In the great maze of conflicting opinion, it matters little that we are cautioned that reason is not all-sufficient--it is the best sufficiency we have. If reason will not serve us well, will anything serve us better? Bishop Berkeley may demonstrate that we are not sure of matter's existence--but are we more sure of any thing else? We are not thus to be cajoled. But it is right to say that Mr. J. S. Mill contends that Berkeley has been misunderstood--but if he did argue, as popularly believed, to such argument, the answer of Byron is sufficient-- When Berkeley said there was no matter, It was no matter what he said. If all is delusion, the delusion is very orderly--it observes regular laws, and we proceed in logical method to inform each other, how the delusion of things appears to our understandings or affects our fortunes. Where nothing is, and all things seem, And we the shadows of a dream, We discuss the seemings with the same gravity as realities.' If a man seems to do wrong, and I seem to prevent him, and the wrong, therefore, seems not to be done, I am satisfied. The 'wise considerate scepticism' of inquiry has been well expressed by Emerson, in his recent lecture on Montaigne.--'Who shall forbid a wise scepticism, seeing that there is no practical question on which anything more than a proximate solution is to be had? Marriage itself is an open question: those "out" wish to be "in:" those "in" to be "out." The state. With all its obvious advantages, nobody loves it. Is it; otherwise with the Church? Shall the young man enter trade or a profession without being vitiated? Shall he stay on shore or put out to sea? There is much to be said on both sides. Then there is competition and the attractions of the co-operative system. The labourer has a poor hut, is without knowledge, virtue, civilisation. If: we say, "Let us have culture," the expression awakens a new indisposition; for culture destroys spontaneous and hearty unencumbered action. Let us have a robust manly life; let us have to do with realities, not with shadowy ghosts. Now this precisely is the right ground of the sceptic; not of unbelief, denying or doubting--least of all of scoffing and profligate jeering at what is stable and good. He is _the considerer_. He has, too many enemies around him to wish to be his own. The position of the sceptic is one taken up for defence; as we build a house not too high or too low; under the wind, but out of the dust. For him the Spartan vigour is too-austere. St. John too thin and aerial. The wise sceptic avoids to be fooled by any extreme; he wishes to, see the game. He wishes to see all things, but mainly men. Really our life in this world not of so easy interpretation as preachers and school-books are accustomed to describe it.' These have not so efficiently solved the problem, that the sceptic should yield himself contentedly to their interpretation. True, he does