Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential part
of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it declares
to be certified by Jesus.

Agnosticism (_me judice_) says: There is no good evidence of the
existence of a demoniac spiritual world, and much reason for doubting
it.

Here upon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means that you
disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an
"Agnostic." To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons: first,
because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is worth very
little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in the sense of
admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider that he has
more or less probable ground for accepting any given hypothesis about
the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly declare that he has no
means of knowing whether the planets generally are inhabited or not, and
yet may think one of the two possible hypotheses more likely than the
other, so he may admit he has no means of knowing anything about the
spiritual world, and yet may think one or other of the current views on
the subject, to some extent, probable.

The second answer is so obviously valid that it needs no discussion. I
draw attention to it simply in justice to those agnostics who may attach
greater value than I do to any sort of pneumatological speculations; and
not because I wish to escape the responsibility of declaring that,
whether Jesus sanctioned the demonological part of Christianity or not,
I unhesitatingly reject it. The first answer, on the other hand, opens
up the whole question of the claim of the biblical and other sources,
from which hypotheses concerning the spiritual world are derived, to be
regarded as unimpeachable historical evidence as to matters of fact.

Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives, I was
anxious to get rid of the common assumption that the determination of
the authorship and of the dates of these works is a matter of
fundamental importance. That assumption is based upon the notion that
what contemporary witnesses say must be true, or, at least, has always a
_prima facie_ claim to be so regarded; so that if the writers of any of
the Gospels were contemporaries of the events (and still more if they
were in the position of eye-witnesses) the miracles they narrate must be
historically true, and, consequently, the demonology which they in