3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or infinite, or anything else ; we have no right to assume that it is the 

 Ultimate Reality. There may be an endless circle of Realities, or 

 there may be no Reality at all. Once leave the region of the know- 

 able and the conceivable, and every positive assertion is unwarranted. 

 The forms of our consciousness prove to us, says Mr. Spencer, that 

 what lies behind the region of consciousness is not merely unknown 

 but unknowable, that it is one, and that it is Real. The laws of mind, 

 I reply, do not hold good in the region of the unthinkable ; the forms 

 of our consciousness can not limit the Unknowable. All positive as- 

 sertions about that " which can not be brought within the forms of 

 our finite thought " are therefore unphilosophical. We have always 

 held this of the theological Creation, and we must hold it equally of 

 the evolutionist Creation. Here is the difference between Positive 

 Philosophy and Agnostic Metaphysics. 



But if this Realism of the Unknowable offends against sound phi- 

 losophy, the Worship of the Unknowable is abhorrent to every in- 

 stinct of genuine Religion. There is something startling in Mr. 

 Spencer's assertion that he "is not concerned to show what effect 

 this religious sentiment will have as a moral agent." As in " First 

 Principles," so now, he represents the business of Religion to be to 

 keep alive the consciousness of a Mystery. The recognition of this 

 supreme verity has been from the first, he says, the vital element of 

 Religion. From the beginning it has dimly discerned this ultimate 

 verity ; and that supreme and ultimate verity is, that there is an in- 

 scrutable Mystery. If this be not retrogressive Religion, what is? 

 Religion is not indeed to be discarded ; but, in its final and perfect 

 form, all that it ever has had of I'everence, gratitude, love, and sym- 

 pathy, is to be shrivelled u^) into the recognition of a Mystery. Mo- 

 rality, duty, goodness are no longer to be within its sphere. It will 

 neither touch the heart of men nor mould the conduct ; it will per- 

 petually remind the intelligence that there is a great Enigma, which, 

 it tells us, can never be solved. Not only is religion reduced to a 

 purely mental sphere, but its task in that sphere is one practically im- 

 becile. 



Mr. Spencer complains that I called his Unknowable " an ever-pres- 

 ent conundrum to be everlastingly given up." But he uses words al- 

 most exactly the same ; he himself speaks of "the Great Enigma which 

 he (man) knows can not be solved." The business of the religious 

 sentiment is with "a consciousness of a Mystery that can not be fath- 

 omed." It would be difficult to find for Religion a lower and more 

 idle part to play in human life than that of continually presenting to 

 man a conundrum, which he is told he must continually give up. 

 One would take all this to be a bit from "Alice in Wonderland," 

 rather than the first chapter of " Synthetic Philosophy." 



I turn to some of the points on which Mr. Spencer thinks that I 

 misunderstand or misrepresent his meaning. I can not admit any one 



