THEOLOGY UNDER ITS CHANGED CONDITIONS. 181 



of this article said that we must be Christian agnostics, he used the 

 term agnostic not in the sense in which it is frequently used, and which 

 implies, first, that it is more than doubtful whether the objects of 

 theology exist at all ; and, secondly, that it is a pestilent piece of folly 

 to seek for any knowledge about them ; but simply in the sense that 

 they must be approached by other paths than those of a speculation 

 which results in the formation of dogmas. The distinguished inventor 

 of the name agnostic has in a recent number of this Review reminded 

 us that " physical science is as little atheistic as it is materialistic." 

 It may be as well to quote the passage (" Fortnightly Review " for 

 December, 188G, page 799) : 



The student of Nature who starts from the axiom of the universality of the 

 law of causation, can not refuse to admit an eternal existence ; if he admits the 

 conservation of energy, he can not deny the possibility of an eternal energy ; if 

 he admits the existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of consciousness, 

 he must admit the possibility at any rate of an eternal series of such phenom- 

 ena; and, if his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of the investi- 

 gation of Nature, he will have enough sense to see that, when Spinoza says, 

 "Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem 

 infinitis attributis," the God so conceived is one that only a very great fool 

 indeed would deny, even in his heart. Physical science is as little atheistic as 

 it is materialistic. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer goes further, and dwells upon this eternal 

 energy as the mystery of mysteries, and considers that religion as 

 maintaining the sense of this mystery is one of the most important 

 factors of human life. We are all alike in the admission of a great 

 object of thought to which the name of God has commonly been 

 given. We have all to co-operate in the endeavor to estimate the 

 nature and character of that object. 



In the sermon above quoted it was pointed out that literature was 

 one of the channels through which the great objects of theology would 

 in future be approached. The preacher implied, like Mr. Matthew 

 Arnold, that the literary conceptions of God and immortality ("words 

 thrown out at a great subject"," to use Mr. Arnold's expression) bring 

 us nearer to the truth than dogmatic statements. It is not very differ- 

 ent from what Aristotle says about morals " We must be content in 

 such matters to exhibit the truth roughly and in a figure, and to reach 

 our object by words which describe it in the general and to draw infer- 

 erences of the same kind ; for it is the mark of a man of culture to 

 seek for exactness in each subject only so far as the nature of the thing 

 admits. You do not expect exhortations from a mathematician or 

 demonstration from a rhetorician." But theologians have commonly 

 started in entire defiance of this warning. They have begun with 

 axioms and definitions, and have proceeded to demonstrations. They 

 have said or " proved " that God is just or good, God is personal, God 

 is omniscient and omnipotent ; and they have used these phrases not 



