Conceit and Skepticism.
By T. S. Doolittle
A PROLIFIC source of doubt regarding the validity of the Scriptures lies in the intellectual pride and conceit of the doubter. God designed man to become a truth-seeker only by a conscientious and loving nourishment of his moral faculties. If, now, he sets out to use these faculties only as a means of self-display, and of tickling his vanity by winning brilliant applause, he may startle others by his destructive theories, and will finally forfeit his own capacity to discover eternal truth. It was, for example, Hume's boast on one occasion that he "threw out his skeptical speculations only for the entertainment and amusement of the learned and metaphysical world." What a shameless confession this, and how representative in its character! In exactly the same spirit some scientists of our day seem to engage in skeptical discussions—not for the sake of truth alone, but rather for showing off their own splendid abilities in devising original yet highly plausible systems antagonistic to old notions, and especially to Biblical doctrines. The fame of a heretic is absolutely courted, and the odium theologicum is their dainty delight. The semblance of a crown of martyrdom on their heads makes their books sell, and gathers enormous lecture fees for their pockets. But this intellectual vanity, this desire to stun the world with novel views, or a novel defense of old heresies, is moral suicide. Hume followed it until, by his own lamentable confession, he became absolutely incapacitated to discern the difference between truth and error; and he concluded at last that "no one opinion was any more probable than any other." Such a dismal end may indeed be reached through philosophic speculations or scientific negations; but the seeing eye will recognize that end as already prefigured in the intellectual pride of the poor victim at the beginning, just as the oak lies inwrapped in the germ of the acorn. And because a Haeckel forges the iron of science into a dagger with which to stab Christianity, let us not blame the iron, but rather the forger. Haeckel is an atheist plainly, but his science is not. Possessed of the same spirit, he would have converted Biblical criticism, had he occupied a theological chair, into a weapon against Jesus and his church. The love of speculation for its own sake never made a truth-seeker, and much less a truth-finder.—Prof. T. S. Doolittle, in Christian Union.