236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gone with them. They have all been unanimous in their rejection 

 of theology, and in regarding man and the race of men as a fugi- 

 tive manifestation of the all-enduring something, which always, 

 everywhere, and in an equal degree, is behind all other phenomena 

 of the universe. They are unanimous also in affirming that, in 

 spite of its fugitive character, life can afford us certain consider- 

 ations and interests, which will still make duty binding on us, will 

 still give it a meaning. At this point, however, they divide into 

 two bands. Some of them assert that the motive and the meaning 

 of duty is to be found in the history of humanity, regarded as a 

 single drama, with a prolonged and glorious conclusion, complete 

 in itself, satisfying in itself, and imparting, by the sacrament of 

 sympathy, its own meaning and grandeur to the individual life, 

 which would else be petty and contemptible. This is what some 

 assert, and this is what others deny. With those who assert it we 

 have now parted company, and are standing alone with those 

 others who deny it — Prof. Huxley among them, as one of their 

 chief spokesmen. 



And now addressing myself to Prof. Huxley in this character, 

 let me explain what I shall try to prove to him. If he could be- 

 lieve in God and in the divine authority of Christ, he admits he 

 could account for duty and vindicate a meaning for life ; but he 

 refuses to believe, even though for some reasons he might wish to 

 do so, because he holds that the beliefs in question have no evi- 

 dence to support them. He complains that an English bishop has 

 called this refusal "cowardly" — "has so far departed from his 

 customary courtesy and self-respect as to speak of ' cowardly 

 agnosticism/ " I agree with Prof. Huxley that, on the grounds 

 advanced by the bishop, this epithet " cowardly " is entirely unde- 

 served ; but I propose to show him that, if not deserved on them, 

 it is deserved on others, entirely unsuspected by himself. I pro- 

 pose to show that his agnosticism is really cowardly, but cowardly 

 not because it refuses to believe enough, but because, tried by its 

 own standards, it refuses to deny enough. I propose to show that 

 the same method and principle, which is fatal to our faith in the 

 God and the future life of theology, is equally fatal to anything 

 which can give existence a meaning, or which can — to have re- 

 course to Prof. Huxley's own phrases — " prevent our ' energies ' 

 from being ' paralyzed,' and ' life's beauty ' from being destroyed." 

 I propose, in other words, to show that his agnosticism is cow- 

 ardly, not because it does not dare to affirm the authority of 

 Christ, but because it does not dare to deny the meaning and the 

 reality of duty. I propose to show that the miserable rags of 

 argument with which he attempts to cover the life which he pro- 

 fesses to have stripped naked of superstition, are part and parcel 

 of that very superstition itself — that, though they are not the 



