objective evidence whether or how far the religious instincts of these men, or this race of men, have been so much superior to those of other men, or races of men, as to have enabled them to predict future events of a religious character.  And whether or not in these latter days God has spoken by His own Son is not a question for us, further than to investigate the higher class of religious phenomena which unquestionably have been present in the advent and person of Jesus.  The question whether Jesus was the Son of God, is, logically speaking, a question of ontology, which, qua pure agnostics, we are logically forbidden to touch.

But elsewhere I ought to show that, from my point of view as to the fundamental question being whether God has spoken at all through the religious instincts of mankind, it may very well be that Christ was not God, and yet that He gave the highest revelation of God.  If the ’first Man’ was allegorical, why not the ‘second’?  It is, indeed, an historical fact that the ‘second Man’ existed, but so likewise may the ‘first.’  And, as regards the ‘personal claims’ of Christ, all that He said is not incompatible with His having been Gabriel, and His Holy Ghost, Michael[38].  Or He may have been a man deceived as to His own personality, and yet the vehicle of highest inspiration.

Religion.

By the term ‘religion,’ I shall mean any theory of personal agency in the universe, belief in which is strong enough in any degree to influence conduct.  No term has been used more loosely of late years, or in a greater variety of meanings.  Of course anybody may use it in any sense he pleases, provided he defines exactly in what sense he does so.  The above seems to be most in accordance with traditional usage.

Agnosticism ‘pure’ and ’impure’.

The modern and highly convenient term ‘Agnosticism,’ is used in two very different senses.  By its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined to signify an attitude of reasoned ignorance touching everything that lies beyond the sphere of sense-perception—­a professed inability to found valid belief on any other basis.  It is in this its original sense—­and also, in my opinion, its only philosophically justifiable sense—­that I shall understand the term.  But the other, and perhaps more popular sense in which the word is now employed, is as the correlative of Mr. H. Spencer’s doctrine of the Unknowable.

This latter term is philosophically erroneous, implying important negative knowledge that if there be a God we know this much about Him—­that He cannot reveal Himself to man[39]. Pure agnosticism is as defined by Huxley.

Of all the many scientific men whom I have known, the most pure in his agnosticism—­not only in profession but in spirit and conduct—­was Darwin. (What he says in his autobiography about Christianity[40] shows no profundity of thought in the direction of philosophy or religion.  His mind was too purely inductive for this.  But, on this very account, it is the more remarkable that his rejection of Christianity was due, not to any a priori bias against the creed on grounds of reason as absurd, but solely on the ground of an apparent moral objection a posteriori[41].) Faraday and many other first-rate originators in science were like Darwin.