itation
is oppressive and ought to be repealed," I am afraid it would have
made no sort of difference to the result, when their two thousand
unwilling porters were once launched down the steep slopes of the
fatal shore of Gennesaret.

The question of the place of religion as an element of human
nature, as a force of human society, its origin, analysis,
and functions, has never been considered at all from an
agnostic point of view (p. 152).

I doubt not that Mr. Harrison knows vastly more about history than I
do; in fact, he tells the public that some of my friends and I have
had no opportunity of occupying ourselves with that subject. I do not
like to contradict any statement which Mr. Harrison makes on his own
authority; only, if I may be true to my agnostic principles, I humbly
ask how he has obtained assurance on this head. I do not profess to
know anything about the range of Mr. Harrison's studies; but as he has
thought it fitting to start the subject, I may venture to point out
that, on evidence adduced, it might be equally permissible to draw the
conclusion that Mr. Harrison's other labours have not allowed him to
acquire that acquaintance with the methods and results of physical
science, or with the history of philosophy, or of philological and
historical criticism, which is essential to any one who desires to
obtain a right understanding of agnosticism. Incompetence in
philosophy, and in all branches of science except mathematics, is the
well-known mental characteristic of the founder of positivism.
Faithfulness in disciples is an admirable quality in itself; the pity
is that it not unfrequently leads to the imitation of the weaknesses
as well as of the strength of the master. It is only such
over-faithfulness which can account for a "strong mind really
saturated with the historical sense" (p. 153) exhibiting the
extraordinary forgetfulness of the historical fact of the existence of
David Hume implied by the assertion that

it would be difficult to name a single known agnostic who
has given to history anything like the amount of thought and
study which he brings to a knowledge of the physical world
(p. 153).

Whoso calls to mind what I may venture to term the bright side of
Christianity--that ideal of manhood, with its strength and its
patience, its justice and its pity for human frailty, its helpfulness
to the extremity of self-sacrifice, its ethical purity and nobi