VIII AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER 283 



flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And he is 

 most careful to tell us tha^t he abstained from any 

 re-examination of the facts. 



Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood ; neither 

 went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before me ; 

 but I went away into Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.) 



I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's 

 procedure. If it satisfied him, that was his affair ; 

 and, if it satisfies anyone else, I am not called upon 

 to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. 

 But I certainly have the right to say that it would 

 not satisfy me, in like case ; that I should be very 

 much ashamed to pretend that it could, or ought 

 to, satisfy me ; and that I can entertain but a very 

 low estimate of the value of the evidence of people 

 who are to be satisfied in this fashion, when 

 questions of objective fact, in which their faith is 

 interested, are concerned. So that when I am 

 called upon to believe a great deal more than the 

 oldest gospel tells me about the final events of the 

 history of Jesus on the authority of Paul (1 

 Corinthians xv. 5-8) I must pause. Did he think 

 it, at any subsequent time, worth while " to confer 

 with flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to 

 re-examine the facts for himself ? or was he ready 

 to accept anything that fitted in with his 

 preconceived ideas ? Does he mean, when he 

 speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the 

 crucifixion as if they were of the same kind, that 



