264 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



the existence of God, but declares that a knowl- 

 edge of Him is unattainable. Whether He has 

 personality or not ; whether He has intelligence 

 or not ; whether He is just, holy, omnipotent, om- 

 niscient or not ; whether He has a care for man 

 and watches over him or not ; whether He has 

 created man and the earth he inhabits or not 

 all these are questions which are simply insoluble ; 

 are matters which are, and must forever be, be- 

 yond the ken and apprehension of the human in- 

 tellect. 



A very slight examination will suffice to convince 

 anyone that such a via media cannot exist ; that, 

 notwithstanding what its advocates may assert to 

 the contrary, Agnosticism is but Atheism in dis- 

 guise. More than this ; it is worse than Atheism. 

 An atheist, although he may deny the existence of 

 God, is nevertheless open to discuss the subject. 

 An agnostic, however, takes away all matter for dis- 

 cussion by insisting that God, if there be a God, is 

 unknowable, and being so, is beyond and above the 

 reach of reason and consciousness. Far from being 

 the Creator of heaven and earth and all things, as 

 faith teaches, God, according to the agnostic, is but 

 a creature of the imagination, a figment of theolo- 

 gians, and religion, even in its pure and noblest 

 form, is but a development of fetichism or ghost- 

 worship. 



Our present concern, however, is not so much 

 with Agnosticism as a system of belief or unbelief, 

 as with Agnosticism in relation to the theory of the 

 origin and Evolution of the visible universe. 



