AGNOSTIC EVOLUTION 157 



which lie behind the facts, and to this extent we can 

 know them ; but we cannot know anything as to their 

 essence, and can only conjecture or calculate their 

 probable effects in circumstances different from those 

 of our observations or experiments. We rise to a 

 higher domain of causation when we investigate the 

 effects of the free will of intelligent beings like men. 

 Human will is no doubt a true and most efficient 

 cause, and it has no doubt ethical laws which regu 

 late its action ; but the difficulties here are greater, 

 and there is perhaps no higher effort of thought than 

 that which relates to the penetration of the plans 

 and counsels of our fellow men, and the principles 

 which actuate them. We rise to a higher plane in 

 the study of God, and need not wonder that here we 

 can know only in part, a mere whisper of His vays, 

 compared with the thunder of His power, as we have 

 it put in that wonderful effort to penetrate the plans 

 of God by the consideration of His dealings with men 

 and things, presented to us by some ancient sage in 

 the Book of Job. 



Questions of this kind are not new, though the 

 agnostic philosophy may be a recent phase of human 

 thought ; and it may be interesting to note the way 

 in which the matter is presented to us by a man 

 to whom, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, we owe 

 very much of our modern enlightenment. In that 

 remarkable discussion of the relative degrees of 

 responsibility of the Jew and the heathen, in the early 



