measureless might may, in some future stage of existence, afford compensation for the apparently inequitable distribution of good and evil which, according to all experience, has hitherto taken place among human beings? Were it desirable to amplify the apology with which this paper commenced, some additional justification of the freedom of the foregoing criticisms might be found in hints thrown out by Hume in various parts of the treatise which we have been examining, and particularly in its concluding chapter, that in many of his most startling doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's temperament, too cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a certain tepid geniality to save him from becoming a scoffer. The character which he claims for himself, and somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or general doubter--a character in which, when rightly understood, there is nothing to be ashamed of. To take nothing on trust, to believe nothing without proof, to show no greater respect for authority than may consist in attentive and candid examination of its statements, to accept only verified facts as bases for reasoning on matters of fact and existence--these are golden rules of philosophical research, principles in which lies the secret of all real progress in any of the higher departments of science. By Hume they were adopted _con amore_, and with keen appreciation, not more of their practical utility, than of the sport which he perceived them to be capable of yielding. His serious purpose was to unmask the numberless pretences which in politics, political economy, metaphysics, morals, and theology he found universally current as gospel truths; to expose the ambiguity and contradictions latent in popular thought, and in the popular forms of expression which are so apt to be mistaken for thought, and to indicate the only safe mode of investigation and the only trustworthy tests of genuine knowledge; his favourite amusement to put time-honoured commonplaces on the rack, and demanding their _raison d'etre_, to pass on them summary sentence of extinction if they failed to account satisfactorily for their existence. Unfortunately, in his keen enjoyment of the fun of the thing, he not unfrequently overlooked the solid interests at stake. Like a huntsman who, for the sake of a better run, should outrace his quarry, or who, seeing that the dogs were close upon the hare, should, in order to prolong the chase, start a fresh hare, kept till then snug at his saddle-bow, so Hume, in the excitement of metaphysical pursuit, instead of stopping to gather up whatever verified affirmations came in his way, would prefer to follow any new negation that he espied, or, if momentarily accepting any affirmation as established, would proceed forthwith to affirm its direct opposite with the view of neutralising both. In this, his practice resembled that of metaphysicians in general, who take a singular delight in setting