50 AGNOSTICISM. 



aware of Its condition. All knowledofe terminates 

 in nonsense, but metaphysic alone confesses this 

 fact. 



§ 24. Thus Scepticism rises superior to the 

 question In dispute, not only by rescuing Agnostic- 

 ism from metaphysical objections, but also by its 

 kindly rehabilitation of metaphysics. But It is not 

 merely the outcome of the dispute between Agnostic- 

 ism and metaphysics, but also of the logical self- 

 development of Agnosticism. 



Agnosticism had asserted that there exists in 

 the world something unknowable and that certain 

 questions cannot be solved. But admitting this, 

 how can we limit the havoc this admission works 

 in the whole structure of knowledge ? If any one 

 thing is unknowable, may there; not be many others 

 like it ? If some questions are Insoluble, how do 

 we know that insoluble questions are confined to 

 a single department of thought ? Nay, if the 

 Unknowable is at the basis of all knowledge, if all 

 things are "manifestations of the Unknowable," how 

 can It manifest anything but its unknowableness ? 

 If all our explanations, terminate in the Inconceiv- 

 able, are they not all illusions? If an unknowable 

 force underlies all things, if the ultimate constitution 

 of things cannot be grasped by our minds, what can 

 our knowledge do but laboriously lead us to the 

 conclusion that all our science is, a fraud, hopelessly 

 vitiated by the unknowable character of Its . basis ? 

 Does not this fundamental flaw falsify all the futile 

 efforts of beings constitutionally Incapable of under- 

 standing the real nature of things ? 



Agnosticism, at all events, has no^ strength to 

 resist such suggestions, and falls into the deeper 

 but seemingly securer abyss of Scepticism. 



