APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 35 



which all the Churches have insisted, that honest 

 disbelief in their more or less astonishing creeds 

 is a moral offence, indeed a sin of the deepest dye, 

 deserving and involving the same future retribution 

 as murder and robbery. If we could only see, in one 

 view, the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, 

 the slaughter, the violations of every obligation of 

 humanity, which have flowed from this source along 

 the course of the history of Christian nations, our 

 worst imaginations of Hell would pale beside the 

 vision. 



Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, 

 the essence of which lies in the rigorous application 

 of a single principle. That principle is of great 

 antiquity ; it is as old as Socrates ; as old as the 

 writer who said, " Try all things, hold fast by that 

 which is good " ; it is the foundation of the Reforma- 

 tion, which simply illustrated the axiom that every 

 man should be able to give a reason for the faith 

 that is in him ; it is the great principle of Descartes ; 

 it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. 

 Positively the principle may be expressed : In 

 matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as 

 it will take you, without regard to any other con- 

 sideration. And negatively : In matters of the 

 intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain 

 which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That 

 I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep 

 whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look 

 the universe in the face, whatever the future may 

 have in store for him. 



The best men of the best epochs are simply those 

 who make the fewest blunders and commit the 

 fewest sins. 



