CHAPTER II. 



AGNOSTICISM. 



§ I . Under the head of Agnosticism may be included 

 all doctrines concerning the Inherent Insolubleness 

 of certain questions, or Inherent limitations or de- 

 fects of the human mind, which, precluding from 

 the knowledge of certain departments of existence, 

 leave something unknowable beyond the barriers of 

 possible knowledge. 



And where agnostic assertions are not made In 

 the light-hearted contempt of ignorance, where an 

 ignorarnus is not the real basis of the cry of ignor- 

 abimus, we may distinguish two species of rational 

 Agnosticism. And looking at the character of the 

 philosophies which have upheld them, we may call 

 these two forms of Agnosticism the scientific and 

 the epistemological. For though their general tend- 

 ency Is the same, there is a slight difference In the 

 method of their argumentation. Scientific Agnost- 

 icism infers a region of the unknowable from the 

 indefinite and seemingly infinite expansion of know- 

 ledge : epistemological Agnosticism is based rather 

 on a consideration of the relativity of knowledge to 

 the knowing faculty, and suggests that the limits 

 of objects do not correspond to the limits of our 

 knowledge of them. As types of these two agnost- 

 icisms we may take Mr. Herbert Spencer and 

 Kant; Mr. Spencer as the representative of scient- 



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