THE NEW WINE
273
AGNOSTICISM
Ex Oriente Lux .
As old as the Vedas is the idea of
Agnosticism
, though in name it is not yet forty years
of age .
Everywhere we look we find the 'Ayvborq
Oeq
of Paul , midst the Greeks , the Egyptians , the Hebrews ,
the
Chaldeans , the Aryans , and the Chinese , and
its
light
is
focussed
in
the greatest
of
the great
:
Socrates
and
Plato
,
Malebranche
and
Descartes
,
Locke
and
Spinoza
,
Hume and Berkeley
,
Swedenborg
and Kant
,
Hegel
and
Comte
,
Tyndall
,
Spencer
,
and
Huxley
.
Declining
the mimetic
,
seeking the idiosyncratic
,
and
standing
by
the eclectic
,
it
has stood and grown
a
Colossus
of
Thought
,
ever young
,
ever virile
,
as
age
after age has gathered round
it,
and
as
the years have
swept
by
it
on
their path
to
oblivion
.
Between the theist and the atheist stands the agnos
tic
,
and
as
the most vital point
of
attack
is
that which
lies
nearest
to
the
object
to
be
attacked
,
the
great
danger
to
theistic churches was threatened not from
the
atheistical
extremity
,
but
from
the
Agnostic
frontier
.
The
Agnostic
said
,
“
I
do
not know
,"
the
theist
said
,
“
I
do,"
hence
the uninterrupted
warfare
of
3,000 years
or
more
,
in
which
the priest has ever
been ready
to
lie
for the greater glory
of
his God
,
as
S'afi well said
:
Then speak the truth
,
if
so
a
priest
May tune
his tongue
to
anything but lies
.'
And
of
the gods
of
this greater glory
,
Amenhatep
a
few
lines further on informs us
:
1
The Fatal Force
,
vol
.
i,
p
.
142
.
T