The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 275 What God is in Himself the Agnostic declares is not given man to understand , much less to discuss , and this maxim finds full affirmation in “ Ascension Day, " when Crowley writes : I deny nothing —at the term It is just Nothing I affirm . Man is but an ephemeron : We float upon the blue Like sunlight specks in dew , And like the moonlight on the lake we lie .? Yet he rises : Golden , the electric spark of man is drawn Deep in the bosom of the world , to soar New - fledged , an eagle to the dazzling dawn With lidless eyes undazzled , to arise , Son of themorning , ... 3 finds Freedom as his God : And Freedom stands , re - risen from the rod , A goodlier godhead than the broken God ." It was in the winter of 1619 that Descartes made the famous resolution to “ take nothing for truth with out the clear knowledge that it is such ." Thus Jove like he discrowned the authority of a thousand years , and though the symbolization of his ideas was often at variance with the logic of his facts , it is to him alone that present - day agnosticism must look back on as its founder . Berkeley , as we have seen , carried the Cartesian principle to its logical result ; Hume , 1 The Sword of Song , vol . ii, p . 163 , ? Mysteries : Lyrical and Dramatic , vol . i, p . 95 . 3 The Fatal Force , vol . i, p . 145 . Mysteries : Lyrical and Dramatic , vol .i, p . 107 .