MR. BALFOUR'S DIALECTICS. 335 



Clearly, then, by the never-ceasing verification of its dicta and 

 by the increasing efficiency and wider range of its guidance, Sci- 

 ence is gaining a greater and greater Authority ; at the same 

 time that the Authority of Theology is being decreased by the 

 discrediting of its statements and by its unsuccessful regulation 

 of conduct. Hence if Reason, whenever it abdicates in favor of 

 Authority, has to choose between the two, it is compelled to ac- 

 cept the Authority of Science rather than that of Theology, 

 where they are in conflict. So far from strengthening his own 

 position by showing how large a share Authority has, and ought 

 to have, in determining our beliefs, it seems to me that Mr. Bal- 

 four strengthens the position of his opponents. 



Not unfitly introduced by the foregoing considerations, Mr. 

 Balfour's assault on the fundamental position held by me may 

 now be dealt with. He supposes that he has shown it to be un- 

 tenable, and is thought to have done so by others. Here are the 

 relevant passages. After describing me as holding that " beyond 

 what we think we know, and in closest relationship with it, lies 

 an infinite field which we do not know, and which with our pres- 

 ent faculties we can never know, yet which can not be ignored 

 without making what we do know unintelligible and meaning- 

 less," he proceeds : 



"But he has failed to see whither such speculations must inevitably 

 lead him. He has failed to see that if the certitudes of science lose them- 

 selves in depths of unfathomable mystery, it may well be that out of these 

 same depths there should emerge the certitudes of religion; and that if 

 the dependence of the 'knowable' upon the 'unknowable' embarrasses us 

 not in the one case, no reason can be assigned why it should embarrass us 

 in the other. 



"Mr. Spencer, in short, has avoided the error of dividing all reality into 

 a Perceivable which concerns us, and an Unperceivable which, if it exists 

 at all, concerns us not. Agnosticism so understood he explicitly repudiates 

 by his theory, if not by his practice. But he has not seen that, if this sim- 

 ple-minded creed be once abandoned, there is no convenient halting-place 

 till we have swung round to a theory of things which is its precise oppo- 



reply that, though unquestionably some effect has been produced, there is reason for doubt- 

 ing whether the effect has been great. I have to point out once more, what I have repeat- 

 edly pointed out {Principles of Sociology, 324, 327, 330-2, 437, 573-4 ; Principles of 

 Ethics, 128, 141, 155, 159, 191), that if we wish to see exemplified in full measure -the 

 virtues especially claimed as Christian, we must look among sundry uncivilized peoples 

 classed as Heathens peoples who do exercise the virtue of forgiveness, whose truthful- 

 ness is a proverb, who are absolutely honest, whose goodness is such that in one case it is 

 described as like a romance. The distinctive trait they have in common is that they are 

 perfectly peaceful. We find among them no Christian creed, but only Christian conduct. 

 They do not preach to neighboring tribes an impossible altruism and then treat them with 

 unscrupulous egoism. 



