was essentially pagan. The saving truths of theology were for
them as if they did not exist. The ideal of happiness was found in a
region in which heaven was ignored.

The time then seemed opportune for speaking out. Of the unorthodox books
and essays, [2] which influenced the young and alarmed believers, in
these exciting years, most were the works of men who may be most fairly
described by the comprehensive term agnostics--a name which had been
recently invented by Professor Huxley.

The agnostic holds that there are limits to human reason, and that
theology lies outside those limits. Within those limits lies the world
with which science (including psychology) deals. Science deals entirely
with phenomena, and has nothing to say to the nature of the ultimate
reality which may lie behind phenomena. There are four possible

[214] attitudes to this ultimate reality. There is the attitude of the
metaphysician and theologian, who are convinced not only that it exists
but that it can be at least partly known. There is the attitude of the
man who denies that it exists; but he must be also a metaphysician, for
its existence can only be disproved by metaphysical arguments. Then
there are those who assert that it exists but deny that we can know
anything about it. And finally there are those who say that we cannot
know whether it exists or not. These last are "agnostics" in the strict
sense of the term, men who profess not to know. The third class go
beyond phenomena in so far as they assert that there is an ultimate
though unknowable reality beneath phenomena. But agnostic is commonly
used in a wide sense so as to include the third as well as the fourth
class--those who assume an unknowable, as well as those who do not know
whether there is an unknowable or not. Comte and Spencer, for instance,
who believed in an unknowable, are counted as agnostics. The difference
between an agnostic and an atheist is that the atheist positively denies
the existence of a personal God, the agnostic does not believe in it.

The writer of this period who held agnosticism

[215] in its purest form, and who turned the dry light of reason on to
theological opinions with the most merciless logic, was Mr. Leslie
Stephen. His best-known essay, "An Agnostic's Apology" (Fortnightly
Review, 1876), raises the question, have the dogmas of orthodox
theologians any meaning? Do they offer, for this is what we want, an
intelligible reconciliation of the dis