\II1 AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER 267 



ability, I have satisfied myself of the soundness of 

 the foundations on which my arguments are built, 

 and I desire to be held fully responsible for 

 everything I say. But, nevertheless, my position 

 is really no more than that of an expositor ; and 

 my justification for undertaking it is simply that 

 conviction of the supremacy of private judgment 

 (indeed, of the impossibility of escaping it) which 

 is the foundation of the Protestant Reformation, 

 and which was the doctrine accepted by the vast 

 majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before 

 that backsliding towards the " beggarly rudi- 

 ments " of an effete and idolatrous sacerdotalism 

 which has, even now, provided us with the saddest 

 spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of 

 Englishmen in this generation. A high court of 

 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host of great 

 lawyers in battle array, is and, for Heaven knows 

 how long, will be, occupied with these very 

 questions of " washing of cups and pots and brazen 

 vessels," which the Master, whose professed 



truth, I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to leavn 

 astronomy. Zeller's Vortrdge und Abhandlungc.n were published 

 and came into my hands a quarter of a century ago. The 

 writer's rank, as a theologian to begin with, and subsequently 

 as a historian of Greek philosophy, is of the highest. Among 

 these essays are two Das Urchristenthum and Die Tubiuger 

 historische Schule which are likely to be of more use to those 

 who wish to know the real state of the case than all that the 

 official "apologists," with their one eye on truth and the other 

 on the tenets of their sect, have written. For the opinion of a 

 scientific theologian about theologians of this stamp see pp. 225 

 and 227 of the Vortrage. 



