Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-03-09
THE AGNOsTIC's CREED.
What Professor Huxley Believes Ac-
cordlng to His Own Statements.

evan8encM ortnoooxy; and when ! was oio
enough to think for myself started upon my
journey Of inquiry with little doubt about the
general truth Of what had been taught; and
with that feeling Of the unpleasantness Of be-
ing called an ''infder which, we are told. ID 90
right and proper. Near my journeys end I
find myself in a condition Of something more
than mere doubt about these matters. Looking
back nearly fifty years. I see myself as boy
whose education had been interrupted, and
who Intellectually, was left for some years alto
gether to his own chances. Atthat time was at
voracious and omnivorous reader; dreamer
and Spectator OF the first water, we'll endowed
with that splendid courage in attacking any and
every subject which is the blessed compensa-
ton of youth and inexperience.
BOOKS THAT INFLUENCED ME.
Among the books and essays on all sorts of
topics, from metaphysics to heraldry, which
read at this time, two left indelible impress
sions on my mind. One was Guizots History
OF Civilization" the other was Sir VIM. Hamil-
toms essay ION the Philosophy Of the Uncon-
ditioned," which came upon by chance, in an
odd volume of the Edinburgh Review. The
latter was certainly strange reading for q boy,
and l could not possibly have understood Q
great deal Of it; nevertheless, I devoured il
with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind the
strong conviction that on even the most solemn
cunning phrases FOR answers; and that the lin
ltation OF our faculties. in q great number of
cases, renders real answers to such questions,
not merely actually impossible, but theoreti-
cally uncomfortable.
HOW MY MIND GREW.
Philosophy and history having laid hold of
me in this eccentric fashion, have never
loosened their grip. have no pretention to
be an expert in either subject; but the turn for
nh cnr,hi co1 aud htaxo al
rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to
me. has not only filed many lawful leisure
hours, and still more sleepless ones. with re-
pose OF changed mental occupation, but has not
unfrequently disputed my proper work-time
with my liege lady. Natural Science. In this
way have found it possible to cover a good
deal of ground in the territory Of philosophy.
The reader will now see why my mind steadily
gravitated toward the conclusions of Hume and
Kant.
THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM AaNosTIo.
When reached intellectual maturity and be-
gan to ask myself whether was an ATHEIST, q
theist or pantheist, a materialist or an ideal
list, christian or free thinker, found that
the more learned and reflected the less ready
was the answer; until at last l came to the
| conclusion that had neither art nor part with
any OF these denominations, except the last.
The one thing in which most of these good peo-
pie were agreed was the one thing in which
had attained a certain "gnosis" more or
| less successfully, solved the problem Of exist
ence; while / was quite sure I had not and
| had pretty strong conviction that the
problem was insoluble. This was my situation
when had the good fortune to find place
| among the members of the Metaphysical
| society. Most of nv colleagues were lists of
| one sort or another. I, who was q man with
out rag of label to cover myself with. felt
like the fox who had lost his tail. So took
4 hos IL
| the appropriate title of agnostic. 1t came into
| my head as suggestively antithetic to the
gnostic Of church history, who professed to
| know so much about the very things of which
| l was ignorant, and I took the earliest
opportunity of parading it at our society, to
| show that I, too had tail like the other foxes.
To my great satisfaction the term took.
THE AaNosTIo's RULE OF LIFE
Agnosticism is not a creed, but method, the
essence of which lies in the rigorous applica-
ton of a single principle. The principle is of
great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old
| as the writer who said, TRY all things, hold
fast by that which is good;'' it is the founda-
| ton of the reformation, which simply Illus
trated the axiom that every man should be able
to give a reason for the faith that is in him; il
is the great principle of DESCRIBES; it is the
fundamental axiom of modern science Posi-
lively, the principle may be expressed: In
matters of the intellect follow your reason az
| far as it will take you without regard to any
other consideration. And negatively, in
matters of the intellect, do not pre-
tend that conclusions are certain
which are not demonstrated or demonstra-
BILE. That 1 take to be the agnostic faith, which
| If man keep whole and indebted, he shall not
| be ashamed to look the universe in the face,
whatever the future may have in store for him.
mind always open to conviction. If you were
| to hnd an agnostic who never failed in carrying
out his principles, and to tell him that you had
| discovered that two and two make five, he
would patiently ask you to state your reasons
for that conviction. and express his readiness to
agree with you if he found them satisfactory.
The apostolic injunction to 'suffer fools gladly"
| should be the rule of life of a true agnostic. I
am deeply conscious how far myself fall short
| OF this ideal, but it is my personal conception
| OF what agnostics ought to be.
| WHAT THINK OF MAN.
! know no study which is so unutterably
saddening as that of the evolution of humanity,
as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out
| of the darkness of prehistoric ages man energies
with the marks Of his lowly origin strong upon
him. He is brute, only more intelligent than
| the other brutes blind prey to Impulses
which as often as not lead him to destruction; a
victim to endless illusions, which make his
| his physical life with barren toll and battle
He attains certain degree of physical COM
| fort, and develops a more or less workable
| theory OF life in such favorable situations as
| the plains of Mesopotamia and of Egypt,
and then for thousands and thousands
| of years struggles with varying fortune, at
| tended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed and
| misery, to maintain himself at this point
against the greed and ambition of his fellow
| men. He makes point Of killing and other
wise prosecuting all those who first try to get
| him to move on and when he has moved on a
step foolishly confers post-mortem dedication
on his victims. He exactly repeats the process
with all who want to move a step vet further;
and the best men OF the best epochs are sim
ply those who make the fewest blunders and
| commit the fewest sins.
| WHAT THINK OF CHRIST.
In the course Of other inquiries, have had
to do with fossil remains which looked quite
plain at distance, and became more and more
indistinct as I tried to define their outline by
close inspection. There was something there
something which, if l could win assurance
about it might mark new epoch in the history
of the earth; but, study as long as might, GER
tainiy eluded my grasp So has it been with
me in my efforts to define the grand figure of
Jesus as 1t lies in the primary strata of
Christian literature. Is He the kindly,
peaceful Christ depicted in the Catacombs5
Or, is He the stern judge who frowns above the
| altar OF SIS. Cosmas and Damianus? Or can
He be rightly represented in the bleeding as
cetic, broken down by physical pain, Of too
many medieval pictures9 Are we to accept
the Jesus of the second or the Jesus of the
fourth gospel, as the true Jesus? What did
Iyo llxyo DO. l. u