XXVII.
THE DUBIOUS.
| “Man, on the dubious waves of error tossed, His ship half-foundered, and his compass lost, Sees, far as human optics may command, A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land: Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies; Pants for ’t, aims at it, enters it, and dies!” | |
| Cowper. |
This is a talker of an opposite stamp to the dogmatist. The one knows and asserts with imperial positiveness, the other with childish trepidation and hesitancy. “It is so, it can’t be otherwise, and you must believe it,” is the dictatorial spirit of the dogmatist. “It may be so, I am not certain, I cannot vouch for its truthfulness: in fact, I am rather inclined to doubt it, but I would not deny nor affirm, or say one word to dispose you either way,” is the utterance of the spirit of Dubious. He is an oscillator, a pendulum, a wave of the sea, a weathercock. He has no certain dwelling-place within the whole domain of knowledge, in which to rest the sole of his feet with permanency. He sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels nothing with certainty, and hence he knows nothing by his senses but what is enveloped in the clouds of doubtfulness. He tenaciously guards himself in the utterance of any sentiment, story, or rumour, lest he expose himself to apprehension. His own existence is a fact of which he speaks with caution. His consciousness may be a reality of which he can say a word. As to his soul, he does not like to speak of that with any assurance. The being of a God is a doctrine in the clouds, and he cannot affirm it with confidence. There may be such places as China, India, Africa, etc.; but as he has never seen them, he dare not venture his full belief in their existence. Whatever he has seen, and whatever he has not seen, seem to stand on the same ground as to the exercise of his faith. Things worldly and religious, simple and profound, plain and mysterious, practical and theoretical, human and divine, personal and relative, present and future, near and afar off,—all seem to crowd around him with a hazy appearance, and he has no definite or certain knowledge respecting them of which to speak. All the things he has ever read or heard he seems to have forgotten, or to hold them with a vague and uncertain tenure. There is nothing within him to rely upon but doubts, fears, and may bes. He lives, moves, and has his being in uncertainties. He will not positively affirm whether his face is black or white, his nose long or short, his own or some other person’s. He “guesses” that two and two make four, and that four and three do not make eight. He “guesses” that blue is not red, and that green is neither blue nor red. He “guesses” that the earth is globular, but would not like to assert that it is not a plain. He “guesses” that the sun gives light by day and the moon by night; but as for affirming either the one or the other, he would not like to commit himself to such positiveness. His talk is full of “hopes,” “presumes,” “may bes,” “trusts,” “guesses,” and such-like expressions. He is certainly a doubtful man to have anything to do with in conversation. I do not say he is dangerous. Far from this, for he has not confidence enough in your actual materiality to make an assault upon your person; and he has not certain knowledge sufficient to contend with your opinions, so that there is no need of apprehension upon either the mental or physical question. It is difficult to acquire any information from him, for who likes to add that to his stock of knowledge which is shrouded in doubts, and to which the communicator will not give the seal of his affirmation? Of course some knowledge must be held and communicated problematically. Such we are willing to take in its legitimate character. But our Dubious talker appears to destroy all distinction and difference, and to arrange all knowledge in the probable or doubtful category, and hence he has nothing but doubtful information to impart, which in reality is no information. To enter into conversation with Dubious, therefore, is no actual benefit to the intellect or the faith. It is harassing, perplexing, provoking to the man who possesses belief in the certainty of things. It is to him time lost, and words uttered in vanity. He retires from the scene with dissatisfaction and disgust. He pities the man who knows nothing, whose intellect revolves in universal haziness, and whose soul is steeped in the quagmires of unrestrained scepticism.
Cowper does admirable justice to this talker in the following lines:—
“Dubious is such a scrupulous good man—
Yes—you may catch him tripping if you can:
He would not with a peremptory tone
Assert the nose upon his face his own;
With hesitation admirably slow,
He humbly hopes—presumes—it may be so.
His evidence, if he were called by law
To swear to some enormity he saw,
For want of prominence and just relief,
Would hang an honest man and save a thief.
Through constant dread of giving truth offence,
He ties up all his hearers in suspense;
Knows what he knows as if he knew it not;
What he remembers, seems to have forgot;
His sole opinion, whatsoe’er befall,
Centring at last in having none at all.
Yet, though he tease and baulk your listening ear,
He makes one useful point exceeding clear;
Howe’er ingenious on his darling theme
A sceptic in philosophy may seem,
Reduced to practice, his beloved rule
Would only prove him a consummate fool;
Useless in him alike both brain and speech,
Fate having placed all truth above his reach,
His ambiguities his total sum,
He might as well be blind, and deaf, and dumb.”