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More "Agnosticism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... N. irreligion^, indevotion^; godlessness, ungodliness &c adj.; laxity, quietism. skepticism, doubt; unbelief, disbelief; incredulity, incredulousness &c adj.^; want of faith, want of belief; pyrrhonism; bout &c 485; agnosticism. atheism; deism; hylotheism^; materialism; positivism; nihilism. infidelity, freethinking, antichristianity^, rationalism; neology. [person who is not religious] atheist, skeptic, unbeliever, deist, infidel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that mechanical analysis which Bacon had applied to nature, and Hobbes to the mind of man, there is no reason to think that he would have surrendered his own chosen hypothesis concerning them. He represents, in an age, the intellectual powers of which tend strongly to agnosticism, that class of minds to which the supernatural view of things is still credible. The non-mechanical theory of nature has had its grave adherents since: to the non-mechanical theory of man—that he is ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... first order of importance and solid interest, we chiefly depend on modern books, such as Payne, Knight, Inman, Davies, Forlong; and there is quite a small library on that branch which touches on theosophy and similar speculations—all having a common source in the grand principle of Agnosticism. Further information will be found collected on this and the topics which we notice below in Hazlitt's Popular ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... hopeful philosophy, which recognizes "some soul of goodness, in things evil"; * which sees in human nature, "potentiality of final deliverance from the evil in it, given only time enough for the work". In this age of professed and often, no doubt, affected, agnosticism and pessimism, Browning is the foremost apostle of Hope. He, more than any other great author of the age, whether philosopher, or poet, or divine, has been ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... their aid, and attain the idea of seven by two, two, two, plus one. We still know too little of these languages and of those who speak them. Of what takes place in animals we know absolutely nothing, and nowhere would a dose of agnosticism be more useful than here. Sense-impressions an animal certainly has; whether quite the same as man must remain uncertain. And sense-impressions enable an animal to accomplish much, especially in the realm of feeling; ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... to say indigestible, republicanism about just now in China and in Portugal, for example; just as there are materialism and agnosticism in Germany and in France, not due to super-intellectualism but to juvenile thinking. The Chinese are just as fit for a republic — an actual republic is still a long way off — as are callow German youths, and notoriety-loving French students, for freedom to ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... brilliantly to defend. He never breaks out into that cry beyond reason and conviction, that cry of Lamb when he cried, "We would indict our dreams!" or of Stevenson, "Shall we never shed blood?" In short he is not a humorist, but a great wit, almost as great as Voltaire. Humour is akin to agnosticism, which is only the negative side of mysticism. But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly, the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit—and a Calvinist. ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... little be bad as he could be good: he would be simply a being without a character. From an intellectual point such a way of looking at the Universe might be more intelligent or intelligible than that of pure Materialism or pure Agnosticism; but morally and religiously I don't know that, when its consequences are fully realized, it is any great improvement upon either of them.[1] {31} Moreover, even intellectually it fails to satisfy the demand ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... man has five senses, and no more, would that be wrong? Yet having myself only five senses, Icould not possibly prove that other men may not have a sixth sense, or at all events a disposition to develop it. But I am quite willing to carry my agnosticism, with regard to the inner life of animals, still further, and to say again what I wrote ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... life. There is none of the real 'love of God' found, for example, in the fervent as distinguished from the conventional Christian. And as ancestor-worship gradually loses its hold and dies out agnosticism ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... an echo. Where is the Environment to complete this rational soul? Men either find one—One—or spend the rest of their days in trying to shut their eyes. The alternatives of the intellectual life are Christianity or Agnosticism. The Agnostic is right when he trumpets his incompleteness. He who is not complete in Him must be forever incomplete. Still more grave becomes man's case when he begins further to explore his moral and social nature. The problems of the heart and conscience are infinitely ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... interesting to know whether any human heart, however stout and rebellious, when once it saw the cosmic process as struggle, has ever been able to think of the issue as uncertain. Certainly for Shelley there was never a doubt about the final triumph of good. Godwin qualified his agnosticism by supposing that there was a tendency in things (he would not call it spiritual, or endow it with mind) which somehow cooperates with us and assures the victory of life (see p. 184). One seems to ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... what is sometimes called "the religious instinct" in man, and that however coldly philosophers may reason, however sternly science may speak, there is in man some upwelling power which refuses to take the agnosticism of the intellect, as it refuses to accept the positivism of the senses; and with that every ruler of men has to deal, with that every statesman has to reckon. There is something in man which from time to time wells up with irresistible power, sweeping away every limit ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... point of closing the doors of its deserted temples because nations feel that its agnosticism in the economic field and its indifference in political and moral matters, causes, as it has already caused, the sure ruin of States. That is why all the political experiences of the contemporary world are anti-Liberal, and it is ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... a theory as to the effect of music upon the human heart,—a theory that will satisfy himself alone, to say nothing of the world in general,—he is welcome to his conclusion. To me it is a chaos wherethrough I cannot pretend to trace any thread of unity. I can only fall back upon this agnosticism: if any man argue to the effect, that music has a moral influence on life, I will hurl at his head some of the most brilliant rascals in domestic chronicle; and equally, if any man will deny that music has a ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... might do, the Judge of all the earth would do right. "It is impossible," said Emerson, whom he loved and admired, "for a man not to be always praying." The relations of such men with the unseen are an inseparable part of their daily lives. Froude had no more sympathy with the self-complacent "agnosticism" of modern thought than he had with Catholic authority or ecstatic revivalism. To fear God and to keep His commandments was with him the whole duty of man. The materialistic hypothesis he rejected as incredible, explaining nothing, meaning nothing, a presumptuous attempt ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... is one who, till the late 'seventies, was only a spectator, and, on the whole, from a distance, of what he is describing, who was indeed most of the time pursuing his own special aims—i.e., the hewing down of orthodoxy and tradition, together with the preaching of a frank and uncompromising agnosticism, in the Fortnightly Review; aims which were, of all others, most opposed to Mr. Gladstone's. But with the 'eighties everything changes. Mr. Morley becomes a great part of what he tells. During the intermediate stage—marked by his editorship of the Pall Mall Gazette—the tone of the biography ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accustomed at Oxford to keeping his own opinions to himself on such subjects. What chance of sympathy or response was there for such a man as he in that coldly critical and calmly deliberative learned society? Not, of course, that all Oxford was wholly given over even then to extreme agnosticism. There were High Churchmen, and Low Churchmen, and Broad Churchmen enough, to be sure: men learned in the Fathers, and the Canons, and the Acts of the General Councils; men ready to argue on the intermediate state, or on the three witnesses, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... prove that no Savior is necessary; that there is no guilt attaching to sin, that there is no absolute right and wrong. Hence, too, the doctrine of the agnostic, that we can ascribe no attribute to God. When we read the "Synthetic Philosophy" of Spencer, we are apt to belive [tr. note: sic] that the agnosticism there set forth is the result of deep philosophic speculation. Nothing further from the truth. Man, even cultured, philosophic man, wants no restrictions placed upon pride and selfishness; hence it is necessary to rid the mind of the fear of divine justice; hence we ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... rare harmony. Edgar had stayed to Communion—he wondered what it was like—with Mrs. Morel. So Paul came on alone with Miriam to his home. He was more or less under her spell again. As usual, they were discussing the sermon. He was setting now full sail towards Agnosticism, but such a religious Agnosticism that Miriam did not suffer so badly. They were at the Renan Vie de Jesus stage. Miriam was the threshing-floor on which he threshed out all his beliefs. While he trampled his ideas upon her soul, the truth ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... 'emancipated,' forsooth; a woman who has a betting-book instead of a Bible and plays cards all day Sunday. He tells me that she is wonderfully clever, and that it is all he can do to keep her from running about the kingdom delivering lectures on Agnosticism; as if one wanted one's wife to be a trapesing, atheistical Punch-and-Judy! And the fellow seemed actually pleased and flattered. He told me that she had 'an astonishing grasp of such subjects' and was 'attracting a great deal of attention.' And I told ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... he felt it his duty upon one occasion to avow his disbelief in it; but he was too wise a man to suggest any necessary antagonism between it and the Scriptures. He confined himself mainly to pointing out the tendency of the evolution doctrine in this form toward agnosticism and pantheism. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... fierce, passionate, sunny lands have taken all they had to bring. And have given in exchange? Indifference, ill-health, a profound realization that the length of days are as nothing at all; a supreme agnosticism as to the ultimate value of anything that a single man can do, a sublime faith that it must be done, the power to concentrate, patience illimitable; contempt for danger, disregard of death, the intention to live; a final, weary estimate of the fact that ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... hope not impertinently, the characters and tastes of the absentees; the sole clue that offered itself was a bookshelf of some Spanish versions from authors scientific and metaphysical to the verge of agnosticism. I would not swear to Huxley and Herbert Spencer among the English writers, but they were such as these, not in their entire bulk, but in extracts and special essays. I recall the slightly tilted row of the neat paper copies; and I wish I knew who ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... soul, it passed away in the atmosphere of Mr. Bentley's house. The process now taking place in him was the same complication of negative and positive currents he had felt in her presence before. He was surprised to find that his old antipathy to agnosticism held over, in her case; to discover, now, that he was by no means, as yet, in view of the existence of Horace Bentley, to go the full length of unbelief! On the other hand, he saw that she had divined much of what had happened to him, and he felt radiating ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... eager generation—surrounded by forces we dimly see but cannot as yet understand, discontented with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for the material results of the knowledge brought us by Science but looking askance at her agnosticism as regards the soul, fearful of superstition but still more fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of outgrown creeds but filled with desperate hunger for spiritual ideals—since all of us have the same anxieties, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... the work has been recognized as the precious life-blood of a master spirit. An adequate English translation would constitute to-day a most valuable vade mecum of devotional feeling and of religious inspiration. It would prove a strong moral tonic to hundreds of minds now sinking into agnosticism or materialism. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the old theology and the silent acceptance of new ideas by the church people of America, the rapid spread of infidelity and aggressive agnosticism, and the hold which Modern Spiritualism under various disguises now has upon the people, premise tremendous changes, and indicate a new era of spiritual thought—an era of better and sweeter life for ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... though Brent often paraded his agnosticism merely to draw forth the professor's scornful comments, he really had a humble and hopeless consciousness that if truth be visible to any human mind it was hidden from his. The possession of an ample fortune and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... fundamental datum, the basis of the modern restatement of religious belief. How will this conception help us to {16} such an end? The answer to that question may be given in the words of Dr. Horton, who says, "The intellectual background of our time is Agnosticism, and the reply which faith makes to Agnosticism is couched in terms of the immanence of God." [1] Dr. Horton's meaning will grow clearer to us if we once more glance at our imaginary diagram, letting the smaller figure a, the sphere of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... kneels only to "Natural Laws"; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law possible. We take our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while it lasts we wander far, far away in the seductive land of philosophical speculation, and revel in the freedom and irresponsibility of Agnosticism; and lo! when adversity smites, and bankruptcy is upon us, we toss the husks of the "Unknowable and Unthinkable" behind us, and flee as the Prodigal who knew his father, to that God whom (in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "character." These results were reached after much discussion, and by the way of compromise. The issues thus raised were brought forward again at St. Louis, in 1885, when Rev. J.T. Sunderland, the secretary and missionary of the conference, deplored the growing spirit of agnosticism and scepticism in the Unitarian churches of the west. His report caused a division of opinion in the conference; and in the controversy that ensued the conservatives were represented by The Unitarian, edited by Rev. Brooke Herford and Rev. J.T. Sunderland, and the radicals by Unity, edited by ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... I had said that man has five senses, and no more, would that be wrong? Yet having myself only five senses, Icould not possibly prove that other men may not have a sixth sense, or at all events a disposition to develop it. But I am quite willing to carry my agnosticism, with regard to the inner life of animals, still further, and to say again what I wrote ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... AGNOSTICISM. A school of thought which denies that we can know anything of God, or of a future state. It does not say that there is no God, but simply that it is impossible for us to know anything of God. It would do away with all revelation ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... not only my Protestant sympathies in the "Confessions" but a proud agnosticism, and an exalted individualism which in certain passages leads the reader to the sundered rocks about the cave of Zarathoustra. My book was written before I heard that splendid name, before Zarathoustra was written; and the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... any ideal never fails of at least one moment of consummate realisation and enjoyment. Such a moment was granted to Matthew Arnold when he wrote A Summer Night. Whether that rather vague life-philosophy of his, that erection of a melancholy agnosticism plus asceticism into a creed, was anything more than a not ungraceful or undignified will-worship of Pride, we need not here argue out. But we have seen how faithfully the note of it rings through the verse of these years. And here it rings not only faithfully, but almost ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... heart,—a theory that will satisfy himself alone, to say nothing of the world in general,—he is welcome to his conclusion. To me it is a chaos wherethrough I cannot pretend to trace any thread of unity. I can only fall back upon this agnosticism: if any man argue to the effect, that music has a moral influence on life, I will hurl at his head some of the most brilliant rascals in domestic chronicle; and equally, if any man will deny that music has a moral effect, I will barricade his path with some of the most beautiful lives that have ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical agnosticism,—the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found young men feebly playing ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
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