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away, because it checks the sceptic’s evil desires, then the paper might be 
true ; but if we are told that scepticism is intellectual, then it seems to me 
that the paper is irrelevant. It really is of no use to go to a man who Is 
deeply sorry because of his doubts and say, “ Give them up, because they 
make you sorry.” He answers : “ I would give worlds to know on what I 
may rest my faith. I am sorry you cannot get rid of my doubts, which want 
positive truth to upset them. I do not want to be told I am sorry because 
I rest on shifting ground, for I feel that already.” I cannot help thinking 
that if a paper of this kind goes abroad, it will tend much to confirm the 
view which I have often met with in my small experience. Men who are 
really searching for truth say, “You clergymen have no sympathy with us, 
you throw us overboard at once if we do not agree exactly with all you say. 
and therefore it is of no use to come to you.” I do not mean to say that Dr. 
Thornton has had this idea in his own mind. 
Rev. Prebendary Row. — I feel some regret in criticising this paper, because 
I must endorse the opinion which has been expressed by the last speaker. I 
have had much experience of scepticism, and I have always treated sceptics 
with respect, as though they were searchers after truth. For the last nine 
months I have been reading a large amount of sceptical philosophy, and I 
own I cannot endorse the opinions at the opening of this paper, with respect 
to the works of the very eminent men that I have been reading. Would such 
comments be applicable to Herbert Spencer’s works, or to the works of John 
Stuart Mill, or to the last production of Herbert Spencer’s school, the Cosmic 
Philosophy of Mr. Fisk 1 Any one who has conversed with men who are 
not sceptics, but who feel doubts and difficulties, must have felt, as I have 
felt, the greatest sympathy for them. Now let us go to the first point in 
this paper ; and I would ask, what does Dr. Thornton define scepticism to 
be ? Unless we have a considerable amount of scepticism, we shall certainly 
fall into gross superstitions. When miracles were recently stated to have 
occurred in France, I certainly could not believe them, and that is a species 
scepticism. The mere term itself is so absolutely vague that I do not see 
how you can lay hold of it to make any definite utterance on the subject. 
Take, for example, many of our great writers : you may charge nearly every 
one of them with a certain amount of scepticism, because a spirit of inquiry 
exists among them. I suppose Dr. Thornton meant the scepticism of un- 
belief ; but let me have something like a definition. I did not really know 
what was the end and purport of the paper, and I am still very much in the 
dark. It may be said that it is to prove that scepticism or unbelief is a 
very bad thing ; but there is much matter in it which has no bearing on 
that purpose at all. There is one thing on which Dr. Thorntou has laid 
considerable stress, and that is, that, according to his own observation of the 
physiognomy of sceptics, they look a very sorrowful and wretched set of 
people. One day lately I was walking through London with more than my 
usual observation, and scrutinizing the faces of those I met. I subsequently 
observed to a gentleman I met, “ It seems to me that people of our age ” (we 
