powers, and
imparting at once greater precision and comprehensiveness to the matured
results of Science.

Theoretical Skepticism may be divided into _three_ distinct branches:
First, Universal or Philosophical Skepticism, which professes to deny,
or rather to doubt the certainty of all human knowledge; secondly,
Partial or Religious Skepticism, which admits the possible certitude of
human knowledge in other respects, but holds that religious truth is
either altogether inaccessible to our faculties, or that it is not
supported by sufficient evidence; thirdly, a mongrel system, which
combines Philosophic Doubt with Ecclesiastical Dogmatism, and which may
be aptly characterized as the Skeptico-Dogmatic theory.[238]

We agree with Dr. Reid in thinking that Universal Skepticism is
unanswerable _by argument_, and can only be effectively met by an
_appeal to consciousness_.[239] It might be shown, indeed, that in so
far as it assumes, however slightly, the aspect of a positive or
dogmatic system, it is self-contradictory and absurd; it might also be
shown that doubt itself implies thought, and thought existence or
reality: but the ultimate appeal must be to the facts of human
consciousness, and the laws of thought which operate in every human
breast. And when such an appeal is made, we can have no anxiety in
regard to the result, nor any apprehension that philosophical skepticism
can ever become the prevailing creed of the popular mind. There is a
risk, however, of danger arising from a different source; it may not be
always remembered that the theory of Skepticism must be universal to be
either consistent or consequent; and hence it may be _partially applied_
to some truths, while it is practically abandoned in regard to other
truths, which are neither more certain nor less liable to objection than
the former. Thus the skeptical difficulties which have been raised
against the doctrines of Ontology are of such a kind that if they have
any validity or force, they bear as strongly against the reality of an
external world and the existence of our fellow-men, as against the
doctrine which affirms the being of God: yet many will be found urging
them against the latter doctrine, who do not profess to have any doubt
in regard to the two former; and it is of paramount importance to show
that this is a partial and therefore unfair application of their own
principles, and that they cannot consistently admit the one without also
admit