33 



warranty that I can discover elsewhere. For my part, I 

 utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder. Fact, 

 I know ; and Law I know ; 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 

 perfectly 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 irrefragable demonstration of 

 what these limits are. Hume called himself a sceptic, 

 and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the 

 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 have 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 I am sim- 

 ply honest and truthful, and show a* proper regard for 

 the economy of time. So Hume's strong and subtle in- 

 tellect 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 inca.- 



