The Agnostic Method 243 



Hume had written that " the jusiest and most plaus- 

 ible objection against a considerable part of metaphysics 

 was that they are not properly a science, but arise either 

 from the fruitless efforts of human vanity, which would 

 penetrate into subjects utterly inaccessible to the human 

 understanding, or from the craft of popular supersti- 

 tions, which, being unable to defend themselves on fair 

 ground, raise these entangling brambles to cover and 

 protect them." In these considerations he found 

 reason not for leaving superstition in possession of its 

 ground, but for making a bold and arduous attack upon 

 it in its haunts. The great difficulty in the way of 

 carrying the war into the enemy's own camp was that 

 in those days so-called science was itself cumbered 

 with many illogical and metaphysical ideas, and for the 

 first time in the present century the great advances of 

 physical science, and, in particular, the renewed life 

 poured by Darwin into the doctrine of evolution, made 

 it possible to bring a new series of exact arguments 

 against haz}^ metaphysical dogmas. The militant side 

 of agnosticism was directed against the camp of super- 

 stition and armed with the new weapons of exact 

 science. Its stern refusal of belief without adequate 

 evidence was a challenge to all the supporters of the 

 sanguine philosophy which replaces proof by assured 

 and emphatic statement and restatement. It is possible, 

 although rare, for those who hold a positive belief upon 

 evidence, howsoever insufficient, to leave their doubting 

 neighbours in peace, and these neighbours, assured in 

 their own beliefs, equally positive and perhaps equally 

 unfounded, may return the laz}^ tolerance. But the 

 agnostic position is at once a reproof and a challenge 

 to all who do not hold it. Perhaps no one has ever 

 put the agnostic attitude more clearly than Kant when 



