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1909 · PDF PAGE 14

The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

…alogy, am I not often found talking as if we knew all about Evolution, and Mathematics, and His- tory? Complex and unscientific studies, mere straws before the blast of our hunchback friend! Well, one of the buttresses is just the small matter of common sense. The other day I was with Dorothy, and, as I foolishly imagined, very cosy: for her sandwiches are celebrated. It was surely bad taste on the part of Father Bernard Vaughan, and Dr. Torrey, and Ananda Metteyya, and Mr. G. W. Foote, and Captain Fuller, and the ghost of Immanuel Kant, and Mr…

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1909 · PDF PAGE 5

The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

…ty is assuredly to mock at it ; but I am concerned to intensify the etymological connotation in several respects. First, I do not regard mere incredulity as necessary to the idea, though credulity is incompatible with it. Incredulity implies a pre- judice in favour of a negative conclusion; and the true sceptic should be perfectly unbiassed. Second, I exclude “vital scepticism.” What's the good of anyfink? expects (as we used to learn about “nonne?”) the answer, ‘Why, nuffink !” and again is prejudiced. Indolence is no virtue in a questioner. E…

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1909 · PDF PAGE 12

The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

…ich thinks, and orders speech. Very good; shall we proceed by denying Him all think- able qualities, as do the heathen? All we obtain is mere negation of thought. Either He is unknowable, or He is less than we are. Then, too, that which is unknowable is unknown; and “God” or “ There is God” as an answer to our question becomes as meaningless as any other. Who are we, then? We are Spencerian Agnostics, poor silly, damned Spen- cerian Agnostics ! And there is an end of the matter. VI It is surely time that we began to question the validity of som…

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1909 · PDF PAGE 16

The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

…d observations, even on so simple a matter as a boiling-point determination! —and as for his (usually her) future, I content myself with mere common sense about the probable end of a fool. So that after all I keep my scepticism intact—and I keep my Samadhi intact. The one balances the other; I care nothing for the vulgar brawling of these two varlets of my mind! . Vil If, however, you would really like to know what might be said on the soldierly side of the question, I shall endeavour to oblige. It is necessary if a question is to be intelligib…

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1909 · PDF PAGE 24

The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?

…ophe may have been the exciting cause of my conscious devotion to the attainment of Adeptship—but surely the capacity was there, inborn. Mere despair and desire can do little; anyway, the first impulse of 132

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