The popular state of mind seems to be typified in the well-
known anecdote of the cautious churchwarden, who, whilst commending the
general tendency of his incumbent's sermon, felt bound to hazard a
protest upon one point. 'You see, sir,' as he apologetically explained,
'I think there be a God.' He thought it an error of taste or perhaps of
judgment, to hint a doubt as to the first article of the creed."
The influence exerted among the cultivated
[213] classes by the aesthetic movement (Ruskin, Morris, the Pre-
Raphaelite painters; then Pater's Lectures on the Renaissance, 1873) was
also a sign of the times. For the attitude of these critics, artists,
and poets was essentially pagan. The saving truths of theology were for
them as if they did not exist. The ideal of happiness was found in a
region in which heaven was ignored.
The time then seemed opportune for speaking out. Of the unorthodox books
and essays, [2] which influenced the young and alarmed believers, in
these exciting years, most were the works of men who may be most fairly
described by the comprehensive term agnostics--a name which had been
recently invented by Professor Huxley.
The agnostic holds that there are limits to human reason, and that
theology lies outside those limits. Within those limits lies the world
with which science (including psychology) deals. Science deals entirely
with phenomena, and has nothing to say to the nature of the ultimate
reality which may lie behind phenomena.
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