cult to comprehend as are the facts which he seeks to 

 subvert. 



