60' SCEPTICISM.. 



it appears that every utterance Involves a. reference 

 to reality, It is both false and Impossible, false, 

 because the thought-symbols expressed by speech 

 cannot be true of reality,, and because the course 

 of Inference does not correspond to the course of 

 nature, and Impossible because we cannot see how 

 the transition from fact to symbol should ever have 

 been. made.. Thus Scepticism succeeds not only In 

 exhibiting the justice of Its. denial of knowledge, but 

 literally reduces Its opponents to silence. 



It is the course of this. process which we must now 

 follow. 



§ 4. Lt has been said with some point, that the 

 best cure for the admiration of old institutions lies 

 in the study of their history; and certainly our 

 traditional faith- in reason must be very strong or 

 very blind, If It can resist the doubts of the com- 

 petency of our categories suggested by the least 

 study of their origin and history.. 



We are all, thanks to the perhaps^ not wholly 

 disinterested efforts of modern science, familiar with 

 the discredit which, their anthropomorphic character 

 has brought on the central conceptions of religion, 

 and have seen thergrossness of savage superstitions 

 traced throughout their survivals in modern theo- 

 logy. 



But though the- Sceptic will be at one with the 

 scientist In> reprobating the anthropomorphism of the 

 savage,, he will hardly have the politeness to- confine 

 the Inferences from his. historical, studies to the 

 single sphere of religion, or to show any greater 

 respect for the sacro-sanctityy of science.. For he 

 fmds that all our knowledge Is vitiated by this 

 fundamental flaw of its anthropomorphic origin^ that 

 the conceptions^ of our science are alLdlrectdescendt- 



