" COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM." 229 



than it solves. Thus, though we can not demonstrate that a cre- 

 ator does not exist, we have no grounds whatever for supposing 

 that he does. With regard to man, what science finds is analogous. 

 According to theology, he is a being specially related to God, and 

 his conduct and his destinies have an importance which dwarfs 

 the sum of material things into insignificance. But science exhib- 

 its him in a very different light ; it shows that in none of the 

 qualities once thought peculiar to him does he differ essentially 

 from other phenomena of the universe. It shows that just as 

 there are no grounds for supposing the existence of a creator, so 

 there are none for supposing the existence of an immortal human 

 soul ; while as for man's importance relative to the rest of the uni- 

 verse, it shows that, not only as an individual, but also as a race, 

 he is less than a bubble of foam is when compared with the whole 

 sea. The few thousand years over which history takes us are as 

 nothing when compared with the ages for which the human race 

 has existed. The whole existence of the human race is as nothing 

 when compared with the existence of the earth ; and the earth's 

 history is but a second and the earth but a grain of dust in the 

 vast duration and vast magnitude of the All. Nor is this true of 

 the past only, it is true of the future also. As the individual dies, 

 so also will the race die ; nor would a million of additional years 

 add anything to its comparative importance. Just as it emerged 

 out of lifeless matter yesterday, so will it sink again into lifeless 

 matter to-morrow. Or, to put the case more briefly still, it is 

 merely one fugitive manifestation of the same matter and force 

 which, always obedient to the same unchanging laws, manifest 

 themselves equally in a dung-heap, in a pig, and in a planet — 

 matter and force which, so far as our faculties can carry us, have 

 existed and will exist everywhere and forever, and which nowhere, 

 so far as our faculties avail to read them, show any sign, as a whole, 

 of meaning, of design, or of intelligence. 



It is possible that Prof. Huxley, or some other scientific au- 

 thority, may be able to find fault with some of my sentences or 

 my expressions, and to show that they are not professionally or 

 professorially accurate. If they care for such trifling criticism 

 they are welcome to the enjoyment of it ; but I defy any one to 

 show, putting expression aside and paying attention only to the 

 general meaning of what I have stated, that the foregoing ac- 

 count of what science claims to have established is not substan- 

 tially true, and is not admitted to be so by any contemporary 

 thinker who opposes science to theism, from Mr. Frederic Harri- 

 son to Prof. Huxley himself. 



And now let us pass on to something which in itself is merely 

 a matter of words, but which will bring what I have said thus far 

 into the circle of contemporary discussion. The men who are 



