44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Sir James Murray informs me that " vegetal" is ver}- old, going 

 back even to Caxton (1490). 



Huxley's creation of the word "agnostic" in 1869 is well 

 known, but 1 think it will be of interest to quote the passages 

 from the " Life and Letters " (London, 1900, vol. i. pp. 319, 

 320). Under the year 1869 we read : — 



" How he came to enrich the English language with 



the name 'Agnostic' is explained in his article 'Agnosticism' 

 (Coll. Ess. V. pp. 237-239). 



" After describing how it came about that his mind ' steadily 

 gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant,' so well 

 staled by the latter as follows : — • 



' The greatest, and perhaps the sole use of all pliilosophy of pure reason is, 

 after all, uierelj negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlarge- 

 ment (of knowledge), but as a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of 

 discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error': — 



" he proceeds — 



' When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I 

 was an atheist, a tlieist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a 

 Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and rellected, t]je 

 less ready was the answer ; until, at last. I cauie to the conclusion that I had 

 neither art nor joart with any of these denominations, except the last. The 

 one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in 

 which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain 

 "gnosis" — had, more or less successfully, solved the jJi'oblem of existence; 

 while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the 

 problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not 

 think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion 



'This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among 

 the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since de- 

 ceased, but of green and pious memory, tiie Metaphysical Society. Every 

 variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and 

 expressed itself with entire openness ; most of my colleagues were -isfs of one 

 sort or another ; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man 

 without a rag of a label to cover liimself with, could not fail to have some of 

 the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving 

 the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally 

 elongated comjDanions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to 

 be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively 

 antithetic to the " gnostic " of Church history, who professed to know so nmch 

 about the very things of wiiieh I was ignorant; and I took the eai-liest oppor- 

 tunity of parading it at our Sdciety, to show that I, too. had a tail, like tlie 

 other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when the ^'pectutor- 

 liad stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people 

 that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course, com- 

 pletely lulled.' " 



The following account of the origin of " Agnostic " is given in 

 the great Oxford Dictionary : — 



_ " Suggested by Prof. Huxley at a party held previous to the forma- 

 tion of the now defunct Metaphysical Society, at Mr. James 

 Knowles's house on Clapham Common, one evening in 1869, in 

 my hearing. He took it from St. Paul's mention of the altar to 

 'the Unknown God.' E. H. Hutton in letter 13 Mar. ISSl." 



