cline to accept your definition or statement of it as incontrovertible.'

MRS. HARRINGTON. I must say I agree with Mr. Arundel, that doubt has more affinity with denial than assertion. Is it not commonly admitted that doubt is the first stage in complete negation?

TREVOR. So is it of well-founded affirmation. It is the first stage of all rational independent inquiry, irrespective of its object or result. Let me take an instance of justifiable doubt. . . . It is questioned, e.g. whether the planets Jupiter and Saturn are inhabited. In itself, the matter is clearly indemonstrable, but there is ample scope for presumptions, probabilities, &c., on either side. The enthusiastic believer in more worlds than one' thinks that all the presumptions of the case point in the direction of its affirmation, while more cautious thinkers believe that the astronomical conditions of those planets make human life, such as we know it, a thing impossible. Here clearly is a case for the Je ne sçay' of the pure Skeptic, whose standpoint thus avouched is not a whit nearer one thinker than the other. In the same way, the existence of God as a Personal Being, though I myself hold the probabilities of the case preponderate immeasurably in its favour, cannot be said to possess such imperative demonstration as to interdict all doubt. Now what seems to me both unfair and intolerant is to confound mere doubt or hesitancy on such a point with absolute denial, so that the man whose conviction of deity did not at all times possess the same degree of assurance or coherence should be liable to be branded as an Atheist. This is only another form of the intolerance of Romanism and the narrow bigotry of the Inquisition, which similarly classify hesitation or non-affirmation as positive disbelief. I know few misconceptions that have worked more mischief in the world than this same confusion of mere doubt with positive negation.

Moreover, with regard to such beliefs as the question of God's existence, men of undoubted piety and orthodoxy have confessed to occasional qualms of doubt on the subject. All beliefs which are in part emotional must needs depend largely on particular moods and conditions of feeling.

ARUNDEL. But such moods are only occasional and temporary, whereas the equipoise or neutrality of the Skeptic professes to be persistent.

HARRINGTON. We may solve our difficulty perhaps in this way. Theoretically, Skepticism is the neutrality of complete suspense between negation and affirmation. Practically, and regard being had to the conditions of ordinary human existence which depend so much on decision and action, there is an affinity greater or less between doubt and positive negation. I agree with Trevor, we ought to make a greater distinction than we commonly do between the theoretic states, and there can be no question that our confusing them must be ascribed to the despotism of Dogma.

TREVOR. I am willing to accept your amendment, which indeed is only another mode of putting my own 'substantive motion.' Our standpoint in the discussion is theoretic and philosophical. I may add, that without a distinct recognition of Skepticism as a mean between the opposing extremes of negation and affirmation, we shall not be able to understand the reasoning or appreciate the position of the chief Greek Skeptics.

ARUNDEL. But I thought your own contention was that the pure Nescience of Sokrates became transformed in Pyrrhôn and his successors to an impure and positive negation.

TREVOR. In great part so it did; still the equipoise of the Skeptic was not altogether forgotten as its primary and ideally perfect standpoint. All the Skeptics from Pyrrhôn to Sextos made the withholding assent (Epoché) a distinctive characteristic of true Skepticism.

HARRINGTON. The progress in Greek Free-thought from Sokratic Nescience to Pyrrhonic Negation appears to me unquestionable as a fact in its philosophical history. It is, moreover, marked in the popular creed by a corresponding growth in Skepticism and rejection of once-cherished dogmas. This is instructively illustrated by the distinct and growing signs of Skepticism in the Greek drama. Taking only its three greatest names, Aischylos, Sophokles, and Euripides, the extent of dissonance between the popular faith and the speculations of these dramatists seems to me very noteworthy.

In Aischylos we have represented what might be termed theological Skepticism-the conflict that had arisen between the rational instincts of the nation and the old mythology. 'Prometheus Bound' is especially the drama of ancient Skepticism. Its hero-the noble, generous, indomitable Titan -is remarkable as being an exponent of Free-thought and aspiration long before Greek history commences. In the interests of justice, of human culture and freedom, he boldly defies Zeus, scorns and ridicules the rule of Olympus, carries out his mission of human enfranchisement and enlightenment -not, however, without a melancholy foreboding of unsatisfactory results and proclaims in tones that have reverberated through all succeeding ages the inherent supremacy of virtue, disinterestedness, and duty. I would not myself dare to term Aischylos an actual Skeptic, but the author of 'Prometheus' was undoubtedly cognizant of the world-problems from which Skepticism has in part taken its rise, and was also aware of the imperfect solution of them which is all that our human faculties can offer. In Sophokles, Free-thought finds another mode of presentation. He delineates the conflict between that supreme Fate from whose law not even Zeus himself could claim exemption, and the lot of ordinary mortals. He recognizes also the dissonance that emerges between human instincts and affections, and the necessary restraints of law and social order. But the sense of puzzlement and awethe suppressed murmur at the hard conditions, divine and human, under which man must realize truth and happinesswhich are the general manifestations of intellectual disquiet in Aischylos and Sophokles, pale into insignificance when contrasted with the open Skepticism of Euripides. It is difficult to name any article of Hellenic belief on which the popular dramatist does not pour the cold water of his scorn and ridicule, and his attitude in this respect is of peculiar significance to our present subject from the fact that he was a disciple of Sokrates. Thus he questions the existence of Zeus,' points out the diversity which according to popular conceptions exists among the divinities of Olympus, euhemerizes Zeus as ether and Demeter as earth, dwells on the inconComp. on this point Welcker, Gr. Trag. ii. p. 844.

sistency, deceitfulness, and other ungodlike attributes of the popular divinities, maintains that mortals surpass the gods in virtue, says that religion-the worship of the gods, as well as morality-is determined by law and ordinary custom, thinks that the gods may be worshipped for form's sake even when they confessedly are not divine. He is more cynical and indifferent in questions of moral obligation than the generality of even professed Skeptics. His celebrated line—

The tongue has sworn, unsworn remains the mind

-passed into a proverb as a maxim of prevarication and duplicity; and on one occasion his open preference for gold as superior to piety and patriotism so irritated his audience that they wished to expel him from the theatre. This mark of disapprobation seems, however, to have been exceptional. Throughout his dramatic career Euripides was undoubtedly popular. We must therefore allow that audiences who heard with composure, if not with approbation, such dramas as Hippolytos,' 'Herakles Furens,' could have been neither ignorant nor unappreciative of the main principles of Free-thought. What seems to me very remarkable in estimating the amount of Skepticism current in Greece during the fourth century B.C. is, that there was such a distinction made between free speculation founded on ratiocination, and any overt act of profanation of rites or temples. The former was allowed to pass unquestioned, the latter was certain to entail the formidable charge of impiety (àσéßɛia). This distinction might possibly have suggested the general consensus of all the Greek Skeptics to allow and even to worship the gods of the State as a mere matter of patriotic and social convenience.

TREVOR. With your last suggestion I am unable to agree. The observance by the Skeptic of the religious rites of any country in which he lived was based on his general plan of not allowing speculative or individual opinion to interfere with his duties as a citizen. His observance of a religion whose creed he doubted was founded on the same principle as his obedience to laws whose justice he disputed. His Comp. Welcker, Op. cit. ii. 790.

conception of religion (I am far from thinking it a high one) was that it was a powerful agency to secure the order and well-being of the community, and that its sanctions and restrictions were not to be lightly disregarded. He considered it as the homage which speculation is frequently compelled to render to actuality or utility.

ARUNDEL. That was the notion of Montaigne, Charron, Hobbes, and a few more of that ilk, and in my opinion a more unworthy conception of religion it would be impossible to devise. Once take truth out of religion, and you deprive it of all vitality. It is a mere ghastly corpse-a thing possessing the organs and lineaments, but none of the real attributes of life.

HARRINGTON. It is at any rate susceptible of another interpretation. The primary demand of all great churches is that the individual should give up his mental independence as a sacrifice to the opinions of the majority. For my part, I see little valid distinction between a man who conforms to a religion of the truth of which he is doubtful, and another, a Romanist pervert, for instance, who defers his religious convictions to a creed which cannot command his full intellectual sympathy. Such sacrifices are often made, and they are not only regarded as meritorious by Romanists, but as possessing merit in proportion to their greatness.

ARUNDEL. But the sacrifices you speak of are made by men whose intellect and feelings are entirely under the control of the will, and therefore may be sincere. The Skeptic makes the offering of a confessedly disingenuous and pretended faith.

MISS LEYCESTER. He may, however, allege a Scriptural precedent-the well-known bowing in the house of Rimmon.' Independently of that, I agree with Charles that between the Skeptic conformist, and the Romanist who sacrifices his private convictions, there is no vital distinction. Coercing the will to accept what the reason of itself would reject is just as disingenuous as any other enforced agreement with a creed imperfectly acknowledged by the intellect. The Skeptic, moreover, might plead that his conformity was ultimately determined not by truth, but by such motives as general