328 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix 



knowledge, and yet consider that he has more or 

 less probable ground for accepting any given 

 hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a 

 man may frankly declare that he has no means of 

 knowing whether the planets generally are in- 

 habited or not, and yet may think one of the two 

 possible hypotheses more likely than the other, so 

 he may admit that he has no means of knowing 

 anything about the spiritual world, and yet may 

 think one or other of the current views on the 

 subject, to some extent, probable. 



The second answer is so obviously valid that it 

 needs no discussion. I draw attention to it simply 

 in justice to those agnostics who may attach 

 greater value than I do to any sort of pneumato- 

 logical speculations; and not because I wish to 

 escape the responsibility of declaring that, whether 

 Jesus sanctioned the deinonological part of Chris- 

 tianity or not, I unhesitatingly reject it. The 

 first answer, on the other hand, opens up the 

 whole question of the claim of the biblical and 

 other sources, from which hypotheses concerning 

 the spiritual world are derived, to be regarded as 

 unimpeachable historical evidence as to matters of 

 fact. 



Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the 

 Gospel narratives, I was anxious to get rid of the 

 common assumption that the determination of the 

 authorship and of the dates of these works is a 

 matter of fundamental importance. That assump- 



