_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.