« CO WABDL Y A GNOSTICISM." 2 3 5 



meaning by hope, and with, a constant motive by sympathy. The 

 basis of the other religion is not only different from this, but op- 

 posed to it. Just as this demands that we turn away from the 

 universe, and concentrate our attention upon humanity, so the 

 other demands that we turn away from humanity and concentrate 

 our attention on the universe. Mr. Herbert Spencer calls this the 

 Religion of the Unknowable; and though many agnostics con- 

 sider the name fantastic, they one and all of them, if they resign 

 the religion of humanity, consider and appeal to this as the only 

 possible alternative. 



Now I have already in this review, not many months since, en- 

 deavored to show how completely absurd and childish the first of 

 these two religions, the Religion of Humanity, is. I do not pro- 

 pose, therefore, to discuss it further here, but will beg the reader 

 to consider that for the purpose of the present argument it is 

 brushed aside like rubbish, unworthy of a second examination. 

 Perhaps this request will sound somewhat arbitrary and arrogant, 

 but I have something to add which will show that it is neither. 

 The particular views which I now aim at discussing are the views 

 represented by Prof. Huxley ; and Prof. Huxley rejects the Re- 

 ligion of Humanity as completely as I do, and with a great deal 

 less ceremony, as the following passage will demonstrate : 



Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerged with the marks of his 

 lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other 

 brutes ; a blind prey to impulses which, as often as not, lead him to destruction ; 

 a victim to endless illusions which, as often as Eot, make his mental existence a 

 terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle. H8 

 attains a certain degree of physical comfort, and develops a more or less workable 

 theory of life, in such favorable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or Egypt, 

 and, then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles with varying fortunes, 

 attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to maintain himself at 

 this point against the greed and the ambition of his fellow-men. He makes a point 

 of killing or otherwise persecuting all those who try to get him to move on ; and 

 when he has moved on a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his vic- 

 tims. He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step yet fur- 

 ther. And the best men of the best epoch are simply those who make the fewest 

 blunders and commit the fewest sins. ... I know of no study so unutterably sad- 

 dening as that of the evolution of humanity as it is set forth in the annals of his- 

 tory ; . . . [and] when the positivists order men to. worship humanity — that is to 

 say, to adore the generalized conception of men, as they ever have been, and 

 probably ever will be — I must reply that I could just as soon bow down and wor- 

 ship the generalized conception of a " wilderness of apes." * 



Let us here pause for a moment and look about us, so as to see 

 where we stand. Up to a certain point the agnostics have all gone 

 together with absolute unanimity, and I conceive myself to have 



* "Agnosticism," "Nineteenth Century," February, 1889, pp. 191, 192, and "Popular 

 Science Monthly," April, 1889, pp. 772, 773. 



