](\-2 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m 



conception of law|_thc_ 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._J The funda- 

 mental 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 can- 

 not 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 in- 

 justice. 



If a man asks me what the politics of the in- 

 habitants 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 cir- 

 cumstances, 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 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 arc 

 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 : 



