t inquire further,'
without any ground for the prohibition except the '_ipse dixitism_'
which declared that inquiry must be fruitless. Stewart, in fact, really
illustrated the equivocation between the two meanings of 'common sense.'
If by that name he understood, as he professed to understand, ultimate
'laws of thought,' his position was justifiable as soon as he could
specify the laws and prove that they were ultimate. But so far as he
virtually took for granted that the average beliefs of intelligent
people were such laws, and on that ground refused to examine the
evidence of their validity, he was inconsistent, and his position only
invited assault. As a fact, I believe that his 'intuitions' covered many
most disputable propositions; and that the more clearly they were
stated, the more they failed to justify his interpretations. He was not
really answering the most vital and critical questions, but implicitly
reserving them, and putting an arbitrary stop to investigations
desirable on his own principles.

The Scottish philosophy was, however, accepted in England, and made a
considerable impression in France, as affording a tenable barrier
against scepticism. It was, as I have said, in philosophy what
Whiggism was in politics. Like political Whiggism it included a large
element of enlightened and liberal rationalism; but like Whiggism it
covered an aversion to thoroughgoing logic. The English politician was
suspicious of abstract principles, but could cover his acceptance of
tradition and rule of thumb by general phrases about liberty and
toleration. The Whig in philosophy equally accepted the traditional
creed, sufficiently purified from cruder elements, and sheltered his
doctrine by speaking of 'intuitions and laws of thought.' In both
positions there was really, I take it, a great deal of sound practical
wisdom; but they also implied a marked reluctance to push inquiry too
far, and a tacit agreement to be content with what the Utilitarians
denounced as 'vague generalities'--phrases, that is, which might be
used either to conceal an underlying scepticism, or really to stop
short in the path which led to scepticism. In philosophy as in
politics, the Utilitarians boasted of being thoroughgoing Radicals,
and hated compromises which to them appeared to be simply obstructive.
I need not elaborate a point which will meet us again. If I were
writing a history of thought in general I should have to notice other
writers, th