His third paper, read January 11, 1876, was on the "Evidence of the Miracle of the Resurrection," in which he argued that there was no valid evidence of actual death having taken place. His rejection of the miraculous had led to an invitation from some of his opponents in the society to write a paper on a definite miracle, and explain his reasons for not accepting it. His choice of subject was due to two reasons: firstly, it was a cardinal instance; secondly, it was a miracle not worked by Christ Himself, and therefore a discussion of its genuineness could offer no suggestion of personal fraud, and hence would avoid inflicting gratuitous pain upon believers in it. This certainty that there exist many questions at present insoluble, upon which it is intellectually, and indeed morally wrong to assert that we have real knowledge, had long been with him, but, although he had earned abundant odium by openly resisting the claims of dogmatic authority, he had not been compelled to define his philosophical position until he entered the Metaphysical Society. How he came to enrich the English language with the name "Agnostic" is explained in his article "Agnosticism" ("Collected Essays" 5 pages 237-239). After describing how it came about that his mind] "steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant," [so well stated by the latter as follows:-- The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement (of knowledge), but as a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error:-- he proceeds:--] When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion...