The Project Gutenberg eBook of Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton (2024)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Orthodoxy, by G. K. ChestertonThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: OrthodoxyAuthor: G. K. ChestertonRelease Date: September 28, 2005 [EBook #16769]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORTHODOXY ***Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clare Coney and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

by

G. K. CHESTERTON

JOHN LANE
THE BODLEY HEAD LTD

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,LONDON AND BECCLES.

TO MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.—Introduction in Defence of Everything Else

The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to achallenge. Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel. Whensome time ago I published a series of hasty but sincere papers, underthe name of "Heretics," several critics for whose intellect I have awarm respect (I may mention specially Mr. G.S. Street) said that it wasall very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic theory, butthat I had carefully avoided supporting my precepts with example. "Iwill begin to worry about my philosophy," said Mr. Street, "when Mr.Chesterton has given us his." It was perhaps an incautious suggestion tomake to a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblestprovocation. But after all, though Mr. Street has inspired and createdthis book, he need not read it. If he does read it, he will find that inits pages I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set ofmental pictures rather than in a series of deductions, to state thephilosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it myphilosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it mademe.

I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an Englishyachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered Englandunder the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. Ialways find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to writethis fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes ofphilosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impressionthat the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) toplant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to bethe Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned todeny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, orat any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominantemotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the richromantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a mostenviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. Whatcould be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all thefascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humanesecurity of coming home again? What could be better than to have allthe fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity oflanding there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self upto discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happytears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me themain problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem ofthis book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world andyet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-leggedcitizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world giveus at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honourof being our own town? To show that a faith or a philosophy is true fromevery standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much biggerbook than this; it is necessary to follow one path of argument; and thisis the path that I here propose to follow. I wish to set forth my faithas particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for thatmixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightlynamed romance. For the very word "romance" has in it the mystery andancient meaning of Rome. Any one setting out to dispute anything oughtalways to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating whathe proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose toprove. The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to takeas common ground between myself and any average reader, is thisdesirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full ofa poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate alwaysseems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better thanexistence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then heis not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefersnothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met inthis western society in which I live would agree to the generalproposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combinationof something that is strange with something that is secure. We need soto view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea ofwelcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once beingmerely comfortable. It is this achievement of my creed that I shallchiefly pursue in these pages.

But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, whodiscovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England.I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do notquite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dullnesswill, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the chargeof being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen todespise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that thisis the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing socontemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of theindefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shawlived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for aman of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes.It is as easy as lying; because it is lying. The truth is, of course,that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell anylie unless he thinks it is the truth. I find myself under the sameintolerable bondage. I never in my life said anything merely because Ithought it funny; though, of course, I have had ordinary humanvain-glory, and may have thought it funny because I had said it. It isone thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, acreature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that therhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looksas if he didn't. One searches for truth, but it may be that one pursuesinstinctively the more extraordinary truths. And I offer this book withthe heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I write,and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a piece of poor clowningor a single tiresome joke.

For if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the man whowith the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. Ifthere is an element of farce in what follows, the farce is at my ownexpense; for this book explains how I fancied I was the first to setfoot in Brighton and then found I was the last. It recounts myelephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. No one can think mycase more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me hereof trying to make a fool of him: I am the fool of this story, and norebel shall hurl me from my throne. I freely confess all the idioticambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all othersolemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I triedto be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I waseighteen hundred years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfullyjuvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in thefittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I havediscovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were notmine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculousposition of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heavenforgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded ininventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions ofcivilized religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the first tofind England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try tofound a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, Idiscovered that it was orthodoxy.

It may be that somebody will be entertained by the account of this happyfiasco. It might amuse a friend or an enemy to read how I graduallylearnt from the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of somedominant philosophy, things that I might have learnt from mycatechism—if I had ever learnt it. There may or may not be someentertainment in reading how I found at last in an anarchist club or aBabylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish church.If any one is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field orthe phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains ofyouth came together in a certain order to produce a certain convictionof Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book. But there is ineverything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, andnothing on earth would induce me to read it.

I add one purely pedantic note which comes, as a note naturally should,at the beginning of the book. These essays are concerned only to discussthe actual fact that the central Christian theology (sufficientlysummarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and soundethics. They are not intended to discuss the very fascinating but quitedifferent question of what is the present seat of authority for theproclamation of that creed. When the word "orthodoxy" is used here itmeans the Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himselfChristian until a very short time ago and the general historic conductof those who held such a creed. I have been forced by mere space toconfine myself to what I have got from this creed; I do not touch thematter much disputed among modern Christians, of where we ourselves gotit. This is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenlyautobiography. But if any one wants my opinions about the actual natureof the authority, Mr. G.S. Street has only to throw me anotherchallenge, and I will write him another book.

CHAPTER II.—The Maniac

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they relyaltogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I rememberwalking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had oftenheard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet Ihad heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothingin it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; hebelieves in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen,my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him,"Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? ForI can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossallythan Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certaintyand success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The menwho really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." He saidmildly that there were a good many men after all who believed inthemselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," Iretorted, "and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet fromwhom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. Thatelderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room,he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experienceinstead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know thatbelieving in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actorswho can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It wouldbe much truer to say that a man will certainly fail because he believesin himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; completeself-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is ahysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote:the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it iswritten on that omnibus." And to all this my friend the publisher madethis very deep and effective reply, "Well, if a man is not to believe inhimself, in what is he to believe?" After a long pause I replied, "Iwill go home and write a book in answer to that question." This is thebook that I have written in answer to it.

But I think this book may well start where our argument started—in theneighbourhood of the mad-house. Modern masters of science are muchimpressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. Theancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with thatnecessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical aspotatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, therewas no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religiousleaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not todeny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt.Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part ofChristian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of theReverend R.J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality,admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams.But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street.The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evilas the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainlyis) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then thereligious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He musteither deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must denythe present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The newtheologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny thecat.

In this remarkable situation it is plainly not now possible (with anyhope of a universal appeal) to start, as our fathers did, with the factof sin. This very fact which was to them (and is to me) as plain as apikestaff, is the very fact that has been specially diluted or denied.But though moderns deny the existence of sin, I do not think that theyhave yet denied the existence of a lunatic asylum. We all agree stillthat there is a collapse of the intellect as unmistakable as a fallinghouse. Men deny hell, but not, as yet, Hanwell. For the purpose of ourprimary argument the one may very well stand where the other stood. Imean that as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether theytended to make a man lose his soul, so for our present purpose allmodern thoughts and theories may be judged by whether they tend to makea man lose his wits.

It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itselfattractive. But a moment's thought will show that if disease isbeautiful, it is generally some one else's disease. A blind man may bepicturesque; but it requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarlyeven the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. Tothe insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true.A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as achicken. A man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull asa bit of glass. It is the hom*ogeneity of his mind which makes him dull,and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his ideathat we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see theirony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all. In short, odditiesonly strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This iswhy ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people arealways complaining of the dulness of life. This is also why the newnovels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. Theold fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventuresthat are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in themodern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is notcentral. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately,and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero amongdragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusseswhat a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel ofto-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

Let us begin, then, with the mad-house; from this evil and fantastic innlet us set forth on our intellectual journey. Now, if we are to glanceat the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the matter is toblot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywherethat imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man'smental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologicallyunreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathinglaurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and historyutterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been notonly sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever reallyheld horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them.Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity isreason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians gomad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as willbe seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger doeslie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome asphysical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poetreally was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot ofrationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; notbecause he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Evenchess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full ofknights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discsof draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on adiagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one greatEnglish poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad bylogic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not thedisease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He couldsometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideousnecessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flatlilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved byJohn Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming.Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough;it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare isquite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered thathe was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw manystrange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of hisown commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because itfloats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinitesea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like thephysical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise,to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation andexpansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get hishead into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavensinto his head. And it is his head that splits.

It is a small matter, but not irrelevant, that this striking mistake iscommonly supported by a striking misquotation. We have all heard peoplecite the celebrated line of Dryden as "Great genius is to madness nearallied." But Dryden did not say that great genius was to madness nearallied. Dryden was a great genius himself, and knew better. It wouldhave been hard to find a man more romantic than he, or more sensible.What Dryden said was this, "Great wits are oft to madness near allied";and that is true. It is the pure promptitude of the intellect that is inperil of a breakdown. Also people might remember of what sort of manDryden was talking. He was not talking of any unworldly visionary likeVaughan or George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man of the world,a sceptic, a diplomatist, a great practical politician. Such men areindeed to madness near allied. Their incessant calculation of their ownbrains and other people's brains is a dangerous trade. It is alwaysperilous to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant person has askedwhy we say, "As mad as a hatter." A more flippant person might answerthat a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head.

And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true thatmaniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was engaged in acontroversy with the Clarion on the matter of free will, that ablewriter Mr. R.B. Suthers said that free will was lunacy, because it meantcauseless actions, and the actions of a lunatic would be causeless. I donot dwell here upon the disastrous lapse in determinist logic. Obviouslyif any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism is donefor. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can bebroken for a man. But my purpose is to point out something morepractical. It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian Socialistshould not know anything about free will. But it was certainlyremarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anythingabout lunatics. Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything aboutlunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that hisactions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be calledcauseless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as hewalks; slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing hishands. It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man isnot strong enough to be idle. It is exactly such careless and causelessactions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like thedeterminist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madmanwould read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. Hewould think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on privateproperty. He would think that the kicking of the heels was a signal toan accomplice. If the madman could for an instant become careless, hewould become sane. Every one who has had the misfortune to talk withpeople in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that theirmost sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting ofone thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you arguewith a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst ofit; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not beingdelayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered bya sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties ofexperience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections.Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleadingone. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman isthe man who has lost everything except his reason.

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in apurely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, theinsane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; thismay be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds ofmadness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy againsthim, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny thatthey are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. Hisexplanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that heis the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say thatthe existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of Englandthat might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or ifa man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that theworld denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's.

Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exactterms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhapsthe nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mindmoves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite asinfinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it isnot so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite ascomplete as the sane one, but it is not so large. A bullet is quite asround as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as anarrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and crampedeternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quiteexternally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and mostunmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logicalcompleteness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explainsa large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. Imean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid,we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as togive it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooleroutside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, itwere the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case ofa man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we couldexpress our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against thisobsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admitthat you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things dofit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explainsa great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no otherstories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with yourbusiness? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in thestreet did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when thepoliceman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already.But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these peoplecared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your selfcould become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men withcommon curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they arein their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You wouldbegin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you.You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your ownlittle plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under afreer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers." Or suppose it werethe second case of madness, that of a man who claims the crown, yourimpulse would be to answer, "All right! Perhaps you know that you arethe King of England; but why do you care? Make one magnificent effortand you will be a human being and look down on all the kings of theearth." Or it might be the third case, of the madman who called himselfChrist. If we said what we felt, we should say, "So you are the Creatorand Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What alittle heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies!How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really nolife fuller and no love more marvellous than yours; and is it really inyour small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How muchhappier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammerof a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars likespangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up aswell as down!"

And it must be remembered that the most purely practical science doestake this view of mental evil; it does not seek to argue with it like aheresy, but simply to snap it like a spell. Neither modern science norancient religion believes in complete free thought. Theology rebukescertain thoughts by calling them blasphemous. Science rebukes certainthoughts by calling them morbid. For example, some religious societiesdiscouraged men more or less from thinking about sex. The new scientificsociety definitely discourages men from thinking about death; it is afact, but it is considered a morbid fact. And in dealing with thosewhose morbidity has a touch of mania, modern science cares far less forpure logic than a dancing Dervish. In these cases it is not enough thatthe unhappy man should desire truth; he must desire health. Nothing cansave him but a blind hunger for normality, like that of a beast. A mancannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ ofthought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were,independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his merereason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round andround his logical circle, just as a man in a third-class carriage on theInner Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle unless he performsthe voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of getting out at GowerStreet. Decision is the whole business here; a door must be shut forever. Every remedy is a desperate remedy. Every cure is a miraculouscure. Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is castingout a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go towork in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant—asintolerant as Bloody Mary. Their attitude is really this: that the manmust stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one ofintellectual amputation. If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for itis better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but toenter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to becast into hell—or into Hanwell.

Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequentlya successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason,and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much moreprecisely in more general and even æsthetic terms. He is in the cleanand well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point.He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity. Now, as Iexplain in the introduction, I have determined in these early chaptersto give not so much a diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a pointof view. And I have described at length my vision of the maniac for thisreason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so I am affected bymost modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear fromHanwell, I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats oflearning to-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in moresenses than one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted:the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contractedcommon sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take onethin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch forever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white onblack, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black.Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make amental effort and suddenly see it black on white.

Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an explanation ofthe world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just thequality of the madman's argument; we have at once the sense of itcovering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, Mr.McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He understandseverything, and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmosmay be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos issmaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of themadman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the largeindifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real things of theearth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love or fear uponthe sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so very small.The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

It must be understood that I am not now discussing the relation ofthese creeds to truth; but, for the present, solely their relation tohealth. Later in the argument I hope to attack the question of objectiveverity; here I speak only of a phenomenon of psychology. I do not forthe present attempt to prove to Haeckel that materialism is untrue, anymore than I attempted to prove to the man who thought he was Christ thathe was labouring under an error. I merely remark here on the fact thatboth cases have the same kind of completeness and the same kind ofincompleteness. You can explain a man's detention at Hanwell by anindifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whomthe world is not worthy. The explanation does explain. Similarly you mayexplain the order in the universe by saying that all things, even thesouls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly unconscioustree—the blind destiny of matter. The explanation does explain, thoughnot, of course, so completely as the madman's. But the point here isthat the normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to boththe same objection. Its approximate statement is that if the man inHanwell is the real God, he is not much of a god. And, similarly, if thecosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of acosmos. The thing has shrunk. The deity is less divine than many men;and (according to Haeckel) the whole of life is something much moregrey, narrow, and trivial than many separate aspects of it. The partsseem greater than the whole.

For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true ornot) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, ofcourse, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader thanthemselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that anatheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continueto be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false andcontinue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very specialsense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr.McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe indeterminism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed tobelieve in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see thathis is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quitefree to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order andinevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is notallowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck ofspiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain eventhe tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christianadmits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as asane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has atouch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touchof the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch ofthe madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, justas the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure thathistory has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as theinteresting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply andsolely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.

Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialisticdenials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. Butif I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the firstcase the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second theroad is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel withmadness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustiveand logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it graduallydestroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductionsof the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy hishumanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry,initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads mento complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretendthat it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that youare especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought todestroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They maywell call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain thatever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if youlike, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is justas inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to aman locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man isfree to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive andimportant fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink,sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like,that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in thereality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important factthat he is not free to praise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge,to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Yearresolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thankyou" for the mustard.

In passing from this subject I may note that there is a queer fallacy tothe effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable tomercy, to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind.This is startlingly the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable thatthe doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it leaves theflogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before. But obviouslyif it stops either of them it stops the kind exhortation. That the sinsare inevitable does not prevent punishment; if it prevents anything itprevents persuasion. Determinism is quite as likely to lead to crueltyas it is certain to lead to cowardice. Determinism is not inconsistentwith the cruel treatment of criminals. What it is (perhaps) inconsistentwith is the generous treatment of criminals; with any appeal to theirbetter feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle. Thedeterminist does not believe in appealing to the will, but he doesbelieve in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, "Goand sin no more," because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put himin boiling oil; for boiling oil is an environment. Considered as afigure, therefore, the materialist has the fantastic outline of thefigure of the madman. Both take up a position at once unanswerable andintolerable.

Of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is true. Thesame would apply to the other extreme of speculative logic. There is asceptic far more terrible than he who believes that everything began inmatter. It is possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everythingbegan in himself. He doubts not the existence of angels or devils, butthe existence of men and cows. For him his own friends are a mythologymade up by himself. He created his own father and his own mother. Thishorrible fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhatmystical egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men wouldget on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after the Supermanwho are always looking for him in the looking-glass, those writers whotalk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life forthe world, all these people have really only an inch between them andthis awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the man hasbeen blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and thefoundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothingand in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the greatindividualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. Thestars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother'sface will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls ofhis cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, "Hebelieves in himself."

All that concerns us here, however, is to note that this panegoisticextreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as the other extreme ofmaterialism. It is equally complete in theory and equally crippling inpractice. For the sake of simplicity, it is easier to state the notionby saying that a man can believe that he is always in a dream. Now,obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not ina dream, for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that mightnot be offered in a dream. But if the man began to burn down London andsay that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we shouldtake him and put him with other logicians in a place which has oftenbeen alluded to in the course of this chapter. The man who cannotbelieve his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, areboth insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in theirargument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They haveboth locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun andstars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health andhappiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of theearth. Their position is quite reasonable; nay, in a sense it isinfinitely reasonable, just as a threepenny bit is infinitely circular.But there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavisheternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whethersceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol,which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish torepresent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with his tail in hismouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that veryunsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, theeternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilioustheosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very wellpresented by a serpent eating his tail, a degraded animal who destroyseven himself.

This chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what actually isthe chief mark and element of insanity; we may say in summary that it isreason used without root, reason in the void. The man who begins tothink without the proper first principles goes mad, the man who beginsto think at the wrong end. And for the rest of these pages we have totry and discover what is the right end. But we may ask in conclusion, ifthis be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane? By the endof this book I hope to give a definite, some will think a far toodefinite, answer. But for the moment it is possible in the same solelypractical manner to give a general answer touching what in actual humanhistory keeps men sane. Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you havemystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man hasalways been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always hadone foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himselffree to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free alsoto believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than forconsistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other,he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. Hisspiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees twodifferent pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus hehas always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such athing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed thekingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdomof earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it wasnot. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has beenthe whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism isthis: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does notunderstand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, andsucceeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing tobe mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makesthe theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say"if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will toremain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with thehousemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seedof dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directionswith abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbolof reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol atonce of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianityis centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite inits nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be largeror smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and acontradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering itsshape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow withoutchanging. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opensits arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.

Symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this deepmatter; and another symbol from physical nature will expresssufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind. The onecreated thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light ofwhich we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticismexplains everything else by the blaze of its own victoriousinvisibility. Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of apopular phrase) all moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it issecondary light, reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks were rightwhen they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for hewas both the patron of poetry and the patron of healing. Of necessarydogmas and a special creed I shall speak later. But thattranscendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the positionof the sun in the sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendidconfusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at once a blazeand a blur. But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, asrecurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. Forthe moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunaticsand has given to them all her name.

CHAPTER III.—The Suicide of Thought

The phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: for a figureof speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition. Phraseslike "put out" or "off colour" might have been coined by Mr. Henry Jamesin an agony of verbal precision. And there is no more subtle truth thanthat of the everyday phrase about a man having "his heart in the rightplace." It involves the idea of normal proportion; not only does acertain function exist, but it is rightly related to other functions.Indeed, the negation of this phrase would describe with peculiaraccuracy the somewhat morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the mostrepresentative moderns. If, for instance, I had to describe withfairness the character of Mr. Bernard Shaw, I could not express myselfmore exactly than by saying that he has a heroically large and generousheart; but not a heart in the right place. And this is so of the typicalsociety of our time.

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far toogood. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme isshattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is notmerely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose,and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; andthe virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage.The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. Thevirtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each otherand are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and theirtruth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and theirpity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. For example, Mr.Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christianvirtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. Hehas a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by sayingthat there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an earlyChristian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to have beeneaten by lions. For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: hismercy would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the humanrace—because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take theacrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasurein happy tales or in the healing of the heart. Torquemada torturedpeople physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured peoplemorally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada's time therewas at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness andpeace kiss each other. Now they do not even bow. But a much strongercase than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkablecase of the dislocation of humility.

It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned.Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance andinfinity of the appetite of man. He was always out-stripping his mercieswith his own newly invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyedhalf his joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; forthe chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if a manwould make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Eventhe haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are thecreations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are thecreations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the lonelieststar are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless welook up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger thanwe. All this gigantesque imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiestof the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossiblewithout humility to enjoy anything—even pride.

But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modestyhas moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organof conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to bedoubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has beenexactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert isexactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts isexactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason. Huxleypreached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic isso humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrongif we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time.The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but itso happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than thewildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur thatprevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented himfrom going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about hisefforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes aman doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop workingaltogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic andblasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes acrosssomebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Ofcourse his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are onthe road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe inthe multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers whodoubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers ofold time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to beconvinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics aretoo meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly thisintellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation:that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from hisreason than his imagination. It was not meant to attack the authority ofreason; rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needsdefence. The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the toweralready reels.

The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle ofreligion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see theanswer; it is that they cannot even see the riddle. They are likechildren so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playfulassertion that a door is not a door. The modern latitudinarians speak,for instance, about authority in religion not only as if there were noreason in it, but as if there had never been any reason for it. Apartfrom seeing its philosophical basis, they cannot even see its historicalcause. Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive orunreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our presentone) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational toattack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics ofreligious authority are like men who should attack the police withoutever having heard of burglars. For there is a great and possible perilto the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against itreligious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. Andagainst it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our raceis to avoid ruin.

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Justas one generation could prevent the very existence of the nextgeneration, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so oneset of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teachingthe next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. Itis idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason isitself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that ourthoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely asceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why shouldanything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not goodlogic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in thebrain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right tothink for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "Ihave no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."

There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought thatought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which allreligious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadentages like our own: and already Mr. H.G. Wells has raised its ruinousbanner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts ofthe Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavoursto remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and tocome. But it was against this remote ruin that all the military systemsin religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and thecrusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were notorganized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. Theywere organized for the difficult defence of reason. Man, by a blindinstinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason couldbe questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authorityof popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: thesewere all only dark defences erected round one central authority, moreundemonstrable, more supernatural than all—the authority of a man tothink. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowingit. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring ofauthorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon herthrone. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they areboth of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methodsof proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act ofdestroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed theidea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With along and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre offpontifical man; and his head has come off with it.

Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps desirable,though dull, to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thoughtwhich have this effect of stopping thought itself. Materialism and theview of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for ifthe mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if thecosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these casesthe effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct andclear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution.

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if itdestroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocentscientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, ifit is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. Ifevolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion butrationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called anape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it isstingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as welldo things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, hewere outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there isno such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him tochange into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best,there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything.This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannotthink if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you arenot separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think;therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives theepigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."

Then there is the opposite attack on thought: that urged by Mr. H.G.Wells when he insists that every separate thing is "unique," and thereare no categories at all. This also is merely destructive. Thinkingmeans connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected. It needhardly be said that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarilyforbids speech; a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting it.Thus when Mr. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All chairs are quitedifferent," he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction interms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them "allchairs."

Akin to these is the false theory of progress, which maintains that wealter the test instead of trying to pass the test. We often hear itsaid, for instance, "What is right in one age is wrong in another." Thisis quite reasonable, if it means that there is a fixed aim, and thatcertain methods attain at certain times and not at other times. Ifwomen, say, desire to be elegant, it may be that they are improved atone time by growing fatter and at another time by growing thinner. Butyou cannot say that they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegantand beginning to wish to be oblong. If the standard changes, how canthere be improvement, which implies a standard? Nietzsche started anonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil;if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short ofthem. How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other direction? Youcannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserablethan another succeeded in being happy. It would be like discussingwhether Milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat.

It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his objector ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable. If thechange-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress, he must besternly loyal to the ideal of change; he must not begin to flirt gailywith the ideal of monotony. Progress itself cannot progress. It is worthremark, in passing, that when Tennyson, in a wild and rather weakmanner, welcomed the idea of infinite alteration in society, heinstinctively took a metaphor which suggests an imprisoned tedium. Hewrote—

He thought of change itself as an unchangeable groove; and so it is.Change is about the narrowest and hardest groove that a man can getinto.

The main point here, however, is that this idea of a fundamentalalteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought aboutthe past or future simply impossible. The theory of a complete change ofstandards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasureof honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more modern andaristocratic pleasure of despising them.

This bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our time would notbe complete without some reference to pragmatism; for though I have hereused and should everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminaryguide to truth, there is an extreme application of it which involves theabsence of all truth whatever. My meaning can be put shortly thus. Iagree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not thewhole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe the thingsthat are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of thosenecessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The pragmatisttells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. Butprecisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. Thisphilosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matterof human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be somethingmore than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as thedeterminism it so powerfully attacks. The determinist (who, to do himjustice, does not pretend to be a human being) makes nonsense of thehuman sense of actual choice. The pragmatist, who professes to bespecially human, makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact.

To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristiccurrent philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch ofsuicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against thelimits of human thought; and cracked it. This is what makes so futilethe warnings of the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced about thedangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is not theboyhood of free thought; it is the old age and ultimate dissolution offree thought. It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss whatdreadful things will happen if wild scepticism runs its course. It hasrun its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the greattruths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We haveseen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself.You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men askthemselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more scepticalworld than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It mightcertainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it hadnot been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws ofblasphemy or by the absurd pretence that modern England is Christian.But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow. Militant atheists arestill unjustly persecuted; but rather because they are an old minoritythan because they are a new one. Free thought has exhausted its ownfreedom. It is weary of its own success. If any eager freethinker nowhails philosophic freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in MarkTwain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was justin time to see it set. If any frightened curate still says that it willbe awful if the darkness of free thought should spread, we can onlyanswer him in the high and powerful words of Mr. Belloc, "Do not, Ibeseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already indissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night: it is alreadymorning." We have no more questions left to ask. We have looked forquestions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have foundall the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking forquestions and began looking for answers.

But one more word must be added. At the beginning of this preliminarynegative sketch I said that our mental ruin has been wrought by wildreason, not by wild imagination. A man does not go mad because he makesa statue a mile high, but he may go mad by thinking it out in squareinches. Now, one school of thinkers has seen this and jumped at it as away of renewing the pagan health of the world. They see that reasondestroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate authority, they say,is in will, not in reason. The supreme point is not why a man demands athing, but the fact that he does demand it. I have no space to trace orexpound this philosophy of Will. It came, I suppose, through Nietzsche,who preached something that is called egoism. That, indeed, wassimple-minded enough; for Nietzsche denied egoism simply by preachingit. To preach anything is to give it away. First, the egoist calls lifea war without mercy, and then he takes the greatest possible trouble todrill his enemies in war. To preach egoism is to practise altruism. Buthowever it began, the view is common enough in current literature. Themain defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they aremakers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus Mr.Bernard Shaw has attacked the old idea that men's acts are to be judgedby the standard of the desire of happiness. He says that a man does notact for his happiness, but from his will. He does not say, "Jam willmake me happy," but "I want jam." And in all this others follow him withyet greater enthusiasm. Mr. John Davidson, a remarkable poet, is sopassionately excited about it that he is obliged to write prose. Hepublishes a short play with several long prefaces. This is naturalenough in Mr. Shaw, for all his plays are prefaces: Mr. Shaw is (Isuspect) the only man on earth who has never written any poetry. Butthat Mr. Davidson (who can write excellent poetry) should write insteadlaborious metaphysics in defence of this doctrine of will, does showthat the doctrine of will has taken hold of men. Even Mr. H.G. Wells hashalf spoken in its language; saying that one should test acts not like athinker, but like an artist, saying, "I feel this curve is right," or"that line shall go thus." They are all excited; and well they may be.For by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think theycan break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they canescape.

But they cannot escape. This pure praise of volition ends in the samebreak up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. Exactly as completefree thought involves the doubting of thought itself, so the acceptationof mere "willing" really paralyzes the will. Mr. Bernard Shaw has notperceived the real difference between the old utilitarian test ofpleasure (clumsy, of course, and easily misstated) and that which hepropounds. The real difference between the test of happiness and thetest of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and theother isn't. You can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliffwas directed towards happiness; you cannot discuss whether it wasderived from will. Of course it was. You can praise an action by sayingthat it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or tosave the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it shows will;for to say that is merely to say that it is an action. By this praise ofwill you cannot really choose one course as better than another. And yetchoosing one course as better than another is the very definition of thewill you are praising.

The worship of will is the negation of will. To admire mere choice is torefuse to choose. If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, "Willsomething," that is tantamount to saying, "I do not mind what youwill," and that is tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter."You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is thatit is particular. A brilliant anarchist like Mr. John Davidson feels anirritation against ordinary morality, and therefore he invokeswill—will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. Buthumanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebelsagainst the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we havewilled something. We have willed the law against which he rebels.

All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, are reallyquite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish. And ifany one wants a proof of this, it can be found quite easily. It can befound in this fact: that they always talk of will as something thatexpands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of willis an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation.In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you chooseanything, you reject everything else. That objection, which men of thisschool used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection toevery act. Every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion. Just aswhen you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you takeone course of action you give up all the other courses. If you becomeKing of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you goto Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is theexistence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most ofthe talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense.For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with"Thou shalt not"; but it is surely obvious that "Thou shalt not" is onlyone of the necessary corollaries of "I will." "I will go to the LordMayor's Show, and thou shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures us to bebold creative artists, and care for no laws or limits. But it isimpossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art islimitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw agiraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creativeway, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, youwill really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment youstep into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You canfree things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws oftheir own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; butdo not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden ofhis hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel. Do not go about asa demagogue, encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of theirthree sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comesto a lamentable end. Somebody wrote a work called "The Loves of theTriangles"; I never read it, but I am sure that if triangles ever wereloved, they were loved for being triangular. This is certainly the casewith all artistic creation, which is in some ways the most decisiveexample of pure will. The artist loves his limitations: they constitutethe thing he is doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat.The sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless.

In case the point is not clear, an historic example may illustrate it.The French Revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing, becausethe Jacobins willed something definite and limited. They desired thefreedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy. They wishedto have votes and not to have titles. Republicanism had an asceticside in Franklin or Robespierre as well as an expansive side in Dantonor Wilkes. Therefore they have created something with a solid substanceand shape, the square social equality and peasant wealth of France. Butsince then the revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe has beenweakened by shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of thatproposal. Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have triedto turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. TheJacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but(what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, thesystem he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will notentirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never bereally a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything reallygets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciationimplies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionistdoubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by whichhe denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperialoppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book(about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses theSultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then cursesMrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out thatwar is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life iswaste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killinga peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles thatthe peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as alie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as alie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Polandor Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this schoolgoes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages aretreated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella andgoes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practicallyare beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinitesceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book onpolitics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethicshe attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man inrevolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. Byrebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel againstanything.

It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed inall fierce and terrible types of literature, especially in satire.Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it presupposes an admittedsuperiority in certain things over others; it presupposes a standard.When little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of somedistinguished journalist, they are unconsciously assuming a standard ofGreek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. And thecurious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance ofthe fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about.Nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though hecould not laugh; but there is always something bodiless and withoutweight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of commonmorality behind it. He is himself more preposterous than anything hedenounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will stand very well as the type ofthe whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of thebrain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. IfNietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end inimbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot.Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last havesoftening of the brain.

This last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism, andtherefore in death. The sortie has failed. The wild worship oflawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void.Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately inTibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana.They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and theother because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan's will isfrozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But theNietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all specialactions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them arespecial. They stand at the cross-roads, and one hates all the roads andthe other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are nothard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads.

Here I end (thank God) the first and dullest business of this book—therough review of recent thought. After this I begin to sketch a view oflife which may not interest my reader, but which, at any rate, interestsme. In front of me, as I close this page, is a pile of modern books thatI have been turning over for the purpose—a pile of ingenuity, a pile offutility. By the accident of my present detachment, I can see theinevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy,Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could beseen from a balloon. They are all on the road to the emptiness of theasylum. For madness may be defined as using mental activity so as toreach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it. He whothinks he is made of glass, thinks to the destruction of thought; forglass cannot think. So he who wills to reject nothing, wills thedestruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, butthe rejection of almost everything. And as I turn and tumble over theclever, wonderful, tiresome, and useless modern books, the title of oneof them rivets my eye. It is called "Jeanne d'Arc," by Anatole France. Ihave only glanced at it, but a glance was enough to remind me of Renan's"Vie de Jésus." It has the same strange method of the reverent sceptic.It discredits supernatural stories that have some foundation, simply bytelling natural stories that have no foundation. Because we cannotbelieve in what a saint did, we are to pretend that we know exactly whathe felt. But I do not mention either book in order to criticise it, butbecause the accidental combination of the names called up two startlingimages of sanity which blasted all the books before me. Joan of Arc wasnot stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths likeTolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, andwent down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her,had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all thatwas even tolerable in either of them. I thought of all that is noble inTolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, theactualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of thebowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, thatshe endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only atypical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought ofall that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and hismutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of hiscry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush ofgreat horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and againwith this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. Weknow that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all weknow, was afraid of a cow. Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she wasthe peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior.She beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentlethan the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectlypractical person who did something, while they are wild speculators whodo nothing. It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mindthat she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity andutility that has been lost. And with that thought came a larger one, andthe colossal figure of her Master had also crossed the theatre of mythoughts. The same modern difficulty which darkened the subject-matterof Anatole France also darkened that of Ernest Renan. Renan also dividedhis hero's pity from his hero's pugnacity. Renan even represented therighteous anger at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after theidyllic expectations of Galilee. As if there were any inconsistencybetween having a love for humanity and having a hatred for inhumanity!Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists(with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist. Inour present atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough. The loveof a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant. The hatred of ahero is more generous than the love of a philanthropist. There is a hugeand heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments. Thereis a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about.They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, labelled egoism andaltruism, and they are equally puzzled by His insane magnificence andHis insane meekness. They have parted His garments among them, and forHis vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam wovenfrom the top throughout.

CHAPTER IV—The Ethics of Elfland

When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it iscommonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, onehas these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but inmiddle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a beliefin practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting onwith the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropicold men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was aboy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that thesephilanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened isexactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that Ishould lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practicalpoliticians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith infundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my oldchildlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned asever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concernedabout the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee atthe mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. Thevision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. Asmuch as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. Butthere was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

I take this instance of one of the enduring faiths because, having nowto trace the roots of my personal speculation, this may be counted, Ithink, as the only positive bias. I was brought up a Liberal, and havealways believed in democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of aself-governing humanity. If any one finds the phrase vague orthreadbare, I can only pause for a moment to explain that the principleof democracy, as I mean it, can be stated in two propositions. The firstis this: that the things common to all men are more important than thethings peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable thanextraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man is somethingmore awful than men; something more strange. The sense of the miracle ofhumanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels ofpower, intellect, art, or civilization. The mere man on two legs, assuch, should be felt as something more heart-breaking than any musicand more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic even thandeath by starvation. Having a nose is more comic even than having aNorman nose.

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things inmen are the things they hold in common, not the things they holdseparately. And the second principle is merely this: that the politicalinstinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common.Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. Thedemocratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) isa thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry.It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting onvellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping theloop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wisha man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, athing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's ownnose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does thembadly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; Iknow that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen byscientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have theirnoses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize theseuniversal human functions, and that democracy classes government amongthem. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terriblyimportant things must be left to ordinary men themselves—the mating ofthe sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This isdemocracy; and in this I have always believed.

But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able tounderstand. I have never been able to understand where people got theidea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obviousthat tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trustingto a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated orarbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against thetradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing toaristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert againstthe awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend istreated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book ofhistory. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in thevillage, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man inthe village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in thepast were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along withthe statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do forus. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men ingreat unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is noreason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history orfable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise.Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, ourancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submitto the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to bewalking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by theaccident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by theaccident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man'sopinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect agood man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannotseparate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident tome that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils.The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. Itis all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballotpapers, are marked with a cross.

I have first to say, therefore, that if I have had a bias, it was alwaysa bias in favour of democracy, and therefore of tradition. Before wecome to any theoretic or logical beginnings I am content to allow forthat personal equation; I have always been more inclined to believe theruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesomeliterary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies andprejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearestdemonstrations of the people who see life from the outside. I wouldalways trust the old wives' fables against the old maids' facts. As longas wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases.

Now, I have to put together a general position, and I pretend to notraining in such things. I propose to do it, therefore, by writing downone after another the three or four fundamental ideas which I have foundfor myself, pretty much in the way that I found them. Then I shallroughly synthesise them, summing up my personal philosophy or naturalreligion; then I shall describe my startling discovery that the wholething had been discovered before. It had been discovered byChristianity. But of these profound persuasions which I have to recountin order, the earliest was concerned with this element of populartradition. And without the foregoing explanation touching tradition anddemocracy I could hardly make my mental experience clear. As it is, I donot know whether I can make it clear, but I now propose to try.

My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbrokencertainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse;that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once ofdemocracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things Ibelieve most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me tobe the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared withthem other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion andrationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right andrationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny countryof common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven thatjudges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticisedelfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magicbeanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moonbefore I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all populartradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bushor the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables weresupernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That iswhat the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not"appreciate Nature," because they said that Nature was divine. Oldnurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies thatdance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for thedryads.

But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed onfairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many nobleand healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrouslesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed becausethey are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For therebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more traditionthan the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella," which is thesame as that of the Magnificat—exaltavit humiles. There is the greatlesson of "Beauty and the Beast"; that a thing must be loved beforeit is loveable. There is the terrible allegory of the "Sleeping Beauty,"which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts,yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to asleep. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes ofelfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before Icould speak, and shall retain when I cannot write. I am concerned with acertain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairytales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.

It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments(cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense ofthe word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word,necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We infairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit thatreason and that necessity. For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are olderthan Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary thatCinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. There is no getting out ofit. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases: itreally must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the fatherof Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we infairyland submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are sixanimals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, andfairyland is full of it. But as I put my head over the hedge of theelves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed anextraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles weretalking of the actual things that happened—dawn and death and so on—asif they were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact thattrees bear fruit were just as necessary as the fact that two and onetrees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference by thetest of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. You cannotimagine two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine treesnot growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks ortigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles spoke much of aman named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law. Butthey could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a lawof reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple hitNewton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity:because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other. But wecan quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancyit flying ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which ithad a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept thissharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in whichthere really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which thereare no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles,but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbedup to Heaven; but that does not at all confuse our convictions on thephilosophical question of how many beans make five.

Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales.The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; buthe says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other. Thewitch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle willfall"; but she does not say it as if it were something in which theeffect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has given theadvice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she doesnot lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her headuntil it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and afalling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until theyimagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the treeand an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they hadfound not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting thosefacts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange thingsphysically connected them philosophically. They feel that because oneincomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thingthe two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two blackriddles make a white answer.

In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science theyare singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interestingconjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm'sLaw. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales.The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law.A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation andenactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If thereis a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there isan imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the ideaof picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we takeliberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg canturn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn intoa fairy prince. As ideas, the egg and the chicken are further off eachother than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests achicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, thatcertain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regardthem in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophicmanner of science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggsturn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as thefairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned tohorses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answerthat it is magic. It is not a "law," for we do not understand itsgeneral formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on ithappening practically, we have no right to say that it must alwayshappen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) thatwe count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we beton it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of apoisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out ofaccount, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility,but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the termsused in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," andso on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesiswhich we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me asdescribing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm,""spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact andits mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runsdownhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it isbewitched.

I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may havesome mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things issimply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in wordsmy clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct fromanother; that there is no logical connection between flying and layingeggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen whois the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly asentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that heis soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seenbirds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy,tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. Aforlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; sothe materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In bothcases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. Asentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because,by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So thematerialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet asentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own,apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist fromfairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should notgrow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.

This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from thefairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derivedfrom this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinctof sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve ofthe ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact thatwhen we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only needtales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited bybeing told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child ofthree is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys likeromantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find themromantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, towhom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. Thisproves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap ofinterest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only torefresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. Theymake rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment,that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable andeven agnostic. And, indeed, on this point I am all for the higheragnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read inscientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man whohas forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see andappreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, everyman is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One mayunderstand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant thanany star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not knowthyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have allforgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All thatwe call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivismonly means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that wehave forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only meansthat for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we walk thestreets with a sort of half-witted admiration, still it is admiration.It is admiration in English and not only admiration in Latin. The wonderhas a positive element of praise. This is the next milestone to bedefinitely marked on our road through fairyland. I shall speak in thenext chapter about optimists and pessimists in their intellectualaspect, so far as they have one. Here I am only trying to describe theenormous emotions which cannot be described. And the strongest emotionwas that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstacybecause it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was anopportunity. The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the factthat there might be more dragons than princesses; it was good to be in afairy tale. The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful,though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Clausputs in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be gratefulto Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculouslegs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. CanI thank no one for the birthday present of birth?

There were, then, these two first feelings, indefensible andindisputable. The world was a shock, but it was not merely shocking;existence was a surprise, but it was a pleasant surprise. In fact, allmy first views were exactly uttered in a riddle that stuck in my brainfrom boyhood. The question was, "What did the first frog say?" And theanswer was, "Lord, how you made me jump!" That says succinctly all thatI am saying. God made the frog jump; but the frog prefers jumping. Butwhen these things are settled there enters the second great principleof the fairy philosophy.

Any one can see it who will simply read "Grimm's Fairy Tales" or thefine collections of Mr. Andrew Lang. For the pleasure of pedantry I willcall it the Doctrine of Conditional Joy. Touchstone talked of muchvirtue in an "if"; according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an "if."The note of the fairy utterance always is, "You may live in a palace ofgold and sapphire, if you do not say the word 'cow'"; or "You may livehappily with the King's daughter, if you do not show her an onion."The vision always hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal thingsconceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirlingthings that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden. Mr.W.B. Yeats, in his exquisite and piercing elfin poetry, describes theelves as lawless; they plunge in innocent anarchy on the unbridledhorses of the air—

It is a dreadful thing to say that Mr. W.B. Yeats does not understandfairyland. But I do say it. He is an ironical Irishman, full ofintellectual reactions. He is not stupid enough to understandfairyland. Fairies prefer people of the yokel type like myself; peoplewho gape and grin and do as they are told. Mr. Yeats reads into elflandall the righteous insurrection of his own race. But the lawlessness ofIreland is a Christian lawlessness, founded on reason and justice. TheFenian is rebelling against something he understands only too well; butthe true citizen of fairyland is obeying something that he does notunderstand at all. In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness restsupon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils flyout. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and loveflies away. A flower is plucked, and human lives are forfeited. An appleis eaten, and the hope of God is gone.

This is the tone of fairy tales, and it is certainly not lawlessness oreven liberty, though men under a mean modern tyranny may think itliberty by comparison. People out of Portland Gaol might think FleetStreet free; but closer study will prove that both fairies andjournalists are the slaves of duty. Fairy godmothers seem at least asstrict as other godmothers. Cinderella received a coach out ofWonderland and a coachman out of nowhere, but she received acommand—which might have come out of Brixton—that she should be backby twelve. Also, she had a glass slipper; and it cannot be a coincidencethat glass is so common a substance in folk-lore. This princess lives ina glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all thingsin a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throwstones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression ofthe fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substancemost easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-talesentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the wholeworld. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, butas brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were compared to theterrible crystal I can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God woulddrop the cosmos with a crash.

Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to beperishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply donot strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, wasthe joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended onnot doing something which you could at any moment do and which, veryoften, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the point here isthat to me this did not seem unjust. If the miller's third son said tothe fairy, "Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairypalace," the other might fairly reply, "Well, if it comes to that,explain the fairy palace." If Cinderella says, "How is it that I mustleave the ball at twelve?" her godmother might answer, "How is it thatyou are going there till twelve?" If I leave a man in my will tentalking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if theconditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift. He must notlook a winged horse in the mouth. And it seemed to me that existence wasitself so very eccentric a legacy that I could not complain of notunderstanding the limitations of the vision when I did not understandthe vision they limited. The frame was no stranger than the picture. Theveto might well be as wild as the vision; it might be as startling asthe sun, as elusive as the waters, as fantastic and terrible as thetowering trees.

For this reason (we may call it the fairy godmother philosophy) I nevercould join the young men of my time in feeling what they called thegeneral sentiment of revolt. I should have resisted, let us hope, anyrules that were evil, and with these and their definition I shall dealin another chapter. But I did not feel disposed to resist any rulemerely because it was mysterious. Estates are sometimes held by foolishforms, the breaking of a stick or the payment of a peppercorn: I waswilling to hold the huge estate of earth and heaven by any such feudalfantasy. It could not well be wilder than the fact that I was allowed tohold it at all. At this stage I give only one ethical instance to showmy meaning. I could never mix in the common murmur of that risinggeneration against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so oddand unexpected as sex itself. To be allowed, like Endymion, to make loveto the moon and then to complain that Jupiter kept his own moons in aharem seemed to me (bred on fairy tales like Endymion's) a vulgaranti-climax. Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeingone woman. To complain that I could only be married once was likecomplaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate withthe terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not anexaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it. A manis a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates atonce. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it is like a manplucking five pears in mere absence of mind. The æsthetes touched thelast insane limits of language in their eulogy on lovely things. Thethistledown made them weep; a burnished beetle brought them to theirknees. Yet their emotion never impressed me for an instant, for thisreason, that it never occurred to them to pay for their pleasure in anysort of symbolic sacrifice. Men (I felt) might fast forty days for thesake of hearing a blackbird sing. Men might go through fire to find acowslip. Yet these lovers of beauty could not even keep sober for theblackbird. They would not go through common Christian marriage by way ofrecompense to the cowslip. Surely one might pay for extraordinary joy inordinary morals. Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued becausewe could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay forsunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde.

Well, I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and Ihave not found any books so sensible since. I left the nurse guardian oftradition and democracy, and I have not found any modern type so sanelyradical or so sanely conservative. But the matter for important commentwas here, that when I first went out into the mental atmosphere of themodern world, I found that the modern world was positively opposed ontwo points to my nurse and to the nursery tales. It has taken me a longtime to find out that the modern world is wrong and my nurse was right.The really curious thing was this: that modern thought contradicted thisbasic creed of my boyhood on its two most essential doctrines. I haveexplained that the fairy tales founded in me two convictions; first,that this world is a wild and startling place, which might have beenquite different, but which is quite delightful; second, that before thiswildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerestlimitations of so queer a kindness. But I found the whole modern worldrunning like a high tide against both my tendernesses; and the shock ofthat collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments, which Ihave had ever since and which, crude as they were, have since hardenedinto convictions.

First, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism;saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfoldedwithout fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green becauseit could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopheris glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have beenscarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he lookedat it. He is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonableground that it might have been black. Every colour has in it a boldquality as of choice; the red of garden roses is not only decisive butdramatic, like suddenly spilt blood. He feels that something has beendone. But the great determinists of the nineteenth century werestrongly against this native feeling that something had happened aninstant before. In fact, according to them, nothing ever really hadhappened since the beginning of the world. Nothing ever had happenedsince existence had happened; and even about the date of that they werenot very sure.

The modern world as I found it was solid for modern Calvinism, for thenecessity of things being as they are. But when I came to ask them Ifound they had really no proof of this unavoidable repetition in thingsexcept the fact that the things were repeated. Now, the mere repetitionmade the things to me rather more weird than more rational. It was asif, having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street and dismissed itas an accident, I had then seen six other noses of the same astonishingshape. I should have fancied for a moment that it must be some localsecret society. So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but allelephants having trunks looked like a plot. I speak here only of anemotion, and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle. But therepetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, likethat of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again.The grass seemed signalling to me with all its fingers at once; thecrowded stars seemed bent upon being understood. The sun would make mesee him if he rose a thousand times. The recurrences of the universerose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation, and I began to see anidea.

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind restsultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed thatif a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece ofclockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary;if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relationto known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally broughtinto them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking offof their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of someslight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because heis tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still.But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going toIslington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes toSheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have thestillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise everymorning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to myinaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be truethat the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. Hisroutine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. Thething I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find somegame or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legsrhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children haveabounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free,therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Doit again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearlydead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possiblethat God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and everyevening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessitythat makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisyseparately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that Hehas the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old,and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be amere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encorethe bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings fortha human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin,the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without lifeor purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, thatthey admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of everyhuman drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetitionmay go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant itmay stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, andyet each birth be his positively last appearance.

This was my first conviction; made by the shock of my childish emotionsmeeting the modern creed in mid-career. I had always vaguely felt factsto be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful: now I began tothink them miracles in the stricter sense that they were wilful. Imean that they were, or might be, repeated exercises of some will. Inshort, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now Ithought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profoundemotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours hassome purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had alwaysfelt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is astory-teller.

But modern thought also hit my second human tradition. It went againstthe fairy feeling about strict limits and conditions. The one thing itloved to talk about was expansion and largeness. Herbert Spencer wouldhave been greatly annoyed if any one had called him an imperialist, andtherefore it is highly regrettable that nobody did. But he was animperialist of the lowest type. He popularized this contemptible notionthat the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogmaof man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system anymore than to a whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image ofGod, then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless image;what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is quite futile toargue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always smallcompared to the nearest tree. But Herbert Spencer, in his headlongimperialism, would insist that we had in some way been conquered andannexed by the astronomical universe. He spoke about men and theirideals exactly as the most insolent Unionist talks about the Irish andtheir ideals. He turned mankind into a small nationality. And his evilinfluence can be seen even in the most spirited and honourable of laterscientific authors; notably in the early romances of Mr. H.G. Wells.Many moralists have in an exaggerated way represented the earth aswicked. But Mr. Wells and his school made the heavens wicked. We shouldlift up our eyes to the stars from whence would come our ruin.

But the expansion of which I speak was much more evil than all this. Ihave remarked that the materialist, like the madman, is in prison; inthe prison of one thought. These people seemed to think it singularlyinspiring to keep on saying that the prison was very large. The size ofthis scientific universe gave one no novelty, no relief. The cosmos wenton for ever, but not in its wildest constellation could there beanything really interesting; anything, for instance, such as forgivenessor free will. The grandeur or infinity of the secret of its cosmos addednothing to it. It was like telling a prisoner in Reading gaol that hewould be glad to hear that the gaol now covered half the county. Thewarder would have nothing to show the man except more and more longcorridors of stone lit by ghastly lights and empty of all that is human.So these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except moreand more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and empty ofall that is divine.

In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be broken, forthe definition of a law is something that can be broken. But themachinery of this cosmic prison was something that could not be broken;for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery. We were eitherunable to do things or we were destined to do them. The idea of themystical condition quite disappeared; one can neither have the firmnessof keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them. The largeness of thisuniverse had nothing of that freshness and airy outbreak which we havepraised in the universe of the poet. This modern universe is literallyan empire; that is, it is vast, but it is not free. One went into largerand larger windowless rooms, rooms big with Babylonian perspective; butone never found the smallest window or a whisper of outer air.

Their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance; but for me allgood things come to a point, swords for instance. So finding the boastof the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to my emotions I began to argueabout it a little; and I soon found that the whole attitude was evenshallower than could have been expected. According to these people thecosmos was one thing since it had one unbroken rule. Only (they wouldsay) while it is one thing it is also the only thing there is. Why,then, should one worry particularly to call it large? There is nothingto compare it with. It would be just as sensible to call it small. A manmay say, "I like this vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and itscrowd of varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a mansay, "I like this cosy little cosmos, with its decent number of starsand as neat a provision of live stock as I wish to see"? One is as goodas the other; they are both mere sentiments. It is mere sentiment torejoice that the sun is larger than the earth; it is quite as sane asentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger than it is. A man choosesto have an emotion about the largeness of the world; why should he notchoose to have an emotion about its smallness?

It happened that I had that emotion. When one is fond of anything oneaddresses it by diminutives, even if it is an elephant or alifeguardsman. The reason is, that anything, however huge, that can beconceived of as complete, can be conceived of as small. If militarymoustaches did not suggest a sword or tusks a tail, then the objectwould be vast because it would be immeasurable. But the moment you canimagine a guardsman you can imagine a small guardsman. The moment youreally see an elephant you can call it "Tiny." If you can make a statueof a thing you can make a statuette of it. These people professed thatthe universe was one coherent thing; but they were not fond of theuniverse. But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted toaddress it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.Actually and in truth I did feel that these dim dogmas of vitality werebetter expressed by calling the world small than by calling it large.For about infinity there was a sort of carelessness which was thereverse of the fierce and pious care which I felt touching thepricelessness and the peril of life. They showed only a dreary waste;but I felt a sort of sacred thrift. For economy is far more romanticthan extravagance. To them stars were an unending income of halfpence;but I felt about the golden sun and the silver moon as a schoolboy feelsif he has one sovereign and one shilling.

These subconscious convictions are best hit off by the colour and toneof certain tales. Thus I have said that stories of magic alone canexpress my sense that life is not only a pleasure but a kind ofeccentric privilege. I may express this other feeling of cosmic cosinessby allusion to another book always read in boyhood, "Robinson Crusoe,"which I read about this time, and which owes its eternal vivacity to thefact that it celebrates the poetry of limits, nay, even the wild romanceof prudence. Crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few comforts justsnatched from the sea: the best thing in the book is simply the list ofthings saved from the wreck. The greatest of poems is an inventory.Every kitchen tool becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped itin the sea. It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, tolook at anything, the coal-scuttle or the book-case, and think how happyone could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship on to thesolitary island. But it is a better exercise still to remember how allthings have had this hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved froma wreck. Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimelybirth he had not been, as infants that never see the light. Men spokemuch in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it wascommon to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is amore solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a GreatMight-Not-Have-Been.

But I really felt (the fancy may seem foolish) as if all the order andnumber of things were the romantic remnant of Crusoe's ship. That thereare two sexes and one sun, was like the fact that there were two gunsand one axe. It was poignantly urgent that none should be lost; butsomehow, it was rather fun that none could be added. The trees and theplanets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I saw theMatterhorn I was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion.I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they arecalled so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is asingle jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel aspeerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmosis indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be anotherone.

Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter theunutterable things. These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; thesoils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought beforeI could write, and felt before I could think: that we may proceed moreeasily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in mybones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be amiracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick,with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick,if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the naturalexplanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, Icame to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have someone to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a workof art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought thispurpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such asdragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form ofhumility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by notdrinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever madeus. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague andvast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored andheld sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good asCrusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. All this I feltand the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I hadnot even thought of Christian theology.

CHAPTER V.—The Flag of the World

When I was a boy there were two curious men running about who werecalled the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly used the wordsmyself, but I cheerfully confess that I never had any very special ideaof what they meant. The only thing which might be considered evident wasthat they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbalexplanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it couldbe, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both thesestatements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about forother explanations. An optimist could not mean a man who thoughteverything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is likecalling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to theconclusion that the optimist thought everything good except thepessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, excepthimself. It would be unfair to omit altogether from the list themysterious but suggestive definition said to have been given by a littlegirl, "An optimist is a man who looks after your eyes, and a pessimistis a man who looks after your feet." I am not sure that this is not thebest definition of all. There is even a sort of allegorical truth in it.For there might, perhaps, be a profitable distinction drawn between thatmore dreary thinker who thinks merely of our contact with the earth frommoment to moment, and that happier thinker who considers rather ourprimary power of vision and of choice of road.

But this is a deep mistake in this alternative of the optimist and thepessimist. The assumption of it is that a man criticises this world asif he were house-hunting, as if he were being shown over a new suite ofapartments. If a man came to this world from some other world in fullpossession of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage ofmidsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs, just as a manlooking for lodgings might balance the presence of a telephone againstthe absence of a sea view. But no man is in that position. A man belongsto this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. Hehas fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for the flaglong before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems theessential matter, he has a loyalty long before he has any admiration.

In the last chapter it has been said that the primary feeling that thisworld is strange and yet attractive is best expressed in fairy tales.The reader may, if he likes, put down the next stage to that bellicoseand even jingo literature which commonly comes next in the history of aboy. We all owe much sound morality to the penny dreadfuls. Whatever thereason, it seemed and still seems to me that our attitude towards lifecan be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than interms of criticism and approval. My acceptance of the universe is notoptimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty.The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leavebecause it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flagflying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we shouldleave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or tooglad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, itsgladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for lovingit more. All optimistic thoughts about England and all pessimisticthoughts about her are alike reasons for the English patriot. Similarly,optimism and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot.

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing—say Pimlico.If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread ofthought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitary. It is notenough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merelycut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for aman to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which wouldbe awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to lovePimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthlyreason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would riseinto ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself asa woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hidehorrible things; but to decorate things already adorable. A mother doesnot give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A loverdoes not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlicoas mothers love children, arbitarily, because it is theirs Pimlico ina year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say thatthis is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history ofmankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to thedarkest roots of civilisation and you will find them knotted round somesacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour toa spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome becauseshe was great. She was great because they had loved her.

The eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have been exposedto much clumsy criticism in our time; in so far as they meant that thereis at the back of all historic government an idea of content andco-operation, they were demonstrably right. But they really were wrongin so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethicsdirectly by a conscious exchange of interests. Morality did not begin byone man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me";there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both menhaving said, "We must not hit each other in the holy place." They gainedtheir morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivatecourage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had becomecourageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselvesfor the altar, and found that they were clean. The history of the Jewsis the only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts canbe judged sufficiently from that. The Ten Commandments which have beenfound substantially common to mankind were merely military commands; acode of regimental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across acertain desert. Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity. Andonly when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made aholiday for men.

If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is asource of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact. Letus reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort ofuniversal patriotism. What is the matter with the pessimist? I think itcan be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what isthe matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, withoutundue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what isthe matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real lifeand immutable human nature.

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that heis not candid. He is keeping something back—his own gloomy pleasure insaying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely tohelp. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort ofanti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course)of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers andgushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man whosays that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is notworth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warnhis mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is ananti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of himis, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend;the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry atall. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he isusing that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army,to discourage people from joining it. Because he is allowed to bepessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as arecruiting sergeant. Just in the same way the pessimist (who is thecosmic anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to hercounsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted that hestates only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions,what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham aredown with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by somegreat philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some commonclergyman who wants to help the men.

The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men,but that he does not love what he chastises—he has not this primary andsupernatural loyalty to things. What is the evil of the man commonlycalled an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing todefend the honour of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is thejingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He willbe less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort offront-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing every one withassurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. Allthis (which is true of a type of optimist) leads us to the one reallyinteresting point of psychology, which could not be explained withoutit.

We say there must be a primal loyalty to life: the only question is,shall it be a natural or a supernatural loyalty? If you like to put itso, shall it be a reasonable or an unreasonable loyalty? Now, theextraordinary thing is that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, the weakdefence of everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism. Rationaloptimism leads to stagnation: it is irrational optimism that leads toreform. Let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism.The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the manwho loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is theman who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature ofPimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself defending thatfeature against Pimlico itself. But if he simply loves Pimlico itself,he may lay it waste and turn it into the New Jerusalem. I do not denythat reform may be excessive; I only say that it is the mystic patriotwho reforms. Mere jingo self-contentment is commonest among those whohave some pedantic reason for their patriotism. The worst jingoes do notlove England, but a theory of England. If we love England for being anempire, we may overrate the success with which we rule the Hindoos. Butif we love it only for being a nation, we can face all events: for itwould be a nation even if the Hindoos ruled us. Thus also only thosewill permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism dependson history. A man who loves England for being English will not mind howshe arose. But a man who loves England for being Anglo-Saxon may goagainst all facts for his fancy. He may end (like Carlyle and Freeman)by maintaining that the Norman Conquest was a Saxon Conquest. He may endin utter unreason—because he has a reason. A man who loves France forbeing military will palliate the army of 1870. But a man who lovesFrance for being France will improve the army of 1870. This is exactlywhat the French have done, and France is a good instance of the workingparadox. Nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary;and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping. The moretranscendental is your patriotism, the more practical are your politics.

Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case ofwomen; and their strange and strong loyalty. Some stupid people startedthe idea that because women obviously back up their own people througheverything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They canhardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defendtheir men through thick and thin are (in their personal intercourse withthe man) almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or thethickness of his head. A man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is:his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else.Women who are utter mystics in their creed are utter cynics in theircriticism. Thackeray expressed this well when he made Pendennis' mother,who worshipped her son as a god, yet assume that he would go wrong as aman. She underrated his virtue, though she overrated his value. Thedevotee is entirely free to criticise; the fanatic can safely be asceptic. Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love isbound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

This at least had come to be my position about all that was calledoptimism, pessimism, and improvement. Before any cosmic act of reform wemust have a cosmic oath of allegiance. A man must be interested in life,then he could be disinterested in his views of it. "My son give me thyheart"; the heart must be fixed on the right thing: the moment we have afixed heart we have a free hand. I must pause to anticipate an obviouscriticism. It will be said that a rational person accepts the world asmixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decentendurance. But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to bedefective. It is, I know, very common in this age; it was perfectly putin those quiet lines of Matthew Arnold which are more piercinglyblasphemous than the shrieks of Schopenhauer—

I know this feeling fills our epoch, and I think it freezes our epoch.For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is notthe cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in whichwe can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and angerto neutralise each other and produce a surly contentment; we want afiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universeat once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage,to which we can return at evening.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but wedemand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to getit on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough tothink it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good withoutonce feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil withoutonce feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimistand an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Ishe enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian todie to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimistwho fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smashthe whole universe for the sake of itself.

I put these things not in their mature logical sequence, but as theycame: and this view was cleared and sharpened by an accident of thetime. Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, an argument arose whetherit was not a very nice thing to murder one's self. Grave moderns told usthat we must not even say "poor fellow," of a man who had blown hisbrains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them outbecause of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer evensuggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slotmachines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. In all this Ifound myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal andhumane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate andabsolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; therefusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man,kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he isconcerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolicallyconsidered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys allbuildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds;but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even bythe blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments thethings he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insultseverything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower byrefusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in thecosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on atree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury:for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may bepathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, andthere almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas andthe intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational andphilosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driventhrough the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines.There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime isdifferent from other crimes—for it makes even crimes impossible.

About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: hesaid that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy ofthis helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the oppositeof a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outsidehim, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who caresso little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last ofeverything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything toend. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however herenounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses thisultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies thatsomething may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this linkwith being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys theuniverse. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and thequeer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to thesuicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr.Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, ofcarrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic.The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness.They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the graveafar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the verypoetry of pessimism. Yet there is the stake at the cross-roads to showwhat Christianity thought of the pessimist.

This was the first of the long train of enigmas with which Christianityentered the discussion. And there went with it a peculiarity of which Ishall have to speak more markedly, as a note of all Christian notions,but which distinctly began in this one. The Christian attitude to themartyr and the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modernmorals. It was not a matter of degree. It was not that a line must bedrawn somewhere, and that the self-slayer in exaltation fell within theline, the self-slayer in sadness just beyond it. The Christian feelingevidently was not merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom toofar. The Christian feeling was furiously for one and furiously againstthe other: these two things that looked so much alike were at oppositeends of heaven and hell. One man flung away his life; he was so goodthat his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence. Another man flungaway life; he was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren's. Iam not saying this fierceness was right; but why was it so fierce?

Here it was that I first found that my wandering feet were in somebeaten track. Christianity had also felt this opposition of the martyrto the suicide: had it perhaps felt it for the same reason? HadChristianity felt what I felt, but could not (and cannot) express—thisneed for a first loyalty to things, and then for a ruinous reform ofthings? Then I remembered that it was actually the charge againstChristianity that it combined these two things which I was wildly tryingto combine. Christianity was accused, at one and the same time, of beingtoo optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about theworld. The coincidence made me suddenly stand still.

An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that suchand such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another.Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is notcredible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certainphilosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed onTuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it wassuitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What aman can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or thecentury. If a man believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believein any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, hecan believe in any miracle in any age. Suppose, for the sake ofargument, we are concerned with a case of thaumaturgic healing. Amaterialist of the twelfth century could not believe it any more than amaterialist of the twentieth century. But a Christian Scientist of thetwentieth century can believe it as much as a Christian of the twelfthcentury. It is simply a matter of a man's theory of things. Therefore indealing with any historical answer, the point is not whether it wasgiven in our time, but whether it was given in answer to our question.And the more I thought about when and how Christianity had come into theworld, the more I felt that it had actually come to answer thisquestion.

It is commonly the loose and latitudinarian Christians who pay quiteindefensible compliments to Christianity. They talk as if there hadnever been any piety or pity until Christianity came, a point on whichany mediæval would have been eager to correct them. They represent thatthe remarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the first topreach simplicity or self-restraint, or inwardness and sincerity. Theywill think me very narrow (whatever that means) if I say that theremarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the first to preachChristianity. Its peculiarity was that it was peculiar, and simplicityand sincerity are not peculiar, but obvious ideals for all mankind.Christianity was the answer to a riddle, not the last truism utteredafter a long talk. Only the other day I saw in an excellent weekly paperof Puritan tone this remark, that Christianity when stripped of itsarmour of dogma (as who should speak of a man stripped of his armour ofbones), turned out to be nothing but the Quaker doctrine of the InnerLight. Now, if I were to say that Christianity came into the worldspecially to destroy the doctrine of the Inner Light, that would be anexaggeration. But it would be very much nearer to the truth. The lastStoics, like Marcus Aurelius, were exactly the people who did believe inthe Inner Light. Their dignity, their weariness, their sad external carefor others, their incurable internal care for themselves, were all dueto the Inner Light, and existed only by that dismal illumination. Noticethat Marcus Aurelius insists, as such introspective moralists always do,upon small things done or undone; it is because he has not hate or loveenough to make a moral revolution. He gets up early in the morning, justas our own aristocrats living the Simple Life get up early in themorning; because such altruism is much easier than stopping the games ofthe amphitheatre or giving the English people back their land. MarcusAurelius is the most intolerable of human types. He is an unselfishegoist. An unselfish egoist is a man who has pride without the excuse ofpassion. Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is whatthese people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the mosthorrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any bodyknows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the HigherThought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the godwithin him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones.Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light;let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street,but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly inorder to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards,but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm adivine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christianwas that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitelyrecognised an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terribleas an army with banners.

All the same, it will be as well if Jones does not worship the sun andmoon. If he does, there is a tendency for him to imitate them; to say,that because the sun burns insects alive, he may burn insects alive. Hethinks that because the sun gives people sun-stroke, he may give hisneighbour measles. He thinks that because the moon is said to drive menmad, he may drive his wife mad. This ugly side of mere external optimismhad also shown itself in the ancient world. About the time when theStoic idealism had begun to show the weaknesses of pessimism, the oldnature worship of the ancients had begun to show the enormous weaknessesof optimism. Nature worship is natural enough while the society isyoung, or, in other words, Pantheism is all right as long as it is theworship of Pan. But Nature has another side which experience and sin arenot slow in finding out, and it is no flippancy to say of the god Panthat he soon showed the cloven hoof. The only objection to NaturalReligion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Naturein the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if heis loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washesat dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehowat the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as didJulian the Apostate. The mere pursuit of health always leads tosomething unhealthy. Physical nature must not be made the direct objectof obedience; it must be enjoyed, not worshipped. Stars and mountainsmust not be taken seriously. If they are, we end where the pagan natureworship ended. Because the earth is kind, we can imitate all hercruelties. Because sexuality is sane, we can all go mad about sexuality.Mere optimism had reached its insane and appropriate termination. Thetheory that everything was good had become an orgy of everything thatwas bad.

On the other side our idealist pessimists were represented by the oldremnant of the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius and his friends had really givenup the idea of any god in the universe and looked only to the godwithin. They had no hope of any virtue in nature, and hardly any hope ofany virtue in society. They had not enough interest in the outer worldreally to wreck or revolutionise it. They did not love the city enoughto set fire to it. Thus the ancient world was exactly in our owndesolate dilemma. The only people who really enjoyed this world werebusy breaking it up; and the virtuous people did not care enough aboutthem to knock them down. In this dilemma (the same as ours) Christianitysuddenly stepped in and offered a singular answer, which the worldeventually accepted as the answer. It was the answer then, and I thinkit is the answer now.

This answer was like the slash of a sword; it sundered; it did not inany sense sentimentally unite. Briefly, it divided God from the cosmos.That transcendence and distinctness of the deity which some Christiansnow want to remove from Christianity, was really the only reason why anyone wanted to be a Christian. It was the whole point of the Christiananswer to the unhappy pessimist and the still more unhappy optimist. AsI am here only concerned with their particular problem I shall indicateonly briefly this great metaphysical suggestion. All descriptions ofthe creating or sustaining principle in things must be metaphorical,because they must be verbal. Thus the pantheist is forced to speak ofGod in all things as if he were in a box. Thus the evolutionist has,in his very name, the idea of being unrolled like a carpet. All terms,religious and irreligious, are open to this charge. The only question iswhether all terms are useless, or whether one can, with such a phrase,cover a distinct idea about the origin of things. I think one can, andso evidently does the evolutionist, or he would not talk aboutevolution. And the root phrase for all Christian theism was this, thatGod was a creator, as an artist is a creator. A poet is so separate fromhis poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing he has "thrownoff." Even in giving it forth he has flung it away. This principle thatall creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistentthrough the cosmos as the evolutionary principle that all growth is abranching out. A woman loses a child even in having a child. Allcreation is separation. Birth is as solemn a parting as death.

It was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this divorcein the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the poem orthe mother from the new-born child) was the true description of the actwhereby the absolute energy made the world. According to mostphilosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According toChristianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so mucha poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but whichhad necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who hadsince made a great mess of it. I will discuss the truth of this theoremlater. Here I have only to point out with what a startling smoothness itpassed the dilemma we have discussed in this chapter. In this way atleast one could be both happy and indignant without degrading one's selfto be either a pessimist or an optimist. On this system one could fightall the forces of existence without deserting the flag of existence. Onecould be at peace with the universe and yet be at war with the world.St. George could still fight the dragon, however big the monster bulkedin the cosmos, though he were bigger than the mighty cities or biggerthan the everlasting hills. If he were as big as the world he could yetbe killed in the name of the world. St. George had not to consider anyobvious odds or proportions in the scale of things, but only theoriginal secret of their design. He can shake his sword at the dragon,even if it is everything; even if the empty heavens over his head areonly the huge arch of its open jaws.

And then followed an experience impossible to describe. It was as if Ihad been blundering about since my birth with two huge and unmanageablemachines, of different shapes and without apparent connection—the worldand the Christian tradition. I had found this hole in the world: thefact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world withouttrusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. Ifound this projecting feature of Christian theology, like a sort of hardspike, the dogmatic insistence that God was personal, and had made aworld separate from Himself. The spike of dogma fitted exactly into thehole in the world—it had evidently been meant to go there—and then thestrange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the twomachines had come together, one after another, all the other partsfitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude. I could hear bolt afterbolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of clickof relief. Having got one part right, all the other parts wererepeating that rectitude, as clock after clock strikes noon. Instinctafter instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine. Or, to vary themetaphor, I was like one who had advanced into a hostile country to takeone high fortress. And when that fort had fallen the whole countrysurrendered and turned solid behind me. The whole land was lit up, as itwere, back to the first fields of my childhood. All those blind fanciesof boyhood which in the fourth chapter I have tried in vain to trace onthe darkness, became suddenly transparent and sane. I was right when Ifelt that roses were red by some sort of choice: it was the divinechoice. I was right when I felt that I would almost rather say thatgrass was the wrong colour than say that it must by necessity have beenthat colour: it might verily have been any other. My sense thathappiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean somethingwhen all was said: it meant the whole doctrine of the Fall. Even thosedim and shapeless monsters of notions which I have not been able todescribe, much less defend, stepped quietly into their places likecolossal caryatides of the creed. The fancy that the cosmos was not vastand void, but small and cosy, had a fulfilled significance now, foranything that is a work of art must be small in the sight of the artist;to God the stars might be only small and dear, like diamonds. And myhaunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used,but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship—even thathad been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, accordingto Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of agolden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed the reasonfor optimism. And the instant the reversal was made it felt like theabrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket. I had often calledmyself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. Butall the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for thisreason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to theworld. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fitin to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man isan animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now Ireally was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I hadbeen right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worseand better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for itdwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure waspoetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light ofthe supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and againthat I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even inacquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and mysoul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out andilluminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew nowwhy grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of agiant, and why I could feel homesick at home.

CHAPTER VI.—The Paradoxes of Christianity

The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is anunreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonestkind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life isnot an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just alittle more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude isobvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. Igive one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematicalcreature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would atonce see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. Aman is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left.Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, aleg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still findon each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twineyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. Atlast he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on oneside, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And justthen, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong.

It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncannyelement in everything. It seems a sort of secret treason in theuniverse. An apple or an orange is round enough to get itself calledround, and yet is not round after all. The earth itself is shaped likean orange in order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it aglobe. A blade of grass is called after the blade of a sword, because itcomes to a point; but it doesn't. Everywhere in things there is thiselement of the quiet and incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, butit never escapes till the last moment. From the grand curve of our earthit could easily be inferred that every inch of it was thus curved. Itwould seem rational that as a man has a brain on both sides, he shouldhave a heart on both sides. Yet scientific men are still organizingexpeditions to find the North Pole, because they are so fond of flatcountry. Scientific men are also still organising expeditions to find aman's heart; and when they try to find it, they generally get on thewrong side of him.

Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guessesthese hidden malformations or surprises. If our mathematician from themoon saw the two arms and the two ears, he might deduce the twoshoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain. But if he guessed thatthe man's heart was in the right place, then I should call him somethingmore than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim which I havesince come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduceslogical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it hasfound, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right aboutthings, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the thingsgo wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects theunexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubbornabout the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it willnot admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deductionthat he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to pointthis out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd inChristian theology, we shall generally find that there is something oddin the truth.

I have alluded to an unmeaning phrase to the effect that such and such acreed cannot be believed in our age. Of course, anything can bebelieved in any age. But, oddly enough, there really is a sense in whicha creed, if it is believed at all, can be believed more fixedly in acomplex society than in a simple one. If a man finds Christianity truein Birmingham, he has actually clearer reasons for faith than if he hadfound it true in Mercia. For the more complicated seems the coincidence,the less it can be a coincidence. If snowflakes fell in the shape, say,of the heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if snowflakesfell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton Court, I think one mightcall it a miracle. It is exactly as of such a miracle that I have sincecome to feel of the philosophy of Christianity. The complication of ourmodern world proves the truth of the creed more perfectly than any ofthe plain problems of the ages of faith. It was in Notting Hill andBattersea that I began to see that Christianity was true. This is whythe faith has that elaboration of doctrines and details which so muchdistresses those who admire Christianity without believing in it. Whenonce one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, asscientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich itis in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to saythat it's elaborately right. A stick might fit a hole or a stone ahollow by accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. And if a keyfits a lock, you know it is the right key.

But this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to dowhat I now have to do, to describe this accumulation of truth. It isvery hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirelyconvinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced.He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of thething, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of aphilosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is onlyreally convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the moreconverging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the morebewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked anordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefercivilisation to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object afterobject, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is thatbookcase ... and the coals in the coal-scuttle ... and pianos ... andpolicemen." The whole case for civilisation is that the case for it iscomplex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proofwhich ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.

There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of hugehelplessness. The belief is so big that it takes a long time to get itinto action. And this hesitation chiefly arises, oddly enough, from anindifference about where one should begin. All roads lead to Rome; whichis one reason why many people never get there. In the case of thisdefence of the Christian conviction I confess that I would as soon beginthe argument with one thing as another; I would begin it with a turnipor a taximeter cab. But if I am to be at all careful about making mymeaning clear, it will, I think, be wiser to continue the currentarguments of the last chapter, which was concerned to urge the first ofthese mystical coincidences, or rather ratifications. All I had hithertoheard of Christian theology had alienated me from it. I was a pagan atthe age of twelve, and a complete agnostic by the age of sixteen; and Icannot understand any one passing the age of seventeen without havingasked himself so simple a question. I did, indeed, retain a cloudyreverence for a cosmic deity and a great historical interest in theFounder of Christianity. But I certainly regarded Him as a man; thoughperhaps I thought that, even in that point, He had an advantage oversome of His modern critics. I read the scientific and scepticalliterature of my time—all of it, at least, that I could find written inEnglish and lying about; and I read nothing else; I mean I read nothingelse on any other note of philosophy. The penny dreadfuls which I alsoread were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of Christianity; butI did not know this at the time. I never read a line of Christianapologetics. I read as little as I can of them now. It was Huxley andHerbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology.They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmotherswere quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the free-thinkersunsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. Therationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; andwhen I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (forthe first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid downthe last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful thoughtbroke across my mind, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Iwas in a desperate way.

This odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper thantheir own might be illustrated in many ways. I take only one. As I readand re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of thefaith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grewgradually but graphically upon my mind—the impression that Christianitymust be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I understood) hadChristianity the most flaming vices, but it had apparently a mysticaltalent for combining vices which seemed inconsistent with each other. Itwas attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons. No soonerhad one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east thananother demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far tothe west. No sooner had my indignation died down at its angular andaggressive squareness than I was called up again to notice and condemnits enervating and sensual roundness. In case any reader has not comeacross the thing I mean, I will give such instances as I remember atrandom of this self-contradiction in the sceptical attack. I give fouror five of them; there are fifty more.

Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack onChristianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and stillthink) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is asocial accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunatelynearly all pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as thesepeople said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, then I wasquite prepared to blow up St. Paul's Cathedral. But the extraordinarything is this. They did prove to me in Chapter I. (to my completesatisfaction) that Christianity was too pessimistic; and then, inChapter II., they began to prove to me that it was a great deal toooptimistic. One accusation against Christianity was that it preventedmen, by morbid tears and terrors, from seeking joy and liberty in thebosom of Nature. But another accusation was that it comforted men with afictitious providence, and put them in a pink-and-white nursery. Onegreat agnostic asked why Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it washard to be free. Another great agnostic objected that Christianoptimism, "the garment of make-believe woven by pious hands," hid fromus the fact that Nature was ugly, and that it was impossible to be free.One rationalist had hardly done calling Christianity a nightmare beforeanother began to call it a fool's paradise. This puzzled me; the chargesseemed inconsistent. Christianity could not at once be the black mask ona white world, and also the white mask on a black world. The state ofthe Christian could not be at once so comfortable that he was a cowardto cling to it, and so uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it. Ifit falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or another; itcould not wear both green and rose-coloured spectacles. I rolled on mytongue with a terrible joy, as did all young men of that time, thetaunts which Swinburne hurled at the dreariness of the creed—

"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilæan, the world has grown gray with Thy breath."

But when I read the same poet's accounts of paganism (as in "Atalanta"),I gathered that the world was, if possible, more gray before theGalilæan breathed on it than afterwards. The poet maintained, indeed, inthe abstract, that life itself was pitch dark. And yet, somehow,Christianity had darkened it. The very man who denounced Christianityfor pessimism was himself a pessimist. I thought there must be somethingwrong. And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps,those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion tohappiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.

It must be understood that I did not conclude hastily that theaccusations were false or the accusers fools. I simply deduced thatChristianity must be something even weirder and wickeder than they madeout. A thing might have these two opposite vices; but it must be arather queer thing if it did. A man might be too fat in one place andtoo thin in another; but he would be an odd shape. At this point mythoughts were only of the odd shape of the Christian religion; I did notallege any odd shape in the rationalistic mind.

Here is another case of the same kind. I felt that a strong case againstChristianity lay in the charge that there is something timid, monkish,and unmanly about all that is called "Christian," especially in itsattitude towards resistance and fighting. The great sceptics of thenineteenth century were largely virile. Bradlaugh in an expansive way,Huxley in a reticent way, were decidedly men. In comparison, it did seemtenable that there was something weak and over patient about Christiancounsels. The Gospel paradox about the other cheek, the fact thatpriests never fought, a hundred things made plausible the accusationthat Christianity was an attempt to make a man too like a sheep. I readit and believed it, and if I had read nothing different, I should havegone on believing it. But I read something very different. I turned thenext page in my agnostic manual, and my brain turned up-side down. Now Ifound that I was to hate Christianity not for fighting too little, butfor fighting too much. Christianity, it seemed, was the mother of wars.Christianity had deluged the world with blood. I had got thoroughlyangry with the Christian, because he never was angry. And now I was toldto be angry with him because his anger had been the most huge andhorrible thing in human history; because his anger had soaked the earthand smoked to the sun. The very people who reproached Christianity withthe meekness and non-resistance of the monastries were the very peoplewho reproached it also with the violence and valour of the Crusades. Itwas the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both thatEdward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard Coeur de Lion did.The Quakers (we were told) were the only characteristic Christians; andyet the massacres of Cromwell and Alva were characteristic Christiancrimes. What could it all mean? What was this Christianity which alwaysforbade war and always produced wars? What could be the nature of thething which one could abuse first because it would not fight, and secondbecause it was always fighting? In what world of riddles was born thismonstrous murder and this monstrous meekness? The shape of Christianitygrew a queerer shape every instant.

I take a third case; the strangest of all, because it involves the onereal objection to the faith. The one real objection to the Christianreligion is simply that it is one religion. The world is a big place,full of very different kinds of people. Christianity (it may reasonablybe said) is one thing confined to one kind of people; it began inPalestine, it has practically stopped with Europe. I was duly impressedwith this argument in my youth, and I was much drawn towards thedoctrine often preached in Ethical Societies—I mean the doctrine thatthere is one great unconscious church of all humanity founded on theomnipresence of the human conscience. Creeds, it was said, divided men;but at least morals united them. The soul might seek the strangest andmost remote lands and ages and still find essential ethical commonsense. It might find Confucius under Eastern trees, and he would bewriting "Thou shalt not steal." It might decipher the darkesthieroglyphic on the most primeval desert, and the meaning whendeciphered would be "Little boys should tell the truth." I believed thisdoctrine of the brotherhood of all men in the possession of a moralsense, and I believe it still—with other things. And I was thoroughlyannoyed with Christianity for suggesting (as I supposed) that whole agesand empires of men had utterly escaped this light of justice and reason.But then I found an astonishing thing. I found that the very people whosaid that mankind was one church from Plato to Emerson were the verypeople who said that morality had changed altogether, and that what wasright in one age was wrong in another. If I asked, say, for an altar, Iwas told that we needed none, for men our brothers gave us clear oraclesand one creed in their universal customs and ideals. But if I mildlypointed out that one of men's universal customs was to have an altar,then my agnostic teachers turned clean round and told me that men hadalways been in darkness and the superstitions of savages. I found it wastheir daily taunt against Christianity that it was the light of onepeople and had left all others to die in the dark. But I also found thatit was their special boast for themselves that science and progress werethe discovery of one people, and that all other peoples had died in thedark. Their chief insult to Christianity was actually their chiefcompliment to themselves, and there seemed to be a strange unfairnessabout all their relative insistence on the two things. When consideringsome pagan or agnostic, we were to remember that all men had onereligion; when considering some mystic or spiritualist, we were only toconsider what absurd religions some men had. We could trust the ethicsof Epictetus, because ethics had never changed. We must not trust theethics of Bossuet, because ethics had changed. They changed in twohundred years, but not in two thousand.

This began to be alarming. It looked not so much as if Christianity wasbad enough to include any vices, but rather as if any stick was goodenough to beat Christianity with. What again could this astonishingthing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doingso they did not mind contradicting themselves? I saw the same thing onevery side. I can give no further space to this discussion of it indetail; but lest any one supposes that I have unfairly selected threeaccidental cases I will run briefly through a few others. Thus, certainsceptics wrote that the great crime of Christianity had been its attackon the family; it had dragged women to the loneliness and contemplationof the cloister, away from their homes and their children. But, then,other sceptics (slightly more advanced) said that the great crime ofChristianity was forcing the family and marriage upon us; that it doomedwomen to the drudgery of their homes and children, and forbade themloneliness and contemplation. The charge was actually reversed. Or,again, certain phrases in the Epistles or the Marriage Service, weresaid by the anti-Christians to show contempt for woman's intellect. ButI found that the anti-Christians themselves had a contempt for woman'sintellect; for it was their great sneer at the Church on the Continentthat "only women" went to it. Or again, Christianity was reproached withits naked and hungry habits; with its sackcloth and dried peas. But thenext minute Christianity was being reproached with its pomp and itsritualism; its shrines of porphyry and its robes of gold. It was abusedfor being too plain and for being too coloured. Again Christianity hadalways been accused of restraining sexuality too much, when Bradlaughthe Malthusian discovered that it restrained it too little. It is oftenaccused in the same breath of prim respectability and of religiousextravagance. Between the covers of the same atheistic pamphlet I havefound the faith rebuked for its disunion, "One thinks one thing, and oneanother," and rebuked also for its union, "It is difference of opinionthat prevents the world from going to the dogs." In the sameconversation a free-thinker, a friend of mine, blamed Christianity fordespising Jews, and then despised it himself for being Jewish.

I wished to be quite fair then, and I wish to be quite fair now; and Idid not conclude that the attack on Christianity was all wrong. I onlyconcluded that if Christianity was wrong, it was very wrong indeed. Suchhostile horrors might be combined in one thing, but that thing must bevery strange and solitary. There are men who are misers, and alsospendthrifts; but they are rare. There are men sensual and also ascetic;but they are rare. But if this mass of mad contradictions reallyexisted, quakerish and bloodthirsty, too gorgeous and too thread-bare,austere, yet pandering preposterously to the lust of the eye, the enemyof women and their foolish refuge, a solemn pessimist and a sillyoptimist, if this evil existed, then there was in this evil somethingquite supreme and unique. For I found in my rationalist teachers noexplanation of such exceptional corruption. Christianity (theoreticallyspeaking) was in their eyes only one of the ordinary myths and errors ofmortals. They gave me no key to this twisted and unnatural badness.Such a paradox of evil rose to the stature of the supernatural. It was,indeed, almost as supernatural as the infallibility of the Pope. Anhistoric institution, which never went right, is really quite as much ofa miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong. The only explanationwhich immediately occurred to my mind was that Christianity did not comefrom heaven, but from hell. Really, if Jesus of Nazareth was not Christ,He must have been Antichrist.

And then in a quiet hour a strange thought struck me like a stillthunderbolt. There had suddenly come into my mind another explanation.Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we werepuzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short;some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thoughthim too dark, and some too fair. One explanation (as has been alreadyadmitted) would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is anotherexplanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men mightfeel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Oldbucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filledout; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyondthe narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair liketow) called him a dark man, while negroes considered him distinctlyblonde. Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really theordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, afterall, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that aremad—in various ways. I tested this idea by asking myself whether therewas about any of the accusers anything morbid that might explain theaccusation. I was startled to find that this key fitted a lock. Forinstance, it was certainly odd that the modern world chargedChristianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. Butthen it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combinedextreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp. Themodern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. Butthen the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man beforeever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern manfound the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; hefound the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy.The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entrées.The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. Andsurely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was inthe trousers, not in the simply falling robe. If there was any insanityat all, it was in the extravagant entrées, not in the bread and wine.

I went over all the cases, and I found the key fitted so far. The factthat Swinburne was irritated at the unhappiness of Christians and yetmore irritated at their happiness was easily explained. It was no longera complication of diseases in Christianity, but a complication ofdiseases in Swinburne. The restraints of Christians saddened him simplybecause he was more hedonist than a healthy man should be. The faith ofChristians angered him because he was more pessimist than a healthy manshould be. In the same way the Malthusians by instinct attackedChristianity; not because there is anything especially anti-Malthusianabout Christianity, but because there is something a little anti-humanabout Malthusianism.

Nevertheless it could not, I felt, be quite true that Christianity wasmerely sensible and stood in the middle. There was really an element init of emphasis and even frenzy which had justified the secularists intheir superficial criticism. It might be wise, I began more and more tothink that it was wise, but it was not merely worldly wise; it was notmerely temperate and respectable. Its fierce crusaders and meek saintsmight balance each other; still, the crusaders were very fierce and thesaints were very meek, meek beyond all decency. Now, it was just at thispoint of the speculation that I remembered my thoughts about the martyrand the suicide. In that matter there had been this combination betweentwo almost insane positions which yet somehow amounted to sanity. Thiswas just such another contradiction; and this I had already found to betrue. This was exactly one of the paradoxes in which sceptics found thecreed wrong; and in this I had found it right. Madly as Christians mightlove the martyr or hate the suicide, they never felt these passions moremadly than I had felt them long before I dreamed of Christianity. Thenthe most difficult and interesting part of the mental process opened,and I began to trace this idea darkly through all the enormous thoughtsof our theology. The idea was that which I had outlined touching theoptimist and the pessimist; that we want not an amalgam or compromise,but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning.Here I shall only trace it in relation to ethics. But I need not remindthe reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central inorthodox theology. For orthodox theology has specially insisted thatChrist was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet abeing half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at onceand both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now let me trace thisnotion as I found it.

All sane men can see that sanity is some kind of equilibrium; that onemay be mad and eat too much, or mad and eat too little. Some modernshave indeed appeared with vague versions of progress and evolution whichseeks to destroy the μεσον or balance of Aristotle. They seem to suggestthat we are meant to starve progressively, or to go on eating larger andlarger breakfasts every morning for ever. But the great truism of theμεσον remains for all thinking men, and these people have not upset anybalance except their own. But granted that we have all to keep abalance, the real interest comes in with the question of how thatbalance can be kept. That was the problem which Paganism tried to solve:that was the problem which I think Christianity solved and solved in avery strange way.

Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared itwas in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Ofcourse they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it washard to hold simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of themartyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality hasever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merelyrational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means astrong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He thatwill lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticismfor saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors ormountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book.This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthlyor quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life ifhe will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death bycontinually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded byenemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desirefor living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merelycling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. Hemust not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and willnot escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference toit; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. Nophilosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle withadequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianityhas done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of thesuicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for thesake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has heldup ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery ofchivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not theChinese courage, which is a disdain of life.

And now I began to find that this duplex passion was the Christian keyto ethics everywhere. Everywhere the creed made a moderation out of thestill crash of two impetuous emotions. Take, for instance, the matter ofmodesty, of the balance between mere pride and mere prostration. Theaverage pagan, like the average agnostic, would merely say that he wascontent with himself, but not insolently self-satisfied, that there weremany better and many worse, that his deserts were limited, but he wouldsee that he got them. In short, he would walk with his head in the air;but not necessarily with his nose in the air. This is a manly andrational position, but it is open to the objection we noted against thecompromise between optimism and pessimism—the "resignation" of MatthewArnold. Being a mixture of two things, it is a dilution of two things;neither is present in its full strength or contributes its full colour.This proper pride does not lift the heart like the tongue of trumpets;you cannot go clad in crimson and gold for this. On the other hand, thismild rationalist modesty does not cleanse the soul with fire and make itclear like crystal; it does not (like a strict and searching humility)make a man as a little child, who can sit at the feet of the grass. Itdoes not make him look up and see marvels; for Alice must grow small ifshe is to be Alice in Wonderland. Thus it loses both the poetry ofbeing proud and the poetry of being humble. Christianity sought by thissame strange expedient to save both of them.

It separated the two ideas and then exaggerated them both. In one wayMan was to be haughtier than he had ever been before; in another way hewas to be humbler than he had ever been before. In so far as I am Man Iam the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief ofsinners. All humility that had meant pessimism, that had meant mantaking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny—all that was to go. Wewere to hear no more the wail of Ecclesiastes that humanity had nopre-eminence over the brute, or the awful cry of Homer that man was onlythe saddest of all the beasts of the field. Man was a statue of Godwalking about the garden. Man had pre-eminence over all the brutes; manwas only sad because he was not a beast, but a broken god. The Greek hadspoken of men creeping on the earth, as if clinging to it. Now Man wasto tread on the earth as if to subdue it. Christianity thus held athought of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crownsrayed like the sun and fans of peaco*ck plumage. Yet at the same time itcould hold a thought about the abject smallness of man that could onlybe expressed in fasting and fantastic submission, in the grey ashes ofSt. Dominic and the white snows of St. Bernard. When one came to thinkof one's self, there was vista and void enough for any amount of bleakabnegation and bitter truth. There the realistic gentleman could lethimself go—as long as he let himself go at himself. There was an openplayground for the happy pessimist. Let him say anything against himselfshort of blaspheming the original aim of his being; let him call himselfa fool and even a damned fool (though that is Calvinistic); but he mustnot say that fools are not worth saving. He must not say that a man,quâ man, can be valueless. Here again, in short, Christianity got overthe difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, andkeeping them both furious. The Church was positive on both points. Onecan hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too muchof one's soul.

Take another case: the complicated question of charity, which somehighly uncharitable idealists seem to think quite easy. Charity is aparadox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainlymeans one of two things—pardoning unpardonable acts, or lovingunlovable people. But if we ask ourselves (as we did in the case ofpride) what a sensible pagan would feel about such a subject, we shallprobably be beginning at the bottom of it. A sensible pagan would saythat there were some people one could forgive, and some one couldn't: aslave who stole wine could be laughed at; a slave who betrayed hisbenefactor could be killed, and cursed even after he was killed. In sofar as the act was pardonable, the man was pardonable. That again isrational, and even refreshing; but it is a dilution. It leaves no placefor a pure horror of injustice, such as that which is a great beauty inthe innocent. And it leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men asmen, such as is the whole fascination of the charitable. Christianitycame in here as before. It came in startlingly with a sword, and cloveone thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. Thecriminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must notforgive at all. It was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspiredpartly anger and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theftthan before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. There was roomfor wrath and love to run wild. And the more I considered Christianity,the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, thechief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

Mental and emotional liberty are not so simple as they look. Really theyrequire almost as careful a balance of laws and conditions as do socialand political liberty. The ordinary æsthetic anarchist who sets out tofeel everything freely gets knotted at last in a paradox that preventshim feeling at all. He breaks away from home limits to follow poetry.But in ceasing to feel home limits he has ceased to feel the "Odyssey."He is free from national prejudices and outside patriotism. But beingoutside patriotism he is outside "Henry V." Such a literary man issimply outside all literature: he is more of a prisoner than any bigot.For if there is a wall between you and the world, it makes littledifference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as locked out.What we want is not the universality that is outside all normalsentiments; we want the universality that is inside all normalsentiments. It is all the difference between being free from them, as aman is free from a prison, and being free of them as a man is free of acity. I am free from Windsor Castle (that is, I am not forcibly detainedthere), but I am by no means free of that building. How can man beapproximately free of fine emotions, able to swing them in a clear spacewithout breakage or wrong? This was the achievement of this Christianparadox of the parallel passions. Granted the primary dogma of the warbetween divine and diabolic, the revolt and ruin of the world, theiroptimism and pessimism, as pure poetry, could be loosened likecataracts.

St. Francis, in praising all good, could be a more shouting optimistthan Walt Whitman. St. Jerome, in denouncing all evil, could paint theworld blacker than Schopenhauer. Both passions were free because bothwere kept in their place. The optimist could pour out all the praise heliked on the gay music of the march, the golden trumpets, and the purplebanners going into battle. But he must not call the fight needless. Thepessimist might draw as darkly as he chose the sickening marches or thesanguine wounds. But he must not call the fight hopeless. So it was withall the other moral problems, with pride, with protest, and withcompassion. By defining its main doctrine, the Church not only keptseemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what was more, allowedthem to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible onlyto anarchists. Meekness grew more dramatic than madness. HistoricChristianity rose into a high and strange coup de théatre ofmorality—things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero are to vice.The spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and attractiveforms, ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged like a dog thefirst and greatest of the Plantagenets, to the sublime pity of St.Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of thecriminal. Poetry could be acted as well as composed. This heroic andmonumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished with supernaturalreligion. They, being humble, could parade themselves; but we are tooproud to be prominent. Our ethical teachers write reasonably for prisonreform; but we are not likely to see Mr. Cadbury, or any eminentphilanthropist, go into Reading Gaol and embrace the strangled corpsebefore it is cast into the quicklime. Our ethical teachers write mildlyagainst the power of millionaires; but we are not likely to see Mr.Rockefeller, or any modern tyrant, publicly whipped in WestminsterAbbey.

Thus, the double charges of the secularists, though throwing nothingbut darkness and confusion on themselves, throw a real light on thefaith. It is true that the historic Church has at once emphasisedcelibacy and emphasised the family; has at once (if one may put it so)been fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children.It has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white,like the red and white upon the shield of St. George. It has always hada healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colours whichis the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution ofblack into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey. In fact, the wholetheory of the Church on virginity might be symbolized in the statementthat white is a colour: not merely the absence of a colour. All that Iam urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought inmost of these cases to keep two colours co-existent but pure. It is nota mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for ashot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern of the cross.

So it is also, of course, with the contradictory charges of theanti-Christians about submission and slaughter. It is true that theChurch told some men to fight and others not to fight; and it is truethat those who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fightwere like statues. All this simply means that the Church preferred touse its Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans. There must be some good inthe life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers.There must be some good in the idea of non-resistance, for so manygood men seem to enjoy being Quakers. All that the Church did (so far asthat goes) was to prevent either of these good things from ousting theother. They existed side by side. The Tolstoyans, having all thescruples of monks, simply became monks. The Quakers became a clubinstead of becoming a sect. Monks said all that Tolstoy says; theypoured out lucid lamentations about the cruelty of battles and thevanity of revenge. But the Tolstoyans are not quite right enough to runthe whole world; and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to runit. The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James Douglas or thebanner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this pure gentleness and thispure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all theprophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay downwith the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted.It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, thatwhen the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. Butthat is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. Thatis simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating thelamb. The real problem is—Can the lion lie down with the lamb and stillretain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted;that is the miracle she achieved.

This is what I have called guessing the hidden eccentricities of life.This is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle.This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactlywhere it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. Itnot only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Thoseunderrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one mightdiscover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for beingmerciful and also severe—that was to anticipate a strange need ofhuman nature. For no one wants to be forgiven for a big sin as if itwere a little one. Any one might say that we should be neither quitemiserable nor quite happy. But to find out how far one may be quitemiserable without making it impossible to be quite happy—that was adiscovery in psychology. Any one might say, "Neither swagger norgrovel"; and it would have been a limit. But to say, "Here you canswagger and there you can grovel"—that was an emancipation.

This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery of the newbalance. Paganism had been like a pillar of marble, upright becauseproportioned with symmetry. Christianity was like a huge and ragged andromantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet,because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other, isenthroned there for a thousand years. In a Gothic cathedral the columnswere all different, but they were all necessary. Every support seemed anaccidental and fantastic support; every buttress was a flying buttress.So in Christendom apparent accidents balanced. Becket wore a hair shirtunder his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for thecombination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while thepeople in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold. It is atleast better than the manner of the modern millionaire, who has theblack and the drab outwardly for others, and the gold next his heart.But the balance was not always in one man's body as in Becket's; thebalance was often distributed over the whole body of Christendom.Because a man prayed and fasted on the Northern snows, flowers could beflung at his festival in the Southern cities; and because fanatics drankwater on the sands of Syria, men could still drink cider in the orchardsof England. This is what makes Christendom at once so much moreperplexing and so much more interesting than the Pagan empire; just asAmiens Cathedral is not better but more interesting than the Parthenon.If any one wants a modern proof of all this, let him consider thecurious fact that, under Christianity, Europe (while remaining a unity)has broken up into individual nations. Patriotism is a perfect exampleof this deliberate balancing of one emphasis against another emphasis.The instinct of the Pagan empire would have said, "You shall all beRoman citizens, and grow alike; let the German grow less slow andreverent; the Frenchmen less experimental and swift." But the instinctof Christian Europe says, "Let the German remain slow and reverent, thatthe Frenchman may the more safely be swift and experimental. We willmake an equipoise out of these excesses. The absurdity called Germanyshall correct the insanity called France."

Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is soinexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. Imean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakesof emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch;but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could notafford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continueher great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once letone idea become less powerful and some other idea would become toopowerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading,but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouringdoctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religionand lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specificallyfor dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through aHoly Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins,or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, needbut a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. Thesmallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, andthe lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forestsof the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speakafterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake weremade in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. Asentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have brokenall the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop allthe dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Eastereggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in orderthat man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to becareful, if only that the world might be careless.

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into afoolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, andsafe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It wasthe equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoopthis way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace ofstatuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early dayswent fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric tosay that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism.She swerved to left and right, so as exactly to avoid enormousobstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed byall the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The nextinstant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have madeit too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course oraccepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. Itwould have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians.It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fallinto the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: itis easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head;the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be amodernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of thoseopen traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion andsect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that wouldindeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are aninfinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. Tohave fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to ChristianScience would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoidedthem all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenlychariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawlingand prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

CHAPTER VII.—The Eternal Revolution

The following propositions have been urged: First, that some faith inour life is required even to improve it; second, that somedissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to besatisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessarydiscontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of theStoic. For mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasurenor the superb intolerance of pain. There is a vital objection to theadvice merely to grin and bear it. The objection is that if you merelybear it, you do not grin. Greek heroes do not grin; but gargoylesdo—because they are Christian. And when a Christian is pleased, he is(in the most exact sense) frightfully pleased; his pleasure isfrightful. Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture in thathour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object tobarrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes ofJerusalem. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cryout." Under the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus thefacades of the mediæval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces andopen mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out.

If these things be conceded, though only for argument, we may take upwhere we left it the thread of the thought of the natural man, called bythe Scotch (with regrettable familiarity), "The Old Man." We can ask thenext question so obviously in front of us. Some satisfaction is neededeven to make things better. But what do we mean by making things better?Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle—thatcircle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mererationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is onlygood if it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and thetortoise on the elephant.

Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from the principle innature; for the simple reason that (except for some human or divinetheory), there is no principle in nature. For instance, the cheapanti-democrat of to-day will tell you solemnly that there is no equalityin nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. Thereis no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature.Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value. To readaristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as toread democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals:the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men aremore valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable thanmice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say thatthe cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superiorbecause we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to theeffect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a Germanpessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all.He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. Orhe might feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on thecat by keeping him alive. Just as a microbe might feel proud ofspreading a pestilence, so the pessimistic mouse might exult to thinkthat he was renewing in the cat the torture of conscious existence. Itall depends on the philosophy of the mouse. You cannot even say thatthere is victory or superiority in nature unless you have some doctrineabout what things are superior. You cannot even say that the cat scoresunless there is a system of scoring. You cannot even say that the catgets the best of it unless there is some best to be got.

We cannot, then, get the ideal itself from nature, and as we follow herethe first and natural speculation, we will leave out (for the present)the idea of getting it from God. We must have our own vision. But theattempts of most moderns to express it are highly vague.

Some fall back simply on the clock: they talk as if mere passage throughtime brought some superiority; so that even a man of the first mentalcalibre carelessly uses the phrase that human morality is never up todate. How can anything be up to date? a date has no character. How canone say that Christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifthof a month? What the writer meant, of course, was that the majority isbehind his favourite minority—or in front of it. Other vague modernpeople take refuge in material metaphors; in fact, this is the chiefmark of vague modern people. Not daring to define their doctrine of whatis good, they use physical figures of speech without stint or shame,and, what is worst of all, seem to think these cheap analogies areexquisitely spiritual and superior to the old morality. Thus they thinkit intellectual to talk about things being "high." It is at least thereverse of intellectual; it is a mere phrase from a steeple or aweatherco*ck. "Tommy was a good boy" is a pure philosophical statement,worthy of Plato or Aquinas. "Tommy lived the higher life" is a grossmetaphor from a ten-foot rule.

This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom someare representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that hewas a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse ofstrong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning beforehimself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and evenKarl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped aquestion by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said,"beyond good and evil," because he had not the courage to say, "moregood than good and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had hefaced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it wasnonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, "thepurer man," or "the happier man," or "the sadder man," for all these areideas; and ideas are alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over man," aphysical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is trulya very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort ofman he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainlythe ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being "higher," do notknow either.

Then again, some people fall back on sheer submission and sitting still.Nature is going to do something some day; nobody knows what, and nobodyknows when. We have no reason for acting, and no reason for not acting.If anything happens it is right: if anything is prevented it was wrong.Again, some people try to anticipate nature by doing something, by doinganything. Because we may possibly grow wings they cut off their legs.Yet nature may be trying to make them centipedes for all they know.

Lastly, there is a fourth class of people who take whatever it is thatthey happen to want, and say that that is the ultimate aim of evolution.And these are the only sensible people. This is the only really healthyway with the word evolution, to work for what you want, and to callthat evolution. The only intelligible sense that progress or advancecan have among men, is that we have a definite vision, and that we wishto make the whole world like that vision. If you like to put it so, theessence of the doctrine is that what we have around us is the meremethod and preparation for something that we have to create. This is nota world, but rather the materials for a world. God has given us not somuch the colours of a picture as the colours of a palette. But He hasalso given us a subject, a model, a fixed vision. We must be clear aboutwhat we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previouslist of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even inorder to change it. We now add that we must be fond of another world(real or imaginary) in order to have something to change it to.

We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress:personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. Itimplies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; tomake it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is ametaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor frommerely walking along a road—very likely the wrong road. But reform is ametaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see acertain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And weknow what shape.

Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. Wehave mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress shouldmean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progressdoes mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It shouldmean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men:it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability ofjustice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubtit. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the NewJerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking awayfrom us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are alteringthe ideal: it is easier.

Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man wanted aparticular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no cause tocomplain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for along time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense)until all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of thelast touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of ablue moon. But if he worked hard, that high-minded reformer wouldcertainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluerthan he found it. If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colourevery day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favouritecolour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading a freshphilosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his workwould be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few bluetigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner. This is exactlythe position of the average modern thinker. It will be said that this isavowedly a preposterous example. But it is literally the fact of recenthistory. The great and grave changes in our political civilization allbelonged to the early nineteenth century, not to the later. Theybelonged to the black and white epoch when men believed fixedly inToryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in Reform, and not unfrequentlyin Revolution. And whatever each man believed in he hammered atsteadily, without scepticism: and there was a time when the EstablishedChurch might have fallen, and the House of Lords nearly fell. It wasbecause Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it wasbecause Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in theexisting atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalismto pull anything down. There is a great deal of truth in Lord HughCecil's suggestion (made in a fine speech) that the era of change isover, and that ours is an era of conservation and repose. But probablyit would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realised (what is certainly thecase) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age ofcomplete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wishinstitutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind isunhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. Thenet result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism,Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy—the plainfruit of all of them is that the Monarchy and the House of Lords willremain. The net result of all the new religions will be that the Churchof England will not (for heaven knows how long) be disestablished. Itwas Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Cunninghame Grahame, Bernard Shaw andAuberon Herbert, who between them, with bowed gigantic backs, bore upthe throne of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the safeguardsagainst freedom. Managed in a modern style the emancipation of theslave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of theslave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he willnot free himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote orextreme. But, again, it is exactly true of the men in the streets aroundus. It is true that the negro slave, being a debased barbarian, willprobably have either a human affection of loyalty, or a human affectionfor liberty. But the man we see every day—the worker in Mr. Gradgrind'sfactory, the little clerk in Mr. Gradgrind's office—he is too mentallyworried to believe in freedom. He is kept quiet with revolutionaryliterature. He is calmed and kept in his place by a constant successionof wild philosophies. He is a Marxian one day, a Nietzscheite the nextday, a Superman (probably) the next day; and a slave every day. The onlything that remains after all the philosophies is the factory. The onlyman who gains by all the philosophies is Gradgrind. It would be worthhis while to keep his commercial helotry supplied with scepticalliterature. And now I come to think of it, of course, Gradgrind isfamous for giving libraries. He shows his sense. All modern books are onhis side. As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the visionof earth will be exactly the same. No ideal will remain long enough tobe realised, or even partly realised. The modern young man will neverchange his environment; for he will always change his mind.

This, therefore, is our first requirement about the ideal towards whichprogress is directed; it must be fixed. Whistler used to make many rapidstudies of a sitter; it did not matter if he tore up twenty portraits.But it would matter if he looked up twenty times, and each time saw anew person sitting placidly for his portrait. So it does not matter(comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal;for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfullymatter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its oldfailures are fruitless. The question therefore becomes this: How can wekeep the artist discontented with his pictures while preventing him frombeing vitally discontented with his art? How can we make a man alwaysdissatisfied with his work, yet always satisfied with working? How canwe make sure that the portrait painter will throw the portrait out ofwindow instead of taking the natural and more human course of throwingthe sitter out of window?

A strict rule is not only necessary for ruling; it is also necessary forrebelling. This fixed and familiar ideal is necessary to any sort ofrevolution. Man will sometimes act slowly upon new ideas; but he willonly act swiftly upon old ideas. If I am merely to float or fade orevolve, it may be towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, itmust be for something respectable. This is the whole weakness of certainschools of progress and moral evolution. They suggest that there hasbeen a slow movement towards morality, with an imperceptible ethicalchange in every year or at every instant. There is only one greatdisadvantage in this theory. It talks of a slow movement towardsjustice; but it does not permit a swift movement. A man is not allowedto leap up and declare a certain state of things to be intrinsicallyintolerable. To make the matter clear, it is better to take a specificexample. Certain of the idealistic vegetarians, such as Mr. Salt, saythat the time has now come for eating no meat; by implication theyassume that at one time it was right to eat meat, and they suggest (inwords that could be quoted) that some day it may be wrong to eat milkand eggs. I do not discuss here the question of what is justice toanimals. I only say that whatever is justice ought, under givenconditions, to be prompt justice. If an animal is wronged, we ought tobe able to rush to his rescue. But how can we rush if we are, perhaps,in advance of our time? How can we rush to catch a train which may notarrive for a few centuries? How can I denounce a man for skinning cats,if he is only now what I may possibly become in drinking a glass ofmilk? A splendid and insane Russian sect ran about taking all the cattleout of all the carts. How can I pluck up courage to take the horse outof my hansom-cab, when I do not know whether my evolutionary watch isonly a little fast or the cabman's a little slow? Suppose I say to asweater, "Slavery suited one stage of evolution." And suppose heanswers, "And sweating suits this stage of evolution." How can I answerif there is no eternal test? If sweaters can be behind the currentmorality, why should not philanthropists be in front of it? What onearth is the current morality, except in its literal sense—the moralitythat is always running away?

Thus we may say that a permanent ideal is as necessary to the innovatoras to the conservative; it is necessary whether we wish the king'sorders to be promptly executed or whether we only wish the king to bepromptly executed. The guillotine has many sins, but to do it justicethere is nothing evolutionary about it. The favourite evolutionaryargument finds its best answer in the axe. The Evolutionist says, "Wheredo you draw the line?" the Revolutionist answers, "I draw it here:exactly between your head and body." There must at any given moment bean abstract right and wrong if any blow is to be struck; there must besomething eternal if there is to be anything sudden. Therefore for allintelligible human purposes, for altering things or for keeping thingsas they are, for founding a system for ever, as in China, or foraltering it every month as in the early French Revolution, it is equallynecessary that the vision should be a fixed vision. This is our firstrequirement.

When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence ofsomething else in the discussion: as a man hears a church bell above thesound of the street. Something seemed to be saying, "My ideal at leastis fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of the world. Myvision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered; for it is calledEden. You may alter the place to which you are going; but you cannotalter the place from which you have come. To the orthodox there mustalways be a case for revolution; for in the hearts of men God has beenput under the feet of Satan. In the upper world hell once rebelledagainst heaven. But in this world heaven is rebelling against hell. Forthe orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a revolution is arestoration. At any instant you may strike a blow for the perfectionwhich no man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changingevolution can make the original good anything but good. Man may have hadconcubines as long as cows have had horns: still they are not a part ofhim if they are sinful. Men may have been under oppression ever sincefish were under water; still they ought not to be, if oppression issinful. The chain may seem as natural to the slave, or the paint to theharlot, as does the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox; stillthey are not, if they are sinful. I lift my prehistoric legend to defyall your history. Your vision is not merely a fixture: it is a fact." Ipaused to note the new coincidence of Christianity: but I passed on.

I passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of progress. Some people(as we have said) seem to believe in an automatic and impersonalprogress in the nature of things. But it is clear that no politicalactivity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural andinevitable; that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reasonfor being lazy. If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble toimprove. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons fornot being a progressive. But it is to none of these obvious commentsthat I wish primarily to call attention.

The only arresting point is this: that if we suppose improvement to benatural, it must be fairly simple. The world might conceivably beworking towards one consummation, but hardly towards any particulararrangement of many qualities. To take our original simile: Nature byherself may be growing more blue; that is, a process so simple that itmight be impersonal. But Nature cannot be making a careful picture madeof many picked colours, unless Nature is personal. If the end of theworld were mere darkness or mere light it might come as slowly andinevitably as dusk or dawn. But if the end of the world is to be a pieceof elaborate and artistic chiaroscuro, then there must be design in it,either human or divine. The world, through mere time, might grow blacklike an old picture, or white like an old coat; but if it is turnedinto a particular piece of black and white art—then there is an artist.

If the distinction be not evident, I give an ordinary instance. Weconstantly hear a particularly cosmic creed from the modernhumanitarians; I use the word humanitarian in the ordinary sense, asmeaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those ofhumanity. They suggest that through the ages we have been growing moreand more humane, that is to say, that one after another, groups orsections of beings, slaves, children, women, cows, or what not, havebeen gradually admitted to mercy or to justice. They say that we oncethought it right to eat men (we didn't); but I am not here concernedwith their history, which is highly unhistorical. As a fact,anthropophagy is certainly a decadent thing, not a primitive one. It ismuch more likely that modern men will eat human flesh out of affectationthan that primitive man ever ate it out of ignorance. I am here onlyfollowing the outlines of their argument, which consists in maintainingthat man has been progressively more lenient, first to citizens, thento slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants. I think itwrong to sit on a man. Soon, I shall think it wrong to sit on a horse.Eventually (I suppose) I shall think it wrong to sit on a chair. That isthe drive of the argument. And for this argument it can be said that itis possible to talk of it in terms of evolution or inevitable progress.A perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might, one feels,be a mere brute unconscious tendency, like that of a species to producefewer and fewer children. This drift may be really evolutionary, becauseit is stupid.

Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot beused to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of allliving creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel orinsanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On theevolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane;but you cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reasonfor being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel asthe tiger. It is one way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is ashorter way to imitate the tiger. But in neither case does evolutiontell you how to treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire hisstripes while avoiding his claws.

If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the gardenof Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only thesupernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of allpantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in thisproposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regardNature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The mainpoint of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature isour sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the samefather; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not toimitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth astrange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemnmother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn motherto Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis ofAssisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, andeven a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at aswell as loved.

This, however, is hardly our main point at present; I have admitted itonly in order to show how constantly, and as it were accidentally, thekey would fit the smallest doors. Our main point is here, that if therebe a mere trend of impersonal improvement in Nature, it must presumablybe a simple trend towards some simple triumph. One can imagine that someautomatic tendency in biology might work for giving us longer and longernoses. But the question is, do we want to have longer and longer noses?I fancy not; I believe that we most of us want to say to our noses,"Thus far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be stayed": werequire a nose of such length as may ensure an interesting face. But wecannot imagine a mere biological trend towards producing interestingfaces; because an interesting face is one particular arrangement ofeyes, nose, and mouth, in a most complex relation to each other.Proportion cannot be a drift: it is either an accident or a design. Sowith the ideal of human morality and its relation to the humanitariansand the anti-humanitarians. It is conceivable that we are going more andmore to keep our hands off things: not to drive horses; not to pickflowers. We may eventually be bound not to disturb a man's mind even byargument; not to disturb the sleep of birds even by coughing. Theultimate apotheosis would appear to be that of a man sitting quitestill, not daring to stir for fear of disturbing a fly, nor to eat forfear of incommoding a microbe. To so crude a consummation as that wemight perhaps unconsciously drift. But do we want so crude aconsummation? Similarly, we might unconsciously evolve along theopposite or Nietzscheian line of development—superman crushing supermanin one tower of tyrants until the universe is smashed up for fun. But dowe want the universe smashed up for fun? Is it not quite clear that whatwe really hope for is one particular management and proposition of thesetwo things; a certain amount of restraint and respect, a certain amountof energy and mastery. If our life is ever really as beautiful as afairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of afairy-tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stopsshort of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end ofhim; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end ofthe fairy-tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humbleenough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our attitude to thegiant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasingcontempt: it must be one particular proportion of the two—which isexactly right. We must have in us enough reverence for all thingsoutside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also haveenough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion,spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good or happy)must be combined, not in any combination, but in one particularcombination. The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it evercomes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction ofanimals. It will be an exact and perilous balance; like that of adesperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in himself to haveadventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

This, then, is our second requirement for the ideal of progress. First,it must be fixed; second, it must be composite. It must not (if it is tosatisfy our souls) be the mere victory of some one thing swallowing upeverything else, love or pride or peace or adventure; it must be adefinite picture composed of these elements in their best proportion andrelation. I am not concerned at this moment to deny that some such goodculmination may be, by the constitution of things, reserved for thehuman race. I only point out that if this composite happiness is fixedfor us it must be fixed by some mind; for only a mind can place theexact proportions of a composite happiness. If the beatification of theworld is a mere work of nature, then it must be as simple as thefreezing of the world, or the burning up of the world. But if thebeatification of the world is not a work of nature but a work of art,then it involves an artist. And here again my contemplation was clovenby the ancient voice which said, "I could have told you all this a longtime ago. If there is any certain progress it can only be my kind ofprogress, the progress towards a complete city of virtues anddominations where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other.An impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of perfectflatness or a peak of perfect height. But only a personal God canpossibly be leading you (if, indeed, you are being led) to a city withjust streets and architectural proportions, a city in which each of youcan contribute exactly the right amount of your own colour to themany-coloured coat of Joseph."

Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the exact answerthat I required. I had said, "The ideal must be fixed," and the Churchhad answered, "Mine is literally fixed, for it existed before anythingelse." I said secondly, "It must be artistically combined, like apicture"; and the Church answered, "Mine is quite literally a picture,for I know who painted it." Then I went on to the third thing, which, asit seemed to me, was needed for an Utopia or goal of progress. And ofall the three it is infinitely the hardest to express. Perhaps it mightbe put thus: that we need watchfulness even in Utopia, lest we fall fromUtopia as we fell from Eden.

We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is thatthings naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for beinga progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. Thecorruption in things is not only the best argument for beingprogressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative.The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerableif it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon theidea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But youdo not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If youparticularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again;that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you wantthe old white post you must have a new white post. But this which istrue even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sensetrue of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is reallyrequired of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with whichhuman institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance andjournalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact,men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyranniesthat had been public liberties hardly twenty years before. Thus Englandwent mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy of Elizabeth; and then(almost immediately afterwards) went mad with rage in the trap of thetyranny of Charles the First. So, again, in France the monarchy becameintolerable, not just after it had been tolerated, but just after it hadbeen adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved was Louis theguillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth century theRadical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of thepeople, until suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was atyrant eating the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to thelast instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Justrecently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) that theyare obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the nature of the case,the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not any need to rebel againstantiquity; we have to rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, thecapitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern world. There isno fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; itis more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind itsback; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likelythat he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the factthat he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the mostprivate person of our time. It will not be necessary for any one tofight again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do notneed a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press.

This startling swiftness with which popular systems turn oppressive isthe third fact for which we shall ask our perfect theory of progress toallow. It must always be on the look out for every privilege beingabused, for every working right becoming a wrong. In this matter I amentirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to bealways suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put theirtrust in princes nor in any child of man. The chieftain chosen to be thefriend of the people becomes the enemy of the people; the newspaperstarted to tell the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told.Here, I say, I felt that I was really at last on the side of therevolutionary. And then I caught my breath again: for I remembered thatI was once again on the side of the orthodox.

Christianity spoke again and said, "I have always maintained that menwere naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended of its own natureto rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as such gowrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperoushuman beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained throughcenturies, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. Ifyou were a philosopher you would call it, as I do, the doctrine oforiginal sin. You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; Icall it what it is—the Fall.

I have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword; here I confess itcame in like a battle-axe. For really (when I came to think of it)Christianity is the only thing left that has any real right to questionthe power of the well-nurtured or the well-bred. I have listened oftenenough to Socialists, or even to democrats, saying that the physicalconditions of the poor must of necessity make them mentally and morallydegraded. I have listened to scientific men (and there are stillscientific men not opposed to democracy) saying that if we give the poorhealthier conditions vice and wrong will disappear. I have listened tothem with a horrible attention, with a hideous fascination. For it waslike watching a man energetically sawing from the tree the branch he issitting on. If these happy democrats could prove their case, they wouldstrike democracy dead. If the poor are thus utterly demoralized, it mayor may not be practical to raise them. But it is certainly quitepractical to disfranchise them. If the man with a bad bedroom cannotgive a good vote, then the first and swiftest deduction is that he shallgive no vote. The governing class may not unreasonably say, "It may takeus some time to reform his bedroom. But if he is the brute you say, itwill take him very little time to ruin our country. Therefore we willtake your hint and not give him the chance." It fills me with horribleamusem*nt to observe the way in which the earnest Socialistindustriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy, expatiatingblandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule. It is likelistening to somebody at an evening party apologising for enteringwithout evening dress, and explaining that he had recently beenintoxicated, had a personal habit of taking off his clothes in thestreet, and had, moreover, only just changed from prison uniform. At anymoment, one feels, the host might say that really, if it was as bad asthat, he need not come in at all. So it is when the ordinary Socialist,with a beaming face, proves that the poor, after their smashingexperiences, cannot be really trustworthy. At any moment the rich maysay, "Very well, then, we won't trust them," and bang the door in hisface. On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment,the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes andclean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the present atany rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air? If betterconditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why shouldnot better conditions already make the rich more fit to govern them? Onthe ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest. Thecomfortable class must be merely our vanguard in Utopia.

Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the bestopportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer tothe argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decidefor those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only oneanswer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church canoffer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. Forshe has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man'senvironment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come totalk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of allis the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacturehas been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally largeneedle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxiousto discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to hissmallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest—if, in short,we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that theycould mean, His words must at the very least mean this—that rich menare not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even whenwatered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mereminimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For thewhole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that therich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich aretrustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will heareverlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies,aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannotbe bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he hasbeen bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case forChristianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of thislife is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt,financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all theChristian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They havesaid simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck.It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators ofdefinable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown therich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christianto rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quitecertainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as moremorally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, "I respectthat man's rank, although he takes bribes." But a Christian cannot say,as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, "a man of that rankwould not take bribes." For it is a part of Christian dogma that any manin any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it alsohappens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious humanhistory. When people say that a man "in that position" would beincorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into thediscussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of Marlborough acrossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moralfall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for myfall from my position at this moment.

Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the effectthat Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it is scarcelystrong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have oftenquarrelled. The real ground upon which Christianity and democracy areone is very much deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christianidea is the idea of Carlyle—the idea that the man should rule who feelsthat he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen. If ourfaith comments on government at all, its comment must be this—that theman should rule who does not think that he can rule. Carlyle's heromay say, "I will be king"; but the Christian saint must say, "Noloepiscopari." If the great paradox of Christianity means anything, itmeans this—that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting indry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man whofeels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not gotto crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crownthe much more exceptional man who knows he can't.

Now, this is one of the two or three vital defences of workingdemocracy. The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though atpresent it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But eventhe machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practicalsense—that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would betoo modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is speciallytrusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictlypeculiar to Christendom. There is nothing really humble about theabnegation of the Buddhist; the mild Hindoo is mild, but he is not meek.But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea ofseeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obviouscourse of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that voting isparticularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that canvassingis Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian inits primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to themodest man, "Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect incanvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only becauseit may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser.

Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is a sin; generally avery venial one. It is merely the drift or slide of men into a sort ofnatural pomposity and praise of the powerful, which is the most easy andobvious affair in the world.

It is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive perversion of modern"force" that the promptest and boldest agencies are also the mostfragile or full of sensibility. The swiftest things are the softestthings. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless,because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards,because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards,because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind offrivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air. Moderninvestigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that acharacteristic of the great saints is their power of "levitation." Theymight go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power oflevity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. Thishas been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinctof Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels,not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the mostearnest mediæval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, ofquick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modernPre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites.Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. Inthe old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue orgold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about inthe heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like therayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and theproud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards,for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downwarddrag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into asort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gayself-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at ablue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a muchmore sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really anatural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is theeasiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leadingarticle than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of mennaturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to belight. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

Now, it is the peculiar honour of Europe since it has been Christianthat while it has had aristocracy it has always at the back of its hearttreated aristocracy as a weakness—generally as a weakness that must beallowed for. If any one wishes to appreciate this point, let him gooutside Christianity into some other philosophical atmosphere. Let him,for instance, compare the classes of Europe with the castes of India.There aristocracy is far more awful, because it is far moreintellectual. It is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scaleof spiritual values; that the baker is better than the butcher in aninvisible and sacred sense. But no Christianity, not even the mostignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a baronet was better than abutcher in that sacred sense. No Christianity, however ignorant orextravagant, ever suggested that a duke would not be damned. In pagansociety there may have been (I do not know) some such serious divisionbetween the free man and the slave. But in Christian society we havealways thought the gentleman a sort of joke, though I admit that in somegreat crusades and councils he earned the right to be called a practicaljoke. But we in Europe never really and at the root of our souls tookaristocracy seriously. It is only an occasional non-European alien (suchas Dr. Oscar Levy, the only intelligent Nietzscheite) who can evenmanage for a moment to take aristocracy seriously. It may be a merepatriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that theEnglish aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower ofall actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well asall the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obviousmatters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The greatand very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody couldpossibly take it seriously.

In short, I had spelled out slowly, as usual, the need for an equal lawin Utopia; and, as usual, I found that Christianity had been therebefore me. The whole history of my Utopia has the same amusing sadness.I was always rushing out of my architectural study with plans for a newturret only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight, shining, and athousand years old. For me, in the ancient and partly in the modernsense, God answered the prayer, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings."Without vanity, I really think there was a moment when I could haveinvented the marriage vow (as an institution) out of my own head; but Idiscovered, with a sigh, that it had been invented already. But, sinceit would be too long a business to show how, fact by fact and inch byinch, my own conception of Utopia was only answered in the NewJerusalem, I will take this one case of the matter of marriage asindicating the converging drift, I may say the converging crash of allthe rest.

When the ordinary opponents of Socialism talk about impossibilities andalterations in human nature they always miss an important distinction.In modern ideal conceptions of society there are some desires that arepossibly not attainable: but there are some desires that are notdesirable. That all men should live in equally beautiful houses is adream that may or may not be attained. But that all men should live inthe same beautiful house is not a dream at all; it is a nightmare. Thata man should love all old women is an ideal that may not be attainable.But that a man should regard all old women exactly as he regards hismother is not only an unattainable ideal, but an ideal which ought notto be attained. I do not know if the reader agrees with me in theseexamples; but I will add the example which has always affected me most.I could never conceive or tolerate any Utopia which did not leave to methe liberty for which I chiefly care, the liberty to bind myself.Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have anydiscipline or fidelity; it would also make it impossible to have anyfun. To take an obvious instance, it would not be worth while to bet ifa bet were not binding. The dissolution of all contracts would not onlyruin morality but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only thestunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventureand romance, of which much has been said in these pages. And the perils,rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure must be real, orthe adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet Imust be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge Imust be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow tobe faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun invowing. You could not even make a fairy tale from the experiences of aman who, when he was swallowed by a whale, might find himself at the topof the Eiffel Tower, or when he was turned into a frog might begin tobehave like a flamingo. For the purpose even of the wildest romance,results must be real; results must be irrevocable. Christian marriage isthe great example of a real and irrevocable result; and that is why itis the chief subject and centre of all our romantic writing. And thisis my last instance of the things that I should ask, and askimperatively, of any social paradise; I should ask to be kept to mybargain, to have my oaths and engagements taken seriously; I should askUtopia to avenge my honour on myself.

All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, fortheir ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again Iseem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. "Youwill have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you getto my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure isto get there."

CHAPTER VIII.—The Romance of Orthodoxy

It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of ourepoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound lazinessand fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of theapparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisywith taxicabs and motor-cars; but this is not due to human activity butto human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity,if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent ifit were more strenuous. And this which is true of the apparent physicalbustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of themachinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it savesmental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are usedlike scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yetthe path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like longrailway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired ortoo indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise totry for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of onesyllable. If you say "The social utility of the indeterminate sentenceis recognised by all criminologists as a part of our sociologicalevolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment," youcan go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the greymatter inside your skull. But if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaoland Brown to say when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with athrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are notthe hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much moremetaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word"degeneration."

But these long comfortable words that save modern people the toil ofreasoning have one particular aspect in which they are especiallyruinous and confusing. This difficulty occurs when the same long word isused in different connections to mean quite different things. Thus, totake a well-known instance, the word "idealist" has one meaning as apiece of philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric. Inthe same way the scientific materialists have had just reason tocomplain of people mixing up "materialist" as a term of cosmology with"materialist" as a moral taunt. So, to take a cheaper instance, the manwho hates "progressives" in London always calls himself a "progressive"in South Africa.

A confusion quite as unmeaning as this has arisen in connection with theword "liberal" as applied to religion and as applied to politics andsociety. It is often suggested that all Liberals ought to befreethinkers, because they ought to love everything that is free. Youmight just as well say that all idealists ought to be High Churchmen,because they ought to love everything that is high. You might as wellsay that Low Churchmen ought to like Low Mass, or that Broad Churchmenought to like broad jokes. The thing is a mere accident of words. Inactual modern Europe a free-thinker does not mean a man who thinks forhimself. It means a man who, having thought for himself, has come to oneparticular class of conclusions, the material origin of phenomena, theimpossibility of miracles, the improbability of personal immortality andso on. And none of these ideas are particularly liberal. Nay, indeedalmost all these ideas are definitely illiberal, as it is the purpose ofthis chapter to show.

In the few following pages I propose to point out as rapidly aspossible that on every single one of the matters most strongly insistedon by liberalisers of theology their effect upon social practice wouldbe definitely illiberal. Almost every contemporary proposal to bringfreedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into theworld. For freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in alldirections. It means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas loosely calledscientific, dogmas of monism, of pantheism, or of Arianism, or ofnecessity. And every one of these (and we will take them one by one) canbe shown to be the natural ally of oppression. In fact, it is aremarkable circ*mstance (indeed not so very remarkable when one comes tothink of it) that most things are the allies of oppression. There isonly one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliancewith oppression—and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twistorthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up aGerman philosophy to justify him entirely.

Now let us take in order the innovations that are the notes of the newtheology or the modernist church. We concluded the last chapter with thediscovery of one of them. The very doctrine which is called the mostold-fashioned was found to be the only safeguard of the new democraciesof the earth. The doctrine seemingly most unpopular was found to be theonly strength of the people. In short, we found that the only logicalnegation of oligarchy was in the affirmation of original sin. So it is,I maintain, in all the other cases.

I take the most obvious instance first, the case of miracles. For someextraordinary reason, there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal todisbelieve in miracles than to believe in them. Why, I cannot imagine,nor can anybody tell me. For some inconceivable cause a "broad" or"liberal" clergyman always means a man who wishes at least to diminishthe number of miracles; it never means a man who wishes to increase thatnumber. It always means a man who is free to disbelieve that Christ cameout of His grave; it never means a man who is free to believe that hisown aunt came out of her grave. It is common to find trouble in a parishbecause the parish priest cannot admit that St. Peter walked on water;yet how rarely do we find trouble in a parish because the clergyman saysthat his father walked on the Serpentine? And this is not because (asthe swift secularist debater would immediately retort) miracles cannotbe believed in our experience. It is not because "miracles do nothappen," as in the dogma which Matthew Arnold recited with simple faith.More supernatural things are alleged to have happened in our time thanwould have been possible eighty years ago. Men of science believe insuch marvels much more than they did: the most perplexing, and evenhorrible, prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled inmodern psychology. Things that the old science at least would franklyhave rejected as miracles are hourly being asserted by the new science.The only thing which is still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles isthe New Theology. But in truth this notion that it is "free" to denymiracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against them. It isa lifeless verbal prejudice of which the original life and beginning wasnot in the freedom of thought, but simply in the dogma of materialism.The man of the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the Resurrectionbecause his liberal Christianity allowed him to doubt it. He disbelievedin it because his very strict materialism did not allow him to believeit. Tennyson, a very typical nineteenth-century man, uttered one of theinstinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that there wasfaith in their honest doubt. There was indeed. Those words have aprofound and even a horrible truth. In their doubt of miracles there wasa faith in a fixed and godless fate; a deep and sincere faith in theincurable routine of the cosmos. The doubts of the agnostic were onlythe dogmas of the monist.

Of the fact and evidence of the supernatural I will speak afterwards.Here we are only concerned with this clear point; that in so far as theliberal idea of freedom can be said to be on either side in thediscussion about miracles, it is obviously on the side of miracles.Reform or (in the only tolerable sense) progress means simply thegradual control of matter by mind. A miracle simply means the swiftcontrol of matter by mind. If you wish to feed the people, you may thinkthat feeding them miraculously in the wilderness is impossible—but youcannot think it illiberal. If you really want poor children to go to theseaside, you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there onflying dragons; you can only think it unlikely. A holiday, likeLiberalism, only means the liberty of man. A miracle only means theliberty of God. You may conscientiously deny either of them, but youcannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea. The CatholicChurch believed that man and God both had a sort of spiritual freedom.Calvinism took away the freedom from man, but left it to God. Scientificmaterialism binds the Creator Himself; it chains up God as theApocalypse chained the devil. It leaves nothing free in the universe.And those who assist this process are called the "liberal theologians."

This, as I say, is the lightest and most evident case. The assumptionthat there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality orreform is literally the opposite of the truth. If a man cannot believein miracles there is an end of the matter; he is not particularlyliberal, but he is perfectly honourable and logical, which are muchbetter things. But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly themore liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the freedom of thesoul, and secondly, its control over the tyranny of circ*mstance.Sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naive way, even by theablest men. For instance, Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks with a heartyold-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles, as if they were a sortof breach of faith on the part of nature: he seems strangelyunconscious that miracles are only the final flowers of his ownfavourite tree, the doctrine of the omnipotence of will. Just in thesame way he calls the desire for immortality a paltry selfishness,forgetting that he has just called the desire for life a healthy andheroic selfishness. How can it be noble to wish to make one's lifeinfinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal? No, if it isdesirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of nature or custom,then miracles are certainly desirable; we will discuss afterwardswhether they are possible.

But I must pass on to the larger cases of this curious error; the notionthat the "liberalising" of religion in some way helps the liberation ofthe world. The second example of it can be found in the question ofpantheism—or rather of a certain modern attitude which is often calledimmanentism, and which often is Buddhism. But this is so much moredifficult a matter that I must approach it with rather more preparation.

The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowdedaudiences are generally those quite opposite to the fact; it is actuallyour truisms that are untrue. Here is a case. There is a phrase of facileliberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliamentsof religion: "the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, butthey are the same in what they teach." It is false; it is the oppositeof the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in ritesand forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach. It is as if a manwere to say, "Do not be misled by the fact that the Church Times andthe Freethinker look utterly different, that one is painted on vellumand the other carved on marble, that one is triangular and the otherhectagonal; read them and you will see that they say the same thing."The truth is, of course, that they are alike in everything except in thefact that they don't say the same thing. An atheist stockbroker inSurbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian stockbroker in Wimbledon.You may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personaland offensive study without seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat oranything particularly godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in theirsouls that they are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of allthe creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that theyagree in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite.They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth workswith the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, swornbrotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode of teaching; whatthey differ about is the thing to be taught. Pagan optimists and Easternpessimists would both have temples, just as Liberals and Tories wouldboth have newspapers. Creeds that exist to destroy each other both havescriptures, just as armies that exist to destroy each other both haveguns.

The great example of this alleged identity of all human religions is thealleged spiritual identity of Buddhism and Christianity. Those who adoptthis theory generally avoid the ethics of most other creeds, except,indeed, Confucianism, which they like because it is not a creed. Butthey are cautious in their praises of Mahommedanism, generally confiningthemselves to imposing its morality only upon the refreshment of thelower classes. They seldom suggest the Mahommedan view of marriage (forwhich there is a great deal to be said), and towards Thugs and fetishworshippers their attitude may even be called cold. But in the case ofthe great religion of Gautama they feel sincerely a similarity.

Students of popular science, like Mr. Blatchford, are always insistingthat Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especiallyBuddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until Iread a book giving the reasons for it. The reasons were of two kinds:resemblances that meant nothing because they were common to allhumanity, and resemblances which were not resemblances at all. Theauthor solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things inwhich all creeds are alike, or else he described them as alike in somepoint in which they are quite obviously different. Thus, as a case ofthe first class, he said that both Christ and Buddha were called by thedivine voice coming out of the sky, as if you would expect the divinevoice to come out of the coal-cellar. Or, again, it was gravely urgedthat these two Eastern teachers, by a singular coincidence, both had todo with the washing of feet. You might as well say that it was aremarkable coincidence that they both had feet to wash. And the otherclass of similarities were those which simply were not similar. Thusthis reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the factthat at certain religious feasts the robe of the Lama is rent in piecesout of respect, and the remnants highly valued. But this is the reverseof a resemblance, for the garments of Christ were not rent in piecesout of respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were not highlyvalued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops. It is ratherlike alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies ofthe sword: when it taps a man's shoulder, and when it cuts off his head.It is not at all similar for the man. These scraps of puerile pedantrywould indeed matter little if it were not also true that the allegedphilosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds, either provingtoo much or not proving anything. That Buddhism approves of mercy or ofself-restraint is not to say that it is specially like Christianity; itis only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence.Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sanehuman beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say thatBuddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things issimply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Mostof humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what is the wayout, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universewhich contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.

Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly,people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thingabout them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference intheir type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style ofrepresentation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant torepresent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saintin a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. Theopposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement ofit is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while theChristian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has asleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep.The mediæval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes arefrightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit betweenforces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that bothimages are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must bea real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. TheBuddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian isstaring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that cluesteadily we shall find some interesting things.

A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay, announced thatthere was only one religion in the world, that all faiths were onlyversions or perversions of it, and that she was quite prepared to saywhat it was. According to Mrs. Besant this universal Church is simplythe universal self. It is the doctrine that we are really all oneperson; that there are no real walls of individuality between man andman. If I may put it so, she does not tell us to love our neighbours;she tells us to be our neighbours. That is Mrs. Besant's thoughtful andsuggestive description of the religion in which all men must findthemselves in agreement. And I never heard of any suggestion in my lifewith which I more violently disagree. I want to love my neighbour notbecause he is I, but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore theworld, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one's self, butas one loves a woman, because she is entirely different. If souls areseparate love is possible. If souls are united love is obviouslyimpossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself, but he can hardlyfall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a monotonouscourtship. If the world is full of real selves, they can be reallyunselfish selves. But upon Mrs. Besant's principle the whole cosmos isonly one enormously selfish person.

It is just here that Buddhism is on the side of modern pantheism andimmanence. And it is just here that Christianity is on the side ofhumanity and liberty and love. Love desires personality; therefore lovedesires division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that Godhas broken the universe into little pieces, because they are livingpieces. It is her instinct to say "little children love one another"rather than to tell one large person to love himself. This is theintellectual abyss between Buddhism and Christianity; that for theBuddhist or Theosophist personality is the fall of man, for theChristian it is the purpose of God, the whole point of his cosmic idea.The world-soul of the Theosophists asks man to love it only in orderthat man may throw himself into it. But the divine centre ofChristianity actually threw man out of it in order that he might loveit. The oriental deity is like a giant who should have lost his leg orhand and be always seeking to find it; but the Christian power is likesome giant who in a strange generosity should cut off his right hand, sothat it might of its own accord shake hands with him. We come back tothe same tireless note touching the nature of Christianity; all modernphilosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is asword which separates and sets free. No other philosophy makes Godactually rejoice in the separation of the universe into living souls.But according to orthodox Christianity this separation between God andman is sacred, because this is eternal. That a man may love God it isnecessary that there should be not only a God to be loved, but a man tolove him. All those vague theosophical minds for whom the universe is animmense melting-pot are exactly the minds which shrink instinctivelyfrom that earthquake saying of our Gospels, which declare that the Sonof God came not with peace but with a sundering sword. The saying ringsentirely true even considered as what it obviously is; the statementthat any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. It is astrue of democratic fraternity as of divine love; sham love ends incompromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended inbloodshed. Yet there is another and yet more awful truth behind theobvious meaning of this utterance of our Lord. According to Himself theSon was a sword separating brother and brother that they should for anæon hate each other. But the Father also was a sword, which in theblack beginning separated brother and brother, so that they should loveeach other at last.

This is the meaning of that almost insane happiness in the eyes of themediæval saint in the picture. This is the meaning of the sealed eyes ofthe superb Buddhist image. The Christian saint is happy because he hasverily been cut off from the world; he is separate from things and isstaring at them in astonishment. But why should the Buddhist saint beastonished at things? since there is really only one thing, and thatbeing impersonal can hardly be astonished at itself. There have beenmany pantheist poems suggesting wonder, but no really successful ones.The pantheist cannot wonder, for he cannot praise God or praise anythingas really distinct from himself. Our immediate business here however iswith the effect of this Christian admiration (which strikes outwards,towards a deity distinct from the worshipper) upon the general need forethical activity and social reform. And surely its effect issufficiently obvious. There is no real possibility of getting out ofpantheism any special impulse to moral action. For pantheism implies inits nature that one thing is as good as another; whereas action impliesin its nature that one thing is greatly preferable to another.Swinburne in the high summer of his scepticism tried in vain to wrestlewith this difficulty. In "Songs before Sunrise," written under theinspiration of Garibaldi and the revolt of Italy, he proclaimed thenewer religion and the purer God which should wither up all the priestsof the world.

Of which the immediate and evident deduction is that tyrants are as muchthe sons of God as Garibaldis; and that King Bomba of Naples having,with the utmost success, "found himself" is identical with the ultimategood in all things. The truth is that the western energy that dethronestyrants has been directly due to the western theology that says "I am I,thou art thou." The same spiritual separation which looked up and saw agood king in the universe looked up and saw a bad king in Naples. Theworshippers of Bomba's god dethroned Bomba. The worshippers ofSwinburne's god have covered Asia for centuries and have neverdethroned a tyrant. The Indian saint may reasonably shut his eyesbecause he is looking at that which is I and Thou and We and They andIt. It is a rational occupation: but it is not true in theory and nottrue in fact that it helps the Indian to keep an eye on Lord Curzon.That external vigilance which has always been the mark of Christianity(the command that we should watch and pray) has expressed itself bothin typical western orthodoxy and in typical western politics: but bothdepend on the idea of a divinity transcendent, different from ourselves,a deity that disappears. Certainly the most sagacious creeds may suggestthat we should pursue God into deeper and deeper rings of the labyrinthof our own ego. But only we of Christendom have said that we should huntGod like an eagle upon the mountains: and we have killed all monsters inthe chase.

Here again, therefore, we find that in so far as we value democracy andthe self-renewing energies of the west, we are much more likely to findthem in the old theology than the new. If we want reform, we must adhereto orthodoxy: especially in this matter (so much disputed in thecounsels of Mr. R.J. Campbell), the matter of insisting on the immanentor the transcendent deity. By insisting specially on the immanence ofGod we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, socialindifference—Tibet. By insisting specially on the transcendence of Godwe get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteousindignation—Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, man isalways inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man hastranscended himself.

If we take any other doctrine that has been called old-fashioned weshall find the case the same. It is the same, for instance, in the deepmatter of the Trinity. Unitarians (a sect never to be mentioned withouta special respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and highintellectual honour) are often reformers by the accident that throws somany small sects into such an attitude. But there is nothing in theleast liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheismfor the Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be anenigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather themystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet.The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Easternking. The heart of humanity, especially of European humanity, iscertainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols thatgather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercypleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty andvariety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Westernreligion has always felt keenly the idea "it is not well for man to bealone." The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when theEastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea ofmonks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists weresociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexitybe our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religionthan the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it withreverence)—to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomlessmystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal withit directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to sayhere that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as anEnglish fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterlyquiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and thedreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the realUnitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For itis not well for God to be alone.

Again, the same is true of that difficult matter of the danger of thesoul, which has unsettled so many just minds. To hope for all souls isimperative; and it is quite tenable that their salvation is inevitable.It is tenable, but it is not specially favourable to activity orprogress. Our fighting and creative society ought rather to insist onthe danger of everybody, on the fact that every man is hanging by athread or clinging to a precipice. To say that all will be well anyhowis a comprehensible remark: but it cannot be called the blast of atrumpet. Europe ought rather to emphasise possible perdition; and Europealways has emphasised it. Here its highest religion is at one with allits cheapest romances. To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist existenceis a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to aChristian existence is a story, which may end up in any way. In athrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten bycannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that hemight be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatablehero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that hewould lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn't. InChristian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but itis strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.

All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vastand shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk aboutages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy isconcerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? that isthe only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The æons are easyenough to think about, any one can think about them. The instant isreally awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt theinstant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and intheology dealt much with hell. It is full of danger like a boy's book:it is at an immortal crisis. There is a great deal of real similaritybetween popular fiction and the religion of the western people. If yousay that popular fiction is vulgar and tawdry, you only say what thedreary and well-informed say also about the images in the Catholicchurches. Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial story in amagazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) "to be continued in ournext." Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the serial andleaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly an excitingmoment.

But the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strongan element of will, of what theology calls free-will. You cannot finisha sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. Whensomebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only oneDifferential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killedRomeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had feltinclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactlybecause it has insisted on the theological free-will. It is a largematter and too much to one side of the road to be discussed adequatelyhere; but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talkabout treating crime as disease, about making a prison merely a hygienicenvironment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods.The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of activechoice, whereas disease is not. If you say that you are going to cure aprofligate as you cure an asthmatic, my cheap and obvious answer is,"Produce the people who want to be asthmatics as many people want to beprofligates." A man may lie still and be cured of a malady. But he mustnot lie still if he wants to be cured of a sin; on the contrary, he mustget up and jump about violently. The whole point indeed is perfectlyexpressed in the very word which we use for a man in hospital; "patient"is in the passive mood; "sinner" is in the active. If a man is to besaved from influenza, he may be a patient. But if he is to be saved fromforging, he must be not a patient but an impatient. He must bepersonally impatient with forgery. All moral reform must start in theactive not the passive will.

Here again we reach the same substantial conclusion. In so far as wedesire the definite reconstructions and the dangerous revolutions whichhave distinguished European civilisation, we shall not discourage thethought of possible ruin; we shall rather encourage it. If we want, likethe Eastern saints, merely to contemplate how right things are, ofcourse we shall only say that they must go right. But if we particularlywant to make them go right, we must insist that they may go wrong.

Lastly, this truth is yet again true in the case of the common modernattempts to diminish or to explain away the divinity of Christ. Thething may be true or not; that I shall deal with before I end. But ifthe divinity is true it is certainly terribly revolutionary. That a goodman may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; butthat God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgentsfor ever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt thatomnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God,to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of allcreeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator.For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean thatthe soul passes a breaking point—and does not break. In this indeed Iapproach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and Iapologise in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverenttouching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justlyfeared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is adistinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in someunthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It iswritten, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thyGod may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened inGethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God temptedGod. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror ofpessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, itwas not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry whichconfessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionistschoose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of theworld, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and ofunalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself beenin revolt. Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech) butlet the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only onedivinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in whichGod seemed for an instant to be an atheist.

These can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy, of which thechief merit is that it is the natural fountain of revolution and reform;and of which the chief defect is that it is obviously only an abstractassertion. Its main advantage is that it is the most adventurous andmanly of all theologies. Its chief disadvantage is simply that it is atheology. It can always be urged against it that it is in its naturearbitrary and in the air. But it is not so high in the air but thatgreat archers spend their whole lives in shooting arrows at it—yes, andtheir last arrows; there are men who will ruin themselves and ruin theircivilisation if they may ruin also this old fantastic tale. This is thelast and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies willuse any weapon against it, the swords that cut their own fingers, andthe firebrands that burn their own homes. Men who begin to fight theChurch for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedomand humanity if only they may fight the Church. This is no exaggeration;I could fill a book with the instances of it. Mr. Blatchford set out, asan ordinary Bible-smasher, to prove that Adam was guiltless of sinagainst God; in manoeuvring so as to maintain this he admitted, as amere side issue, that all the tyrants, from Nero to King Leopold, wereguiltless of any sin against humanity. I know a man who has such apassion for proving that he will have no personal existence after deaththat he falls back on the position that he has no personal existencenow. He invokes Buddhism and says that all souls fade into each other;in order to prove that he cannot go to heaven he proves that he cannotgo to Hartlepool. I have known people who protested against religiouseducation with arguments against any education, saying that the child'smind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young. I haveknown people who showed that there could be no divine judgment byshowing that there can be no human judgment, even for practicalpurposes. They burned their own corn to set fire to the church; theysmashed their own tools to smash it; any stick was good enough to beatit with, though it were the last stick of their own dismemberedfurniture. We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecksthis world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanaticwho wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the veryexistence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victimsnot to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and theemptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic bywhich all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon someone who never lived at all.

And yet the thing hangs in the heavens unhurt. Its opponents onlysucceed in destroying all that they themselves justly hold dear. They donot destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy political courage and commonsense. They do not prove that Adam was not responsible to God; how couldthey prove it? They only prove (from their premises) that the Czar isnot responsible to Russia. They do not prove that Adam should not havebeen punished by God; they only prove that the nearest sweater shouldnot be punished by men. With their oriental doubts about personalitythey do not make certain that we shall have no personal life hereafter;they only make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or completeone here. With their paralysing hints of all conclusions coming outwrong they do not tear the book of the Recording Angel; they only makeit a little harder to keep the books of Marshall and Snelgrove. Not onlyis the faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are thefathers of all worldly confusion. The secularists have not wreckeddivine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if thatis any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laidwaste the world.

CHAPTER IX.—Authority and the Adventurer

The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxyis not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality ororder, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation andadvance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot doit with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with theold doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties orlift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory thatmatter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory thatmind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to socialvigilance and tireless pursuit of practise, we cannot help it much byinsisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at bestreasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on thetranscendant God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that meansdivine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of agenerous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shallinstinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desireEuropean civilisation to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist ratherthat souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal.And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall ratherwish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a meresage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be infavour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The rules of a club areoccasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is alwaysin favour of the rich one.

And now we come to the crucial question which truly concludes the wholematter. A reasonable agnostic, if he has happened to agree with me sofar, may justly turn round and say, "You have found a practicalphilosophy in the doctrine of the Fall; very well. You have found a sideof democracy now dangerously neglected wisely asserted in Original Sin;all right. You have found a truth in the doctrine of hell; Icongratulate you. You are convinced that worshippers of a personal Godlook outwards and are progressive; I congratulate them. But evensupposing that those doctrines do include those truths, why cannot youtake the truths and leave the doctrines? Granted that all modernsociety is trusting the rich too much because it does not allow forhuman weakness; granted that orthodox ages have had a great advantagebecause (believing in the Fall) they did allow for human weakness, whycannot you simply allow for human weakness without believing in theFall? If you have discovered that the idea of damnation represents ahealthy idea of danger, why can you not simply take the idea of dangerand leave the idea of damnation? If you see clearly the kernel ofcommon-sense in the nut of Christian orthodoxy, why cannot you simplytake the kernel and leave the nut? Why cannot you (to use that cantphrase of the newspapers which I, as a highly scholarly agnostic, am alittle ashamed of using) why cannot you simply take what is good inChristianity, what you can define as valuable, what you can comprehend,and leave all the rest, all the absolute dogmas that are in their natureincomprehensible?" This is the real question; this is the last question;and it is a pleasure to try to answer it.

The first answer is simply to say that I am a rationalist. I like tohave some intellectual justification for my intuitions. If I am treatingman as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me tobelieve that he fell; and I find, for some odd psychological reason,that I can deal better with a man's exercise of freewill if I believethat he has got it. But I am in this matter yet more definitely arationalist. I do not propose to turn this book into one of ordinaryChristian apologetics; I should be glad to meet at any other time theenemies of Christianity in that more obvious arena. Here I am onlygiving an account of my own growth in spiritual certainty. But I maypause to remark that the more I saw of the merely abstract argumentsagainst the Christian cosmology the less I thought of them. I mean thathaving found the moral atmosphere of the Incarnation to be common sense,I then looked at the established intellectual arguments against theIncarnation and found them to be common nonsense. In case the argumentshould be thought to suffer from the absence of the ordinary apologeticI will here very briefly summarise my own arguments and conclusions onthe purely objective or scientific truth of the matter.

If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe inChristianity, I can only answer, "For the same reason that anintelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity." I believe in itquite rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as inthat of the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that allegeddemonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimousfacts. The secularist is not to be blamed because his objections toChristianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely suchscrappy evidence that does convince the mind. I mean that a man may wellbe less convinced of a philosophy from four books, than from one book,one battle, one landscape, and one old friend. The very fact that thethings are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact thatthey all point to one conclusion. Now, the non-Christianity of theaverage educated man to-day is almost always, to do him justice, made upof these loose but living experiences. I can only say that my evidencesfor Christianity are of the same vivid but varied kind as his evidencesagainst it. For when I look at these various anti-Christian truths, Isimply discover that none of them are true. I discover that the truetide and force of all the facts flows the other way. Let us take cases.Many a sensible modern man must have abandoned Christianity under thepressure of three such converging convictions as these: first, thatmen, with their shape, structure, and sexuality, are, after all, verymuch like beasts, a mere variety of the animal kingdom; second, thatprimeval religion arose in ignorance and fear; third, that priests haveblighted societies with bitterness and gloom. Those three anti-Christianarguments are very different; but they are all quite logical andlegitimate; and they all converge. The only objection to them (Idiscover) is that they are all untrue. If you leave off looking at booksabout beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then (ifyou have any humour or imagination, any sense of the frantic or thefarcical) you will observe that the startling thing is not how like manis to the brutes, but how unlike he is. It is the monstrous scale of hisdivergence that requires an explanation. That man and brute are like is,in a sense, a truism; but that being so like they should then be soinsanely unlike, that is the shock and the enigma. That an ape has handsis far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that havinghands he does next to nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones orthe violin; does not carve marble or carve mutton. People talk ofbarbaric architecture and debased art. But elephants do not buildcolossal temples of ivory even in a roccoco style; camels do not painteven bad pictures, though equipped with the material of manycamel's-hair brushes. Certain modern dreamers say that ants and beeshave a society superior to ours. They have, indeed, a civilisation; butthat very truth only reminds us that it is an inferior civilisation. Whoever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated ants?Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens ofold? No; the chasm between man and other creatures may have a naturalexplanation, but it is a chasm. We talk of wild animals; but man is theonly wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals aretame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever undomestic,either as a profligate or a monk. So that this first superficial reasonfor materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; it isexactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins.

It would be the same if I examined the second of the three chancerationalist arguments; the argument that all that we call divine beganin some darkness and terror. When I did attempt to examine thefoundations of this modern idea I simply found that there were none.Science knows nothing whatever about pre-historic man; for the excellentreason that he is pre-historic. A few professors choose to conjecturethat such things as human sacrifice were once innocent and general andthat they gradually dwindled; but there is no direct evidence of it, andthe small amount of indirect evidence is very much the other way. In theearliest legends we have, such as the tales of Isaac and of Iphigenia,human sacrifice is not introduced as something old, but rather assomething new; as a strange and frightful exception darkly demanded bythe gods. History says nothing; and legends all say that the earth waskinder in its earliest time. There is no tradition of progress; but thewhole human race has a tradition of the Fall. Amusingly enough, indeed,the very dissemination of this idea is used against its authenticity.Learned men literally say that this pre-historic calamity cannot be truebecause every race of mankind remembers it. I cannot keep pace withthese paradoxes.

And if we took the third chance instance, it would be the same; the viewthat priests darken and embitter the world. I look at the world andsimply discover that they don't. Those countries in Europe which arestill influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there isstill singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air.Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls ofa playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved thepleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flatgrassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wallround the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every franticgame and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls wereknocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did notfall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddledin terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

Thus these three facts of experience, such facts as go to make anagnostic, are, in this view, turned totally round. I am left saying,"Give me an explanation, first, of the towering eccentricity of manamong the brutes; second, of the vast human tradition of some ancienthappiness; third, of the partial perpetuation of such pagan joy in thecountries of the Catholic Church." One explanation, at any rate, coversall three: the theory that twice was the natural order interrupted bysome explosion or revelation such as people now call "psychic." OnceHeaven came upon the earth with a power or seal called the image of God,whereby man took command of Nature; and once again (when in empire afterempire men had been found wanting) Heaven came to save mankind in theawful shape of a man. This would explain why the mass of men always lookbackwards; and why the only corner where they in any sense look forwardsis the little continent where Christ has His Church. I know it will besaid that Japan has become progressive. But how can this be an answerwhen even in saying "Japan has become progressive," we really only mean,"Japan has become European"? But I wish here not so much to insist on myown explanation as to insist on my original remark. I agree with theordinary unbelieving man in the street in being guided by three or fourodd facts all pointing to something; only when I came to look at thefacts I always found they pointed to something else.

I have given an imaginary triad of such ordinary anti-Christianarguments; if that be too narrow a basis I will give on the spur of themoment another. These are the kind of thoughts which in combinationcreate the impression that Christianity is something weak and diseased.First, for instance, that Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish andunworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world; second, thatChristianity arose and flourished in the dark ages of ignorance, andthat to these the Church would drag us back; third, that the peoplestill strongly religious or (if you will) superstitious—such people asthe Irish—are weak, unpractical, and behind the times. I only mentionthese ideas to affirm the same thing: that when I looked into themindependently I found, not that the conclusions were unphilosophical,but simply that the facts were not facts. Instead of looking at booksand pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament.There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hairparted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of anextraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision,flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecyof the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; abeing who often acted like an angry god—and always like a god. Christhad even a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think,elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the a fortiori.His "how much more" is piled one upon another like castle upon castle inthe clouds. The diction used about Christ has been, and perhapswisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quitecuriously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles andmountains hurled into the sea. Morally it is equally terrific; he calledhimself a sword of slaughter, and told men to buy swords if they soldtheir coats for them. That he used other even wilder words on the sideof non-resistance greatly increases the mystery; but it also, ifanything, rather increases the violence. We cannot even explain it bycalling such a being insane; for insanity is usually along oneconsistent channel. The maniac is generally a monomaniac. Here we mustremember the difficult definition of Christianity already given;Christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions mayblaze beside each other. The one explanation of the Gospel language thatdoes explain it, is that it is the survey of one who from somesupernatural height beholds some more startling synthesis.

I take in order the next instance offered: the idea that Christianitybelongs to the dark ages. Here I did not satisfy myself with readingmodern generalisations; I read a little history. And in history I foundthat Christianity, so far from belonging to the dark ages, was the onepath across the dark ages that was not dark. It was a shining bridgeconnecting two shining civilisations. If any one says that the faitharose in ignorance and savagery the answer is simple: it didn't. Itarose in the Mediterranean civilisation in the full summer of the RomanEmpire. The world was swarming with sceptics, and pantheism was as plainas the sun, when Constantine nailed the cross to the mast. It isperfectly true that afterwards the ship sank; but it is far moreextraordinary that the ship came up again: repainted and glittering,with the cross still at the top. This is the amazing thing the religiondid: it turned a sunken ship into a submarine. The ark lived under theload of waters; after being buried under the débris of dynasties andclans, we arose and remembered Rome. If our faith had been a mere fad ofthe fading empire, fad would have followed fad in the twilight, and ifthe civilisation ever re-emerged (and many such have never re-emerged)it would have been under some new barbaric flag. But the ChristianChurch was the last life of the old society and was also the first lifeof the new. She took the people who were forgetting how to make an archand she taught them to invent the Gothic arch. In a word, the mostabsurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have allheard said of it. How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us backinto the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought usout of them.

I added in this second trinity of objections an idle instance taken fromthose who feel such people as the Irish to be weakened or made stagnantby superstition. I only added it because this is a peculiar case of astatement of fact that turns out to be a statement of falsehood. It isconstantly said of the Irish that they are impractical. But if werefrain for a moment from looking at what is said about them and look atwhat is done about them, we shall see that the Irish are not onlypractical, but quite painfully successful. The poverty of their country,the minority of their members are simply the conditions under which theywere asked to work; but no other group in the British Empire has done somuch with such conditions. The Nationalists were the only minority thatever succeeded in twisting the whole British Parliament sharply out ofits path. The Irish peasants are the only poor men in these islands whohave forced their masters to disgorge. These people, whom we callpriest-ridden, are the only Britons who will not be squire-ridden. Andwhen I came to look at the actual Irish character, the case was thesame. Irishmen are best at the specially hard professions—the tradesof iron, the lawyer, and the soldier. In all these cases, therefore, Icame back to the same conclusion: the sceptic was quite right to go bythe facts, only he had not looked at the facts. The sceptic is toocredulous; he believes in newspapers or even in encyclopædias. Again thethree questions left me with three very antagonistic questions. Theaverage sceptic wanted to know how I explained the namby-pamby note inthe Gospel, the connection of the creed with mediæval darkness and thepolitical impracticability of the Celtic Christians. But I wanted toask, and to ask with an earnestness amounting to urgency, "What is thisincomparable energy which appears first in one walking the earth like aliving judgment and this energy which can die with a dying civilisationand yet force it to a resurrection from the dead; this energy which lastof all can inflame a bankrupt peasantry with so fixed a faith in justicethat they get what they ask, while others go empty away; so that themost helpless island of the Empire can actually help itself?"

There is an answer: it is an answer to say that the energy is truly fromoutside the world; that it is psychic, or at least one of the results ofa real psychical disturbance. The highest gratitude and respect are dueto the great human civilisations such as the old Egyptian or theexisting Chinese. Nevertheless it is no injustice for them to say thatonly modern Europe has exhibited incessantly a power of self-renewalrecurring often at the shortest intervals and descending to the smallestfacts of building or costume. All other societies die finally and withdignity. We die daily. We are always being born again with almostindecent obstetrics. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there isin historic Christendom a sort of unnatural life: it could be explainedas a supernatural life. It could be explained as an awful galvanic lifeworking in what would have been a corpse. For our civilisation oughtto have died, by all parallels, by all sociological probability, in theRagnorak of the end of Rome. That is the weird inspiration of ourestate: you and I have no business to be here at all. We are allrevenants; all living Christians are dead pagans walking about. Justas Europe was about to be gathered in silence to Assyria and Babylon,something entered into its body. And Europe has had a strange life—itis not too much to say that it has had the jumps—ever since.

I have dealt at length with such typical triads of doubt in order toconvey the main contention—that my own case for Christianity isrational; but it is not simple. It is an accumulation of varied facts,like the attitude of the ordinary agnostic. But the ordinary agnostichas got his facts all wrong. He is a non-believer for a multitude ofreasons; but they are untrue reasons. He doubts because the Middle Ageswere barbaric, but they weren't; because Darwinism is demonstrated, butit isn't; because miracles do not happen, but they do; because monkswere lazy, but they were very industrious; because nuns are unhappy, butthey are particularly cheerful; because Christian art was sad and pale,but it was picked out in peculiarly bright colours and gay with gold;because modern science is moving away from the supernatural, but itisn't, it is moving towards the supernatural with the rapidity of arailway train.

But among these million facts all flowing one way there is, of course,one question sufficiently solid and separate to be treated briefly, butby itself; I mean the objective occurrence of the supernatural. Inanother chapter I have indicated the fallacy of the ordinary suppositionthat the world must be impersonal because it is orderly. A person isjust as likely to desire an orderly thing as a disorderly thing. But myown positive conviction that personal creation is more conceivable thanmaterial fate, is, I admit, in a sense, undiscussable. I will not callit a faith or an intuition, for those words are mixed up with mereemotion, it is strictly an intellectual conviction; but it is aprimary intellectual conviction like the certainty of self or the goodof living. Any one who likes, therefore, may call my belief in Godmerely mystical; the phrase is not worth fighting about. But my beliefthat miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief atall; I believe in them upon human evidence as I do in the discovery ofAmerica. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that onlyrequires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinaryidea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldlyand fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connectionwith some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers inmiracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidencefor them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly)because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democraticthing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to amiracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimonyto a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's wordabout the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about thelandlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthyagnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum withevidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If itcomes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimonyin favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean oneof two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost eitherbecause the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. Thatis, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm themain principle of materialism—the abstract impossibility of miracle.You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are thedogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence—it is yourationalists who refuse actual evidence, being constrained to do so byyour creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, andlooking impartially into certain miracles of mediæval and modern times,I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument againstthese plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediævaldocuments attest certain miracles as much as they attest certainbattles," they answer, "But mediævals were superstitious"; if I want toknow in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is thatthey believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I amtold, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" theonly answer is—that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because onlystupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid becausethey say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there isanother argument that the unbeliever may rationally use againstmiracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

He may say that there has been in many miraculous stories a notion ofspiritual preparation and acceptance: in short, that the miracle couldonly come to him who believed in it. It may be so, and if it is so howare we to test it? If we are inquiring whether certain results followfaith, it is useless to repeat wearily that (if they happen) they dofollow faith. If faith is one of the conditions, those without faithhave a most healthy right to laugh. But they have no right to judge.Being a believer may be, if you like, as bad as being drunk; still if wewere extracting psychological facts from drunkards, it would be absurdto be always taunting them with having been drunk. Suppose we wereinvestigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before their eyes.Suppose sixty excellent householders swore that when angry they had seenthis crimson cloud: surely it would be absurd to answer "Oh, but youadmit you were angry at the time." They might reasonably rejoin (in astentorian chorus), "How the blazes could we discover, without beingangry, whether angry people see red?" So the saints and ascetics mightrationally reply, "Suppose that the question is whether believers cansee visions—even then, if you are interested in visions it is no pointto object to believers." You are still arguing in a circle—in that oldmad circle with which this book began.

The question of whether miracles ever occur is a question of commonsense and of ordinary historical imagination: not of any final physicalexperiment. One may here surely dismiss that quite brainless piece ofpedantry which talks about the need for "scientific conditions" inconnection with alleged spiritual phenomena. If we are asking whether adead soul can communicate with a living it is ludicrous to insist thatit shall be under conditions in which no two living souls in theirsenses would seriously communicate with each other. The fact that ghostsprefer darkness no more disproves the existence of ghosts than the factthat lovers prefer darkness disproves the existence of love. If youchoose to say, "I will believe that Miss Brown called her fiancé aperiwinkle or any other endearing term, if she will repeat the wordbefore seventeen psychologists," then I shall reply, "Very well, ifthose are your conditions, you will never get the truth, for shecertainly will not say it." It is just as unscientific as it isunphilosophical to be surprised that in an unsympathetic atmospherecertain extraordinary sympathies do not arise. It is as if I said that Icould not tell if there was a fog because the air was not clear enough;or as if I insisted on perfect sunlight in order to see a solar eclipse.

As a common-sense conclusion, such as those to which we come about sexor about midnight (well knowing that many details must in their ownnature be concealed) I conclude that miracles do happen. I am forced toit by a conspiracy of facts: the fact that the men who encounter elvesor angels are not the mystics and the morbid dreamers, but fishermen,farmers, and all men at once coarse and cautious; the fact that we allknow men who testify to spiritualist incidents but are notspiritualists; the fact that science itself admits such things more andmore every day. Science will even admit the Ascension if you call itLevitation, and will very likely admit the Resurrection when it hasthought of another word for it. I suggest the Regalvanisation. But thestrongest of all is the dilemma above mentioned, that these supernaturalthings are never denied except on the basis either of anti-democracy orof materialist dogmatism—I may say materialist mysticism. The scepticalways takes one of the two positions; either an ordinary man need notbe believed, or an extraordinary event must not be believed. For I hopewe may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mererecapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. Thatis not an argument at all, good or bad. A false ghost disproves thereality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves theexistence of the Bank of England—if anything, it proves its existence.

Given this conviction that the spiritual phenomena do occur (my evidencefor which is complex but rational), we then collide with one of theworst mental evils of the age. The greatest disaster of the nineteenthcentury was this: that men began to use the word "spiritual" as the sameas the word "good." They thought that to grow in refinement anduncorporeality was to grow in virtue. When scientific evolution wasannounced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality. It didworse: it encouraged mere spirituality. It taught men to think that solong as they were passing from the ape they were going to the angel. Butyou can pass from the ape and go to the devil. A man of genius, verytypical of that time of bewilderment, expressed it perfectly. BenjaminDisraeli was right when he said he was on the side of the angels. He wasindeed; he was on the side of the fallen angels. He was not on the sideof any mere appetite or animal brutality; but he was on the side of allthe imperialism of the princes of the abyss; he was on the side ofarrogance and mystery, and contempt of all obvious good. Between thissunken pride and the towering humilities of heaven there are, one mustsuppose, spirits of shapes and sizes. Man, in encountering them, mustmake much the same mistakes that he makes in encountering any othervaried types in any other distant continent. It must be hard at first toknow who is supreme and who is subordinate. If a shade arose from theunder world, and stared at Piccadilly, that shade would not quiteunderstand the idea of an ordinary closed carriage. He would supposethat the coachman on the box was a triumphant conqueror, dragging behindhim a kicking and imprisoned captive. So, if we see spiritual facts forthe first time, we may mistake who is uppermost. It is not enough tofind the gods; they are obvious; we must find God, the real chief of thegods. We must have a long historic experience in supernaturalphenomena—in order to discover which are really natural. In this lightI find the history of Christianity, and even of its Hebrew origins,quite practical and clear. It does not trouble me to be told that theHebrew god was one among many. I know he was, without any research totell me so. Jehovah and Baal looked equally important, just as the sunand the moon looked the same size. It is only slowly that we learn thatthe sun is immeasurably our master, and the small moon only oursatellite. Believing that there is a world of spirits, I shall walk init as I do in the world of men, looking for the thing that I like andthink good. Just as I should seek in a desert for clean water, or toilat the North Pole to make a comfortable fire, so I shall search the landof void and vision until I find something fresh like water, andcomforting like fire; until I find some place in eternity, where I amliterally at home. And there is only one such place to be found.

I have now said enough to show (to any one to whom such an explanationis essential) that I have in the ordinary arena of apologetics, a groundof belief. In pure records of experiment (if these be takendemocratically without contempt or favour) there is evidence first, thatmiracles happen, and second that the nobler miracles belong to ourtradition. But I will not pretend that this curt discussion is my realreason for accepting Christianity instead of taking the moral good ofChristianity as I should take it out of Confucianism.

I have another far more solid and central ground for submitting to it asa faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme. Andthat is this: that the Christian Church in its practical relation to mysoul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taughtme yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow. Once I sawsuddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross; some day I may seesuddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre. One fine morning I sawwhy windows were pointed; some fine morning I may see why priests wereshaven. Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare hasstartled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you withany more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men stillliving, to know that Plato might break out with an original lectureto-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everythingwith a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believesto be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato andShakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see sometruth that he has never seen before. There is one only other parallel tothis position; and that is the parallel of the life in which we allbegan. When your father told you, walking about the garden, that beesstung or that roses smelt sweet, you did not talk of taking the bestout of his philosophy. When the bees stung you, you did not call it anentertaining coincidence. When the rose smelt sweet you did not say "Myfather is a rude, barbaric symbol, enshrining (perhaps unconsciously)the deep delicate truths that flowers smell." No: you believed yourfather, because you had found him to be a living fountain of facts, athing that really knew more than you; a thing that would tell you truthto-morrow, as well as to-day. And if this was true of your father, itwas even truer of your mother; at least it was true of mine, to whomthis book is dedicated. Now, when society is in a rather futile fussabout the subjection of women, will no one say how much every man owesto the tyranny and privilege of women, to the fact that they alone ruleeducation until education becomes futile: for a boy is only sent to betaught at school when it is too late to teach him anything. The realthing has been done already, and thank God it is nearly always done bywomen. Every man is womanised, merely by being born. They talk of themasculine woman; but every man is a feminised man. And if ever men walkto Westminster to protest against this female privilege, I shall notjoin their procession.

For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact; that thevery time when I was most under a woman's authority, I was most full offlame and adventure. Exactly because when my mother said that ants bitthey did bite, and because snow did come in winter (as she said);therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderfulfulfilments, and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecyafter prophecy came true. I went out as a child into the garden, and itwas a terrible place to me, precisely because I had a clue to it: if Ihad held no clue it would not have been terrible, but tame. A mereunmeaning wilderness is not even impressive. But the garden of childhoodwas fascinating, exactly because everything had a fixed meaning whichcould be found out in its turn. Inch by inch I might discover what wasthe object of the ugly shape called a rake; or form some shadowyconjecture as to why my parents kept a cat.

So, since I have accepted Christendom as a mother and not merely as achance example, I have found Europe and the world once more like thelittle garden where I stared at the symbolic shapes of cat and rake; Ilook at everything with the old elvish ignorance and expectancy. This orthat rite or doctrine may look as ugly and extraordinary as a rake; butI have found by experience that such things end somehow in grass andflowers. A clergyman may be apparently as useless as a cat, but he isalso as fascinating, for there must be some strange reason for hisexistence. I give one instance out of a hundred; I have not myself anyinstinctive kinship with that enthusiasm for physical virginity, whichhas certainly been a note of historic Christianity. But when I look notat myself but at the world, I perceive that this enthusiasm is not onlya note of Christianity, but a note of Paganism, a note of high humannature in many spheres. The Greeks felt virginity when they carvedArtemis, the Romans when they robed the vestals, the worst and wildestof the great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of awoman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, the modern world(even while mocking sexual innocence) has flung itself into a generousidolatry of sexual innocence—the great modern worship of children. Forany man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurtby a hint of physical sex. With all this human experience, allied withthe Christian authority, I simply conclude that I am wrong, and thechurch right; or rather that I am defective, while the church isuniversal. It takes all sorts to make a church; she does not ask me tobe celibate. But the fact that I have no appreciation of the celibates,I accept like the fact that I have no ear for music. The best humanexperience is against me, as it is on the subject of Bach. Celibacy isone flower in my father's garden, of which I have not been told thesweet or terrible name. But I may be told it any day.

This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting the religionand not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. Ido it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth,but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophiessay the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy hasagain and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but istrue. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive;it turns out to be right, like my father in the garden. Theosophists,for instance, will preach an obviously attractive idea likere-incarnation; but if we wait for its logical results, they arespiritual superciliousness and the cruelty of caste. For if a man is abeggar by his own pre-natal sins, people will tend to despise thebeggar. But Christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea, suchas original sin; but when we wait for its results, they are pathos andbrotherhood, and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with originalsin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king. Men of scienceoffer us health, an obvious benefit; it is only afterwards that wediscover that by health, they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium.Orthodoxy makes us jump by the sudden brink of hell; it is onlyafterwards that we realise that jumping was an athletic exercise highlybeneficial to our health. It is only afterwards that we realise thatthis danger is the root of all drama and romance. The strongest argumentfor the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular partsof Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of thepeople. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethicalabnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard youwill find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking winelike men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But inthe modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring thatis obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.

And its despair is this, that it does not really believe that there isany meaning in the universe; therefore it cannot hope to find anyromance; its romances will have no plots. A man cannot expect anyadventures in the land of anarchy. But a man can expect any number ofadventures if he goes travelling in the land of authority. One can findno meanings in a jungle of scepticism; but the man will find more andmore meanings who walks through a forest of doctrine and design. Hereeverything has a story tied to its tail, like the tools or pictures inmy father's house; for it is my father's house. I end where I began—atthe right end. I have entered at least the gate of all good philosophy.I have come into my second childhood.

But this larger and more adventurous Christian universe has one finalmark difficult to express; yet as a conclusion of the whole matter Iwill attempt to express it. All the real argument about religion turnson the question of whether a man who was born upside down can tell whenhe comes right way up. The primary paradox of Christianity is that theordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; thatthe normal itself is an abnormality. That is the inmost philosophy ofthe Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's interesting new Catechism, the first twoquestions were: "What are you?" and "What, then, is the meaning of theFall of Man?" I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to thequestions; but I soon found that they were very broken and agnosticanswers. To the question, "What are you?" I could only answer, "Godknows." And to the question, "What is meant by the Fall?" I could answerwith complete sincerity, "That whatever I am, I am not myself." This isthe prime paradox of our religion; something that we have never in anyfull sense known, is not only better than ourselves, but even morenatural to us than ourselves. And there is really no test of this exceptthe merely experimental one with which these pages began, the test ofthe padded cell and the open door. It is only since I have knownorthodoxy that I have known mental emancipation. But, in conclusion, ithas one special application to the ultimate idea of joy.

It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and Christianity ofsorrow; it would be just as easy to prove that Paganism is pure sorrowand Christianity pure joy. Such conflicts mean nothing and leadnowhere. Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow; the onlymatter of interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced ordivided. And the really interesting thing is this, that the pagan was(in the main) happier and happier as he approached the earth, but sadderand sadder as he approached the heavens. The gaiety of the bestPaganism, as in the playfulness of Catullus or Theocritus, is, indeed,an eternal gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity. But itis all a gaiety about the facts of life, not about its origin. To thepagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out ofthe mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When thepagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind thegods, who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, thefates are worse than deadly; they are dead. And when rationalists saythat the ancient world was more enlightened than the Christian, fromtheir point of view they are right. For when they say "enlightened" theymean darkened with incurable despair. It is profoundly true that theancient world was more modern than the Christian. The common bond is inthe fact that ancients and moderns have both been miserable aboutexistence, about everything, while mediævals were happy about that atleast. I freely grant that the pagans, like the moderns, were onlymiserable about everything—they were quite jolly about everything else.I concede that the Christians of the Middle Ages were only at peaceabout everything—they were at war about everything else. But if thequestion turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos, then there was morecosmic contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of Florence than inthe theatre of Athens or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in agloomier town than Euripides, but he lived in a gayer universe.

The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, butsad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my last dogma defiantly)it is not native to man to be so. Man is more himself, man is moremanlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief thesuperficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender andfugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of thesoul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is theuproarious labour by which all things live. Yet, according to theapparent estate of man as seen by the pagan or the agnostic, thisprimary need of human nature can never be fulfilled. Joy ought to beexpansive; but for the agnostic it must be contracted, it must cling toone corner of the world. Grief ought to be a concentration; but for theagnostic its desolation is spread through an unthinkable eternity. Thisis what I call being born upside down. The sceptic may truly be said tobe topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstacies,while his brain is in the abyss. To the modern man the heavens areactually below the earth. The explanation is simple; he is standing onhis head; which is a very weak pedestal to stand on. But when he hasfound his feet again he knows it. Christianity satisfies suddenly andperfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfiesit supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something giganticand sadness something special and small. The vault above us is not deafbecause the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartlesssilence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us isa small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick room.We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: becausethe frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunkenfarce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take thetremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamberof silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us tohear.

Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secretof the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again thestrange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am againhaunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills theGospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all thethinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural,almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealingtheir tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on Hisopen face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city.Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatistsare proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. Heflung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men howthey expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrainedsomething. I say it with reverence; there was in that shatteringpersonality a thread that must be called shyness. There was somethingthat He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There wassomething that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuousisolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to showus when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that itwas His mirth.

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