AGNOSTIC METAPHYSICS. 299 



AGI^OSTIC METAPHYSICS. 



By FEEDEKIC HAEEISON. 



TEN years ago I warned Mr. Herbert Spencer that bis Religion of 

 the Unknowable was certain to lead him into strange company. 

 " To invoke the Unknowable," I said, " is to reopen the whole range 

 of Metaphysics ; and the entire apparatus of Theology will follow 

 through the breach." I quoted Mr. G. Lewes's admirable remark,* 

 "that the foundations of a Creed can rest only on the Known and the 

 Knowable." We see the result. Mr. Spencer has developed his Un- 

 knowable into an " Infinite and Eternal Energy, by which all things 

 are created and sustained." He has discovered it to be the Ultimate 

 Cause, the All-Being, the Creative Power, and all the other " alterna- 

 tive impossibilities of thought " which he once cast in the teeth of the 

 older theologies. Naturally there is joy over one philosopher that re- 

 penteth. The " Christian World " claims this as equivalent to the as- 

 sertion that God is the mind and spirit of the universe ; and the 

 " Christian World " says these words might have been used by Butler 

 or Paley.f This is, indeed, true ; but it is strange to find the j^hiloso- 

 phy of one who makes it a point of conscience not to enter a church 

 described as " the fitting and natural introduction to inspiration ! " 



The admirers of Mr. Spencer's genius — and I count myself among 

 the earliest — will not regret that he has been induced to lay aside his 

 vast task of philosophic synthesis, in order more fully to explain his 

 views about Religion. This is, indeed, for the thoughtful, as well as 

 the practical, world, the great question of our age, and the discussion 

 that was started by his paper J and by mine * has opened many toj^ics 

 of general interest. Mr. Spencer has been led to give to some of his 

 views a certainly new development, and he has treated of matters 

 which he had not previously touched. Various critics have joined the 

 debate. Sir James Stephen \ has brought into play his Nasmyth ham- 

 mer of Common Sense, and has asked the bold and truly characteristic 

 question : "Can we not do just as well without any religion at all?" 

 The weekly Reviews, I am told, have been poking at us their some- 

 what hebdomadal fun. And then Mr. Wilfrid Ward,^ " the rising hope 

 of the stern and unbending " Papists, steps in to remind us of the an- 

 cient maxim — extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. 



I can not altogether agree with a friend who tells me that contro- 



* "Problems of Life and Mind," vol. i. Preface. 



\ "The Christian World," June 5 and July 3, 1884. 



X II. Spencer, in "Nineteenth Century," January and July, 1884. 



* F. Harrison, in "Nineteenth Century," March, 1884. 



II Sir J. Stephen, in " Nineteenth Century," June, 1884. 

 ^ W. Ward, in "National Review," June, 1884. 



