A G1VOS TICISM AND E VOL UTION. 257 



a discipline for its delimitation ; and instead of 

 discovering truth, has only the modest merit of 

 preventing error." 



The writings of " that prince of agnostics," David 

 Hume, and Sir William Hamilton's essay on The 

 Philosophy of the Unconditioned, confirmed Hux- 

 ley in this view, and stamped upon his mind " the 

 strong conviction that, on even the most solemn 

 and important questions, men are apt to take cun- 

 ning phrases for answers; and that the limitations 

 of our faculties, in a great number of cases, render 

 real answers to such questions, not merely actually 

 impossible, but theoretically inconceivable." ' 



Huxley, however, although the coiner of the 

 word Agnosticism, and one of its most zealous and 

 popular exponents, is not its coryphaeus. This posi- 

 tion is held by the philosopher of " the unknowa- 

 ble," Herbert Spencer, who has done far more than 

 any other one person to establish what might be 

 called a school of agnostic philosophy. When it is 

 remembered that Spencer is likewise the philosopher 

 of Evolution, "our great philosopher," as Darwin 

 calls him, we can see what an intimate connection 

 there must be between Evolution, as a scientific 

 theory, and Agnosticism as a system of philosophy. 



But if Spencer is the coryphaeus of modern 

 Agnosticism, who was his choragus, who was the 

 teacher and the fautor-in-chief, of the system of 

 thought which he has developed at such length in 

 his numerous volumes on science and philosophy ? 



1 " Collected Essays," by T. H. Huxley, vol. V, p. 236. 



.-17 



