TWO GROUPS OF SCEPTICS.*
WRITERS who wish to present a difficult subject in a pleasant way, and from several differing points of view, are naturally tempted to adopt the dialogue form. This method has several advantages. It keeps the personality of the author and his opinions in the background, and gives human interest and artistic finish to what would otherwise be a dry discussion. Yet he is a bold man who yields to this temptation, for he challenges comparison with the consummate art of Plato, and reminds readers that the form he has chosen needs dramatic power of a very high order. It cannot be said that Mr. Owen suc- ceeds in overcoming the difficulties with which he has grappled. He has chosen to give a series of essay s on" Skeptical" writers, em- bodied in discussions which are carried on by personages created by himself. But the essays are too long for this purpose ; and some of them contain a more repetition than was needful, and long technical terms, which, together with their abstruse reason- ing, will hopelessly repel those whom the lighter narrative and dialogue might attract. The characters of the piece are little more than abstract exponents of certain ideas, with the excep- tion of two of the ladies, whose presence seems due to the courtesy of the gentlemen, as they have no part to play. Ques- tion and answer move too slowly, the wit and humour are a trifle heavy, and in descriptions of external nature we are astonished to learn that Wiltshire is favoured with a "summer vesture of primroses." Mr. Owen has tried to be good to us, and to make smooth and easy for us the paths of learning which he has explored with so much labour. We must be grateful for the attempt, but fear that it has not succeeded from the artistic point of view. The jam is not neatly laid over the medicine ; and those who would look upon the essays as children do upon grey powders will not be allured by Mr. Owen's enticements.
But those who care more for matter than form, and rather
* Etweninge with the Skeptic'. By John Owen, Rector of East A.nstey, D eron. London ; Longmans and Co. 1831.
like stiff reading, will find much to enjoy in these volumes, and much to quarrel with also, which is probably necessary to their enjoyment. The double arrangement—the two groups of sceptics, the modern discussing the ancient—though imperfect, dramatically and artistically considered, has a considerable advantage for those who are chiefly interested in comparing the thoughts of diverse minds. The differences between the speakers are by no means extreme. Dr. Trevor, who reads most of the papers, is a retired medical man, who appears at first to be an advanced sceptic, in the usual sense of the word; Mr. Harrington, a lawyer, has a taste for theology, modified by "modern opinion ;" Miss Leycester is a young lady who has studied in Germany, and is an idealist, with a tendency towards mysticism; finally, Mr. Arundel, the rector of the parish, is simply a moderately-liberal clergyman, who seems to be introduced mainly as a foil to the others. All these, however, are sceptics, or rather, "skeptics," in the author's sense. For Mr. Owen so spells the word, not only because he prefers the Greek form of Greek words, but because he distinguishes between the ordinary sceptic, i.e., unbeliever, and the " skeptic " who inquires into everything, uses his reason without limit, and is satisfied with nothing short of absolute truth. So at least we understand the "skeptics " of these volumes ; but it must be admitted that it is not easy to force all these characters, imaginary and historical, under a single definition. Theoretically, we are told, scepticism "is the neutrality of complete suspense between negation and affirmation ;" culminating in the" porcine ataraxia," or calm of the pig composedly feeding on the deck of a ship in a storm. This hesitating attitude, this absolute refusal to say yea or nay to anything, appears at first to be Dr. Trevor's ; but we find later on that his scepticism admits of very decided opinions on certain points of the first importance. Thus many of the writers whose works are described would have thought that they had been placed in very strange company. It will be thought by some that Mr. Owen has overstated the scepticism of Socrates ; but the other Greek writers here mentioned would have no cause to complain on this ground. Yet, surely it is strange to bring the author of the book of Job, Aquinas, Augustine, Ockam, and Cornelius Agrippa, all into the same class. But Mr. Owen uses "skeptic" as opposed to "dogmatist." To distinguish the one from the other, he says, we have "only to ask,—What does he think of phenomena ? Do they represent to him complete and definitive realities ? Does he believe that the objects of his senses, the conceptions of his reason, are final truths ? or, conceding their unreality and transitoriness as mere concomitants of his per- sonality does he endeavour to search further ? Knowing the fallible and evanescent character, both of his sensuous and in- tellectual perceptions, does he employ his best efforts to attain to permanent, absolute truth, independent of himself and his faculties ? If that be the object of his untiring quest, he is a skeptic." That is to say, the sceptic will not be content with what appears to be true ; he will not rest till he reaches what is true. If he cannot do so, he continues in hesitation. If he attains absolute truth, he becomes something more than a sceptic, an idealist, or mystic ; but still, according to Mr. Owen, by sceptical methods. So, in the most extreme instance, with Augustine. His "adoption of authority, strange as it may seem, is in reality based upon skepticism. He adopts it as a test of truth, because he claims to have discovered the comparative imbecility of reason. He accepts dogma, for the express reason of the absolute failure of intellectual research." Again, Mr. Owen—or rather, the reader of one of the papers, Mr. Harrington—says :—" With the ill connotations which have, in my opinion causelessly, sur- rounded the term skeptic,' it would, no doubt, sound impious to confer that or any similar designation on Jesus Christ," yet he thinks that "his utterances had a distinctly solvent and sub- versive character," and must have been considered sceptical by the men of his own day. It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Owen's sceptics afford a vast variety, and the only wonder is that this book, which, however, takes ancient and medimval sceptics only, does not include many more. Should the author give us more volumes, as he seems to promise, and should he come down to the sceptics of the present day, we shall be curious to see whom he would not include in the list. We have endeavoured to give some examples of his " skeptics " in his own words, and if readers are not satisfied with these, we can only refer them to the book itself, where, if they should miss a satisfactory definition of" skeptic," they will at least gain very interesting information about several philosophers and philo- sophical positions. There is, however, unless we mistake, a purpose running through these conversations and essays. The author has veiled his own opinions behind those of the characters who speak at his will, and we have no right to give an extract from their sayings as his real and final judgment. It may, however, be said that the outcome of the discussions of Mr. Trevor and his friends is the rejection of ecclesiastical and dogmatic Christianity, in favour of the Christianity of Christ himself. Mr. Harrington gives a paper on the "Relation of Christianity to Free-thought," in which he says :—
"I have before now had to defend this estimate of genuine Christ- ianity before ecclesiastics of varying grades of dogmatism. Some- have objected, 'In ignoring the teaching of the Church, you are re- jecting Christ,' &c. To this my reply has always been, Either Christ preached the truth, or He did not ; either His preaching was suffi- cient for His hearers, or it was not. If Christ preached the truth, and that truth was sufficient, I am content to accept it, especially as it appeals immediately to my sense of what should be fundamental maxims of religion and morality. Hence I am willing to pat off the accidents of time and apace which have made me an Englishman of the nineteenth century, instead of a native of Northern Palestine in the time of Christ. I take my place retrospectively among the Gallia:can crowd, and listen to thefiermon on the Mount. There is an anecdote told of Cardinal Perron, who was suspected of divers short- comings from the orthodox creed of his Church, that when on his death-bed the Eucharist was administered to him, he said, he received it as the Apostles received it,' a significant protest against the portent.. ens development the simple rite had subsequently undergone. So I say of Christianity, 'I accept it as they did who first received it.'"
Mr. Arundel, indeed, objects to the paper from which this passage is taken that he could have welcomed "a little more doctrinal teaching ;" and in another place, the same speaker declares that there can be no Church without a creed,— a proposition which the others do not deny. But all agree with Zwingli's definition, " Christiani hominis est non de dogmatis magnifice loqui, sed cum Deo ardua semper et magna facere.'' The early Church is described as too Liberal—or too sceptical —for the early heretics ; they went out for, not from, excess of dogma. "No rational Christian," says Dr. Trevor, without contradiction, "will find fault with Ockam's maxim, Nee eat semper inhaerendum verbis etiam Christi, sed menti.' " The last sketch is that of Agrippa ; and its final sentence is:—"Though no Pyrrhonist, he attains ataraxia, for he has obeyed the divine instruction, Come unt& me, ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'" It may be that some of the speakers in this book think of Christ as the earliest Christians did. "They believed in him, without curiously prying into the how, why, or whence of his divine authority. His words and his life appealed to their cons- science, satisfied their religions needs, and that was enough for them. Whether they conceived his divine truth as the result of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the man Jesus of Nazareth, or ascribed it to the fact that he was the miraculously incorporated AO7os, was a point of little importance." But at the close of the work, Dr. Trevor, the most complete of our "skeptics," replies for Agrippa to the supposed question, "How do you know that Jesus Christ and his Gospel is the Word of God ?" "I feel that it is so," and to this answer he appears himself to assent. The kind of scepticism here approved is fatal to ecclesiasticism, and perhaps to later developments of Christianity, but finds rest and certainty in the words and spirit of Christ himself.
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