philosophical research, principles
in which lies the secret of all real progress in any of the higher
departments of science. By Hume they were adopted _con amore_, and with
keen appreciation, not more of their practical utility, than of the
sport which he perceived them to be capable of yielding. His serious
purpose was to unmask the numberless pretences which in politics,
political economy, metaphysics, morals, and theology he found
universally current as gospel truths; to expose the ambiguity and
contradictions latent in popular thought, and in the popular forms of
expression which are so apt to be mistaken for thought, and to indicate
the only safe mode of investigation and the only trustworthy tests of
genuine knowledge; his favourite amusement to put time-honoured
commonplaces on the rack, and demanding their _raison d'etre_, to pass
on them summary sentence of extinction if they failed to account
satisfactorily for their existence. Unfortunately, in his keen
enjoyment of the fun of the thing, he not unfrequently overlooked the
solid interests at stake. Like a huntsman who, for the sake of a better
run, should outrace his quarry, or who, seeing that the dogs were close
upon the hare, should, in order to prolong the chase, start a fresh
hare, kept till then snug at his saddle-bow, so Hume, in the excitement
of metaphysical pursuit, instead of stopping to gather up whatever
verified affirmations came in his way, would prefer to follow any new
negation that he espied, or, if momentarily accepting any affirmation as
established, would proceed forthwith to affirm its direct opposite with
the view of neutralising both. In this, his practice resembled that of
metaphysicians in general, who take a singular delight in setting
themselves riddle after riddle, which they either assume to be
hopelessly insoluble, or which they no sooner solve than they use the
solution as the subject of another riddle involving its predecessor in
redoubled perplexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything
but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game were content
to play it by themselves, without inviting others to join who are
constitutionally unfit for such intellectual wrestling. But mental
exercises may to philosophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet
be death to the multitude; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands
self-condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by challenging
them to disputations co