135 
reminds us that “ his first book fell dead-born from the press ; 
few of its successors had a much better fate. The uneducated 
masses were, of course, beyond his reach ; amongst the educated 
minority he had but few readers ; and amongst the few readers 
still fewer who could appreciate his thoughts; ”* Add to this 
that Hume, though deeming himself a match for the philo- 
sophers and theologians of his time, had a secret dread of that 
religious pugnacity in the common people of Scotland which 
is so quickly roused against an assailant of popular beliefs, 
and therefore kept back, to be published after his death, his 
“ Dialogues on Natural Religion,” — the book most fitted to 
provoke that acrimonious criticism which insures literary 
success. Now, however, within a century of its first appear- 
' ance, we find this masterly product of Hume's dialectics still 
acknowledged as the standard treatise of philosophical scepti- 
cism. Scotch philosophers since his day have laboured to 
reform philosophy in the light of Hume’s criticism ; Kant 
attempted to refute his scepticism ; John Stuart Mill virtually 
built upon Hume ; and he has lately been revived in Germany, 
with the honour of translation and the prestige of authority. 
His fame grows with time. This is due partly to the beauty 
of Hume’s style, and the clearness and depth of his reasoning ; 
due also to the decline of theological asperity, and the growth 
of a tolerant spii’it among various schools of thought ; and 
due not a little to the tone of audacity, — or what he himself 
styled “ a certain boldness of temper,” — with which Hume 
assailed convictions which had come to be accepted as axioms 
both in philosophy and in religion. And I am of opinion 
also that no small part of the favour which has accrued to 
Hume is due to the metaphysical fallacies which have sprung 
up side by side with the scientific facts which have discredited 
Paley. The whole history of science discloses a disposition to 
metaphysical speculation awakened by each new discovery in 
physical nature. With every fresh deposit of facts upon the 
borders of science comes a fresh brood of fallacies upon the 
adjacent borders of hypothesis ; and the progenitors of these 
have a natural affinity for the greatest of sceptics, who was 
notably the dupe of his own fallacies. This phenomenon 
of the simultaneous generation of fact and fallacy is itself 
worthy of scientific investigation. But it is enough to note 
it here as showing that the failure of Paley’s demonstration 
of God in Nature should not drive us over to Hume’s contra- 
diction, which is demonstrably a fallacy. 
* Chap. i. I. 
