Antedating of "Agnostic"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/1/06, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> According to www.infidels.org, the noun "Agnostic" appeared in an article
> titled "The Theological Statute at Oxford" in _The Spectator_, 29 May 1869
> (p. 642).  I have not verified this, but if it is true it would antedate
> the OED's 1870 first use for the word.

Both "agnostic" and "agnosticism" are in "The Scientific Basis of
Belief" by Robert H. Thurston, _North American Review_, Aug. 1861.

* agnosticism

1861 _North American Review_ 153 (417) Aug. 188 This process of
acquirement of knowledge, practised by one who can only see the
physical side of science, leads to the acceptance of agnosticism; all
that is unseen is unfelt, unknown, and unknowable.
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0153%2F&tif=00192.TIF

* agnostic, n.

1861 _North American Review_ 153 (417) Aug. 189 The agnostic learns
nothing except what science can teach him; and his highest thought
goes not beyond the mechanism of this organized mass of force-endowed
matter, which, only, he can perceive or conceive.
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnora%2Fnora0153%2F&tif=00193.TIF


--Ben Zimmer