FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS OP AGNOSTICISM EXAMINED. 193 



at the same tliini,', difier very much as to what they perceive. The 

 intellect of one may be higher than that of another, and the more 

 limited intelligence may think it sees a thing in qnite another light to that 

 in which it presents itself to the mind of superior capacity. This shows 

 that we must go back from the perceptive faculty to the intellect, in order 

 to determine what it is that a man really sees with his own eyes, although he 

 may tell us, " I saw the thing, and, therefore, I know that it is so." I say, 

 therefore, that so far from modern science having established anything 

 contrary to a full recognition of that Divine Power over the world, every 

 step that has been taken by modern science has only added proof upon 

 proof of the truth of the opinions out of which modern science was 

 originally evolved. I have said thus much because I did not observe 

 that Mr. Clarke, in the paper he has read, had gone into this matter, 

 which I think is one that it is very necessary to deal with thoroughly in 

 treating of what is called the agnostic fallacy. 



Professor O'Dell. — The paper, as far as I have been able to consider it, 

 has, I think, been very carefully written, and is very understandable, as far as 

 the subject is to be understood. The existence of God is not denied by the 

 agnostics, neither do they deny the existence of the mind apart from the 

 body ; all they say is that these things are not provable. But there are very 

 few things that are really provable, almost everything being open to doubt ; 

 but as far as our reason goes, I think that both the existence of God and of 

 the mind are really provable, and that too, apart from sentiment and even 

 from faith — I mean faith as the agnostics understand it, as a superstitious 

 operation of the mind. Without doubt, the agnostics must have faith, or 

 they could not believe in anything. As to the existence of the mind, of 

 course the mind is a thing we have not seen, and, as the paper says, it can- 

 not be portioned out into parts. But, in the same way, although we see the 

 lightning, we have not seen the electricity which produced it. All we have 

 seen is the effect, or manifestation, of the electricity. We have not seen the 

 wind, but we have seen its effects ; and just as certainly as electricity and 

 wind exist, the mind exists also, and we have the same reasonable arguments 

 for the one as we have for the others. I cannot put forward my hand and 

 take up that chair without an effort of my mind. We cannot understand 

 mere matter doing this. What is evidenced in such an act is an intelligent 

 effort for an intelligent purpose. So, also, is it in regard to the existence of 

 God. We all know the arguments tending to prove, as a matter of reason, 

 that the human mind cannot accept the existence of a world without a 

 world maker. But it seems to me that many of the agnostics have ideas of 

 a far more speculative character than the ideas of those who believe in God, 

 We do not require to speculate. Look at the absurdity of many of the 

 theories of the agnostics. Take the Darwinian theory, which, commencing 

 at the very highest class of intelligence, goes down to the lowest, descending 

 to the monkey and the fish, the toads and tadpoles, and having got as far 

 as protoplasm, stretching on to a world or a space without any life at all — 

 VOL. XX. P 



