ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SKEPTICS. 



363 



be a clap of thunder, but afterward find to be nothing more than the rum- 

 bling of a filthy cart ; that we mistake a phantasm, or phantasmagoria, for a 

 figure of flesh and blood; and occasionally see things just as clearly in our 

 dreams as when we are awake, though all the world with which we have 

 then any concern is a world of mere ideas — a world of our own making, and 

 altogether independent of the senses; and, consequently, that it is possible 

 the poet may speak somewhat more literally than he intended, when he 

 tells us 



We are sucli stuff 

 As dreams are made on, and our little life 

 Is rounded with a sleep," 



This sort of reasoning, however, has not been confined to modern times ; 

 it was, as I have already observed, the very argument of Arcesilas, and the 

 skeptics of the MmuLE Academy, as it was called ; who, in consequence, con- 

 tended that there is no truth or solidity in any thing : no such thing as cer- 

 tainty, or real knowledge ; and that all genuine philosophy or wisdom con- 

 sists in doubting. From a cause somewhat similar, Pyrrho, as I have like- 

 wise remarked, seems to have carried his skepticism to a still farther extra- 

 vagance, though a very excellent man and enlightened philosopher in other 

 respects : for he is said to have so far disbelieved the real existence of every 

 thing before him that precipices were nothing ; the points of swords and 

 arrows were nothing ; the wheel of a carriage that threatened to go over his 

 own neck was nothing. Insomuch that his friends, who were not quite so 

 far gone in philosophy, thought it right to protect him against the effects of 

 his own principles, and either accompanied him themselves or set a keeper 

 over him under the milder name of a disciple. It was in vain that Plato pre- 

 tended that the mind is loaded with intellectual archetypes, or the incorpo- 

 real ideas, of all external objects ; Aristotle that it perceives by immaterial 

 phantasms ; and Epicurus by real species or effigies thrown forth from the 

 objects themselves : Pyrrho denied the whole of this jargon, and contended 

 that if it could even be proved that the senses uniformly give a true account 

 of things, as far as their respective faculties extend, still we obtain no more 

 real knowledge of matter, of the substance that is said to constitute the ex- 

 ternal world, than we do of the perceptions that constitute our dreams. If, 

 said he, you affirm that matter consists of particles that are infinitely divisible, 

 you ascribe the attribute of infinity to every particle ; and hence make a 

 finite grain of sand consist of millions of infinite atoms ; and such is the train 

 of argument of the atomic philosophers. While, on the contrary, if you con- 

 tend, with the atomists, that matter has its ultimate atoms or primordial par- 

 ticles, beyond which it is not possible to divide and subdivide it, show me 

 some of these particles, and let those senses you appeal to become the judges. 



Such was the state of things under the Greek philosophers : the existence 

 of an external world and its connexion with the mind was supported, and sup- 

 ported alone, by fine-spun hypotheses, that were perpetually proving their 

 own fallacy; and w^as denied or doubted of by skeptics who were perpetually 

 proving the absurdity of their own doubts. 



Des Cartes, as we have already observed, thought, in his day, it was high 

 time to remove all doubt whatsoever, and to come to a proof upon every thing; 

 and he zealously set to work to this efiect. In the ardour of his own mind 

 he had the fullest conviction of a triumph; and like a liberal antagonist he 

 conceded to his adversaries all they could desire. He allowed a doubt upon 

 every thing for the very purpose of removing it by direct proofs. He began, 

 therefore, as we have already seen, by doubling of his own existence : and, 

 as we have also seen, he made sad work of it in the proofs he attempted 

 to offer. 



Having satisfied himself, however, upon this point, he next proceeded to 

 prove the existence of the world around him ; and, candidly following up the 



♦ Tempest. 



/ 



