268 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



Max Miiller on Agnosticism. 



The distinguished philologist and orientalist, 

 Max Miiller, although not a philosopher by profes- 

 sion, reasons far more philosophically than Herbert 

 Spencer, when he writes: "I cannot help discover- 

 ing, in the universe an all-pervading causality or 

 reason for everything; for even when, in my phe- 

 nomenal ignorance, I do not yet know a reason for 

 this or that, I am forced to admit that there exists 

 some such reason ; I feel bound to admit it, because, 

 to a mind like ours, nothing can exist without a 

 sufficient reason. But how do I know that? Here 

 is the point where I cease to be an agnostic. I do 

 not know it from experience, and yet I know it 

 with a certainty greater than any which experience 

 can give. This, also, is not a new discovery. The 

 first step towards it was made at a very early time 

 by the Greek philosophers, when they turned from 

 the observation of outward nature to higher spheres 

 of thought, and recognized in nature the working 

 of a mind, or Nous, which pervades the universe. 

 Anaxagoras, who was the first to postulate such a 

 Nous in nature, ascribed to it not much more than 

 the first impulse to the inter-action of his homoiom- 

 eries. But even his Nous was soon perceived to be 

 more than a mere Primum Mobile ; more than the 

 xtvouv dxtvarov. We, ourselves, after thousands of 

 years of physical and metaphysical research, can say 

 no more than that there is vou?, that there is mind 

 and reason in nature. Sa Majestt le Hasard has 

 long been dethroned in all scientific studies, and 



