themselves riddle after riddle, which they either assume to be hopelessly insoluble, or which they no sooner solve than they use the solution as the subject of another riddle involving its predecessor in redoubled perplexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game were content to play it by themselves, without inviting others to join who are constitutionally unfit for such intellectual wrestling. But mental exercises may to philosophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet be death to the multitude; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands self-condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by challenging them to disputations confessedly leading no whither, and bewildering them with confessedly 'vain and profane babblings, and strivings after words to no profit, but to subverting of the hearers, and overthrow of the faith of some.' And it is as poor an excuse for this wanton tampering with other people's creeds, as it is poor amends for its mischievous consequences, that Hume offers when, after watching for a while his puzzled disciples blown about by the winds of adverse doctrine that he has let loose upon them, he proceeds to rally them on their 'whimsical condition,' which he speaks of as a mere laughing matter got up chiefly for amusement. It is only an aggravation of offence that, while, on the one hand, he solemnly pronounces everything to be 'a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery,' he, on the other hand, cheerily exhorts us not to suffer the 'doubts raised by philosophy to affect our actions.' 'Nature,' he says, 'is always too strong for principles, will always maintain her rights, and prevail, in the end, against all reasoning whatever.' 'The great subverter of Pyrrhonism,' he continues, 'is actual employment and the occupations of common life,' in presence of which its overstrained scruples 'vanish like smoke.' Although real knowledge consists solely in knowing that we know nothing, and in doubting everything, and although sceptics may 'justly triumph' in principles which lead them to deny even the attraction of gravitation, still they had better beware how they act on these principles, lest by stepping unconcernedly out of window they come fatally to grief on the stones below, and so the sect and its tenets be annihilated together. So, or to such effect, Hume: but how can there be just ground for pride in speculations which, as their own professors admit, would, on the first attempt to reduce them to practice, be shattered to pieces by hard facts? That cannot possibly, even on Hume's recommendation, be accepted as metaphysical truth, which flatly contradicts common sense, nor can there be any unbecoming self-confidence in seeking, even though Hume pronounce the search hopeless, for metaphysical truth, with which common sense may be reconciled. FOOTNOTES: