Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/55

18 ent characters — so many, in fact, that we need not necessarily suspect the metaphysical vastness of the change. On the other hand, if even a very slight cause, such as the inhaling of a little nitrous oxide or chloroform, chances to alter some essential process in the organisation upon which our specific sort of experience depends, then at once our whole immediate experience undergoes a vast change, and it is as if our world came to an end, and a new world began. Yet the metaphysically real alteration of the universe in such a case may be almost inappreciable.

Thus, then, our experience changes with the current states of our own organisations, rather than reveals the reality beyond; and this reality beyond, as it is in itself, remains unknowable. So far, the well-known and popular argument for agnosticism as to every form of absolute truth.

This first definition of the nature of our ignorance is a very familiar one in the present day. It is a definition that contains, but also, as I must add, conceals, a great deal of truth. I do not know how many times or in how many forms you may meet with it in current literature. You often seem to be meeting it everywhere. I regard it, however, as a statement of a truth in a form so confused as to be almost useless, without revision.

And first, let me ask, when one thus laments our