AGNOSTIC. 



subdued by Ishak's unassisted efforts, and the 

 Ameer has never ventured to interfere with 

 his administration. 



The Rnsso-Afghan Boundary. The joint Anglo- 

 Russian Boundary Commission completed the 

 last stage of the boundary delimitation before 

 the end of January, 1888, and dispatched the 

 final protocol with maps of the frontier on 

 February 4. The English commissioners, Maj. 

 Peacocke and Capt. Yate, then returned to 

 England over the Trans-Caspian Railway and 

 through Russia. 



The Central Asian Railway. The Russo-Bok- 

 haran Railway, which was completed as far as 

 Chardjui in 1887, was extended through Bok- 

 hara to the terminus at Samarcand, and opened 

 with festivities in July, 1888. Gen. Annen- 

 koff, who projected and directed the construc- 

 tion of the road, has been appointed chief di- 

 rector for two years, and has the disposal of 

 4,500,000 rubles, which is less than half the 

 sum that the Department of the Imperial Con- 

 trol has decided to be requisite to finish the 

 work, but more by 1.500,000 rubles than the 

 general has declared to be sufficient. The 

 total cost of the line has been 43,000,000 ru- 

 bles. The whole length of the railway from 

 the Caspian to Samarcand is 1,345 versts, or 

 about 900 miles. The section from Kizil Arvat 

 was begun seven and a half years before the 

 completion of the work, but the whole line 

 east of that place was built in three years, and 

 the section from the Oxus to Samarcand, a 

 distance of 346 versts, or 230 miles, was rushed 

 through in six months. The cost of this sec- 

 tion is officially stated at 7,198,000 rubles. 

 The journey between St. Petersburg and Sa- 

 marcand will not take more than ten days, 

 after the railroad is in proper working-order. 



Annexation of Pishin to British India. By vir- 

 tue of the treaty made by the Ameer Yakub 

 Khan at Gandamak on May 26, 1879, the dis- 

 tricts of Pishin and Sibi were assigned to the 

 British Government for temporary occupation 

 and administration. The revenues beyond 

 what was necessary for the expenses of civil 

 administration were to be paid over to the 

 Ameer. After the abdication of Yakub Khan 

 these districts remained in British occupation, 

 whereas the Kunam valley was evacuated by 

 the British troops in 1880, and handed over to 

 the independent control of the Tussi. On the 

 completion of the Sibi-Pishin Railway in 1887 

 the occupied districts were formally incor- 

 porated in the Indian Empire, and placed 

 under the administration of the chief commis- 

 sioner of British Beluchistan. 



AGNOSTIC. Although directly derived from 

 the Greek uyva>o-Tor (unknown, unknowing, un- 

 knowable), this word in its Anglicized form is 

 not found in any of the standard dictionaries 

 prior to 1869. Richard Holt Hutton is respon- 

 sible for the statement that it was suggested 

 by Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley at a social as- 

 semblage held shortly before the formation of 

 the subsequently famous Metaphysical Society. 



To Huxley in turn it was suggested by St. Paul's 

 reference to the altar raised in honor of " the 

 unknown God." An agnostic is one who holds 

 that everything beyond the material is un- 

 known and probably unknowable. In his view 

 the whole visible and calculable universe is ma- 

 terial in greater or less degree, and therefore 

 to some extent knowable, but the unseen world 

 and the Supreme Being are beyond human per- 

 ceptions and therefore unknowable. 



The " Spectator " of Jan. 29, 1870, said of 

 Prof. Huxley: "He is a great and even severe 

 agnostic, who goes about exhorting all men to 

 know how little they know." Again, in 1871, 

 Mr. Hutton writes : " They themselves (the ag- 

 nostics) vehemently dispute the term (atheism) 

 and usually prefer to describe their state of mind 

 as a sort of know-nothingism or agnosticism or 

 belief in an unknown and unknowable God." 



In J874 St. George Mivart ("Essay on Re- 

 ligion ") refers to the agnostics as " Our mod- 

 ern sophists . . . who deny that we have any 

 knowledge save of phenomena." "Nicknames," 

 says the "Spectator" of June 11, 1876, "are 

 given by opponents, but agnostic was the name 

 demanded by Prof. Huxley for those who dis- 

 claimed atheism, and believed with him in an 

 'unknown and unknowable' God, or in other 

 words that the ultimate origin of all things 

 must be some cause unknown and unknowa- 

 ble." 



Principal Tulloch in an essay on agnosticism 

 in the "Scotsman" of Nov. 18, 1876, said: 

 " The same agnostic principle which prevailed 

 in our schools of philosophy had extended it- 

 self to religion and theology. Beyond what 

 man can know by his senses, or feel by his 

 higher affections, nothing, as was alleged, could 

 be truly known." 



Conder, in "The Basis of Faith" (1877), 

 wrote : " But there is nothing per se irrational 

 in contending that the evidences of theism are 

 inconclusive, that its doctrines are unintelligi- 

 ble, or that it fails to account for the facts of 

 the universe or is irreconcilable with them. 

 To express this kind of polemic against religious 

 faith, the term agnosticism has been adopted." 



Dr. James McCosh in an essay on "Agnos- 

 ticism as developed in Huxley's 'Hume" 

 ("Popular Science Monthly," August, 1879), 

 writes : "I am showing that the system is false 

 and thus leads to prejudicial consequences 

 false to our nature, false to the ends of our 

 being." 



In'l880 (June 26), the " Saturday Review " 

 printed the definition so widely quoted by the 

 orthodox press : " In nine cases out of ten, ag- 

 nosticism is but old atheism ' writ large.' " 



Sir George Birdwood (" Industrial Arts of 

 India," 1880) said: "The agnostic teaching of 

 the Sankhya school is the common basis of all 

 systems of Indian philosophy." 



James Anthony Froude, in his "Life of Car- 

 lyle" (1882), writes: "He once said to me that 

 the agnostic doctrines were to appearance like 

 the finest flour, from which you might expect 



