TITE PRIDE OF INTELLECT. 265 



ask questions. And with regard to any other kind 

 of truth it is at once seen to be so. The unknown 

 stimulates, the unknowable paralyzes knowledge ; 

 but we can only assert that the unknown is un- 

 knowable on the assumption that we already know 

 all that can be known. If it is true that God can- 

 not be known by man, it will be the last truth 

 which man will ever learn. At the close of a long 

 life of struggle we sometimes see the reason falling 

 back baffled by the difficulties which perhaps it 

 has made or multiplied for itself, and there is no 

 sadder sight than the despair of reason. But what 

 are we to say of young men who affect " the pre- 

 mature age of disconsolate wisdom," and talk as if 

 they had already "sounded all the depths and 

 shoals" of knowledge and all the time adopt a 

 careless, almost jaunty air, as though it made but 

 little difference whether God could be known or 

 not. It is a significant fact that Agnosticism never 

 finds its way into those departments of life in 

 which it is to our interest to know ; and it requires 

 a good deal of charity to make us believe that a 

 man who is quite sure that he cannot know God, is 

 not one who would not know Him if he could. At 

 all events there is no defence in reason or morality 

 for the calm self-satisfaction of uninquiring indo- 

 lence. Agnosticism is not the admission that there 

 is much which we do not know, for this is a recog- 

 nition which humility demands ; it is the proud 



