32 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



or not there is any power above and behind 

 material things, it will be necessary to begin 

 with the very elements of knowledge, and to 

 inquire if there is anything whatever that he 

 really knows and believes. 



Let us ask him if he can subscribe to the 

 simple creed expressed in the words " I am, I 

 feel, I think." Should he deny these proposi- 

 tions, then there is no basis left on which to 

 argue. Should he admit this much of belief, 

 he has abandoned somewhat of his agnostic 

 position ; for it would be easy to show that in 

 even uttering the pronoun "I" he has com- 

 mitted himself to the belief in the unknowable. 

 What is the ego which he admits? Is it the 

 material organism or any one of its organs or 

 parts ? or is it something distinct, of which the 

 organism is merely the garment, or outward 

 manifestation? or is the organism itself any- 

 thing more than a bundle of appearances par- 

 tially known and scarcely understood by that 

 which calls itself " I" ? Who knows ? And if 

 our own personality is thus inscrutable, if we 

 can conceive of it neither as identical with the 

 whole or any part of the organism nor as ex- 

 isting independently of the organism, we should 

 begin our Agnosticism here, and decline to utter 



