Of the two kinds of agnosticism, the first hardly calls for further treatment, for it is plainly that which has been recently examined and found to be more scientific, or at least more professionally scientific, than fully and personally honest, and the second is [p.122] very nearly akin to positivism, but must be scrutinized closely, for it certainly leads beyond the usual bounds of positivism. The positivist in science, as has been indicated above, accepts only actual positive experience and accepts that only tentatively. The working hypothesis is thus the master of his mind. What he knows, however well established in his actual, positive consciousness, is at best only relative and mediative. But--and just here appears the defect of his position, or just here we see him still only the professional scientist--the mediation which absorbs his interest is merely one of formal knowledge; what he knows always leads him just to more knowledge; his formulated hypotheses as they are tested are but aids to new formulations: whereas, besides this mediation, there always is another at least equally significant, for knowledge under the very conditions of its rise and formulation must for ever be a means to something besides mere knowledge. Recognition of this other mediation, accordingly, is all-important to any final appraisal of the meaning of agnosticism, to an appraisal that is justified just through being superior to the special interests of formal and professional science. Is it not one of the functions of the various negatives in our human life really to save life from the narrowness of its various professional abstractions, and is not the attitude of agnosticism but one of these negations?