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And in many a discussion since he has firmly maintained that that is in a dim way an altar of the true and living God. Laotze, like Confucius, was agnostic; yet he could not wholly rid himself of the influence of the ancient faith.
The hopeful element in the universe has in modern times continually been denied and reasserted; but the hopeless element has never for a moment been denied. The greatest of purely modern poets summed up the really modern attitude in that fine Agnostic line "There may be Heaven; there must be Hell."
The stranger began to babble and made a prophecy concerning the child that lay in the arms of the agnostic. "I came here to quit drinking," he said, and tears began to run down his cheeks. He did not look at Tom Hard, but leaned forward and stared into the darkness as though seeing a vision. "I ran away to the country to be cured, but I am not cured. There is a reason."
He takes an agnostic position, confining his positive statement to an assertion of his own inability to realize the presence of any ghostly minister attendant upon himself. In the De Subtilitate he tells an experience of his own by way of suggesting that some of the demons spoken of by the retailers of marvels might be figments of the brain.
The word agnostic has ceased to be a polite word for atheist. It has become a real word for a very real state of mind, conscious of many possibilities beyond that of the atheist, and not excluding that of the polytheist. It is no longer a question of defining or denying a simple central power, but of balancing the brain in a bewilderment of new powers which seem to overlap and might even conflict.
The same facts may be put to very different uses: from the same facts very different conclusions may be drawn. The facts which the science of religion establishes may be used and are used for different and for contradictory purposes. The man who is agnostic or atheist uses them to support his atheism or agnosticism; or even, if he is so unwise, to prove it.
"You may well say so," returned Mrs. Godfrey sadly. "It was no light cross that Dinah had to bear. Even in her youth she was intensely religious. Religion was not a portion of her life, it was her life itself. To such a nature the idea of marrying an agnostic was practically impossible.
The agnostic no longer holds to what is behind him, nor knows what lies before, so he contents himself with feeling the ground beneath his feet. That, at least, though the heavens fall, is likely to remain; meanwhile, let the heavens take care of themselves.
Trinity is not hard to them; they could easily think they even knew what were the hangings of the Trinitys council-chamber. Yet the very expression, the Trinity, jars with the whole idea and character of Bible-religion; but, lest the Socinian should be unduly elated at hearing this, let us hasten to add that so too, and just as much, does the expression, a great Personal First Cause. He uses God as the least inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law, and the heart feels after as a benefit; and defines it as the stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the law of their being. He defined it further as a Power that makes for righteousness, and thus went considerably beyond the agnostic position.
An agnostic, always endeavoring to probe into the nature of things, the possession of a personal, living faith was yet the strongest desire of her heart; all her life she longed for the peace that religion affords, but this was denied her, although she had the spiritual assistance of the most famous of the clergy, attended church, had her oratory, her confessor, and faithfully studied the Bible; all was vain—belief would not come to her.
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