262 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



there be such a world, or to trace a connection be- 

 tween noumenal cause or phenomenal effect, if there 

 be such a connection, must, we are told, prove use- 

 less and abortive. There may or there may not be, 

 a God; we hope there is a God, but we have no 

 warrant for asserting His existence. We cannot af- 

 firm either that He is personal or impersonal, intel- 

 ligent or unintelligent ; we cannot say whether He is 

 mind or matter. We cannot, by searching, find 

 Him out, and our every assertion regarding Him is 

 but a contradiction in terms. If there be a Supreme 

 Being, a First Cause, an Absolute Existence, an 

 Ultimate Power; if, in a word, there be a God, He 

 not only is now, but ever must be, unknown and 

 unknowable. 



"There may be absolute Truth, but if there is, it 

 is out of our reach. It is possible that there may be 

 a science of realities, of abstract being, of first prin- 

 ciples and a priori truths, but it is up in the heav- 

 ens, far above our heads, and- we must be content to 

 grovel amid things of earth to build up as best we 

 can our fragments of empirical knowledge, leaving 

 all else to that future world, in which, in a clear light, 

 if there is ever to be a clearer light for us, we shall 

 know, if there is such a thing as knowledge, the na- 

 ture and attributes of God, if there is a God, and if 

 His nature can be known, and if His attributes are 

 anything more than a fiction of theologians." ' 



The Duke of Argyll in his interesting work, " The 

 Unity of Nature" well observes that "This funda- 

 mental inconsistency in the agnostic philosophy, 



1 The Month, vol. XLV, p. 156. 



