having been chosen, a thick bed of brushwood and branches was floated over it. On this a circular raft of trunks of trees was formed, and upon it additional layers of logs and brushwood, together with stones and gravel were heaped till the whole mass grounded. As this process went on, upright piles of oak of the requisite length were inserted into holes prepared in the horizontal logs, which were here and there pinned together with stout oaken pegs. Here and there, too, and at various levels oak beams were laid right across the raft, mortised into each other, and secured to the surrounding piles. When sufficiently above the water-line, the top of the island was covered with a pavement of oak beams, and mortised beams were laid over the tops of the encircling piles. By an elaborate arrangement of beams and stones, the sides of the island were made to slope, so as to give greater breadth at the base than at the top. Around the surface of the island a rough breastwork was then constructed, and within or attached to this the hut or huts were raised. Frequently a submerged gangway was laid from the crannog to the nearest shore, by means of which secret access could be obtained to the island without the use of a canoe; and the whole was finished by the erection of one or more lines of enclosing palisades.* Bearing in mind,' says Dr. Munro, that all these structures were solidly put together without nails or bolts, and that the gangways which have remained permanently fixed to the present time had neither joint nor mortise, we may fearlessly challenge modern science to produce better results under these or indeed any circumstances.'

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That these singular and indeed remarkable constructions were used as permanent and not as occasional dwellings, we do not doubt. The opinion has been advanced that they were used mainly as summer retreats and as places of occasional refuge, on the ground chiefly that, where a crannog is found, a fort is usually found on some neighbouring hill-top. We cannot now enter upon a discussion of this opinion, but it seems to us wholly untenable. The probability is that in the fort and in the crannog we have the dwellings and strongholds

A. S. Lake-Dwellings, pp. 262-3.

of two distinct races: in the fort of the Celts, and in the cranThat the nog of the neolithic tribes who preceded them. Celts used the crannogs, there can probably be no doubt; nor can there be that the crannogs have had many occupants. That of Lochlee seems to have been abandoned and re-occupied no fewer than three times, with considerable periods intervening. The fact that the lowermost of the hearths was found some three feet below the surface of the log-pavement would seem to point to the subsidence or submergence of the structure, and to its subsequent discovery and re-occupation ; while the discovery of stone, bronze, and iron implements in all the crannogs points to the fact that they were the dwellingplaces of many generations, the history of perhaps the greater number of which has still to be written.

THERE

ART. V.-AGNOSTICISM.

HERE have been two extreme opinions in the history of Christendom regarding the limits of human knowledgeGnosticism and Agnosticism. The former is the scientific creed of the second Christian century; the latter is the scientific tendency of the nineteenth. The Gnostics are the men who know; the Agnostics are the men who do not know. Gnosticism says: Man has or may have a faculty by which he can know the Infinite; he has only to shut his eyes upon the outer world, and to entrance himself in a reverie of mystic contemplation, and there will enter into his soul experiences beyond human experience-thoughts which transcend all earthly ideas-the waves of a life which never flowed from the rivers of time. Agnosticism says: Man has no faculty for the knowledge of the Infinite. Not only is he unable to know the Infinite, he is incapable of knowing any finite thing outside the range of experience. All his ideas have entered through the five gates of the senses, and he can have no conception of any idea which claims to have

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entered by another gate. All his efforts to escape from himself are vain; all his vaunted success in these efforts is but delusion. The vision of God which he sees is but his own shadow; the sight of heaven which he beholds is but his own dream. His moments of ecstacy, his flights of rapture, his seasons of high communion with things not seen and eternal, his experience of a peace that passeth understanding and of a love that passeth knowledge, are each and all but different reflections of his own countenance. The mirror of his fancy can reflect nothing but the face of him who holds it, for all his knowledge has been given by the world, and therefore no part of his knowledge can possibly transcend the world; his religion can never be verified.

Each of these views has in its day been regarded as a heresy. In the second century the heretics were the men who professed to know; in the nineteenth century the heretics are the men who profess not to know. The second century was an age of faith, and therefore it was a heresy to claim sight; the nineteenth century is an age of reason, and therefore it is a heresy to declare that one does not see. It is not, however, from the theological standpoint, much less from the standpoint of an odium theologicum, that we wish to discuss this question; we desire to look at it in its purely scientific aspect. We would like to exclude from our examination all reference to possible consequences. We have nothing to do with consequences in the investigation of truth. Consequences belong to the sphere of morality, and in that sphere they fall to be considered, but they have no place whatever in a search for knowledge. He who inquires as to the solution of a natural problem must inquire with humble mind; in that lies his only safety, his only chance of success. If he would learn of nature, he must sit at the feet of nature without condition. He must dismiss from his mind all preconceived opinions not derived from nature herself. He must abandon, for the time at least, all theological prejudice. He must refuse to ask, What will happen if this be so? he must simply ask, What is the fact? He must be animated by no bias either favourable or adverse. He must reserve his judgment until nature has stated her cause. Such is the spirit in which we intend to conduct this inquiry. It is a problem of human nature; therefore to human nature shall

we go. It is a question addressed to experience; therefore to experience shall we appeal. It is a dispute concerning the limits of the field of Man; we can only decide the cause by examining the boundaries of the field.

What, then, is the question between Gnosticism and Agnosticism? Put into the shortest compass, it may be expressed thus: Gnosticism says, We have a faculty which transcends the natural reason, and therefore we have a knowledge of the supernatural; Agnosticism says, We have no faculty which transcends the natural reason, and therefore we have no knowledge of the supernatural; we have only a sense of mystery-a consciousness that we do not know. Now, we would call attention to the fact that these two schools of thought, widely diverse as they are in their modes of thinking, are yet in their fundamental position at one. They both take it for granted that there can be no knowledge of the supernatural if there be no faculty which transcends the natural reason. Gnosticism allows to man a vision of things above the world, because it finds in man an organ of perception which looks beyond the limits of earthly experience. Agnosticism denies to man a vision of things beyond the world, just because it cannot find in him any organ of perception which has ever perceived things beyond the range of earthly experience. On whatever points they differ, these two are agreed on this one thingthat our knowledge of anything beyond the order of nature must depend on our possession of a faculty which transcends the order of nature. So little doubt has either of them as to the truth of this position, that each of them treats it as an axiom.

If it be so, we should, for our part, have no doubt whatever as to what view were the more scientific-should have no hesitation whatever in giving our adhesion to the doctrine of Agnosticism; for we believe that a supernatural revelation, communicated to human nature through a wholly supernatural channel, is the nearest approach which human language can furnish to a direct contradiction in terms. But is it so? Is this position, which by the Gnostic and the Agnostic alike is assumed as an axiom, able to be verified in experience? Is it the case that our knowledge of an existence transcending the present order of nature must depend upon our possession of a faculty transcending the limits of

time? What if it should be found that the limits of time are themselves the source of our knowledge of the supernatural? What if it should be seen that the natural reason which the Gnostic seeks to suppress by a mystical reason is itself the root of all the mysticism and all the supernaturalism which exist in the heart of man? What, in short, if Agnosticism itself, and unconsciously to itself, should be proved to have been all along that wellspring from which has flowed the faith of man? It is a strange paradox, but truth often lies in a paradox. In any case, there is here presented to us an alternative differing essentially from either Gnosticism or Agnosticism-an alternative which in some sense touches the boundaries of both, but which in no way is capable of being incorporated with either. With Gnosticism it claims a knowledge of something higher than the seen and temporal; with Agnosticism it professes to seek no faculties but those which nature has given. It asks from nature herself an explanation and a vindication of man's supernatural knowledge. Let us try whether nature can answer this demand.

And let us begin by taking our stand on common ground-on ground which Gnostic and Agnostic will alike accept. The man who calls himself an Agnostic admits as freely as his opponent that, when he inquires by the light of nature into the origin of this universe, he experiences a sense of mystery. Here then is a starting-point which may eventually lead to an important goal. Before we go a step further, we must ask, What is this sense of mystery? The Agnostic will at once answer, It is the consciousness that we do not know. Doubtless it is this; but is it nothing more? Is the sense of mystery simply identical with the feeling of ignorance? Ask a man how the phenomenon of life began, he will answer, I do not know; ask him if any rain will fall tomorrow, he will answer again, I do not know. Here are in the same individual two cases of ignorance, but who does not see that they are altogether unlike? There is something in the one which is not found in the other, and that something is the sense of mystery. The ignorance of the fact in to-morrow's weather is a pure and simple negation, but it is not accompanied by any sense of mystery; we accept complacently the connection that we do not know. The ignorance of the origin of life is a very different