It is generally assumed that when a man has clearly perceived
agnosticism to be the only legitimate attitude of reason to rest in with
regard to religion (as I will subsequently show that it is), he has
thereby finished with the matter; he can go no further. The main object
of this treatise is to show that such is by no means the case. He has
then only begun his enquiry into the grounds and justification of
religious belief. For reason is not the only attribute of man, nor is it
the only faculty which he habitually employs for the ascertainment of
truth. Moral and spiritual faculties are of no less importance in their
respective spheres even of everyday life; faith, trust, taste, &c., are
as needful in ascertaining truth as to character, beauty, &c., as is
reason. Indeed we may take it that reason is concerned in ascertaining
truth only where _causation_ is concerned; the appropriate organs for
its ascertainment where anything else is concerned belong to the moral
and spiritual region.
As Herbert Spencer says, 'men of science may be divided into two
classes, of which the one, well exemplified by Faraday, keeping their
religion and their science absolutely separate, are unperplexed by any
incongruities between them, and the other of which, occupying themselves
exclusively with the facts of science, never ask what implications they
have. Be it trilobite or be it double star, their thought about it is
much like the thought of Peter Bell about the primrose[44].' Now, both
these classes are logical, since both, as to their religion, adopt an
attitude of pure agnosticism, not only in theory, but also in practice.
What, however, have we to say of the third class, which Spencer does
not mention, although it is, I think, the largest, viz. of those
scientific men who expressly abstain from drawing a line of division
between science and religion [and then judge of religion purely on the
principles and by the method of science[45]]?
There are two opposite casts of mind--the mechanical (scientific, &c.)
and the spiritual (artistic, religious, &c.). These may alternate even
in the same individual. An 'agnostic' has no hesitation--even though he
himself keenly experience the latter--that the former only is worthy of
trust. But a _pure_ agnostic must know better, as he will perceive that
there is nothing to choose between the two in point of trustworthiness.
Indeed, if choice has to be made the mystic might claim higher authority
for his direct intuitions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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