“Be it so,” I replied, “for the present:  I am unwilling to engage in polemical strife with you, the very first evening on which I have seen you for so long a time.  I would much rather hear a chapter of your past travels and adventures, which you know your few and brief letters—­but I will not reproach you—­left me in such ignorance of.”

He complied with my request; and in the course of conversation informed me of many circumstances which had formed steps in that slow gradation by which he had reached his present state of mind; a state which he did not affect to conceal.  But still I felt sure there were other causes which he did not mention.

At length I said, “You must give me the title of an old friend, —­a father, Harrington, I might almost say,”—­and the tears came into my eyes,—­“to talk hereafter fully with you of your so certain uncertainty about the only topics which supremely affect the happiness of man.”

I told him, and I spoke it in no idle compliment, that I was convinced he was far enough from being one of those shallow fools who are inclined to scepticism because they shrink from the trouble of investigating the evidence; who find so much to be said for this, and much for that, that they conclude that there is no truth, simply because they are too indolent to seek it.  “This,” said I, “is the plea of intellectual Sybarites with whom you have nothing in common.  And as little do you sympathize with those dishonest, though not always shallow thinkers, who take refuge in alleged uncertainty of evidence, because they are afraid of pursuing it to unwelcome conclusions; who are sceptics on the most singular and inconsistent of all grounds, presumption.  I know you are none of these.”

“I am, I think, none of these,” said he quietly.

“You are not:  and your manner and countenance proclaim it yet more strongly than your words.  The only genuine effect of a sincere scepticism is and must be, not the complacent and frivolous humor which too often attaches to it, but a mournful confession of the melancholy condition to which, if true, the theory reduces the sceptic himself and all mankind.”

Of all the paradoxes humanity exhibits, surely there are none more wonderful than the complacency with which scepticism often utters its doubts, and the tranquillity which it boasts as the perfection of its system!  Such a state of mind is utterly inconsistent with the genuine realization and true-hearted reception of the theory.  On such subjects such a creature as man cannot be in doubt, and really feel his doubts, without being anxious and miserable.  When I hear some youth telling me, with a simpering face, that he does not know, or pretend to say, whether there be a God, or not, or whether, if there be, He takes any interest in human affairs; or whether, if He does, it much imports us to know; or whether, if He has revealed that knowledge, it is possible or impossible for us to ascertain it; when I hear him further saying,