16 Ilerhet't Sjjencer. 



the scientific, Init it concedes the value of the former as a 

 supi>U'nient to scientilic knowledge and training. 



Mr. Spencer's religious views are readily discernible to 

 any one who has read the ''First Principles" of his philos- 

 oi)hy. Supernatural revelations he rejects ; but to say that 

 his scheme has no place for religion would be a gross mis 

 statement. He makes all nature dependent upon and the 

 outcome of a Power Avhich is not and cannot be known, but 

 whose existence must ever be postulated. Toward this 

 Power, faith may turn, but what it is must forever transcend 

 our knowledge ; and respecting its nature or attributes, those 

 relating to personality included, no affirmations or denials 

 can be made. This is strictly Agnostic doctrine, and it pre- 

 sents to us the famous " Unknowable," respecting which so 

 much has been said. 



If the term be used absolutely, "Unknowable" is not a 

 proper characterization. To be able to affirm that it exists, 

 implies some knowledge of it ; and it is a contradiction to 

 declare that anything which can be made an object of cog- 

 nition is unknowable. In a relative sense, however, the term 

 may be used to mean something existing, but beyond the 

 reach of further objectification, or of cognition by human in- 

 telligence as Ave have experience of it. This, no doubt, is 

 what ]Mr. Spencer intends. The true statement is that we 

 know the existence of an Ultimate Reality which is known 

 as such but not otherwise known. 



Here is our philosopher's creed, in a passage from " First 

 Principles": "Thus the consciousness of an Inscrutable 

 Power, manifested to us through all phenomena, has been, 

 growing ever clearer ; and must eventually be freed from 

 its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such 

 a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature trans- 

 cends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty 

 towards Avhich intelligence has from the lirst been progress- 

 ing. To this conclusion science inevitably arrives as it 

 reaches its confines ; while to this conclusion religion is ir- 

 resistably driven by criticism. And satisfying, as it does, 

 the demands of the most rigorous logic at the same time that 

 it gives the religious sentiment the widest possible sphere 

 of action, it is the conclusion we are bound to accept without 

 reserve or qualification." 



Let us also note the following passages showing the true 

 relationship of religion and science : 



