THE MODEEN SKEPTIC 103 



artists. They came earlier, wlien there was more 

 faith and less reason in Greece. 



In fact, the great days of Greece were not when 

 its head was the clearest, but when its patriotism 

 and religion were the most fervent. As the heart 

 cools the head clears. Those great emotional up- 

 risings, those religious enthusiasms, which come in 

 time to all nations, are not days of right reason nor 

 of correct science ; still they are the periods of his- 

 tory we like best to dwell upon. 



It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our 

 minds are naturally affirmative ; it is not till the 

 second or third thought that doubt begins. Belief 

 is so vital and necessary that one would say the 

 tendency was made strong at the perpetual risk of 

 extra belief and superstition ; it were better to be- 

 lieve too much than not enough. Hence mankind 

 have always believed too much, as if to make sure 

 that the anchor hold. To believe just enough, to 

 free his mind from all cant and from all illusion, 

 and see things just as in themselves they are, is the 

 aim of the philosopher or of the true skeptic. 



Men's minds are nearly always under a spell of 

 some kind. What a spell the mind of Europe was 

 under during the Crusades ! What a foolish and 

 misdirected enthusiasm this uprising seems to us, 

 whose minds are under some other spell, say the 

 scientific spell. What a spell the same mind was 

 under for centuries with reference to witchcraft, 

 even such a man as Sir Matthew Hale believing in 

 it and defending it. Here was an astute legal mind. 



