AGNOSTICISM AND EVOLUTION. 273 



natural and supernatural orders, were long ago real- 

 ized and taken into account by Christian philosophy 

 and Christian theology. They were before the 

 minds of Origen and Clement of Alexandria ; they 

 occupied the brilliant intellects of St. Basil, St. John 

 Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augus- 

 tine ; they entered into the disputations of the 

 Schoolmen, and have found a prominent place in 

 the writings of their successors up to the present 

 day. No, these difficulties have not been ignored ; 

 neither have they been underrated nor dismissed 

 without receiving the consideration their importance 

 demands. Far from being new, as certain writers 

 would have us believe; far from being the product 

 of the research of these latter days ; far from being 

 the result of those deep and critical investigations 

 which have been conducted in every department of 

 knowledge, sacred and profane, they are as old as 

 the ChuTch, as old even as speculative thought. 



Christian Agnosticism. 



Unlike the Agnosticism of skepticism, however, 

 Christian Agnosticism is on firm ground, and, 

 guided by the principles of a sound philosophy, is 

 able with unerring judgment to discriminate the 

 true from the false, and to draw the line of demar- 

 cation between the knowable and the unknowable. 

 Christian Agnosticism confesses aloud that God is 

 incomprehensible, that we can have no adequate 

 idea of His perfections, but, unlike skeptical Agnos- 

 ticism, it brushes aside the false and delusive hope, 

 that in the distant future, when our faculties arc 



E.-iS 



