sh, it is an unaccountable paradox,
that any one should remain a sceptic for a day, except, indeed, from a
guilty fear of the truth;--that, since scepticism tends to misery, it
is better not to know its truth, and that therefore ignorance is better
than knowledge;--that, if Christianity be an illusion, it, at all events,
tends to make men happier than the truth of scepticism, and that therefore
error is better than truth;--that religious scepticism is open to the
same objection as scepticism absolute; for whereas the last is taunted
with trusting to reason to prove that reason can in nothing be trusted,
religious scepticism is chargeable with declaring the certainty of all
uncertainty, and, while proclaiming: that there is nothing true, avowing
that that is truth and lastly, that if, in consistency, it leaves
even that uncertainty uncertain, it arrives at a conclusion which
everlastingly remits us to renewed investigation!

"But," said he, "the sceptic does affirm the certainty of all
uncertainty. That is precisely my state of mind, even in relation
to Christianity. Both its truth and falsehood are--uncertain."

"Then," said I, "I must not say you reject Christianity, but only
that you do not receive it?

"Precisely so," said he, with a smile and a blush at the same time.
I was much amused with this logical ceremoniousness, by which a man
is not to say that he rejects any thing so conditioned, but only
that he does not receive it. I told him I imagined they came to
much the same thing.

"It is impossible," said he, after a pause, "to affirm any thing on
these subjects."

"It is equally impossible?" said I, "to affirm nothing; on the
contrary, you sceptics have two conclusions, though in a negative
form, for every body else's one,--together with the pleasant addition,
that they are contraries to one another; and as Pascal said that the
man who attempted to be neuter between the sceptic and dogmatist was
a sceptic par excellence, so the genuine sceptic may be called a
dogmatist par excellence."

"For my part," said he, smiling sadly, "I hardly think it is very
difficult either to believe nothing or every thing. Fellowes, you see,
has believed everything, and now he is in a fair way to believe nothing.
However, all I mean is, that the evidence on these subjects reduces
one to a state of complete mental suspense, in which it is equally
unreasonable to say that we believe, as to say that we believe not.
However, I g