Show A WORD WITH PROF HUXLEY in the north american review the following excellent remarks appear concerning the sense of perception which every live and awakened person enjoys to some extent they are from the pen of lyman abbott the talented and learned editor of the christian union over against mr Hux leys agnostic ak principle that the soul can obtain certainty only by evidence which logically justifies that certainty I 1 desire to put the contrary and if the reader pleases the gnostic principle that there are propositions which men ought to believe without logically satisfying themselves this undoubtedly the gnostics agnostics believe and this gri belief I 1 FT frankly confess to b be e my rh personal r profound conviction the agnostic believes that all certainty enters the human mind through the logical faculty and that it is immoral to assume certainty for any truth not certified by evidence which logically justifies that certainty on the contrary avow that there are other doors than the logical faculty by which certainty enters the human mind that there are absolute convictions vict ions which are certified by evidence which the logical faculty is incompetent to certify it believes with pascal that the heart has reasons of its own which the reason knows nothing of it believes that the soul is furnished with a sixth sense a supersensible super sensible faculty sometimes called faith sometimes called imagination sometimes called Insl insight Fht which gives direct and immediate c cognizance ince of invisible and spiritual truths that neither the senses nor the logical faculty can perceive r ve it is this sixth sense in the he artist which sees the divine something which the mere mechanic or even the mere critic cin can not see which in the friend discerns beneath the features feature Fj of the pure and noble woman a beauty which the sculptors art can not imitate and 1 the sun can cannot not copy the gnostic g nostic sees a golden beauty in a field of daisies while the agnostic farmer sees only a weed that impairs the hay crop the gnostic hears in the strains of the organ or the orchestra a spiritual voice speaking the voice ot of beethoven schumann mannor or wagner while the agnostic agn closing all doors of the soul to truth except the door of logic hears only so many violins cellos flutes and brass instruments st or at best certain extraordinary chords and combinations to be scientifically studied and critically analyzed the gnostic does not at least he ought not to imitate the dogmatism of the agnostic by declaring that it is immoral to deny that we can be certain of the objective truth of propositions without logical logic al evidence to certify them he pities rather than condemns the man who is deficient in the faculty of spiritual vision he looks upon him as one who having eyes sees not and having ears hears not but he declares with great and growing of conviction that this philosophy which denies to man all faculty of discernment except the logical faculty and all certainty of truth except that which logic rati ratifies fles is narrow and unscientific and if not in itself immoral and if held as it certainly is by some men of pure and lofty ethical natures yet would if it were generally adopted dissolve the very foun foan lations of the moral life for there is no evidence which logically justifies the moral certainties on which modern M society is built if professor huxley were to attempt by a logical process to convince a south sea islander that cannibalism is wrong he would certainly be eaten up as soon as he had bad completed his demonstration his only hope would be to develop amoral faculty which would without the aid of logic or the there reen re en of evidence perceive the moral hatefulness of the practice when a convict is sent up to the elmira reformatory mr brockway the distinguished superintendent does not begin with a course of philosophy to render more acute the logi cal f faculty acuity of the agnostic before him who is not certain that it is wrong tu to steal because he has had no evidence which justifies that certainty he gives theman the man a bath and puts him in the workshops and under moral discipline he sets to work to develop in the convict a moral habit out of which will grow in in time a clear moral perception the man who relies on evidence to justify the certainty that robbery and murder are immoral is a very unsafe neighbor in fact it is doubtful whether there is any evidence which will suffice in a purely logical mind to produce that certainty why shall I 1 not lie because it will injure my neighbor 9 but there is nt always evidence which will justify Us the certainty that it will injure nai my neighbor Is it then uncertain whether it is wrong to lie in such cases no not according to mr huxley whose condemnation of lying in the interest of good morals I 1 heartily agree with but even supposing lying always did injure my neighbor why should I 1 not lie if it will benefit myself what evidence d ence is there which will justify the certainty either that lying will always be an injury tome to me or that there is any obligation on my part to abstain from it when it wil will be a benefit to me the evidence is in the soul itself in its own moira moral perception of the beauty of truth and the hatefulness hateful nesa of lying if any man has not a soul which perceives this beauty and its deformity the reme dy is not nex new evidence addressed to the logical faculty but a new soul or if this be thought too theological a phrase then such a course of instruction as will develop the now rudimentary faculty of conscience these spiritual certainties are no more dependent on the logical faculty than is the certainty taint of those material phenomena mch which gre are objects of physical sight and and they are no more logically der de to men who are color bill bil we take only a languid interest the critical as to the t thora thor hip ship of the four gospels W we V n ft in thema them a portrait of acha a character Q which transcends human limitation in it idaa tk 0 and that is enough we listen w wl abi absolute solute incredulity to the conek of the positivist post that the ee iss is hai freedom of the will we find at faith neither strengthened by phi arguments in support ort of off mortality nor weakened by ph arguments agall against t we realize in ourselves ours elvee nature superior to d decay mortality we do think we shall be immortal W know that we now are so we do 0 i accept god because he is logi lodica presented to us as the most Q ve lenient rilent hypothesis to account the creation we are sorry abr agnostic who does not see with eyes but we decline to acce accept t i limitations which are of ills his OH fashioning or to deny that what we know because he closed in his own soul the window wind which we have left open and jhb ehg out from himself the vision W lies open and patent and bladt and certain before us 4 |