"Unknowable." No doubt it serves the turn of a
good many feeble sceptics. It sounds less offensive than "Atheism." An
Agnostic may safely be invited to dinner, while an Atheist would pocket
the spoons. But this pandering to "respectability" is neither in the
interest of truth nor in the interest of character. An Atheist is
without God; an Agnostic does not know anything about God, so he is
without God too. They come to the same thing in the end. An Agnostic is
simply an Atheist with a tall hat on. Atheism carries its own name at
the Hall of Science; when it occupies a fine house at Eastbourne,
and moves in good society, it calls itself Agnosticism. And then the
Churches say, "Ah, the true man of science shrinks from Atheism; he is
only an Agnostic; he stands reverently in the darkness, waiting for the
light."

Nor is this the only way in which Professor Huxley has helped "the
enemy." He is, for instance, far too fond of pressing the "possibility"
of miracles. We have no right, he says, to declare that miracles are
impossible; it is asserting more than we know, besides begging the
question at issue. Perfectly true. But Professor Huxley should remember
that he uses "possibility" in one sense and the theologians in another.
He uses it theoretically, and they use it practically. They use it where
it has a meaning, and he uses it where it has no meaning at all, except
in an _a priori_ way, like a pair of brackets with nothing between them.
When the Agnostic speaks of the "possibility" of miracles, he only means
that we cannot prove a universal negative.

Let us take an instance. Suppose some one asserts that a man can jump
over the moon. No one can demonstrate that the feat is impossible. It
is _possible_, in the sense that _anything_ is possible. But this is
theoretical logic. According to practical logic it is impossible, in the
sense that no rational man would take a ticket for the performance.

Why then does Professor Huxley press the "possibility" of miracles
against his Freethinking friends? He is not advancing a step beyond
David Hume. He is merely straining logical formulae in the interest of
the Black Army.

Now let us take another instance. In a recent letter to the _Times_,
with respect to the famous letter of the thirty-eight clergymen who
have given the Bible a fresh certificate, Professor Huxley is once more
careful to point out that science knows nothing of "the primal origin"
of the universe. But who ever