or to vulgar prejudice, and always prompted
by the natural pride of the human heart to cast off their subjection to
dogmas imposed on them; disgusted, perhaps, by the immoral lives of some
professed Christians, by the weaknesses and absurdities of others, and
by what they observe to be the implicit belief of numbers, whom they see
and know to be equally ignorant with themselves, many doubts and
suspicions of greater or less extent spring up within them. These doubts
enter into the mind at first almost imperceptibly: they exist only as
vague indistinct surmises, and by no means take the precise shape or
the substance of a formed opinion. At first, probably, they even offend
and startle by their intrusion: but by degrees the unpleasant sensations
which they once excited wear off: the mind grows more familiar with
them. A confused sense (for such it is, rather than a formed idea) of
its being desirable that their doubts should prove well founded, and of
the comfort and enlargement which would be afforded by that proof, lends
them much secret aid. The impression becomes deeper; not in consequence
of being reinforced by fresh arguments, but merely by dint of having
longer rested in the mind; and as they increase in force, they creep on
and extend themselves. At length they diffuse themselves over the whole
of Religion, and possess the mind in undisturbed occupancy.

It is by no means meant that this is universally the process. But,
speaking generally, this might be termed, perhaps not unjustly, the
_natural history_ of scepticism. It approves itself to the experience of
those who have with any care watched the progress of infidelity in
persons around them; and it is confirmed by the written lives of some of
the most eminent unbelievers. It is curious to read their own accounts
of themselves, the rather as they accord so exactly with the result of
our own observation.--We find that they once perhaps gave a sort of
implicit hereditary assent to the truth of Christianity, and were what,
by a mischievous perversion of language, the world denominates
_believers_. How were they then awakened from their sleep of ignorance?
At what moment did the light of truth beam in upon them, and dissipate
the darkness in which they had been involved? The period of their
infidelity is marked by no such determinate boundary. Reason, and
thought, and inquiry had little or nothing to do with it. Having for
many years lived careless and irreligious l