28 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



consciously responsible being man. To attrib- 

 ute to him an origin from mere matter and 

 force is not merely to attach to them a fictitious 

 power and significance : it is also to reject the 

 rational probability that the original cause must 

 be at least equal to the effects produced, and to 

 deprive ourselves of all communion and sympa- 

 thy with nature. Further, wherever the " pres- 

 ence and potency" of human reason resides, 

 there seems no reason to prevent our search- 

 ing for and finding it in the only way in which 

 we can know anything, in its properties *and 

 effects. The dogma of Agnosticism, it is true, 

 refuses to permit this search after God, but it 

 does so with as little reason as any of those 

 self-constituted authorities that demand belief 

 without questioning. Nay, it has the offensive 

 peculiarity that in the very terms in which it 

 issues its prohibition it contradicts itself. The 

 same oracle which asserts that " the power 

 which the universe manifests to us is wholly 

 inscrutable " affirms also that " we must inevita- 

 bly commit ourselves to the hypothesis of a 

 first cause." Thus we are told that a power 

 which is "manifest" is also "inscrutable," and 

 that we must "commit ourselves" to a belief 

 in a " first cause " which on the hypothesis can- 



feilb 



