FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS OP AGNOSTICISM EXAMINED, 189 



latter, for a temporal being, of course involve limitations 

 inseparable from a temporal mode of existence. In the next 

 place, the former, although manifold, may without impropriety 

 be attributed to an essence which excludes the manifold, 

 provided nothing more is meant than that their names re- 

 present the multiform relations of its character to things 

 which it originated and which it sustains. 



To prove that its character is moral perfection, and cannot 

 be conceived of as separable from Intellect and Will, is not 

 my object in this paper; I deal chiefly with the arguments 

 of those who deny the advocate of the Eternal Being so 

 much as a loais standi in the coui't of Reason. I could, 

 were I to proceed with my cause, force the Agnostic scientist 

 to admit the relevancy of an investigation of historical facts; 

 for I need only ask him what he knows about evolution, 

 whether as an astronomer, or as a geologist, or as a student 

 of biological phenomena, if he shuts his eyes to the significance 

 of the records and memorials of times gone by. Among 

 philosophers, however, no effectual argument can be sustained, 

 if it may be assumed that the meta'physical puzzle remains 

 unsolved. If the denial of the reality of motion could rouse 

 public attention, it would simply create amusement; for 

 whatever an eccentric philosopher here or there might say, 

 common sense would, after its rough-and-ready fashion, dis- 

 pose of his subtleties ; and its artless solution of a meta- 

 physical riddle ic always accepted by the world at large as 

 conclusive. Solviticr ambulando. But when the hinge of the 

 question is the possibility of a scientific recognition of things 

 unseen and unimaginable, — a question which the senses can, 

 without experiencing the slightest shock, consent to leave open 

 for any length of time, — it is only an elect few whose spiritual 

 experiences and observation admit of an effectual applica- 

 tion of this method of protecting faith against the argu- 

 ments of an embarrassing logic. The majority are borne along 

 in this direction or in that by the authoi-ity of respected names, 

 or are held, it may be, in the unstable equilibrium of an 

 insincere and demoralising suspense. That the metaphysical 

 questions at issue will ever be generally understood is hardly 

 to be expected ; and this, it may be presumed, the Agnostic 

 philosophers would readily allow. Not, indeed, on that 

 account should they leave the world to its own beliefs, and 

 forbear to meddle with religious views which they regard as 

 superstitions, — not on that account should they shi'ink from 

 unsettling filial trust in the Eternal Being, from subverting a 

 faith they cannot share and troubling hopes which they cannot 



