Indeed the Pyrrhonism of latter
days is not only more subtle than that of antiquity, but, it must be
confessed, more dangerous in its tendency. The happiness of a Christian
depends so essentially upon his belief, that it is but natural he should
feel alarm at the progress of doubt, lest it should steal by degrees into
that region from which he is most interested in excluding it, and poison
at last the very spring of his consolation and hope. Still however the
abuses of doubting ought not to deter a philosophical mind from indulging
mildly and rationally in its use; and there is nothing surely more
consistent with the meek spirit of Christianity than that humble
scepticism which professes not to extend its distrust beyond the circle of
human pursuits and the pretensions of human knowledge. A follower of this
school may be among the readiest to admit the claims of a superintending
Intelligence upon his faith and adoration: it is only to the wisdom of
this weak world that he refuses or at least delays his assent;--it is only
in passing through the shadow of earth that his mind undergoes the eclipse
of scepticism. No follower of Pyrrho has ever spoken more strongly against
the dogmatists than St. Paul himself, in the First Epistle to the
Corinthians; and there are passages in Ecclesiastes and other parts of
Scripture, which justify our utmost diffidence in all that human reason
originates.
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