But is this
hypothesis, which is essential to science, to be left in the position of
Mahomet's coffin? Is it not to be investigated? For if atheism is
irrational, agnosticism is not scientific--"it is precisely a refusal to
apply the scientific method itself beyond a certain point, and that a
point at which there is no reason in heaven or earth to stop."
To speak about an immanent purpose is very good sense; but to speak
about a purpose behind which there is no Will is nonsense.
People, he says, become so much occupied with the consideration of what
they know that they entirely forget "the perfectly astounding fact that
they know it." Also they overlook or slur the tremendous fact of
spiritual individuality; "because I am I, I am not anybody else." But
let the individual address to himself the question he puts to the
universe, let him investigate his own pressing sense of spiritual
individuality, just as he investigates any other natural phenomenon, and
he will find himself applying that principle of Purpose, and thinking of
himself in relation to the Creator's Will.
If there is Purpose in the universe there is Will; you cannot have
Purpose or intelligent direction, without Will. But, as we have seen,
"to speak about an immanent will is nonsense":
It is the purpose, the meaning and thought of God, that is immanent
not God Himself.
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