than can be advanced in behalf of the assassination of Julius Cæsar, or the best-authenticated occurrences in ancient times. They show, secondly, that there is an accumulation and a combination of evidence in favor of the life and mission of Jesus Christ: in the prophecies uttered ages before; in the results that followed the propagation of the gospel; and, above all, in the fitness of Christ's work to remedy the acknowledged evils in the world, and in its adaptation to the felt wants, moral and spiritual, of man. It might be shown that the cumulated evidence in behalf of the Christian revelation is not unlike that brought to prove the uniformity of nature.
10. Professor Huxley has nothing original to advance on the subject of moral good. Neither of them holds the selfish theory of morals. Both hold that man has a native instinct which leads him to sympathize with his neighbor, and to be pleased at seeing him happy. So far both are right; but, on the very same ground on which it is shown that there is a disposition in our nature to promote the pleasure of others, it can be shown that there is a principle in our nature which leads us to approve of what is good and condemn what is evil.
We are now in a position to. discover and comprehend what agnosticism is, as expounded by its eminent living philosopher. Notwithstanding the meaning of the term, it is claimed by the whole school that there is knowledge gradually accumulating. According to our professor there are sensations, there are pleasures and pains, and among these are relations of coexistence, of succession, and similarity. By observing these we may form science, which is systematized knowledge. He who is master of the sciences is a learned man, and may be very proud or vain of his acquirements. Professor Huxley, as being acquainted with a number of the sciences, is undoubtedly possessed of much knowledge.
What, then, it may be asked, is defective or fault-worthy in the philosophy of agnostics? Its error lies in its avowed fundamental principle that we know only impressions, or, as Kant expresses it, appearances, and do not know things either mental or material. All that we know are impressions—impressions recalled and impressions correlated. The correlations constitute the various sciences.
There are savants who have a large acquaintance with these impressions and their correlations. But all the while they know nothing and never can know, or come nearer knowing, the things thus appearing and thus correlated as appearances—if, indeed, there are any things. It is not positively asserted that there are things, but it is certain, according to Kant, followed by Spencer, that there are, unknown and unknowable by man with his present faculties. It is curious to find the metaphysical Hume and the physical Huxley at one on this point.
In one sense Huxley is entitled to deny that he is a materialist. He believes as little in the existence of matter as he does of mind.
