AGNOSTICISM 323 



Again he says: "Even now, for the great mass of 

 men, unable through lack of culture to trace out 

 with due clearness those good and bad consequences 

 which conduct brings round through the established 

 order of the Unknowable, it is needful that there 

 should be vividly depicted future torments and future 

 joys — pains and pleasures of a definite kind, pro- 

 duced in a manner direct and simple enough to be 

 clearly imagined."* 



Thus he settles the long-mooted question as to 

 whether a lie is ever justifiable or not. The preacher, 

 if he finds it necessary to move his hearers, is, in 

 duty, bound to threaten them with the tortures of 

 fire and brimstone, for the reason that the end justi- 

 fies the means, and at the same time he knows that 

 what he threatens is utterly false. Thus, systematic 

 lying may be the best possible practical teaching and 

 the highest morality. 



I do not see why Mr. Spencer might not consist- 

 ently and conscientiously become a preacher under ( 

 any existing religious creed whatever. If, as he con- 

 tends, each people has a religion as near an approxi- 

 mation to the truth as it can receive, and if each 

 religion is practically best for the people professing 

 it, then it would be the duty of every missionary to 

 forsake Christianity, and to proclaim the religion of 

 the heathen to whom he is sent. 



His claim is that all religions are practically good, 

 but that their fundamental teachings are utterly 

 false. These conclusions are the logical results of 

 Agnosticism. The Agnostic creed, he says, is the 

 only true one, but we must abandon this absolutely 

 true creed until, by the teaching of false creeds, we 

 have elevated humanity to a position where it can 

 accept the one true belief in The Unknowable. 

 * Synthetic Philosophy, First Principles, p. 117. 



