FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AGNOSTICISM EXAMINED. 105 



inconsistent concepts. Such being the case, all you can do, with scientific 

 propriety, is to assert that there is something ; but you must not venture to 

 say that it has such or such attributes. You may render a sentimental ac- 

 knowledgment to the Almighty, and, if you like, you may believe in Him, but 

 you are not at liberty to say yon know Him, because you cannot represent Him 

 to your finite intellect, in consequence of the contradictions into which you 

 fall if you make the attempt. My object in writing this paper has been to 

 show that that assumption is altogether groundless, and that it has arisen 

 from a misconception, or an overlooking, of certain fundamental conditions 

 of thought. It has been assumed that, for anything we know to the con- 

 trarjr, this phenomenal world may have been in existence from everlasting. 

 Such was the view of Spinoza, and such is the view of all pantheists, while 

 the agnostics tolerate the conception that such existence of the world is 

 IDOssible. Now, my endeavour is to demonstrate that the phenomenal world 

 must have come into existence, that it is something originated, and that its 

 existence presupposes something unoriginated. I have also tried to show 

 that there is no intellectual difficulty in conceiving that Something, nor in 

 representing to our minds that Something as having attributes. Although 

 we conceive of the Almighty as being perfectly simple in His mode of 

 existence, we may, as I have desired to establish, regard all His attributes as 

 mere diversities of the aspect under which His character is presented to our 

 finite intellect. The manifestation of the infinite and the simple to the 

 finite and the manifold, supposes the necessity that there will be on the part 

 of the finite intellect a recognition of the manifold in the attributes. I 

 believe, then, that we have a scientific right to say that the Eternal Being 

 exists, and to recognise those attributes which He has manifested in our 

 conscience. I believe that we are intellectually, as well as morally, under 

 the obligation to recognise the Eternal Being, who is the author and sus- 

 tainer of ourselves, and of all things by which Ave are surrounded. 



The meeting was then adjourned. 



The following additional comuumications in regard to the paper were 

 received : — 



r iJ 



