how that
the Agnostic's position, when he asserts his ignorance of the Spiritual
World, is only a pretence; the attempts to prove that he really knows a
great deal about it if he would only admit it, are quite misplaced. He
really does not know. The verdict that the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, that they are foolishness unto him, that
_neither can he_ know them, is final as a statement of scientific
truth--a statement on which the entire Agnostic literature is simply one
long commentary.

We are now in a better position to follow out the more practical
bearings of Biogenesis. There is an immense region surrounding
Regeneration, a dark and perplexing region where men would be thankful
for any light. It may well be that Biogenesis in its many ramifications
may yet reach down to some of the deeper mysteries of the Spiritual
Life. But meantime there is much to define even on the surface. And for
the present we shall content ourselves by turning its light upon one or
two points of current interest.

It must long ago have appeared how decisive is the answer of Science to
the practical question with which we set out as to the possibility of a
Spontaneous Development of Spiritual Life in the individual soul. The
inquiry into the Origin of Life is the fundamental question alike of
Biology and Christianity. We can afford to enlarge upon it, therefore,
even at the risk of repetition. When men are offering us a Christianity
without a living Spirit, and a personal religion without _conversion_,
no emphasis or reiteration can be extreme. Besides, the clearness as
well as the definiteness of the Testimony of Nature to any Spiritual
truth is of immense importance. Regeneration has not merely been an
outstanding difficulty, but an overwhelming obscurity. Even to earnest
minds the difficulty of grasping the truth at all has always proved
extreme. Philosophically one scarcely sees either the necessity or the
possibility of being born again. Why a virtuous man should not simply
grow better and better until in his own right he enter the Kingdom of
God is what thousands honestly and seriously fail to understand. Now
Philosophy cannot help us here. Her arguments are, if anything, against
us. But Science answers to the appeal at once. If it be simply pointed
out that this is the same absurdity as to ask why a stone should not
grow more and more living till it enters the Organic World, the point is
clear in an in