which most assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and has no warranty that I can discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder. Fact, I know; and Law I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind’s throwing? But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of the nature of either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the most baseless of theological dogmas. The fundamental doctrines of materialism, like those of spiritualism, and most other “isms,” lie outside “the limits of philosophical inquiry,” and David Hume’s great service to humanity is his irrefragable demonstration of what these limits are. Hume called himself a sceptic, and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the same title to him; but that does not alter the fact that the name, with its existing implications, does him gross injustice. If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor any one else have any means of knowing; and that, under these circumstances I decline to trouble myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call me a sceptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive that I am simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of time. So Hume’s strong and subtle intellect takes up a great many problems about which we are naturally curious, and shows us that they are essentially questions of lunar politics, in their essence incapable of being answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men who have work to do in the world. And thus ends one of his essays: “If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, _Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?_ No. _Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?_ No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”