IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 311 



the denial of, or the suspension of judgment 

 concerning, a number of propositions respecting 

 which our contemporary ecclesiastical " gnostics " 

 profess entire certainty. ] And, in so far as these 

 ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old- 

 established custom (which many nowadays think 

 more honoured in the breach than the observance) 

 of using opprobrious names to those who differ 

 from them, I fully admit their right to call me 

 and those who think with me " Infidels " ; all I 

 have ventured to urge is that they must not 

 expect us to speak of ourselves by that title. 



The extent of the region of the uncertain, the 

 number of the problems the investigation of 

 which ends in a verdict of not proven, will vary 

 according to the knowledge and the intellectual 

 habits of the individual Agnostic. I do not very 

 much care to speak of anything as " unknowable." l 

 What I am sure about is that there are many 

 topics about which I know nothing ; and which, 

 so far as I can see, are out of reach of my faculties. 

 But whether these things are knowable by any 

 one else is exactly one of those matters which is 

 beyond my knowledge, though I may have a 

 tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities of 

 the case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure 

 that the region of uncertainty the nebulous 

 country in which words play the part of realities 



1 I confess that, long ago, I once or twice made this mistake ; 

 even to the waste of a capital *U.' 1893. 



