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NOTES AND SCRAPS.

WE respectfully direct the attention of our readers to the circular re the AGNOSTIC PRESS FUND enclosed in the present issue of our magazine. The work we have undertaken is a large and important one, and the extent of our labours will be materially determined by the response of our friends. We have reason to know that the AGNOSTIC is cordially approved by liberal thinkers, and we are confident that the projected literary campaign will not only considerably strengthen our movement, but will also give a marked impetus to the cause of mental and moral reform generally. We hope to be able to announce next month a large subscription list. No subscriber's name will be published without his

consent.

Mr. F. Sydney Morris delivered two discourses at South Place Institute last month, to increasingly large congregations. His treatment of his first discourse, "The Tyranny of the Dead," was very happy and exceedingly thoughtful. Mr. Morris is a powerful and effective speaker, and is deservedly popular, not only in York, his ministerial headquarters, but in every town where his varied abilities are known. Agnosticism has few more able and cultured advocates than Mr. Morris.

Instinctively we revolt from the suggestion of "hedging" in the matter of religious belief. A Transatlantic divine advised his hearers to indulge the hope of a future life upon the chance of its truth. If fallacious, they would never know it; their dreamless sleep would never be broken. And some seek to persuade us, in the same way, that, if we will only consent to dower the Unknowable with a set of anthropomorphic attributes, we may so closely approach the ideal of the Christian Deity as, perchance, to "inherit the promises," should these, after all, be fulfilled. We will not thus "lay to win," in any event; the slang phrase suits best the base idea. When we left our old faith, counting, as we did, its terrors to be vain, we that moment relinquished our claim and our right to its rewards.

It is objected that, in ultimate recess, no conclusion is warranted to the effect that the Unknowable exists in unity, either as underlying noumenon, primal cause, or "I am" of existence. Logically, we are informed, an infinity of causes, noumena, a legion of creative powers, are as reasonable as one absolute. Possibly. We do not dogmatise; let the number pass. Is it not remarkable, however, that a numerical hypothesis should thus be projected over the rim and verge of darkness by those who pretend great modesty in their approach to unknown

regions? Two and two, here and now, pass for, and are taken for granted to be, four; elsewhere the sum may be less or more. But have we any warrant for dividing or multiplying the Unconditioned, or for the imposition of plurality thereupon?

A veritable "turnip lantern," wherewith to frighten juveniles, is the term "unthinkable." It is employed to scare the young Agnostic from his reserve-conviction of the Unknowable. He is told that it is highly improper to speak-and, of course, much more so to think of the "unthinkable;" the consequences of such conduct might be very serious. Yet we, who are familiar with such verbal scares, are of the opinion that that which is, to us, unknowable may very possibly precede and survive our thinking of it, being utterly independent thereof. Non-existence and being unthinkable are two different things. We hear much of "thinks;" but what of "unthinks" (quite different from nothings)? What of that which no man hath seen, nor can see, nor, rightly, think of at all, even to deny ?

The remarkable and unqualified success which has attended Mr. Charles Watts's third tour in the United States and Canada must be peculiarly gratifying to advocates of a cultured and reverent Agnosticism. Since September last, when Mr. Watts arrived in America, he has been lecturing almost every night, to crowded and enthusiastic audiences, winning the respect if not the assent of the theological as well as the anti-theological public. There can be no doubt that Mr. Watts is conducting an eminently useful propaganda, and he has the heartiest well-wishes of his many English friends in his arduous and courageous work.

Pessimism is a sorry mistake, Optimism a venial error, Materialism a sin in every way unto death.

The following books and pamphlets have reached us for review or notice :

George Eliot's Life, as Related in her Letters and Journals. Arranged and edited by her Husband, J. W. Cross. Three volumes. (Blackwood & Sons.) Philosophy and Faith: A Plea for Agnostic Belief. By James M. Hodgson, D.Sc., B.D., M.A. (Manchester: Brook & Chrystal.)

Can the Old Faith Live with the New? or, The Problem of Evolution and Revelation. By the Rev. George Matheson, M.A., D.D. (Blackwood & Sons.) Intellectual Progress in Europe. By II. J. Hardwicke, M.D. (Sheffield: Published by the Author.)

Sympneumata, or Evolutionary Forces now Active in Man. Edited by Laurence Oliphant. (Blackwood & Sons.)

All communications to be addressed-EDITOR of AGNOSTIC, 34, Bouverie Street, E. C.

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A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF LIBERAL THOUGHT.

"The power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable."-HERBERT SPENCER.

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'Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.......Agnosticism says that we know nothing of what may be beyond phenomena."-PROF. HUXLEY. "I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind."-CHARLES DARWIN.

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"In a manner at once searching and succinct it proves the Bible to be little else than an effete old almanack, conceived in the earliest dawn of thought, when man glowered tremblingly at the spectra in his own brain, naming them heaven or hell, god or devil, as they produced pleasure or pain."-The Agnostic, Dallas.

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AGNOSTICISM v. DOGMATISM.

BY F. SYDNEY MORRIS.

"Thoughtful and stimulating lectures, intended and calculated to throw light upon many knotty points. Popular in style, aggressive, and will be considered by many audacious."-YORK HERALD.

London: H. CATTELL & Co., 34, Bouverie Street, E.C.

THE AGNOSTIC.

MAY, 1885.

THE OTHER SIDE OF AGNOSTICISM.

In some former papers* it was attempted to set forth the justification and the practical result of Agnosticism. It was then pointed out that Agnosticism is the relief, the necessary reserve, of secular duty and secular life, and that any separation of the two, as a division of the warp and woof of the life-web, ought not to be theoretically attempted, being in practice virtually impossible. Still, with this preface, it cannot, on the other hand, be denied that Secular work, by itself, when wholly innocent of any Agnostic complement, is (being practical Materialism) a very different thing from our view of it, as, for a moment, we try to isolate it and to examine what our life-work, as Agnostics, is apart from our Agnosticism. And it is, perhaps, allowable to indicate what our particular Secularism, pure and simple, is; although, step by step, as we proceed, difficulties will gather round the solitary definition.

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Work, daily life-work, by itself, is a gospel which cannot well afford to maintain, at its own charges, a preacher of righteousness. Even could it do so, the post in question would be well-nigh a sinecure. It is wasted effort continually to be upholding the dignity, the necessity, of daily toil as well might one prate of the dignity, the necessity, of breathing. For no other purpose could mankind have been born into a wholly material dwelling-place than to make the best use of, and, as it were, to be at home in it. All life-work, as a rule, makes towards that end, and the worker is content when his aim is accomplished. The fitting epitaph for one who thus materially believes is, "Life's task well done, now comes rest." Nothing could be simpler-nothing, in our view, more prosaic; and, that being the case, there is no need to say more in regard to it. It is only when recognising-for some reason or other, it matters not what-that there is more before us than the forge

* "The Confession of Agnosticism ” (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this Magazine).

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