LAST WORDS ABOUT AGNOSTICISM. 321 



Great Being Humanity. After showing why I conceive " veneration 

 and gratitude " are not due to Humanity, I suj^posed an opponent to 

 exclaim (putting the passage within quotation-marks), " But surely 

 * veneration and gratitude ' are due somewhei'e," since civilized society 

 with all its products "must be credited to some agency or other." 

 [This apostrophe, imagined as coming from a disciple of Comte, 

 Mr. Harrison, on p. 373, actually represents as made in my own per- 

 son !] To this apostrophe I have replied (p. 22) that " if ' venera- 

 tion and gratitude' are due at all, they are due to that Ultimate 

 Cause from which Humanity, individually and as a whole, in common 

 with all other things has proceeded." Whereupon Mr. Harrison 

 changes my hypothetical statement into an actual statement. He 

 drops the '' «y," and represents me as positively affirming that " ven- 

 eration and gratitude " are due somewhere : saying that Mr. Spencer 

 "lavishes his 'veneration and gratitude,' called out by the sum of 

 human civilization, upon his Unknowable and Inconceivable Postu- 

 late " (p. 373). I should have thought that even the most ordinary 

 reader, much more Mr. Harrison, would have seen that the argument 

 is entirely an argument ad hominem. I deliberately and carefully 

 guarded myself by the " if'' against the ascription to me of any opin- 

 ion, one way or the other : being perfectly conscious that much is to 

 be said for and against. The optimist will unhesitatingly affirm that 

 veneration and gratitude are due ; while by the pessimist it will be 

 contended that they are not due. One who dwells exclusively on what 

 Emerson calls " the saccharine " principle in things, as illustrated for 

 example in the adaptation of living beings to their conditions — the 

 becoming callous to pains that have to be borne, and the acquirement 

 of liking for labors that are necessary — may think there are good rea- 

 sons for veneration and gratitude. Contrariwise, these sentiments may 

 be thought inappropriate by one who contemplates the fact that there 

 are some thirty species of parasites which prey upon man, possessing 

 elaborate appliances for maintaining their hold on or within his body, 

 and having enormous degrees of fertility proportionate to the small 

 individual chances their germs have of getting into him and tortur- 

 ing him. Either view may be supported by masses of evidence ; and 

 knowing this I studiously avoided complicating the issue by taking 

 either side. As any one may see who refers back, my sole purpose was 

 that of showing the absurdity of thinking that " veneration and grati- 

 tude " are due to the product and not to the producer. Yet Mr. Har- 

 rison, having changed my proposition " if they are due, etc.," into the 

 proposition " they are due, etc.," laughs over the contradictions in my 

 views which he deduces, and to which he time after time recui's, com- 

 menting on my " astonishing perversity." 



In this division of Mr. Harrison's article occur five other cases in 

 which, after his manner, propositions are made to appear untenable or 

 ludicrous ; though any one who refers to them as expressed by me will 



TOL. XXTI. — 21 



