82 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



destructive agencies, both in the realms of theory and 

 practice, of science, literatui-e, and life, has in many 

 65. minds already produced a revulsion of feeling. A desire 

 its revival, ig everywhere manifested once more to probe to the 

 bottom the various agencies, intellectual, moral, and 

 material, which have led to this apparent collapse. 

 Somehow or other the conviction seems to be gaining 

 ground that the great Eealities, which in former times 

 religious faith and philosophical reasoning had combined 

 to bring home to the human soul, have not disappeared, 

 but have only been removed to a greater distance in 

 time and space, as well as in the region of thought. 

 All the various formulae which modern philosophy has 

 introduced in this country and abroad, such as " the 

 unknowable," " the unconscious," " the incognoscible," 

 do not signify a straightforward denial of the spiritual 

 essence of everything, but indicate merely that the same 

 is far removed from the reaches of the human intellect. 

 For all that the agnostic can say, the Spiritual Eeality 

 may still be there, though it seems to him inaccessible 

 to the purely intellectual grasp. The human mind can 

 never remain, for any length of time, in a state of sus- 

 pense, of doubt, and uncertainty. Individual thinkers 

 and specialists, living in a community which is built up 

 upon the foundation of certain time-honoured beliefs, 

 may indulge in the luxury of withdrawing from the 

 actual quest after the Ileal, leaving the same to others 

 who are not troubled by their scruples ; the agnostic 

 may proclaim ever so loudly the impossibility of know- 

 ledge regarding the fundamental questions ; the critical 

 philosopher may define ever so clearly the limits of 



