VII AGNOSTICISM 235 



doubt that even one of the learned mollahs, if 

 his grave courtesy would have permitted him to 

 say anything offensive to men of another mode of 

 belief, would have told us that he wondered we 

 did not find it " very unpleasant " to disbelieve in 

 the Prophet of Islam. 



From what precedes, I think it becomes suffi- 

 ciently clear that Dr. Wace's account of the origin 

 of the name of " Agnostic " is quite wrong. In- 

 deed, I am bound to add that very slight effort to 

 discover the truth would have convinced him that, 

 as a matter of fact, the term arose otherwise. I 

 am loath to go over an old story once more ; but 

 more than one object which I have in view will be 

 served by telling it a little more fully than it has 

 yet been told. 



Looking back nearly fifty years, I see myself as 

 a boy, whose education has been interrupted, and 

 who, intellectually, was left, for some years, alto- 

 gether to his own devices. At that time, I was a 

 voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and 

 speculator of the first water, well endowed with 

 that splendid courage in attacking any and every 

 subject, which is the blessed compensation of 

 youth and inexperience. Among the books and 

 essays, on all sorts of topics from metaphysics to 

 heraldry, which I read at this time, two left indel- 

 ible impressions on my mind. One was Guizot's 

 " History of Civilisation," the other was Sir 

 William Hamilton's essay " On the Philosophy of 



