Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable
sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to presume to go about
unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled
dog, not under proper control. I could find no label that would suit
me, so, in my desire to range myself and be respectable, I invented one;
and, as the chief thing I was sure of was that I did not know a great
many things that the -ists and the -ites about me professed to be
familiar with, I called myself an Agnostic. Surely no denomination could
be more modest or more appropriate; and I cannot imagine why I should be
every now and then haled out of my refuge and declared sometimes to be
a Materialist, sometimes an Atheist, sometimes a Positivist, and
sometimes, alas and alack, a cowardly or reactionary Obscurantist.