OR FREE DISCUSSION ON FREE THINKERS BY JOHN OWEN " RECTOR OF EAST ANSTEY, DEVON 'Believe it, my good friend, to love Truth for Truth's sake is the VOL. I. PRE-CHRISTIAN SKEPTICISM. NEW YORK J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 1881 All rights reserved ^2 28049 Kershner 1250 PREFACE. THE primary intent of the author of this work was to fill, Another motive that actuated the author was to suggest capable. Probably few remarkable intellects have ever existed as to which it would be impossible to determine whether their bent, their native unbiassed propensity, was Dogmatic or Skeptical. Hence the following work, taking as its subject eminent examples of the analyzing, inquiring type of intellect, endeavours to show the similarity of its procedures under varying conditions of time, race, country, diversity of dogmatic and social environment, &c. Its readers will learn a lesson surely worth acquiring-that Skepticism-the exercise of the questioning and suspensive faculty-is confined to no period, race, religious or secular belief. In itself the energy is altogether natural, and its manifestation, even when extreme, ought to arouse no harsher feelings than are evoked by other developments of human speculation which also share a natural basis and starting-point. Genuine Skepticism may be regarded from two standpoints. 1. In relation to dogma, it is the antithetical habit which suggests investigation-the instinct that spontaneously distrusts both finality and infallibility as ordinary attributes of truth. It inculcates caution and wariness as against the confidence, presumption, self-complacent assurance of Dogmatists. Thus interpreted, it is needless to point out the importance of its functions. A history of doubters and free-thinkers is in fact the history of human enlightenment. Every advance in thought or knowledge has owed its inception and impulse to inquiring doubt. Hence it would be idle to deny or attempt to minimize the historical importance of Skepticism, or the perennial antagonism between doubt and dogma-the dynamic and static principles of all human knowledge. 2. Considered in itself Skepticism implies (1) Continuous search, (2) Suspense, or so much of it as is needful as an incentive to search. This is the literal meaning of the word as well as its general signification in Greek philosophy. |