250 AGNOSTICISM 



VII 



to feel then I say agnosticism has no more to do 

 with it than it has to do with music or painting. 

 If, on the other hand, Mr. Harrison, like most 

 people, means by " religion " theology, then, in my 

 judgment, agnosticism can be said to be a stage in 

 its evolution, only as death may be said to be 

 the final stage in the evolution of life. 



"When agnostic logic is simply one of the canons of thought, 

 agnosticism, as a distinctive faith, will have spontaneously 

 disappeared (p. 155). 



I can but marvel that such sentences as this, 

 and those already quoted, should have proceeded 

 from Mr. Harrison's pen. Does he really mean to 

 suggest that agnostics have a logic peculiar to 

 themselves ? Will he kindly help me out of my 

 bewilderment when I try to think of "logic" 

 being anything else than the canon (which, I 

 believe, means rule) of thought ? As to agnos- 

 ticism being a distinctive faith, I have already 

 shown that it cannot possibly be anything of the 

 kind, unless perfect faith in logic is distinctive of 

 agnostics ; which, after all, it may be. 



Agnosticism as a religious philosophy per se rests on an almost 

 total ignoring of history and social evolution (p. 152). 



But neither per se nor per aliud has agnosticism 

 (if I know anything about it) the least pretension 

 to be a religious philosophy ; so far from resting 

 on ignorance of history, and that social evolution 



