AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 475 



from one another, and therefore can easily be exhibited to the 

 public, as if they did nothing else ; as if any one who referred to 

 them, as having each and all contributed his share to the results 

 of theological science, was merely showing his ignorance ; and, as 

 if a charge of inconsistency could be based on the fact that he 

 himself often disagrees with what they say. I have never lent a 

 shadow of foundation to the assumption that I am a follower of 

 either Strauss, or Baur, or Reuss, or Volkmar, or Renan ; my debt 

 to these eminent men — so far my superiors in theological knowl- 

 edge — i s> indeed, great ; yet it is not for their opinions, but for 

 those I have been able to form for myself, by their help. 



In "Agnosticism: a Rejoinder" (p. 484)* I have referred to 

 the difficulties under which those professors of the science of the- 

 ology, whose tenure of their posts depends on the results of their 

 investigations, must labor ; and, in a note, I add : 



Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been founded in the fourteenth 

 century, and that their incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In 

 that case, with every respect for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain 

 and expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to 

 learn astronomy. 



I did not write this paragraph without a knowledge that its 

 sense would be open to the kind of perversion which it has suf- 

 fered ; but, if that was clear, the necessity for the statement was 

 still clearer. It is my deliberate opinion : I reiterate it ; and I say 

 that, in my judgment, it is extremely inexpedient that any subject 

 which calls itself a science should be intrusted to teachers who 

 are debarred from freely following out scientific methods to their 

 legitimate conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. If I 

 may borrow a phrase paraded at the Church Congress, I think it 

 " ought to be unpleasant " for any man of science to find himself 

 in the position of such a teacher. 



Human nature is not altered by seating it in a professorial 

 chair, even of theology. I have very little doubt that if, in the 

 year 1859, the tenure of my office had depended upon my adher- 

 ence to the doctrines of Cuvier, the objections to those set forth 

 in the " Origin of Species " would have had a halo of gravity 

 about them that, being free to teach what I pleased, I failed to dis- 

 cover. And, in making that statement, it does not appear to me 

 that I am confessing that I should have been debarred by " selfish 

 interests " from making candid inquiry, or that I should have been 

 biased by " sordid motives." I hope that even such a fragment 

 of moral sense as may remain in an ecclesiastical " infidel " might 

 have got me through the difficulty ; but it would be unworthy to 



* "Popular Science Monthly " for June, 1889, p. 166. 



