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FACTS AND FANCIES 



and beyond material nahire. He goes a little 

 farther, however, than mere abs^ace of know- 

 ledge. He holds that of God nothing can be 

 known ; or he may put it a little more strongly, 

 in the phrase of his peculiar philosophy, by say- 

 ing that the existence of a God or of creation 

 by divine power is " unthinkable." It is in this 

 that he differs from the old-fashioned and now 

 extinct atheist, who bluntly denied the exist- 

 ence of a God. The modern agnostic assumes 

 an attitude of greater humility and disclaims 

 the actual denial of God. Yet he fJ.*actically 

 goes farther, in asserting the impossibility of 

 knowing the existence of a Divine Being ; and 

 in taking this farther step Agnosticism does 

 more to degrade the human reason and to cut 

 it off from all communion with anything beyond 

 mere matter and force, than does any other form 

 of philosophy, ancient or modern. 



Yet in this Agnosticism there is in one point 

 an approximation to truth. If there is a God, 

 he cannot be known directly and fully, and his 

 plans and procedure must always be more 

 or less incomprehensible. The writer of the 

 book of Job puts this as plainly as any modern 

 agnostic in the passage beginning " Canst thou 

 by searching find out God ?" — ^literally, " Canst 



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