"To skepticism," says Mr. Buckle, "we owe the spirit of inquiry, which, during the last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible subject, and reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge." But this is plainly what logicians call a ὕστερον πρότερον {hysteron proteron}, or what common people call "putting the cart before the horse." It is not skepticism which produces the spirit of inquiry, but the spirit of inquiry which produces skepticism. It was not a doubt concerning the Mosaic cosmogony which led to the study of geology; the study of geology led to the doubt of the cosmogony. Skepticism concerning the authority of the Church did not lead to the discovery of the Copernican system; the discovery of the Copernican system led to doubts concerning the authority of the Church which denied it. People do not begin by doubting, but by seeking. The love of knowledge leads them to inquire, and inquiry shows to them new truths. The new truths, being found to be opposed to received opinions, cause a doubt concerning those opinions to arise in the mind. Skepticism, therefore, may easily follow, but does not precede inquiry. Skepticism, being a negative principle, is necessarily unproductive and barren. To have no strong belief, no fixed opinion, no vital conviction for or against anything,--this is surely not a state of intellect favorable to any great creation or discovery. Goethe, who was certainly no bigot, says, in a volume of his posthumous works, that skepticism is only an inverted superstition, and that this skepticism is one of the chief evils of the present age. "It is worse," he adds, "than superstition, for superstition is the inheritance of energetic, heroic, progressive natures; skepticism belongs to weak, contracted, shrinking men, who venture not out of themselves." Lord Bacon says ("Advancement of Learning," Book II.) that doubts have their advantages in learning, of which he mentions two, but says that "both these commodities do scarcely countervail an inconvenience which will intrude itself, if it be not debarred; which is, that when a doubt is once received, men labor rather how to keep it a doubt than how to solve it." It will be seen, therefore, that Lord Bacon gives to skepticism scarcely more encouragement than is given it by Goethe.