I OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 67 



employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if 

 they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution and 

 throw away the blessings their hands are filled with because 

 they are not big enough to grasp everything. We shall not 

 have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, 

 if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us : for 

 of that they are very capable : and it will be an unpardonable, 

 as well as a childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advan- 

 tages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends 

 for which it was given us, because there are some things that 

 are set out of reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and 

 untoward servant who would not attend to his business by 

 candlelight, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The 

 candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our 

 purposes . . . . Our business here is not to know all 

 things, but those which concern our conduct." 1 



Hume develops the same fundamental con- 

 ception in a somewhat different way, and with 

 a more definite indication of the practical benefits 

 which may be expected from a critical philosophy. 

 The first and second parts of the twelfth section 

 of the " Inquiry " are devoted to a condemnation 

 of excessive scepticism, or Pyrrhonism, with which 

 Hume couples a caricature of the Cartesian 

 doubt ; but, in the third part, a certain " mitigated 

 scepticism " is recommended and adopted, under 

 the title of " academical philosophy." After 

 pointing out that a knowledge of the infirmities 

 of the human understanding, even in its most per- 

 fect state, and when most accurate and cautious 



1 Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book 

 I. chap i. 4, 5, 6. 



F 2 



