is," said he, laughing, "as curious after ignorance as after knowledge!
No," he continued, "the sciences are made arts for utilitarian purposes;
but the sciences themselves have a very different origin. For my own
part, I would as soon believe that Sir Isaac Newton excogitated his
system of the universe in hopes of being made one day Master of the
Mint." I assented, and, smiling, told him I was glad to find him admit
that there was in man a love of knowledge, identical with the love of
truth. He said he admitted the appetite, but denied that there was
always an adequate supply of food. He admitted that in physical science
man seemed capable of unlimited progress; but it seemed doubtful whether
this was the case in other directions. "What was there inconsistent
with scepticism in that?" he asked.

I answered, that it was not for me to say at what point of the scale
a man might become an orthodox doubter; but I was, at all events,
glad that he had not gone all the lengths which some had gone, or
professed to have gone; who, if they had not reached that climax
of Pyrrhonism, to doubt even if they doubt, yet had declared the
attainment of all truth impossible. I then bantered him a little
on the advantages of "absolute scepticism"; told him I wondered that
he should throw them away; and reminded him of the success with
which the sceptic might train on his adversary into the "bosky depths"
of German metaphysics,--the theories of Schelling, Fichte, Hegel. "If
truth be in any of those dusky labyrinths," said I, "you are not
compelled to find her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes,
the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether
you even understand your doubts. You may play 'hide and seek' there
for ten thousand years." "For all eternity," was his reply. But he
said he had no wish to seek any such covert, nor to play the sceptic.

I told him I was glad to find that his scepticism did not--to use
Burke's expression on another subject--"go down to the foundations."
He answered that he was afraid it did on all subjects really of any
significance to man. "As to the present life," he continued, "I am
quite willing to accept Bayle's dictum: 'Les Sceptiques ne nioient
pas qu'il ne se fallut conformer aux coutumes de son pays, et
pratiquer des devoirs de la morale, et prendre parti en ces choses
la sur des probabilites, sans attendre la certitude.'"

I was not sorry that he took Bayle's limits of s