234 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[JiNE 1, 1886. 



Even Agnosticism, if it be interpreted to signify know- 

 nothingism. is a most unsuitable word for the belief which 

 recognises the Infinite as Unknowable. I am not concerned 

 that Mr. Huxley may have expressed a certain modified 

 approval of this term. Darwin differentiated Agnostic 

 from Atheist by saying that Agnostic is merely Atheist writ 

 respectable, and Atheist Agnostic writ aggressive. But the 

 fact really is tliat science has been led to its present position 

 by considering the known rather than the unknown, the 

 knowable rather than the Unknowable. Science is able to 

 sav we knoii- tbat Deity is not what the savage thinks and 

 has thought it ; we hum; that the wind and the storm, the 

 earthquake and the volcano, plague and pestilence, sun, 

 moon, and planets, are not as gods, knowing good and evil ; 

 we know even that the thoughts and emotions of man, his 

 power of looking befoi-e and after, of distinguishing right 

 from wrong, and of ruling his own nature accordingly — 

 more and more perfectly as the race advances in develop- 

 ment — only symbolise the qualities of the personality, if so 

 one may describe it, of the Power working in and through 

 all things. " That which wells up in us as consciousness " 

 is doubtless a portion of "the power manifested throughout 

 the universe distinguished as material " ; and perhaps that 

 which we recognise as conscience is a manifestation of the 

 nature of the same power existing throughout the universe 

 in its non-material aspect. It may well be that hereafter 

 higher powers, as j'et unimagined, may give us further 

 symbolisations of that infinite power. But most assuredly 

 the progress of science thus far has not been from recognition 

 towards rejection of such a power, though at each step false 

 ideas of Deity have been rejected as the mist through which 

 they had loomed misshapen has cleared, until at last the 

 purest conception of infinite power yet obtained by man 

 has been reached. To those who see matters thus, the idea 

 of Deity entertained by those who denounce the student 

 of science as an atheist, appears truly atheistical — in this 

 sense, that it presents to him, for adoration as Deity, the 

 finite, the limited, the imperfect, nay, the evil, and even 

 the horrible. 



If we picture to ourselves the progi-ess of men in this 

 matter even until now, we may find it truly ])resented, as in 

 a parable, in the vision of Elijah after his forty days' fast. 

 The child-man of old recognised inBnite power, transcending 

 nature, when " the great and strong \\ind rent the mountains, 

 and brake in pieces the rocks " — " but the Lord was not in 

 the wind." And after the wind the powers of the earth's 

 interior typified the Unknowable ; '• but the Lord was not in 

 the earthquake." And then the sun and stars, with that 

 earth-born child of the sun, Fire, appeared to men as the 

 infinite power, working in and through all things ; '• but the 

 Lord was not in the fire." And now in the workings of man's 

 moral and emotional nature, the '• still small voice " which 

 tells us of something other than that material power whereof 

 mere consciousness speaks, many recognise the manifestation 

 of the Infinite. But God is not in the " still small voice " ; 

 that voice is in Him. Man does not feel the Godhead 

 in him ; he feels himself in the Godhead. He who thus 

 thinks of Deity as absolutely infinite, yet as manifested in 

 the finite, and i-ejects all such teachings about deity as falsely 

 proclaim the infinite to he finite, and ascribe the same 

 passions and the same weaknesses to Infinite Power which 

 characterke us, the im2ierfect and the weak, may say with 

 Elijah of old : We are " very jealous for the Lord " — our 

 God — the Infinite Power working in and through all things. 

 We do not denounce those whose ideas are less advanced — 

 denunciation is for those of little faith — but we do proclaim, 

 and as loudly as we may, that for us to teach as they do would 

 not onl_y be to offer to the Infinite " the iincleau sacrifice of 

 a lie," but would be nothing short of blasphemy. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE PLAXETS. 

 {Continued from p. 203.) 

 The offerings and sacrifices made by the Jews in old 

 times on the Sabbath day and on the festival of the new 

 moon (the beginnings of the mouths) show something, as I 

 have said, of the nature of the observances prevalent among 

 the Sabaistic nations from whom the Jewish sacrificial 

 system was deriveil. We may with advantage consider what 

 the injunctions addressed by the Jewish legislators to their 

 ])eople on these points really imply. Ko one who examines 

 the matter reasouingly, and apart from preconceived preju- 

 dices, can fail to see that however suitable these observances 

 doubtless were for nations regarding the sun, moon, and 

 planets as real gods, not too far away to welcome with 

 pleasure the smoke and smell thi'ough which the essence of 

 the burnt offerings (their food) was absorbed by them, they 

 would be absurd, even as symbolisations, for men recognising 

 the heavenly bodies for what they are, and — above all — our 

 earthly abode for what it actually is. 



Thus run these ordinances, to regard which as divine 

 would be blasphemy for any one who has formed other than 

 such gross conceptions of Deity as suited perfectly the infancy 

 of the human race : — 



"And on the Sabbath day (ye shall offer) two he-lambs 

 of the first year without blemish, and two tenth parts of an 

 ephah of flour for a meal offering, mingled with oil, and the 

 diink offering thereof; this is the burnt offering of ever}- 

 Sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering and the drink 

 offering thereof." 



" And in the beginnings of your months ye shall offer a 

 burnt offering unto the Lord, two young bullocks and one 

 ram, seven he-lambs without blemish ; and three tenth pai'ts 

 of an ephah of fine flour for a meal offering, mingled with 

 oil, for each bullock ; and two tenth parts of fine fiour for a 

 meal offering, mingled with oil, for the one ram ; and a 

 several tenth part of fine fiour mingled with oil for a meal 

 offering, unto every lamb ; for a burnt offering of a sweet 

 savour, an ofiering made by fire, unto the Lord. And their 

 drink offerings shall be half an bin of wine for a bullock, 

 and the thu-d part of an hin for the ram, and the fourth 

 part of an hin for a lamb ; this is the burnt offering of 

 every month throughout the months of the year. And one 

 he-goat for a sin ofiering unto the Lord ; it shall be offered 

 beside the continual burnt offering, and the drink ofiering 

 thereof." 



The rest on the day devoted to Saturn, and the idea that 

 such rest could in any way delight the Infinite, must be 

 regarded as in like manner belonging to the childhood of a 

 race — in other words, to the era of semi-barbarism. The 

 same race which could believe that their own particular god 

 would take pleasure in seeing a people which, in its .savage 

 stage, was one of the most brutal and hateful this world hws 

 known, destroying and enslaving races not quite so barbaric 

 and altogether less hateful than themselves, might well 

 believe that that same God derived pleasure from their 

 weekly rest — as indeed any respectable deity, or even 

 Jupiter or Apollo, might very reasonably have done, seeing 

 that whenever they were not at rest they wei-e at mischief. 

 But to attribute such ideas to an Infinite All-knowing Power 

 would be simply blasphemous.* 



The Jews, following the worshippers of the planets, 

 believed also that yet more trifling ceremonies were of 



* Perhaps the oddest notion of the early Jews was that Tahveh 

 needed to be reminded by loud noise-making when He was to look 

 after their interests during any of their abominable wars. " When 

 re go to war in your land against the adversary that oppresseth yoa, 

 then ye shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and ye shall be 

 remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from 

 your enemies." — Numbers x. 9. 



