f letters" should become a philosophical sceptic as "the first and
most essential step towards being a sound believing Christian," though
adopted and largely acted upon by many a champion of orthodoxy in these
days, is questionable in taste, if it be meant as a jest, and more than
questionable in morality, if it is to be taken in earnest. To pretend
that you believe any doctrine for no better reason than that you doubt
everything else, would be dishonest, if it were not preposterous.

[30] A perplexity which is increased rather than diminished by some
passages in a letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto (March 10, 1751). Hume
says, "You would perceive by the sample I have given you that I make
Cleanthes the hero of the dialogue; whatever you can think of, to
strengthen that side of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any
propensity you imagine I have to the other side crept in upon me against
my will; and 'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book,
wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual
progress of my thoughts on this head. It began with an anxious scent
after arguments to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in,
dissipated, returned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was
a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against
inclination--perhaps against reason.... I could wish Cleanthes' argument
could be so analysed as to be rendered quite formal and regular. The
propensity of the mind towards it--unless that propensity were as strong
and universal as that to believe in our senses and experience--will
still, I am afraid, be esteemed a suspicious foundation. 'Tis here I
wish for your assistance. We must endeavour to prove that this
propensity is somewhat different from our inclination to find our own
figures in the clouds, our faces in the moon, our passions and
sentiments even in inanimate matter. Such an inclination may and ought
to be controlled, and can never be a legitimate ground of assent."
(Burton, _Life_, I. pp. 331-3.) The picture of Hume here drawn
unconsciously by his own hand, is unlike enough to the popular
conception of him as a careless sceptic loving doubt for doubt's sake.

[31] Kant employs substantially the same argument:--"Wuerde das hoechste
Wesen in dieser Kette der Bedingungen stehen, so wuerde es selbst ein
Glied der Reihe derselben sein, und eben so wie die niederen Glieder,
denen es vorgesetzt ist, noch fernere Untersuchungen w