HUXLEY AND AGNOSTICISM.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
After all, the Agnostic and the Positivist have the same end in view—both believe in living for this world.
The theologians, finding themselves unable to answer the arguments that have been urged, resort to the old subterfuge—to the old cry that Agnosticism takes something of value from the life of man. Does the Agnostic take any consolation from the world? Does he blot out, or dim, one star in the heaven of hope? Can there be anything more consoling than to feel, to know, that Jehovah is not God—that the message of the Old Testament is not from the infinite?
Is it not enough to fill the brain with a happiness unspeakable to know that the words, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," will never be spoken to one of the children of men?
Is it a small thing to lift from the shoulders of industry the burdens of superstition? Is it a little thing to drive the monster of fear from the hearts of men?—North American Review, April, 1889.