20 AGNOSTICISM. 



discovery to resolve the contradictions of its work- 

 ing hypotheses. The patient temper which does 

 not reject the remotest possibihty that may throw 

 light upon a subject, which, as in Darwin's case, is 

 not ashamed to try absurd experiments which it is 

 ashamed to record, is that which has led to great 

 discovery. The mental attitude in short required 

 in scientific research, is the very opposite to that 

 required in a theory of life ; and in philosophy there 

 is no room for the scientific suspense of judgment. 



From this point of view, then, Agnosticism is 

 simply a misconception of the limits of science and 

 philosophy, and its practical impossibility is fatal to 

 its claims to be a theory of Life. 



\ 3. But it is also open to grave theoretic ob- 

 jection. 



It involves in every case an argument from the 

 known to the unknowable. 



For unless the assumption of the unknowable is 

 purely gratuitous, and so refutes itself, there must be 

 something in the constitution of the known to lead 

 us to infer an unknowable. But such an inference 

 from the known to the unknowable is a contradict- 

 ion. For that very inference creates a bond be- 

 tween the known and the unknowable, and to this 

 extent renders the unknowable knowable. If we 

 can know nothing else about the unknowable, we 

 can at least know that it Is the caztse of the known. 

 At the very least, the known Is its manifestation, 

 the ** phenomenon " is the appearance of the 

 *' Noumenon." 



Thus the connection between the known and the 

 unknowable is in the same breath both asserted and 

 denied. The primary statement of Agnosticism 

 explicitly asserts, but implicitly denies, the imposs- 



