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But though professing agnosticism while they live, they turn, when the shadows of death's night come on, to the bosom of that faith which teaches that, whatever may have been one's earthly share of happiness, "'tis something better not to be."
Can it be denied that the burden of proof rests on those who assert immortality? The so-called ethical argument for immortality is associated with the name of Immanuel Kant. Kant's philosophy was agnostic, and it was this agnosticism which made his use of the ethical argument possible.
I looked upon it as a harmless delusion, and if it made one any better, society was so much the gainer. But to me it was as "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." But I cannot say that I was satisfied with my position. Man is a social as well as an emotional animal. Agnosticism is neither social nor emotional. It is cold-blooded and indifferent at its best.
Some fifteen years ago a discussion was carried on in the pages of one of our leading monthlies on the profoundly important question, "The Influence on Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief". Men of every shade of opinion, from Roman Catholicism to Agnosticism, contributed their views, and, as might well have been expected, they came to the most contradictory conclusions.
To say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that from certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must follow syllogistically a statement that would be more interesting were the said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world.
He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the clergy had acquiesced.
He had not the faintest idea of the pronunciation of the English language, but he wrote it currently and with some approach to elegance, and his knowledge of English letters put Paul to shame. With all his learning and his philosophic agnosticism, he was as simple-hearted as a child.
Self cultivation is, in his view, the sole sufficient object of human life, with due regard for others. The affections, the sympathies, and "the divine gift of Pity" are man's highest enjoyments. He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of "Facts, the idlest of superstitions." This is pure agnosticism.
After all, did any theory as ridiculously untrue as evolution ever masquerade as science, or ask to be accepted by thoughtful men? Has it as much to support it as the false sciences of alchemy and astrology? The brute origin of man, infidelity, agnosticism, modernism, atheism and bolshevism, are in harmony, and cooperate in robbing man of heaven and the hope of immortality.
He was determined to reduce her to his mind, but he was instinctively aware of the danger of refusing her absolution; to do so might fling her back upon agnosticism. He was contending with vast passions. An unexpected wave might carry her beyond his reach. The stakes were high; he was playing for her soul with Owen Asher.
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