if it is once accepted, there must be an end of all that is called religion. This shows at all events a considerable agnosticism of the history of philosophy. When a poet of the Veda (VII. 86, 2), though fully believing in Varuna, utters his complaint that he does not know how to get near him or into him, what is that but the most simple and primitive expression for the modern phrase, How can we know the Unknowable? Modern Agnosticism has been defined as the profession of an incapacity to discover the indispensable conditions of either positive or negative knowledge 1. In that sense, Agnosticism simply represents the old Academic Toxý, the suspense of judgment, so strongly recommended by all philosophers 2, and so rarely observed by any one of them, not excluding the Agnostics. When the word is applied in a more special sense, namely as expressing man's inability to assert either the existence or the non-existence of God, there was the old Greek word Agnoia which would have avoided the ambiguity of the word Agnosticism. For Agnosticism seems at first sight merely the opposite of Gnosticism, and it has to be carefully explained that it has nothing to do with Gnosticism, in the usual sense of that word, not even as its negation. And even if we are told 1 Huxley, Hume, i. 60. 2 Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 1, 'De qua (religione) tam variae sunt doctissimorum sententiae, ut magno argumento esse debeat, caussam, id est principium philosophiae, esse inscientiam, prudenterque Academicos a rebus incertis assensionem cohibuisse. Quid est enim temeritate turpius? aut quid tam temerarium tamque indignum sapientis gravitate atque constantia, quam aut falsum sentire, aut, quod non satis explorate perceptum sit et cognitum, sine ulla dubitatione defendere?' that the name Agnostic was really derived, not from Gnosticism, but from ǎyvworos, the unknown God, whose altar at Athens is mentioned by St. Paul1, this would not make Agnosticism a better name, for Agnosticism is supposed neither to deny nor to assert the existence of a god, while a god who has an altar is a very real god, although he may be said to be unknowable by men. Plutarch, in his treatise on Superstition, calls what we mean by Agnosticism, Agnoia or Amathia, and he states that it generally branches off in two directions, leading either to atheism (åðeórŋs) or to superstition (δεισιδαιμονία) 2. Agnosticism, therefore, is at all events not a modern invention, and if we want an answer to it, we may find it in the words of one who has frequently been counted not only as an agnostic, but even as an atheist. This is what Goethe says: 'The brightest happiness of a thoughtful man is to have fathomed what is fathomable, and silently to adore the unfathomable.' Das schönste Glück des denkenden Menschen ist: 1 On Fimbul-ty, the unknown god among Celts, see Hibbert Lectures by John Rhys, p. 613. In the Babylonian psalms we constantly meet with expressions such as: To the god that is known and that is unknown; to the goddess that is known and that is unknown, do I lift up my prayer.' See Hibbert Lectures by Sayce, pp. 217,304, 349. In Egypt we meet with unnamed gods and goddesses and such invocations as 'Oh, all ye gods and goddesses who are unnamed, let a child remain in my place for ever and ever, keeping alive the name of my house.' Le Page Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 141. * Plut. De Superstitione, i. 1, Τῆς περὶ θεῶν ἀμαθίας καὶ ἀγνοίας εὐθὺς ἐξ ἀρχῆς δίχα ῥνείσης, τὸ μὲν, ὥσπερ ἐν χωρίοις σκληροῖς, τοῖς ἀντιτύποις ἤθεσι τὴν ἀθεύτητα, τὸ δὲ, ὥσπερ ἐν ὑγροῖς, τοῖς ἁπαλοῖς, τὴν δεισιδαιμονίαν ἐμπεποίηκεν. Q das Erforschliche erforscht zu haben und das Unerforschliche ruhig zu verehren.' Epicurean view of the Gods. Another phase of thought which seems equally modern, namely the theory that there may be gods or supernatural powers, but that nature, when once started, is governed by her own laws, and men left to their own fate, was one of the best discussed problems of the Epicureans both in Greece and in Rome. The verses which Cicero ascribes to Ennius are well known : 'I have always said and shall say that a race of heavenly gods exists, but I hold that they do not care what the human race may do; for if they did, it would go well with the good and bad with the bad-which is not so 1.' Chance and Purpose. Darwin. This Epicurean concept of deity is very prevalent at the present time among what may be called the right wing of the Darwinians. Darwin, as is well known, retained the idea of a Creator, but he did not claim for Him more than that He created a few original forms, which were left to self-development into other and needful forms. He saw in the actual world, not the realisation of an ever-present Divine Thought and Will, but the result of what he called Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest, and all the rest. Whether there is any difference be 1 Cic. De Div. ii. 50: Ego deûm genus esse semper dixi et dicam coelitum, Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat hominum genus; tween the old war of all against all and the survival of the fittest and strongest, or again, between chance and natural selection, depends on a definition of terms, and no term requires so careful a definition as natural selection,' unless, like the Duke of Argyll, we condemn it altogether as self-contradictory. For in ordinary parlance selection requires one who selects, and if nature can select, then we have certainly a right to ask whether we may spell this selecting or discriminating Nature with a capital N. But at all events the question between chance or purpose in the Universe has been argued before by men not inferior to ourselves, and the difficulties inherent in a belief in listless gods have been discussed so fully that the experience then gained should not be ignored in reopening that old question. Here also Goethe's words deserve at least as much attention as the saying of Epicurus or Lucretius. 'God,' he writes, 'did not rest after the six days of work; on the contrary, he continues to work as on the first day.' Atheism. That atheism also is not an invention of yesterday is generally admitted, though it seems hardly known at how early a date of the history of religion it comes in. In the Vedic hymns we can still watch the Aryan theogony, the very transition of natural phenomena into natural gods. But even there doubts spring up, and the ancient poets suddenly ask themselves whether after all there are such beings as the Devas. In a well-known hymn of the Rig-veda a poet expresses his doubts whether Indra, the chief god of the Vedic Indians, really exists. The same doubt as to the real existence of such gods as Indra, that had grown into impossible beings by the accumulation of all kinds of misunderstood legends about them, occurs again and again in Indian literature. But we must remember that to doubt or to deny the existence of Indra or of Jupiter is not Atheism, but should be distinguished by a separate name, namely Adevism. The early Christians were called a cot, because they did not believe as the Greeks believed nor as the Jews believed. Spinoza was called an atheist, because his concept of God was wider than that of Jehovah; the Reformers were called atheists, because they would not deify the mother of Christ nor worship the Saints. This is not Atheism in the true sense of the word, and if an historical study of religion had taught us that one lesson only, that those who do not believe in our God are not therefore to be called Atheists, it would have done some real good, and extinguished the fires of many an auto da fe. Intuitive knowledge of Gods. And if another school of modern philosophers, baffled in their search for unconditioned knowledge, takes refuge in intuition as the true foundation of religious knowledge, this idea too is foreshadowed in the Vedic hymns. In a hymn addressed to Varuna1, the poet begins with a confession that he has neglected the works of Varuna, that he has offended against his laws. He craves his pardon; he appeals in self-defence to the weakness of human nature; he deprecates death as the reward of sin. 1 Hibbert Lectures, p. 295. བ |