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.
As an illustration of impure agnosticism take Hume's a priori argument against miracles, leading on to the analogous case of the attitude of scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Notwithstanding that they have the close analogy of mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, scientific men as a class are here quite as dogmatic as the straightest sect of theologians. I may give examples which can cause no offence, inasmuch as the men in question have themselves made the facts public, viz. —— refusing to go to [42]. These men all professed to be agnostics at the very time when thus so egregiously violating their philosophy by their conduct.
Of course I do not mean to say that, even to a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in part by antecedent presumption—e.g. in ordinary life, the prima facie case, motive, &c., counts for evidence in a court of law—and where there is a strong antecedent improbability a proportionately greater weight of evidence a posteriori is needed to counterbalance it: so that, e.g. better evidence would be needed to convict the Archbishop of Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket-picking. And so it is with speculative philosophy. But in both cases our only guide is known analogy; therefore, the further we are removed from possible experience—i.e. the more remote from experience the sphere contemplated—the less value attaches to antecedent presumptions[43]. Maximum remoteness from possible experience is reached in the sphere of the final mystery of things with which religion has to do; so that here all presumption has faded away into a vanishing point, and pure agnosticism is our only rational attitude. In other words, here we should all alike be pure agnostics as far as reason is concerned; and, if any of us are to attain to any information, it can only be by means of some super-added faculty of our minds. The questions as to whether there are any such super-added faculties; if so, whether they ever appear to have been acted upon from without; if they have, in what manner they have; what is their report; how far they are trustworthy in that report, and so on—these are the questions with which this treatise is to be mainly concerned.
My own attitude may be here stated. I do not claim any [religious] certainty of an intuitive kind myself; but am nevertheless able to investigate the abstract logic of the matter. And, although this may seem but barren dialectic, it may, I hope, be of practical service if it secures a fair hearing to the reports given by the vast majority of mankind who unquestionably believe them to emanate from some such super-added faculties—numerous and diverse though their religions be. Besides, in my youth I published an essay (the Candid Examination) which excited a good deal of interest at the time, and has been long out of print. In that treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I constituted the basal argument for my negative conclusion. Therefore I now feel it obligatory on me to publish the following results of my maturer thought, from the same stand-point of pure reason. Even though I have obtained no further light from the side of intuition, I have from that of intellect. So that, if there be in truth any such intuition, I occupy with regard to the organ of it the same position as that of the blind lecturer on optics. But on this very account I cannot be accused of partiality towards it.