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IX - AGNOSTICISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2010

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Summary

Within the last few months the public has received much and varied information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at Manchester. It has been furnished with a set of “articles” fewer, but not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the thirty-nine; its nature has been analysed, and its future severely predicted by the most eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel is Auguste Comte. It may still be a question, however, whether the public is as much the wiser as might be expected, considering all the trouble that has been taken to enlighten it. Not only are the three accounts of the agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one another, but I propose to show cause for my belief that all three must be seriously questioned by any one who employs the term “agnostic” in the sense in which it was originally used. The learned Principal of King's College, who brought the topic of Agnosticism before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the business :—

But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this article of belief, that he has no means of a scientific knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies not in the fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he does not believe the authority on which they are stated. […]

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1892

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  • AGNOSTICISM
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Book: Essays upon some Controverted Questions
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511693113.011
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  • AGNOSTICISM
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Book: Essays upon some Controverted Questions
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511693113.011
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • AGNOSTICISM
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Book: Essays upon some Controverted Questions
  • Online publication: 29 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511693113.011
Available formats
×