nce"
for "proving." The question of the exact meaning of the two words,
[Greek: hypostasis] and [Greek: elegchos] affords a fine field of
discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. But I fancy we shall
be not far from the mark if we take the writer to have had in his mind
the profound psychological truth, that men constantly feel certain
about things for which they strongly hope, but have no evidence, in
the legal or logical sense of the word; and he calls this feeling
"faith." I may have the most absolute faith that a friend has not
committed the crime of which he is accused. In the early days of
English history, if my friend could have obtained a few more
compurgators of a like robust faith, he would have been acquitted. At
the present day, if I tendered myself as a witness on that score, the
judge would tell me to stand down, and the youngest barrister would
smile at my simplicity. Miserable indeed is the man who has not such
faith in some of his fellow-men--only less miserable than the man who
allows himself to forget that such faith is not, strictly speaking,
evidence; and when his faith is disappointed, as will happen now and
again, turns Timon and blames the universe for his own blunders. And
so, if a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of all his hopes, the
mirror of his ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any, or all, of the
Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who shall or can forbid
him? But let him not delude himself with the notion that his faith is
evidence of the objective reality of that in which he trusts. Such
evidence is to be obtained only by the use of the methods of science,
as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts at present to
very little.

It appears that Mr. Gladstone some time ago asked Mr. Laing if he
could draw up a short summary of the negative creed; a body of
negative propositions, which have so far been adopted on the negative
side as to be what the Apostles' and other accepted creeds are on the
positive; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged Mr. Gladstone with the
desired articles--eight of them.

If any one had preferred this request to me, I should have replied
that, if he referred to agnostics, they have no creed; and, by the
nature of the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a
creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous
application of a single principle. That principle is of great
antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as