INDISTINCTNESS OF IDEAS. 265 



sent the solutions of their problems, does not indi- 

 cate that clear apprehension of the relations of 

 space, and that delight in the contemplation of 

 them, which the Greek geometrical speculations 

 imply. The Arabs are in the habit of giving con- 

 clusions without demonstrations, precepts without 

 the investigations by which they are obtained; as 

 if their main object were practical rather than 

 speculative, the calculation of results rather than 

 the exposition of theory. Delambre* has been ob- 

 liged to exercise great ingenuity, in order to dis- 

 cover the method by which Ibn lounis proved his 

 solution of certain difficult problems. 



5. Indistinctness of Ideas shown by Skeptics. 

 The same unsteadiness of ideas which prevents 

 men from obtaining clear views, and steady and 

 just convictions, on special subjects, may lead them 

 to despair of or deny the possibility of acquiring 

 certainty at all, and may thus make them skeptics 

 with regard to all knowledge. Such skeptics are 

 themselves men of indistinct views, for they could 

 not otherwise avoid assenting to the demonstrated 

 truths of science; and, so far as they may be 

 taken as specimens of their contemporaries, they 

 prove that indistinct ideas prevail in the age in 

 which they appear. In the stationary period, more- 

 over, the indefinite speculations and unprofitable 

 subtleties of the schools might further impel a 

 man of bold and acute mind to this universal skep- 

 3 Dfclamb. M. A. p. 125-8. 



