cords in the universe? It is shown
in detail that the various theological explanations of the dealings of
God with man, when logically pressed, issue in a confession of
ignorance. And what is this but agnosticism? You may call your doubt a
mystery, but mystery is only the theological phrase for agnosticism.
"Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate
problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in
pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and
ignorant? We are a company of ignorant beings, dimly discerning light
enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt
to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one
of us ventures to declare that we don't know the map of the Universe as
well as the map of our infinitesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled,

[216] and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his
faithlessness." The characteristic of Leslie Stephen's essays is that
they are less directed to showing that orthodox theology is untrue as
that there is no reality about it, and that its solutions of
difficulties are sham solutions. If it solved any part of the mystery,
it would be welcome, but it does not, it only adds new difficulties. It
is "a mere edifice of moonshine." The writer makes no attempt to prove
by logic that ultimate reality lies outside the limits of human reason.
He bases this conclusion on the fact that all philosophers hopelessly
contradict one another; if the subject-matter of philosophy were, like
physical science, within the reach of the intelligence, some agreement
must have been reached.

The Broad Church movement, the attempts to liberalize Christianity, to
pour its old wine into new bottles, to make it unsectarian and
undogmatic, to find compromises between theology and science, found no
favour in Leslie Stephen's eyes, and he criticized all this with a
certain contempt. There was a controversy about the efficacy of prayer.
Is it reasonable, for instance, to pray for rain? Here science and
theology were at issue on a practical

[217] point which comes within the domain of science. Some theologians
adopted the compromise that to pray against an eclipse would be foolish,
but to pray for rain might be sensible. "One phenomenon," Stephen wrote,
"is just as much the result of fixed causes as the other; but it is
easier for the imagination to suppose the interference of