112 SELECTED ESSAYS FROM LAY SERMONS 



but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own 

 mind's throwing? 



But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the 

 nature of either matter or spirit, and that the notion of 

 necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the per- 

 fectly legitimate conception of law, the materialistic position 

 that there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and 

 necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most 

 baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines 

 of materialism, like those of spiritualism, and most other 

 *'isms," lie outside "the limits of philosophical inquiry," 

 and David Hume's great service to humanity is his irrefrag- 

 able demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called 

 himself a sceptic, and therefore others cannot be blamed if 

 they apply the same title to him; but that does not alter the 

 fact that the name, with its existing implications, does him 

 gross injustice. 



If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of 

 the moon are, and I reply that I do not know; that neither 

 I, nor any one else, has any means of knowing; and that, 

 under these circumstances, I decline to trouble myself about 

 the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call me 

 a sceptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive 

 that 1 am simply honest and truthful, and show a proper 

 regard for the economy of time. So Hume's strong and 

 subtle intellect takes up a great many problems about which 

 we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are essen- 

 tially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of 

 being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of 

 men who have work to do in the world. And he thus ends 

 one of his essays : — 



" If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school metaphysics, 

 for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concern- 



