H t t e r a t ^ < 5 u ibc

AND R A T IO NALIST R EV IEW .

[ESTABLISHED 1883.]

No. 32 . (N ew S e r i e s .)

F E B R U A R Y i , 18 9 9 .

M onthly ; T wopence.

Contents.

I’AGE

T h e B a s is of A gnosticism . B y L. I-ladow Jenkins . 17 K nowledge a n d C osmos. B y Charles E . Hooper . 18 “ I Can’t G e t Out.” B y F. J . Gould . . • 19 T h e T r iu m ph ok D arw in . . . • 19 T r a n sc en d en t a l E th ic s . . . ■ S in , G r a c e , and t h e Means o f G race . . 21 J am e s T homson . . . . . • 22 N ew Gospels . . . . . • 22 S ig n s and Warnings ( Gleaned fr om the Relig io us P re s s ) 23 R andom J ottings . . . . . • 24 C hats A rout B ooks and Misc e l l a n e a .—X V I . With

Mr. Alexander Sutherland, M.A. By F. J . G . .

R ationalism in t h e Magazines . . . . 2 7 S hort Notices . . . . . . 2 8 L e t t e r s to t h e E d itor . . . . . 2 9

.25

Gfoe Basis of Honosticlsm.

P a p e r s on the subject of Agnosticism seem to have been very plentiful during the last few months. There have been orthodox condemnations, vehement defences, periodicals and pamphlets brimming over with articles of different values and grades, from “ Agnosticism a Failure ” and “ Why I am an Agnostic ” up to the higher level o f the thoughtful correspondence between Mr. Charles Watts and his earnest questioners. All these seem to indicate a general confusion o f thought on the matter, and point to the fact that it is not only pulpit thunderers who have woven a tangled web of Agnosticism, Atheism, Freethought, and kindred systems.

There is no doubt whatever that Huxley fathered the designation, and the passage in which he explains how it happened is well worth perusal. We do not quote it here, because it is easily accessible to everyone, and will be found in the Eversley edition o f Thomas Huxley’s works, on page 239 of the volume entitled Science a n d C h r is t ia n T ra d it io n . In many other passages he defines the meaning he attaches to the word. He plainly strips it o f everything allied to a belief, or creed, or religious faith. It meant a simple principle, and that principle was : the immorality of teaching as facts things which could not be proved, things which were outside the circle o f demonstration. In every branch of science he admitted the present limit to man’s power o f knowing; but, while he spoke of the Unknown, with a stroke o f his genial humour (in one o f his latest revisions) he decapitates the word “ Unknowable ” of its capital U, as an error recanted. In the essay on “ Agnosticism and Christianity” he says : “ I do not very much care to speak of anything as unknowable ”/ and in a note, dated 1893 ; “ I confess that once or twice long ago I made this mistake, even to the waste of a capital U .”

In the correspondence above referred to there is a questioning reference to Samuel Laing’s words quoted by Mr. Charles Watts— “ Behind the veil.” Surely the word “ v e i l” here in no way loses “ meaning and intelligible symbolic value.” It is no doubt used metaphorically, as we would speak of a “ g u l f ” or a “ cloud.” It is a representative word for that which conceals. We think Huxley would have admitted the metaphor, and, if asked what it “ really meant,” he would have answered “ Ignorance.”

Herbert Spencer, who has clearly shown a prolific source of human error in uncritical acceptance o f words as the symbols of ideas, etc., himself s a y s : “ At the utmost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever arise, the question, ‘ What lies beyond?” ’ Beyond what? “ The utmost reach ”— i .e ., the impenetrable. Could a better word than “ veil ” be found to present this boundary to our minds ?

Real Agnosticism is simplicity itself. Its boundary is that of known or proved laws, discovered facts, and ascertained results from tested causes. Its borders are ever widening as human intellect, through research and experiment and slow but sure progress, penetrates the veil of ignorance fold by fold ; and that which is unknown now cannot be rightly called the unknowable, because the present only holds fast mighty secrets which the future may disclose.

That is Agnosticism ; and no words can put it in purer, clearer English than those o f the great master who taught its simple principle. Atheism, Positivism, Freethought, Christianity, Spiritualism, Rationalism—these lie on another platform. The teachers who expound them leave Agnosticism behind. It cannot be carried beyond its own plane. Having left it, complications arise. Metaphysics takes the place of known laws and discovered facts. Faith and conjecture are substitutes for ascertain ed resu lts f r o m tested causes. Ignorance and human limits are laid aside; desire and imagination take the field, and the region o f the unknown is exploited and mapped out according to the bias of each leader and his followers, who, not content with descrying a promised land for themselves, think it their bounden duty to try and make the whole world sail for the same harbour of refuge.

No doubt there is in the present constitution of man a natural disposition to envelop simple truths in the shady depths of feeble elucidations, from which they emerge deformed and obscured. The child looks with clear, unclouded eyes up to the starry heaven, down on the flower-gemmed earth, and says : “ God made it— God in heaven beyond the clouds and the universe remains a marvel and a mystery.. The child becomes a m an ; according to his mental and intellectual capacity, knowledge and research have widened, and still widen, the marvel o f the universe. Then the pride of intellect takes the childman by the hand, and mockingly leads him on step by step, his sense o f ultimate imperfection fades before his progress, until the drawn sword, as in the old parable guarding the tree o f life, stops his further way.

So the man ends where the child began, beholding a marvel and a mystery. “ God made all.” “ God?” “ Yes. First Cause, Nature, Law, Dynamic Sequence, Force, Jupiter, Je h o vah ” ; so the voices clamour. But who has ever stood upon the pinnacle where ultimate definition may be descried ? Who by searching has found anything but the mystery hidden from the infancy o f an imperfect race of beings ?

Now, the very fact o f the existence o f all these issues points to a universal reaching after something beyond sight and demonstration. The great teacher o f Agnosticism acknowledged the fact, but relegated it to its own sphere : “ No two people agree as to what is meant by the term ‘ religion’; but if it means, as I think it ought to mean, simply the love and reverence for the ethical ideal, and the desire to realize that ideal in life which every man ought to feel, then I say Agnosticism has no more to do with it than it has to do with music and painting.”

Professor Huxley’s own claim to being an [Agnostic is that, while he would gladly impart the facts he knows, he