xi Gnosticism and Agnosticism. 235 



Time, and Force are forms of our thought because 

 they first were facts of the physical universe to which 

 we belong by the physical side of our being, it is 

 equally true that this insight of Faith into the things 

 of the spiritual world is ours because by another side 

 of our being we belong to that spiritual world. 



To return to the question with which the present 

 chapter began : What is the nature and source of the 

 faculty whereby it is possible for Man to attain to 

 knowledge of the Divine 1 



The Agnostic reply is that no such faculty exists ; 

 that we must resign ourselves to total and hopeless 

 ignorance of all that transcends the data furnished 

 to our thought in Observation and Consciousness. The 

 whole of the present chapter is an argument against 

 Agnosticism, and an attempt to show that it is possible 

 for the conclusions of thought to transcend their data. 



The Gnostics of the early ages of Christianity 

 maintained that God is made known only to particular 

 men, or to men at particular times, and only in virtue 

 of a specially imparted power of vision. This 

 doctrine has never become altogether extinct, and 

 it appears to be implied in the view of conversion 

 set forth, with extraordinary ability and eloquence, 

 in Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World. I 

 have stated, in the first four- chapters of the present 

 work, my arguments in opposition to his view. 



I am opposed alike to Gnosticism and to Agnosti- 

 cism. Against Agnosticism, I maintain that we can 



