And, as regards the 'personal claims' of Christ, all that He said is not
incompatible with His having been Gabriel, and His Holy Ghost,
Michael[38]. Or He may have been a man deceived as to His own
personality, and yet the vehicle of highest inspiration.


_Religion._

By the term 'religion,' I shall mean any theory of personal agency in
the universe, belief in which is strong enough in any degree to
influence conduct. No term has been used more loosely of late years, or
in a greater variety of meanings. Of course anybody may use it in any
sense he pleases, provided he defines exactly in what sense he does so.
The above seems to be most in accordance with traditional usage.


_Agnosticism 'pure' and 'impure'._

The modern and highly convenient term 'Agnosticism,' is used in two very
different senses. By its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined to
signify an attitude of reasoned ignorance touching everything that lies
beyond the sphere of sense-perception--a professed inability to found
valid belief on any other basis. It is in this its original sense--and
also, in my opinion, its only philosophically justifiable sense--that I
shall understand the term. But the other, and perhaps more popular sense
in which the word is now employed, is as the correlative of Mr. H.
Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable.

This latter term is philosophically erroneous, implying important
negative knowledge that if there be a God we know this much about