ether true or not, it cannot be proved. Strange as it may appear,
these sentiments have been embraced and avowed by men who still continue
to profess their belief in God and Religion. Some have held that proof
by reasoning is impossible, but only because it is superfluous. They
distinguish between _reason_ and _reasoning_; and hold that while the
latter is incompetent to the task of proving the existence of God, the
former spontaneously suggests the idea of a Supreme Cause, and imparts
to it all the certainty which belongs to a direct intellectual
intuition. Others distinguish between the _Speculative_ and the
_Practical_ Reason; and hold that while the former cannot prove by an
unexceptionable argument the existence of God, the latter affords a
sufficient groundwork for religious belief and worship. Others, again,
speak not so much of reason or reasoning, as of _sentiment and
instinct_, as the source of our religious beliefs; and instead of
addressing arguments to the understanding, they would make their appeal
to the feelings and affections of the heart. There is still another
class of writers who resolve all human knowledge, whether relating to
things secular or spiritual, into what they call the principle of faith
(_foi_), and to this class belong two distinct parties who are widely
different from each other in almost everything else. It is important,
therefore, to mark the radical difference between their respective
systems, since it is apt to be concealed or disguised by the ambiguous
use of the same phraseology by both. The one party may be described as
the disciples of a _Faith-Philosophy of Reason_, the other of a
_Faith-Philosophy of Revelation_: the former resolving all our knowledge
into the intuitive perceptions or first principles of the human
intellect, considered as a kind of divine and infallible, though natural
inspiration; the latter contending that in regard at least to the
knowledge of theological truth, human reason is utterly powerless, and
can only arrive at certainty by faith in the divine testimony. The two
are widely different, yet there are points of resemblance and agreement
betwixt them, and on this account they have sometimes been classed
together under a wide and sweeping generalization.

The form of Partial Skepticism to which these remarks apply is perhaps
more common than it is generally supposed to be. On what other
principle, indeed, can we account, at least in the case of religious