418 LESSONS FROM NATUEE. [CHAP. XIII. 



or however materially moral, be absolutely and in fact the 

 very worst men the world contains as long as they continue 

 to act according to that motto. Moreover, not only the 

 supreme vice but the unspeakable folly of such a line of 

 conduct must become plain, and the truth of the dictum 

 &quot; initium sapientise timor Domini,&quot; be one of the most certain 

 of all truths. 



Let us then contrast the characters presented by the 

 Agnostic philosophy with those presented by that system 

 which (as here contended) is the direct teaching of nature. 



Of the Agnostic philosophy it may be affirmed : 

 characters of 1. It fails to account for or harmonize with the 

 pwi^ophy. 10 dicta of consciousness as to the substantiality and 

 persistence of the Ego. 



2. It fails correctly to interpret the ultimate and funda 

 mental declarations of consciousness as to necessary truth. 



3. It denies the validity of that power of intensifying a 

 motive by a voluntary act of selective attention of which 

 power our own minds are conscious. 



4. It does not accept as valid the principle of contradiction, 

 deprived of which our intellectual state becomes necessarily 

 chaotic, 



5. It negatives the declarations of idealist philosophers 

 upon grounds which would justify the popular beliefs as to 

 objectivity, and yet it denies to such beliefs all truth and 

 reality. 



6. It makes no essential distinction between the self-con 

 scious intellect of man, manifested by a language expressing 

 general conceptions, and the association of sensible percep 

 tions, as cognized by the sentient faculties of brutes, capable 

 of expressing themselves by emotional signs only. 



7. It takes no cognizance of our perceptions of truth, good 

 ness, and beauty, as such, nor of our apprehension of the 

 relatedness of relations. 



8. It is absolutely fatal to every germ of morality. 



9. It absolutely negatives every form of religion. 



10. It absolutely stultifies itself by proclaiming its own 



