s is
necessarily implied in the companion doctrine of the Incarnation. So
that at best there is here but one difficulty, since, duality being
postulated in the doctrine of the Incarnation, there is no further
difficulty for pure agnosticism in the doctrine of plurality. Now at one
time it seemed to me impossible that any proposition, verbally
intelligible as such, could be more violently absurd than that of the
doctrine [of the Incarnation]. Now I see that this standpoint is wholly
irrational, due only to the blindness of reason itself promoted by
[purely] scientific habits of thought. 'But it is opposed to common
sense.' No doubt, utterly so; but so it _ought_ to be if true. Common
sense is merely a [rough] register of common experience; but the
Incarnation, if it ever took place, whatever else it may have been, at
all events cannot have been a common event. 'But it is derogatory to God
to become man.' How do you know? Besides, Christ was not an ordinary
man. Both negative criticism and the historical effects of His life
prove this; while, if we for a moment adopt the Christian point of view
for the sake of argument, the whole _raison d'etre_ of mankind is bound
up in Him. Lastly, there are considerations _per contra_, rendering an
incarnation antecedently probable[75]. On antecedent grounds there
_must_ be mysteries unintelligible to reason as to the nature of God,
&c., supposing a revelation to be made at all. Therefore their
occurrence in Christianity _is_ no proper objection to Christianity.
Why, again, stumble _a priori_ over the doctrine of the
Trinity--especially as man himself is a triune being, of body, mind
(i.e. reason), and spirit (i.e. moral, aesthetic, religious faculties)?
The unquestionable union of these no less unquestionably distinct orders
of being in man is known immediately as a fact of experience, but is as
unintelligible by any process of logic or reason as is the alleged
triunity of God.

_Adam, the Fall, the Origin of Evil_.

These, all taken together as Christian dogmas, are undoubtedly hard hit
by the scientific proof of evolution (but are the _only_ dogmas which
can fairly be said to be so), and, as constituting the logical basis of
the whole plan, they certainly do appear at first sight necessarily to
involve in their destruction that of the entire superstructure. But the
question is whether, after all, they have been destroyed for a pure
agnostic. In other words, whether my principles