VII AGNOSTICISM 245 



ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any, or all, of the 

 Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who 

 shall or can forbid him ? But let him not delude 

 himself with the notion that his faith is evidence 

 of the objective reality of that in which he trusts. 

 Such evidence is to be obtained only by the use 

 of the methods of science, as applied to history 

 and to literature, and it amounts at present to 

 very little. 



It appears that Mr. Gladstone some time ago 

 asked Mr. Laing if he could draw up a short 

 summary of the negative creed ; a body of 

 negative propositions, which have so far been 

 adopted on the negative side as to *be what the 

 Apostles' and other accepted creeds are on the 

 positive ; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged 

 Mr. Gladstone with the desired articles eight of 

 them. 



If any one had preferred this request to me, 

 I should have replied that, if he referred to ag- 

 nostics, they have no creed ; and, by the nature of 

 the case, cannot have any. ^Agnosticism, in fact, 

 is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which 

 lies in the rigorous application of a single principle.! 

 That principle is of great antiquity ; it is as old as 

 Socrates ; as old as the writer who said, " Try all 

 things, hold fast by that which is good ; " it is the 

 foundation of the Reformation, which simply illus- 

 trated the axiom that every man should be able 



