"COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM." 241 



to the diffusion of phenomena, we are unable to think of limits 

 to the presence of this power ; while the criticisms of science teach 

 us that this power is incomprehensible. And this consciousness 

 of an incomprehensible power, called omnipresent from inability 

 to assign its limits, is just that consciousness on which religion 

 dwells." * Now Prof. Huxley, it will be remembered, gives an 

 account of religion quite different. He says it is a desire to real- 

 ize a certain ideal in life. His terminology therefore differs from 

 that of Mr. Spencer ; but of the present matter, as the following 

 quotation will show, his view is substantially the same. 



" Let us suppose," he says, " that knowledge is absolute, and 

 not relative, and therefore that our conception of matter repre- 

 sents that which really is. Let us suppose further that we do 

 know more of cause and effect than a certain succession ; and I 

 for my part do not see what escape there is from utter material- 

 ism and necessarianism." And this materialism, were it really 

 what science forces on us, he admits would amply justify the dark- 

 est fears that are entertained of it. It would " drown man's soul," 

 " impede his freedom," " paralyze his energies," " debase his moral 

 nature," and " destroy the beauty of his life." f But, Prof. Hux- 

 ley assures us, these dark fears are groundless. There is indeed 

 only one avenue of escape from them; but that avenue truth 

 open to us. 



" For," he says, " after all, what do we know of this terrible ' matter,' except 

 as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious- 

 ness? And what do we know of that 'spirit' over whose extinction by matter a 

 great lamentation is arising, . . . except that it also is a name for an unknown and 

 hypothetical cause or condition of states of consciousness? . . . And what is the 

 dire necessity and iron law under which men groan ? Truly, most gratuitously 

 invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an ' iron ' law it is that of gravitation ; 

 and if there be a physical necessity it is that a stone unsupported must fall to the 

 ground. But what is all we really know and can know about the latter phe- 

 nomena? Simply that in all human experience stones have fallen to the ground 

 under these conditions ; that we have not the smallest reason for believing that 

 any stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground ; and that we have, on the 

 contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall. . . . But when, as com^ 

 monly happens, we change will into must, we introduce an idea of necessity 

 which . . . has no warranty that I can discover anywhere. . . . Force I know, and 

 Law I know ; but who is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own mind's 

 throwing ? " 



Let us now compare the statements of these two writers. Each 

 states that the reality of the universe is unknowable ; that just as 

 surely as matter is always one aspect of mind, so mind is equally 

 one aspect of matter ; and that if it is true to say that the thoughts 

 of man are material, it is equally true to say that the earth from 



* "First Principles," p. 99. f "Lay Sermons," pp. 122, 123, 127. 



vol. xxxv. — 16 



