THE AFFIRMATIVE SIDE OF AGNOSTICISM. 219 



These definitions of these words were prepared more than a 

 year ago, at the special written request of Rev. Lyman Abbott, 

 D. D., the pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn ; and the list is a 

 copy of the first rough draft or study made in compliance with 

 that request, but, for reasons unnecessary to explain here, has not 

 yet been presented to him. For what use these definitions were 

 intended by him I am neither authorized nor prepared to posi- 

 tively state. Dr. Abbott is in special charge of theology, liturgies, 

 and ecclesiastical history, as editorial contributor, under the chief 

 editorship of Prof. William D. Whitney, in the preparation of 

 The Century Dictionary, which is an encyclopedic dictionary of 

 the English language, now in course of publication by the Cent- 

 ury Company, the first volume of which now lies before me. . . . 

 In Volume I the words agnostic and agnosticism are defined at 

 length, with references to Huxley, Romanes, and Cobbe, and to 

 the source of the suggestion of the same by Prof. Huxley in the 

 mention by St. Paul of the altar he had seen erected by the Athe- 

 nians to the Unknown God.* 



As I have previously informed you, early in his pastorship of 

 Plymouth Church, Dr. Abbott declared his belief in the evolution 

 philosophy, and his high sense of the value of its co-operation in 

 the religious work of the future. He is also the editor of The 

 Christian Union, the leading liberal religious newspaper in Amer- 

 ica. His position as such may be stated to be evangelical-liberal, 

 or conservative-progressive, with the promise of moving faster 

 and further, as soon as circumstances permit. Practically, things 

 are in a ferment in all religious denominations in America at this 

 time ; or, to speak more accurately, we seem to be entering a new 

 constructive period, and one which furnishes agnosticism and 

 evolution their great religious opportunity. 



In the statement referred to I have used the words meta- 

 gnostic and metagnosticism to preserve or make parallelism in 

 form with the words agnostic and agnosticism, to which the 

 public eye and ear have now become accustomed, and to the bet- 

 ter present the expressive antithesis involved therein. I am, 

 however, fully aware that a word-form and meaning directly de- 

 rived from the word metanoeite (metanoeo), which is the actual 

 word placed in the mouth of Christ by and through the Greek 

 original, would have certain great advantages. Prominent among 

 them would be the ever-present evidence it would furnish that in 

 the gospel, as actually preached by Christ and his immediate con- 

 temporaries and handed down to us, so far as we know it, the 

 human mind was to occupy the leading place, to be elevated, and 



* The authority of the Century Dictionary for this erroneous explanation of Prof. Hux- 

 ley's derivation of the word " agnostic " (see letter from Prof. Huxley) was the New Eng- 

 lish Dictionary. 



