176 AJ,FKED T. SCHOFIELD, ESQ., M.D., M.R.C.S., ON 



more caution is certainly observed in making unprovable 

 statements, and probably in future such utterances will 

 become still more guarded. 



Not being a scientist I must be pardoned, however, if I 

 do not strictly observe this caution, and state, somewhat 

 strongly, the conclusions at which I have arrived, even 

 though they be in their nature incapable of scientific 

 demonstration and be often rather matters for faith. 



It is astonishing after all how much faith there is in those 

 who often repudiate it. Most sciences rest ultimately on faith 

 in the unknowable or at any rate the unknown. The 

 phenomena are pursued further and further back by experi- 

 ment and investigation ; for the belief in causation is a 

 primary conviction of the human mind. We instinctively 

 feel that no phenomenon can be causeless, and travelling 

 backward by scientific methods we invariably reach a point 

 where demonstration is no longer possible, and where 

 inference and theory, and belief in such theories must begin. 

 We find that the assumption of a first cause is a necessity of 

 thought and also that the first cause must itself be uncaused, 

 in other words that the relative must spring from the absolute 

 or — in Christian phraseology, which is at least as intelligible — 

 that the Creation must spring from the Creator. 



Human reason is surely degraded by declaring the exist- 

 ence of God or creation by Divine power to be unthinkable. 

 It is of course in its detail unknowable, inasmuch as the 

 finite can never reach to the infinite, the relative to the abso- 

 lute, the conditioned to the unconditioned. But we succeed 

 in thinking of and believing in a large range of existences 

 that are unknown and probably unknowable ; for the limits of 

 thought and belief are not those of knowledge. Ether 

 is as incomprehensible (in one sense) as the Deity — a 

 supposed medium of indefinite extension, of inconceivable 

 tenuity and yet transmitting vibrations according to the 

 laws of solid bodies. Light is, if possible, more incompre- 

 hensible still, for though Ave may postulate the waves, we 

 have not even a working theory as to the moving agent. 



But Ave must not noAv pursue this point. As a matter of fact 

 we know nothing in its essence, and matter is now seen to 

 be as unknoAvn to us as mind : nevertheless, the moment 

 the agnostic says " I am " he commits himself in faith to the 

 unknowable. 



I have selected the two Avords at the head of this paper 

 rather because I think their consideration may afibrd food 



