DOUBTING DOUBT.
MR. GLADSTONE, in his address to the students of Glasgow, touched a point of great interest, which, of course, it was not possible for him to discuss at any length, when he recommended those of his hearers who were destined for the career of theology to meet doubt itself with doubt,
—to test the springs of doubt with as searching a trial as that with which they test the springs of faith. Mr.
Gladstone, in fact, urged them to apply to the scepti- cal arguments of this age the process which Socrates, more than two thousand years ago, applied to the sceptical arguments of the Sophists, and which is so finely described by the author of" Songs of Two Worlds," in the passage in which he paints "—that white soul, clothed with a satyr's form, Which shone beneath the laurels day by day,
And fired with burning faith in God and right, Doubted men's doubts away."
That that expression has a profound applicability to the ques- tionings of Socrates, no reader of Plato will deny. When the Athenian man of the world came forward to throw doubt on the very existence of right and wrong, good and evil, and boldly de-
clared his belief that only week-minded conventionaliste had any true faith in the distinction between personal ambition and recti- tude, maintaining that the strong man should take what he could from the weak, and rule over him by virtue of his superior strength, Socrates applied to this creed of denial the touchstone of doubt,
and "doubted its doubts away." He doubted who the strong man was,—whether he was also the wise man, or only the strong ; he
doubted whether those who were strong by force of numbers only, were or were not entitled to impose their strength on the few who were strong only by wisdom; he doubted whether to
oppress and wrong others were or were not a greater evil, than to be oppressed and wronged by others; he doubted whether to multiply pleasures to the utmost were or were not a process likely to increase happiness, or whether one must needs also multiply, with the multiplication of one's pleasures, one's desires, cravings, longings, in short, the occasions of want and of dependence on external things. In a, word, Socrates brought the most unscrupulous Athenians back to the recogni- tion of a law of right and wrong by testing, at every point, the sufficiency of the law of supreme selfishness, and showing that it would break under far weaker trials than those by which the man of the world imagined that he had exposed the weak- ness of the moral law. It is a similar species of doubt which Mr. Gladstone proposed to the Glasgow students to apply to the universal scepticism of modern thought. Moot those—he says in effect—who doubt whether faith has done what it ought, by doubting whether doubt has done or can do half as much. Meet those who doubt whether the infinite is in any degree within our reach, with the doubt whether the finite is conceiv- able apart from the iufinite. Meet those who doubt whether a book or creed arising in a particular age and country can possibly embody everlasting truth, with the doubt whether without a revelation and morality that is everlasting, you could have a progress that is so much as lasting. Meet those who doubt whether it is possible to get beyond conjecture as to the future life, with the doubt whether it is possible to reach even legitimate conjecture concerning the past only, without a con - fidence in the veracity of the human faculties which warrants far more than conjecture as to anything which they persist- ently assert. And so too, meet the doubt whether any evidence would justify the belief in miracle, by the doubt whether any evidence would justify that belief in the absolute uniformity of Nature which alone makes a miracle incredible.
We go, then, heartily with Mr. Gladstone in his proposal, on all the fundamental lines of belief, to set off against the doubts of the doubters, the doubts which the doubters themselves ex- cite. But of course there is a limit to the applicability of the principle, and it is this limit we wish, approximately at least, to define. It would clearly be quite illegitimate to set off against the doubts whether Charles I. wrote " Bikon Basilike," or whether William Tell shot the apple off his son's head, the doubt whether we have any right to doubt it. On all matters of mere history, it is obvious that without positive evidence of some sort, there is no preliminary excuse for belief. And if that positive evid- ence be exceedingly weak, the doubt ought to be exceedingly strong, and this without our having any right to doubt the foundation of our doubt. What, then, is the field within which you may say that there is at least as much a priori justification for doubting doubt, as there is for doubting assertion P We should reply, without hesitation, that whole field of thought in which we are dealing with the fundamental assump- tions of the human mind, whatever these may be. It is a ques- tion for discussion, of course—for very much and very careful discussion,—what are these fundamental assumptions without the help of which the mind will not work at its full power at all,—without which the mind is crippled and paralysed and embarrassed at every step, by want of confidence in its own structure, and iu its own power to define its relations to life beyond it. But whatever the proper limit of these assump- tions is,—whether in the world of knowledge, or thought, or moral conviction, or expectation, or belief, —up to that limit, and no further, you have the right to meet doubt of the validity of these assumptions, by doubt of the validity of doubt- ing these assumptions,—and we should add, have not only the right so to meet it, but are compelled so to meet it on the amply sufficient ground that to remain in doubt lands us in just as important and just as effectual a class of assumptions as to reject doubt,—only that it is effectual to paralyse us, instead of effectual to stimulate. Say, for instance, that what you doubt is the capacity of a finite being to hold any living relation with an infinite being. Well, that doubt, if you take your stand on it, has just as much positive effect as the belief which comes from rejecting it. In the grasp of that doubt, the mind turns away involuntarily from the contemplation of anything eternal,— Practically holds all truths, however useful and lasting, to be quite provisional,—all affections, however deep and pure, to be transitory,—all conflicts and issues, however weighty, to be of measurable and limited significauce,—and all expectations, however eager, to be doubtful in a degree depending chiefly on the time that has to elapse before they can be ful- filled, and on the prospect of a sufficiently prolonged existence for the being to whom they refer. .No assumptions can be more important than these, or more productive of charac- teristic fruits. And, of course, they are assumptions. • Whether they be true or false, is a question on which a great deal depends. If they be false assumptions, they are certainly also enfeebling assumptions, for in that case they would embarrass, and depress, aud palsy a nature intended for communion with the infinite and eternal, and intended to enjoy the light and glow which the conviction of such com- munion inspires. If they be true assumptions, on the other hand, they would, of course, have the effect of vastly sobering a mind terribly prone to unreal visions and imaginary hopes. But who shall say whether such assumptions be true or false, ex- cept by comparing them with all the other assumptions on which man habitually acts, and of the practical value of which he has con- vinced himself, and seeing whether they are of like origin, and have like consequences. If the doubt 15 of the same kind with doubts which grow and strengthen with our growing nature, we are apt to justify the doubt, to think it well grounded. On the other
hand, if the doubt is of the same kind with doubts which are apt to dwindle and fade with our growing nature, we are wise to doubt the doubt, and reject it as alien to all within us which lives and grows. It was the conviction in Socrates that the doubts of the Sophists were alien to the healthy life of the soul and of the State, which made him so zealous to "doubt their doubts away." And so, if the doubts of the modern sceptics shall prove to be, as we expect, doubted away by the more masculine representative fi of a reviving philosophy and religion, it will be because Agnosticism will be shown to have its principles closely intertwined with conditions of thought and con- ditions of character altogether incompatible with the fundamental axioms of human knowledge, human virtue, and human hope.
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