,,orthodoxy by ,g4,k4 ,,chesterton ,,john ,,lane ,,the ,,bodley ,,head ,,ltd ,first published in44444444444444444444444444 #aijh printed444444444444444444444444444444444 4444 #aijh ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aiji ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aiaa ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aiae ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aiai ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aiba ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aibd ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aibf ,first published in ,the ,week-,end ,library in #aibg ,reprinted444444444444444444444444444444 44444 #aicd ,,made ,,and ,,printed ,,in ,,great ,,britain ,,by ,,william ,,clowes ,,and ,,sons1 ,,limited1 ,,london ,,and ,,beccles4 ,,to ,,my ,,mother ,,contents ,chap4 ,page ,i4 ,,introduction ,,in ,,defence ,,of ,,everything ,,else #aa ,,ii4 ,,the ,,maniac 44444444444444444444444444444444 #bj ,,iii4 ,,the ,,suicide ,,of ,,thought 4444444444444444444 #ej ,,iv4 ,,the ,,ethics ,,of ,,elfland 444444444444444444444 #gf ,v4 ,,the ,,flag ,,of ,,the ,,world 4444444444444444444444 #aag ,,vi4 ,,the ,,paradoxes ,,of ,,christianity 4444444444444 #adf ,,vii4 ,,the ,,eternal ,,revolution 4444444444444444444 #ahf ,,viii4 ,,the ,,romance ,,of ,,orthodoxy 4444444444444444 #bbh ,,ix4 ,,authority ,,and ,,the ,,adventurer 44444444444444 #bei ,,orthodoxy ,,chapter ,i4--,introduction in ,defence of ,everything ,else ,the only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a challenge4 ,even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel4 ,when some time ago ,i published a series of hasty but sincere papers1 under the name of ,heretics1 several critics for whose intellect ,i have a warm respect 7,i may mention specially ,mr4 ,g4,s4 ,street7 said that it was all very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic theory1 but that ,i had carefully avoided supporting my precepts with example4 ,i will begin to worry about my philosophy1 said ,mr4 ,street1 when ,mr4 ,chesterton has given us his4 ,it was perhaps an incautious suggestion to make to a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblest provocation4 ,but after all1 though ,mr4 ,street has inspired and created this book1 he need not read it4 ,if he does read it1 he will find that in its pages ,i have attempted in a vague and personal way1 in a set of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions1 to state the philosophy in which ,i have come to believe4 ,i will not call it my philosophy2 for ,i did not make it4 ,god and humanity made it2 and it made me4 ,i have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an ,english yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered ,england under the impression that it was a new island in the ,south ,seas4 ,i always find1 however1 that ,i am either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work1 so ,i may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical illustration4 ,there will probably be a general impression that the man who landed 7armed to the teeth and talking by signs7 to plant the ,british flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the ,pavilion at ,brighton1 felt rather a fool4 ,i am not here concerned to deny that he looked a fool4 ,but if you imagine that he felt a fool1 or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion1 then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale4 ,his mistake was really a most enviable mistake2 and he knew it1 if he was the man ,i take him for4 ,what could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again8 ,what could be better than to have all the fun of discovering ,south ,africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there8 ,what could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover ,new ,south ,wales and then realize1 with a gush of happy tears1 that it was really old ,south ,wales4 ,this at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers1 and is in a manner the main problem of this book4 ,how can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it8 ,how can this queer cosmic town1 with its many-legged citizens1 with its monstrous and ancient lamps1 how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town8 ,to show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger book than this2 it is necessary to follow one path of argument2 and this is the path that ,i here propose to follow4 ,i wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need1 the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which ,christendom has rightly named romance4 ,for the very word romance has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of ,rome4 ,any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute4 ,beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove4 ,the thing ,i do not propose to prove1 the thing ,i propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader1 is this desirability of an active and imaginative life1 picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity1 a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired4 ,if a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure1 then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom ,i am talking4 ,if a man prefers nothing ,i can give him nothing4 ,but nearly all people ,i have ever met in this western society in which ,i live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance2 the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure4 ,we need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome4 ,we need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable4 ,it is this achievement of my creed that ,i shall chiefly pursue in these pages4 ,but ,i have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht1 who discovered ,england4 ,for ,i am that man in a yacht4 ,i discovered ,england4 ,i do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical2 and ,i do not quite see 7to tell the truth7 how it can avoid being dull4 ,dullness will1 however1 free me from the charge which ,i most lament2 the charge of being flippant4 ,mere light sophistry is the thing that ,i happen to despise most of all things1 and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which ,i am generally accused4 ,i know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox2 a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible4 ,if it were true 7as has been said7 that ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw lived upon paradox1 then he ought to be a mere common millionaire2 for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes4 ,it is as easy as lying2 because it is lying4 ,the truth is1 of course1 that ,mr4 ,shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie unless he thinks it is the truth4 ,i find myself under the same intolerable bondage4 ,i never in my life said anything merely because ,i thought it funny2 though1 of course1 ,i have had ordinary human vain-glory1 and may have thought it funny because ,i had said it4 ,it is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin1 a creature who does not exist4 ,it is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't4 ,one searches for truth1 but it may be that one pursues instinctively the more extraordinary truths4 ,and ,i offer this book with the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what ,i write1 and regard it 7very justly1 for all ,i know71 as a piece of poor clowning or a single tiresome joke4 ,for if this book is a joke it is a joke against me4 ,i am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before4 ,if there is an element of farce in what follows1 the farce is at my own expense2 for this book explains how ,i fancied ,i was the first to set foot in ,brighton and then found ,i was the last4 ,it recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious4 ,no one can think my case more ludicrous than ,i think it myself2 no reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him3 ,i am the fool of this story1 and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne4 ,i freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century4 ,i did1 like all other solemn little boys1 try to be in advance of the age4 ,like them ,i tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth4 ,and ,i found that ,i was eighteen hundred years behind it4 ,i did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths4 ,and ,i was punished in the fittest and funniest way1 for ,i have kept my truths3 but ,i have discovered1 not that they were not truths1 but simply that they were not mine4 ,when ,i fancied that ,i stood alone ,i was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all ,christendom4 ,it may be1 ,heaven forgive me1 that ,i did try to be original2 but ,i only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion4 ,the man from the yacht thought he was the first to find ,england2 ,i thought ,i was the first to find ,europe4 ,i did try to found a heresy of my own2 and when ,i had put the last touches to it1 ,i discovered that it was orthodoxy4 ,it may be that somebody will be entertained by the account of this happy fiasco4 ,it might amuse a friend or an enemy to read how ,i gradually learnt from the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy1 things that ,i might have learnt from my catechism--if ,i had ever learnt it4 ,there may or may not be some entertainment in reading how ,i found at last in an anarchist club or a ,babylonian temple what ,i might have found in the nearest parish church4 ,if any one is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus1 the accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of ,christian orthodoxy1 he may possibly read this book4 ,but there is in everything a reasonable division of labour4 ,i have written the book1 and nothing on earth would induce me to read it4 ,i add one purely pedantic note which comes1 as a note naturally should1 at the beginning of the book4 ,these essays are concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the central ,christian theology 7sufficiently summarized in the ,apostles' ,creed7 is the best root of energy and sound ethics4 ,they are not intended to discuss the very fascinating but quite different question of what is the present seat of authority for the proclamation of that creed4 ,when the word orthodoxy is used here it means the ,apostles' ,creed1 as understood by everybody calling himself ,christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who held such a creed4 ,i have been forced by mere space to confine myself to what ,i have got from this creed2 ,i do not touch the matter much disputed among modern ,christians1 of where we ourselves got it4 ,this is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenly autobiography4 ,but if any one wants my opinions about the actual nature of the authority1 ,mr4 ,g4,s4 ,street has only to throw me another challenge1 and ,i will write him another book4 ,,chapter ,,ii4--,the ,maniac ,thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world2 they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true4 ,once ,i remember walking with a prosperous publisher1 who made a remark which ,i had often heard before2 it is1 indeed1 almost a motto of the modern world4 ,yet ,i had heard it once too often1 and ,i saw suddenly that there was nothing in it4 ,the publisher said of somebody1 ,that man will get on2 he believes in himself4 ,and ,i remember that as ,i lifted my head to listen1 my eye caught an omnibus on which was written ,hanwell4 ,i said to him1 ,shall ,i tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves8 ,for ,i can tell you4 ,i know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than ,napoleon or ,caesar4 ,i know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success4 ,i can guide you to the thrones of the ,super-men4 ,the men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums4 ,he said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums4 ,yes1 there are1 ,i retorted1 and you of all men ought to know them4 ,that drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy1 he believed in himself4 ,that elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room1 he believed in himself4 ,if you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy1 you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter4 ,actors who can't act believe in themselves2 and debtors who won't pay4 ,it would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail because he believes in himself4 ,complete self-confidence is not merely a sin2 complete self-confidence is a weakness4 ,believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in ,joanna ,southcote3 the man who has it has ',hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus4 ,and to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply1 ,well1 if a man is not to believe in himself1 in what is he to believe8 ,after a long pause ,i replied1 ,i will go home and write a book in answer to that question4 ,this is the book that ,i have written in answer to it4 ,but ,i think this book may well start where our argument started--in the neighbourhood of the mad-house4 ,modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact4 ,the ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity4 ,they began with the fact of sin--a fact as practical as potatoes4 ,whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters1 there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing4 ,but certain religious leaders in ,london1 not mere materialists1 have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water1 but to deny the indisputable dirt4 ,certain new theologians dispute original sin1 which is the only part of ,christian theology which can really be proved4 ,some followers of the ,reverend ,r4,j4 ,campbell1 in their almost too fastidious spirituality1 admit divine sinlessness1 which they cannot see even in their dreams4 ,but they essentially deny human sin1 which they can see in the street4 ,the strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument4 ,if it be true 7as it certainly is7 that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat1 then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions4 ,he must either deny the existence of ,god1 as all atheists do2 or he must deny the present union between ,god and man1 as all ,christians do4 ,the new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat4 ,in this remarkable situation it is plainly not now possible 7with any hope of a universal appeal7 to start1 as our fathers did1 with the fact of sin4 ,this very fact which was to them 7and is to me7 as plain as a pikestaff1 is the very fact that has been specially diluted or denied4 ,but though moderns deny the existence of sin1 ,i do not think that they have yet denied the existence of a lunatic asylum4 ,we all agree still that there is a collapse of the intellect as unmistakable as a falling house4 ,men deny hell1 but not1 as yet1 ,hanwell4 ,for the purpose of our primary argument the one may very well stand where the other stood4 ,i mean that as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether they tended to make a man lose his soul1 so for our present purpose all modern thoughts and theories may be judged by whether they tend to make a man lose his wits4 ,it is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself attractive4 ,but a moment's thought will show that if disease is beautiful1 it is generally some one else's disease4 ,a blind man may be picturesque2 but it requires two eyes to see the picture4 ,and similarly even the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane4 ,to the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic1 because it is quite true4 ,a man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken4 ,a man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass4 ,it is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull1 and which makes him mad4 ,it is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing2 it is only because he does not see the irony of his idea that he is put in ,hanwell at all4 ,in short1 oddities only strike ordinary people4 ,oddities do not strike odd people4 ,this is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time2 while odd people are always complaining of the dulness of life4 ,this is also why the new novels die so quickly1 and why the old fairy tales endure for ever4 ,the old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy2 it is his adventures that are startling2 they startle him because he is normal4 ,but in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal2 the centre is not central4 ,hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately1 and the book is monotonous4 ,you can make a story out of a hero among dragons2 but not out of a dragon among dragons4 ,the fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world4 ,the sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world4 ,let us begin1 then1 with the mad-house2 from this evil and fantastic inn let us set forth on our intellectual journey4 ,now1 if we are to glance at the philosophy of sanity1 the first thing to do in the matter is to blot out one big and common mistake4 ,there is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination1 especially mystical imagination1 is dangerous to man's mental balance4 ,poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable2 and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it4 ,facts and history utterly contradict this view4 ,most of the very great poets have been not only sane1 but extremely business-like2 and if ,shakespeare ever really held horses1 it was because he was much the safest man to hold them4 ,imagination does not breed insanity4 ,exactly what does breed insanity is reason4 ,poets do not go mad2 but chess-players do4 ,mathematicians go mad1 and cashiers2 but creative artists very seldom4 ,i am not1 as will be seen1 in any sense attacking logic3 ,i only say that this danger does lie in logic1 not in imagination4 ,artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity4 ,moreover1 it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain4 ,poe1 for instance1 really was morbid2 not because he was poetical1 but because he was specially analytical4 ,even chess was too poetical for him2 he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles1 like a poem4 ,he avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts1 because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram4 ,perhaps the strongest case of all is this3 that only one great ,english poet went mad1 ,cowper4 ,and he was definitely driven mad by logic1 by the ugly and alien logic of predestination4 ,poetry was not the disease1 but the medicine2 poetry partly kept him in health4 ,he could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the ,ouse4 ,he was damned by ,john ,calvin2 he was almost saved by ,john ,gilpin4 ,everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming4 ,critics are much madder than poets4 ,homer is complete and calm enough2 it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters4 ,shakespeare is quite himself2 it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else4 ,and though ,st4 ,john the ,evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision1 he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators4 ,the general fact is simple4 ,poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea2 reason seeks to cross the infinite sea1 and so make it finite4 ,the result is mental exhaustion1 like the physical exhaustion of ,mr4 ,holbein4 ,to accept everything is an exercise1 to understand everything a strain4 ,the poet only desires exaltation and expansion1 a world to stretch himself in4 ,the poet only asks to get his head into the heavens4 ,it is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head4 ,and it is his head that splits4 ,it is a small matter1 but not irrelevant1 that this striking mistake is commonly supported by a striking misquotation4 ,we have all heard people cite the celebrated line of ,dryden as ,great genius is to madness near allied4 ,but ,dryden did not say that great genius was to madness near allied4 ,dryden was a great genius himself1 and knew better4 ,it would have been hard to find a man more romantic than he1 or more sensible4 ,what ,dryden said was this1 ,great wits are oft to madness near allied2 and that is true4 ,it is the pure promptitude of the intellect that is in peril of a breakdown4 ,also people might remember of what sort of man ,dryden was talking4 ,he was not talking of any unworldly visionary like ,vaughan or ,george ,herbert4 ,he was talking of a cynical man of the world1 a sceptic1 a diplomatist1 a great practical politician4 ,such men are indeed to madness near allied4 ,their incessant calculation of their own brains and other people's brains is a dangerous trade4 ,it is always perilous to the mind to reckon up the mind4 ,a flippant person has asked why we say1 ,as mad as a hatter4 ,a more flippant person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head4 ,and if great reasoners are often maniacal1 it is equally true that maniacs are commonly great reasoners4 ,when ,i was engaged in a controversy with the ,clarion on the matter of free will1 that able writer ,mr4 ,r4,b4 ,suthers said that free will was lunacy1 because it meant causeless actions1 and the actions of a lunatic would be causeless4 ,i do not dwell here upon the disastrous lapse in determinist logic4 ,obviously if any actions1 even a lunatic's1 can be causeless1 determinism is done for4 ,if the chain of causation can be broken for a madman1 it can be broken for a man4 ,but my purpose is to point out something more practical4 ,it was natural1 perhaps1 that a modern ,marxian ,socialist should not know anything about free will4 ,but it was certainly remarkable that a modern ,marxian ,socialist should not know anything about lunatics4 ,mr4 ,suthers evidently did not know anything about lunatics4 ,the last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless4 ,if any human acts may loosely be called causeless1 they are the minor acts of a healthy man2 whistling as he walks2 slashing the grass with a stick2 kicking his heels or rubbing his hands4 ,it is the happy man who does the useless things2 the sick man is not strong enough to be idle4 ,it is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand2 for the madman 7like the determinist7 generally sees too much cause in everything4 ,the madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities4 ,he would think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on private property4 ,he would think that the kicking of the heels was a signal to an accomplice4 ,if the madman could for an instant become careless1 he would become sane4 ,every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder1 knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail2 a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze4 ,if you argue with a madman1 it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it2 for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment4 ,he is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity1 or by the dumb certainties of experience4 ,he is the more logical for losing certain sane affections4 ,indeed1 the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one4 ,the madman is not the man who has lost his reason4 ,the madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason4 ,the madman's explanation of a thing is always complete1 and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory4 ,or1 to speak more strictly1 the insane explanation1 if not conclusive1 is at least unanswerable2 this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness4 ,if a man says 7for instance7 that men have a conspiracy against him1 you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators2 which is exactly what conspirators would do4 ,his explanation covers the facts as much as yours4 ,or if a man says that he is the rightful ,king of ,england1 it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad2 for if he were ,king of ,england that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do4 ,or if a man says that he is ,jesus ,christ1 it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity2 for the world denied ,christ's4 ,nevertheless he is wrong4 ,but if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms1 we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed4 ,perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this3 that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle4 ,a small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle2 but1 though it is quite as infinite1 it is not so large4 ,in the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one1 but it is not so large4 ,a bullet is quite as round as the world1 but it is not the world4 ,there is such a thing as a narrow universality2 there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity2 you may see it in many modern religions4 ,now1 speaking quite externally and empirically1 we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction4 ,the lunatic's theory explains a large number of things1 but it does not explain them in a large way4 ,i mean that if you or ,i were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid1 we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air1 to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument4 ,suppose1 for instance1 it were the first case that ,i took as typical2 suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him4 ,if we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession1 ,i suppose we should say something like this3 ,oh1 ,i admit that you have your case and have it by heart1 and that many things do fit into other things as you say4 ,i admit that your explanation explains a great deal2 but what a great deal it leaves out6 ,are there no other stories in the world except yours2 and are all men busy with your business8 ,suppose we grant the details2 perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning2 perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already4 ,but how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you6 ,how much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it2 if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure2 if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference6 ,you would begin to be interested in them1 because they were not interested in you4 ,you would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played1 and you would find yourself under a freer sky1 in a street full of splendid strangers4 ,or suppose it were the second case of madness1 that of a man who claims the crown1 your impulse would be to answer1 ,all right6 ,perhaps you know that you are the ,king of ,england2 but why do you care8 ,make one magnificent effort and you will be a human being and look down on all the kings of the earth4 ,or it might be the third case1 of the madman who called himself ,christ4 ,if we said what we felt1 we should say1 ,so you are the ,creator and ,redeemer of the world3 but what a small world it must be6 ,what a little heaven you must inhabit1 with angels no bigger than butterflies6 ,how sad it must be to be ,god2 and an inadequate ,god6 ,is there really no life fuller and no love more marvellous than yours2 and is it really in your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith8 ,how much happier you would be1 how much more of you there would be1 if the hammer of a higher ,god could smash your small cosmos1 scattering the stars like spangles1 and leave you in the open1 free like other men to look up as well as down6 ,and it must be remembered that the most purely practical science does take this view of mental evil2 it does not seek to argue with it like a heresy1 but simply to snap it like a spell4 ,neither modern science nor ancient religion believes in complete free thought4 ,theology rebukes certain thoughts by calling them blasphemous4 ,science rebukes certain thoughts by calling them morbid4 ,for example1 some religious societies discouraged men more or less from thinking about sex4 ,the new scientific society definitely discourages men from thinking about death2 it is a fact1 but it is considered a morbid fact4 ,and in dealing with those whose morbidity has a touch of mania1 modern science cares far less for pure logic than a dancing ,dervish4 ,in these cases it is not enough that the unhappy man should desire truth2 he must desire health4 ,nothing can save him but a blind hunger for normality1 like that of a beast4 ,a man cannot think himself out of mental evil2 for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased1 ungovernable1 and1 as it were1 independent4 ,he can only be saved by will or faith4 ,the moment his mere reason moves1 it moves in the old circular rut2 he will go round and round his logical circle1 just as a man in a third-class carriage on the ,inner ,circle will go round and round the ,inner ,circle unless he performs the voluntary1 vigorous1 and mystical act of getting out at ,gower ,street4 ,decision is the whole business here2 a door must be shut for ever4 ,every remedy is a desperate remedy4 ,every cure is a miraculous cure4 ,curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher2 it is casting out a devil4 ,and however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to work in the matter1 their attitude is profoundly intolerant--as intolerant as ,bloody ,mary4 ,their attitude is really this3 that the man must stop thinking1 if he is to go on living4 ,their counsel is one of intellectual amputation4 ,if thy head offend thee1 cut it off2 for it is better1 not merely to enter the ,kingdom of ,heaven as a child1 but to enter it as an imbecile1 rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell--or into ,hanwell4 ,such is the madman of experience2 he is commonly a reasoner1 frequently a successful reasoner4 ,doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason1 and the case against him put logically4 ,but it can be put much more precisely in more general and even sthetic terms4 ,he is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea3 he is sharpened to one painful point4 ,he is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity4 ,now1 as ,i explain in the introduction1 ,i have determined in these early chapters to give not so much a diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a point of view4 ,and ,i have described at length my vision of the maniac for this reason3 that just as ,i am affected by the maniac1 so ,i am affected by most modern thinkers4 ,that unmistakable mood or note that ,i hear from ,hanwell1 ,i hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning to-day2 and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one4 ,they all have exactly that combination we have noted3 the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense4 ,they are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far4 ,but a pattern can stretch for ever and still be a small pattern4 ,they see a chess-board white on black1 and if the universe is paved with it1 it is still white on black4 ,like the lunatic1 they cannot alter their standpoint2 they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see it black on white4 ,take first the more obvious case of materialism4 ,as an explanation of the world1 materialism has a sort of insane simplicity4 ,it has just the quality of the madman's argument2 we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out4 ,contemplate some able and sincere materialist1 as1 for instance1 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe1 and you will have exactly this unique sensation4 ,he understands everything1 and everything does not seem worth understanding4 ,his cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel1 but still his cosmos is smaller than our world4 ,somehow his scheme1 like the lucid scheme of the madman1 seems unconscious of the alien energies and the large indifference of the earth2 it is not thinking of the real things of the earth1 of fighting peoples or proud mothers1 or first love or fear upon the sea4 ,the earth is so very large1 and the cosmos is so very small4 ,the cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in4 ,it must be understood that ,i am not now discussing the relation of these creeds to truth2 but1 for the present1 solely their relation to health4 ,later in the argument ,i hope to attack the question of objective verity2 here ,i speak only of a phenomenon of psychology4 ,i do not for the present attempt to prove to ,haeckel that materialism is untrue1 any more than ,i attempted to prove to the man who thought he was ,christ that he was labouring under an error4 ,i merely remark here on the fact that both cases have the same kind of completeness and the same kind of incompleteness4 ,you can explain a man's detention at ,hanwell by an indifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whom the world is not worthy4 ,the explanation does explain4 ,similarly you may explain the order in the universe by saying that all things1 even the souls of men1 are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly unconscious tree--the blind destiny of matter4 ,the explanation does explain1 though not1 of course1 so completely as the madman's4 ,but the point here is that the normal human mind not only objects to both1 but feels to both the same objection4 ,its approximate statement is that if the man in ,hanwell is the real ,god1 he is not much of a god4 ,and1 similarly1 if the cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos1 it is not much of a cosmos4 ,the thing has shrunk4 ,the deity is less divine than many men2 and 7according to ,haeckel7 the whole of life is something much more grey1 narrow1 and trivial than many separate aspects of it4 ,the parts seem greater than the whole4 ,for we must remember that the materialist philosophy 7whether true or not7 is certainly much more limiting than any religion4 ,in one sense1 of course1 all intelligent ideas are narrow4 ,they cannot be broader than themselves4 ,a ,christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted4 ,he cannot think ,christianity false and continue to be a ,christian2 and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist4 ,but as it happens1 there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism4 ,mr4 ,mc,cabe thinks me a slave because ,i am not allowed to believe in determinism4 ,i think ,mr4 ,mc,cabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies4 ,but if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine4 ,the ,christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe4 ,but the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle4 ,poor ,mr4 ,mc,cabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp1 though it might be hiding in a pimpernel4 ,the ,christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous1 just as a sane man knows that he is complex4 ,the sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast1 a touch of the devil1 a touch of the saint1 a touch of the citizen4 ,nay1 the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman4 ,but the materialist's world is quite simple and solid1 just as the madman is quite sure he is sane4 ,the materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation1 just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken4 ,materialists and madmen never have doubts4 ,spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials4 ,even if ,i believe in immortality ,i need not think about it4 ,but if ,i disbelieve in immortality ,i must not think about it4 ,in the first case the road is open and ,i can go as far as ,i like2 in the second the road is shut4 ,but the case is even stronger1 and the parallel with madness is yet more strange4 ,for it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that1 right or wrong1 it gradually destroyed his humanity4 ,now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that1 right or wrong1 they gradually destroy his humanity2 ,i do not mean only kindness1 ,i mean hope1 courage1 poetry1 initiative1 all that is human4 ,for instance1 when materialism leads men to complete fatalism 7as it generally does71 it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force4 ,it is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will4 ,the determinists come to bind1 not to loose4 ,they may well call their law the chain of causation4 ,it is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being4 ,you may use the language of liberty1 if you like1 about materialistic teaching1 but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house4 ,you may say1 if you like1 that the man is free to think himself a poached egg4 ,but it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat1 drink1 sleep1 walk1 or smoke a cigarette4 ,similarly you may say1 if you like1 that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will4 ,but it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to praise1 to curse1 to thank1 to justify1 to urge1 to punish1 to resist temptations1 to incite mobs1 to make ,new ,year resolutions1 to pardon sinners1 to rebuke tyrants1 or even to say thank you for the mustard4 ,in passing from this subject ,i may note that there is a queer fallacy to the effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable to mercy1 to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind4 ,this is startlingly the reverse of the truth4 ,it is quite tenable that the doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all2 that it leaves the flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before4 ,but obviously if it stops either of them it stops the kind exhortation4 ,that the sins are inevitable does not prevent punishment2 if it prevents anything it prevents persuasion4 ,determinism is quite as likely to lead to cruelty as it is certain to lead to cowardice4 ,determinism is not inconsistent with the cruel treatment of criminals4 ,what it is 7perhaps7 inconsistent with is the generous treatment of criminals2 with any appeal to their better feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle4 ,the determinist does not believe in appealing to the will1 but he does believe in changing the environment4 ,he must not say to the sinner1 ,go and sin no more1 because the sinner cannot help it4 ,but he can put him in boiling oil2 for boiling oil is an environment4 ,considered as a figure1 therefore1 the materialist has the fantastic outline of the figure of the madman4 ,both take up a position at once unanswerable and intolerable4 ,of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is true4 ,the same would apply to the other extreme of speculative logic4 ,there is a sceptic far more terrible than he who believes that everything began in matter4 ,it is possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everything began in himself4 ,he doubts not the existence of angels or devils1 but the existence of men and cows4 ,for him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself4 ,he created his own father and his own mother4 ,this horrible fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhat mystical egoism of our day4 ,that publisher who thought that men would get on if they believed in themselves1 those seekers after the ,superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass1 those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for the world1 all these people have really only an inch between them and this awful emptiness4 ,then when this kindly world all round the man has been blackened out like a lie2 when friends fade into ghosts1 and the foundations of the world fail2 then when the man1 believing in nothing and in no man1 is alone in his own nightmare1 then the great individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony4 ,the stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain2 his mother's face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of his cell4 ,but over his cell shall be written1 with dreadful truth1 ,he believes in himself4 ,all that concerns us here1 however1 is to note that this panegoistic extreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as the other extreme of materialism4 ,it is equally complete in theory and equally crippling in practice4 ,for the sake of simplicity1 it is easier to state the notion by saying that a man can believe that he is always in a dream4 ,now1 obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not in a dream1 for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that might not be offered in a dream4 ,but if the man began to burn down ,london and say that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast1 we should take him and put him with other logicians in a place which has often been alluded to in the course of this chapter4 ,the man who cannot believe his senses1 and the man who cannot believe anything else1 are both insane1 but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument1 but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives4 ,they have both locked themselves up in two boxes1 painted inside with the sun and stars2 they are both unable to get out1 the one into the health and happiness of heaven1 the other even into the health and happiness of the earth4 ,their position is quite reasonable2 nay1 in a sense it is infinitely reasonable1 just as a threepenny bit is infinitely circular4 ,but there is such a thing as a mean infinity1 a base and slavish eternity4 ,it is amusing to notice that many of the moderns1 whether sceptics or mystics1 have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol1 which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity4 ,when they wish to represent eternity1 they represent it by a serpent with his tail in his mouth4 ,there is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal4 ,the eternity of the material fatalists1 the eternity of the eastern pessimists1 the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is1 indeed1 very well presented by a serpent eating his tail1 a degraded animal who destroys even himself4 ,this chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what actually is the chief mark and element of insanity2 we may say in summary that it is reason used without root1 reason in the void4 ,the man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad1 the man who begins to think at the wrong end4 ,and for the rest of these pages we have to try and discover what is the right end4 ,but we may ask in conclusion1 if this be what drives men mad1 what is it that keeps them sane8 ,by the end of this book ,i hope to give a definite1 some will think a far too definite1 answer4 ,but for the moment it is possible in the same solely practical manner to give a general answer touching what in actual human history keeps men sane4 ,mysticism keeps men sane4 ,as long as you have mystery you have health2 when you destroy mystery you create morbidity4 ,the ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic4 ,he has permitted the twilight4 ,he has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland4 ,he has always left himself free to doubt his gods2 but 7unlike the agnostic of to-day7 free also to believe in them4 ,he has always cared more for truth than for consistency4 ,if he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other1 he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them4 ,his spiritual sight is stereoscopic1 like his physical sight3 he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that4 ,thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate1 but such a thing as free will also4 ,thus he believed that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven1 but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth4 ,he admired youth because it was young and age because it was not4 ,it is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man4 ,the whole secret of mysticism is this3 that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand4 ,the morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid1 and succeeds in making everything mysterious4 ,the mystic allows one thing to be mysterious1 and everything else becomes lucid4 ,the determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear1 and then finds that he cannot say if you please to the housemaid4 ,the ,christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery2 but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness4 ,he puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness2 but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health4 ,as we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness1 we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health4 ,buddhism is centripetal1 but ,christianity is centrifugal3 it breaks out4 ,for the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature2 but it is fixed for ever in its size2 it can never be larger or smaller4 ,but the cross1 though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction1 can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape4 ,because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing4 ,the circle returns upon itself and is bound4 ,the cross opens its arms to the four winds2 it is a signpost for free travellers4 ,symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this deep matter2 and another symbol from physical nature will express sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind4 ,the one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything4 ,like the sun at noonday1 mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility4 ,detached intellectualism is 7in the exact sense of a popular phrase7 all moonshine2 for it is light without heat1 and it is secondary light1 reflected from a dead world4 ,but the ,greeks were right when they made ,apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity2 for he was both the patron of poetry and the patron of healing4 ,of necessary dogmas and a special creed ,i shall speak later4 ,but that transcendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky4 ,we are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion2 it is something both shining and shapeless1 at once a blaze and a blur4 ,but the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable1 as recurrent and inevitable1 as the circle of ,euclid on a blackboard4 ,for the moon is utterly reasonable2 and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her name4 ,,chapter ,,iii4--,the ,suicide of ,thought ,the phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle3 for a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition4 ,phrases like put out or off colour might have been coined by ,mr4 ,henry ,james in an agony of verbal precision4 ,and there is no more subtle truth than that of the everyday phrase about a man having his heart in the right place4 ,it involves the idea of normal proportion2 not only does a certain function exist1 but it is rightly related to other functions4 ,indeed1 the negation of this phrase would describe with peculiar accuracy the somewhat morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the most representative moderns4 ,if1 for instance1 ,i had to describe with fairness the character of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw1 ,i could not express myself more exactly than by saying that he has a heroically large and generous heart2 but not a heart in the right place4 ,and this is so of the typical society of our time4 ,the modern world is not evil2 in some ways the modern world is far too good4 ,it is full of wild and wasted virtues4 ,when a religious scheme is shattered 7as ,christianity was shattered at the ,reformation71 it is not merely the vices that are let loose4 ,the vices are1 indeed1 let loose1 and they wander and do damage4 ,but the virtues are let loose also2 and the virtues wander more wildly1 and the virtues do more terrible damage4 ,the modern world is full of the old ,christian virtues gone mad4 ,the virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone4 ,thus some scientists care for truth2 and their truth is pitiless4 ,thus some humanitarians only care for pity2 and their pity 7,i am sorry to say7 is often untruthful4 ,for example1 ,mr4 ,blatchford attacks ,christianity because he is mad on one ,christian virtue3 the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity4 ,he has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive4 ,mr4 ,blatchford is not only an early ,christian1 he is the only early ,christian who ought really to have been eaten by lions4 ,for in his case the pagan accusation is really true3 his mercy would mean mere anarchy4 ,he really is the enemy of the human race--because he is so human4 ,as the other extreme1 we may take the acrid realist1 who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing of the heart4 ,torquemada tortured people physically for the sake of moral truth4 ,zola tortured people morally for the sake of physical truth4 ,but in ,torquemada's time there was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and peace kiss each other4 ,now they do not even bow4 ,but a much stronger case than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the dislocation of humility4 ,it is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned4 ,humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man4 ,he was always out-stripping his mercies with his own newly invented needs4 ,his very power of enjoyment destroyed half his joys4 ,by asking for pleasure1 he lost the chief pleasure2 for the chief pleasure is surprise4 ,hence it became evident that if a man would make his world large1 he must be always making himself small4 ,even the haughty visions1 the tall cities1 and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility4 ,giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations of humility4 ,towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest star are the creations of humility4 ,for towers are not tall unless we look up at them2 and giants are not giants unless they are larger than we4 ,all this gigantesque imagination1 which is1 perhaps1 the mightiest of the pleasures of man1 is at bottom entirely humble4 ,it is impossible without humility to enjoy anything--even pride4 ,but what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place4 ,modesty has moved from the organ of ambition4 ,modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction2 where it was never meant to be4 ,a man was meant to be doubtful about himself1 but undoubting about the truth2 this has been exactly reversed4 ,nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself4 ,the part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt--the ,divine ,reason4 ,huxley preached a humility content to learn from ,nature4 ,but the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn4 ,thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time4 ,the truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time2 but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic4 ,the old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping2 not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on4 ,for the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts1 which might make him work harder4 ,but the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims1 which will make him stop working altogether4 ,at any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong4 ,every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one4 ,of course his view must be the right one1 or it is not his view4 ,we are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table4 ,we are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own4 ,scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced2 but these are too humble to be convinced4 ,the meek do inherit the earth2 but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance4 ,it is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem4 ,the last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation3 that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his reason than his imagination4 ,it was not meant to attack the authority of reason2 rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it4 ,for it needs defence4 ,the whole modern world is at war with reason2 and the tower already reels4 ,the sages1 it is often said1 can see no answer to the riddle of religion4 ,but the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the answer2 it is that they cannot even see the riddle4 ,they are like children so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playful assertion that a door is not a door4 ,the modern latitudinarians speak1 for instance1 about authority in religion not only as if there were no reason in it1 but as if there had never been any reason for it4 ,apart from seeing its philosophical basis1 they cannot even see its historical cause4 ,religious authority has often1 doubtless1 been oppressive or unreasonable2 just as every legal system 7and especially our present one7 has been callous and full of a cruel apathy4 ,it is rational to attack the police2 nay1 it is glorious4 ,but the modern critics of religious authority are like men who should attack the police without ever having heard of burglars4 ,for there is a great and possible peril to the human mind3 a peril as practical as burglary4 ,against it religious authority was reared1 rightly or wrongly1 as a barrier4 ,and against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier1 if our race is to avoid ruin4 ,that peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself4 ,just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation1 by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea1 so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought4 ,it is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith4 ,reason is itself a matter of faith4 ,it is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all4 ,if you are merely a sceptic1 you must sooner or later ask yourself the question1 ,why should anything go right2 even observation and deduction8 ,why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic8 ,they are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape8 ,the young sceptic says1 ,i have a right to think for myself4 ,but the old sceptic1 the complete sceptic1 says1 ,i have no right to think for myself4 ,i have no right to think at all4 ,there is a thought that stops thought4 ,that is the only thought that ought to be stopped4 ,that is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed4 ,it only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own3 and already ,mr4 ,h4,g4 ,wells has raised its ruinous banner2 he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called ,doubts of the ,instrument4 ,in this he questions the brain itself1 and endeavours to remove all reality from all his own assertions1 past1 present1 and to come4 ,but it was against this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion were originally ranked and ruled4 ,the creeds and the crusades1 the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not organized1 as is ignorantly said1 for the suppression of reason4 ,they were organized for the difficult defence of reason4 ,man1 by a blind instinct1 knew that if once things were wildly questioned1 reason could be questioned first4 ,the authority of priests to absolve1 the authority of popes to define the authority1 even of inquisitors to terrify3 these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority1 more undemonstrable1 more supernatural than all--the authority of a man to think4 ,we know now that this is so2 we have no excuse for not knowing it4 ,for we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities1 and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne4 ,in so far as religion is gone1 reason is going4 ,for they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind4 ,they are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved4 ,and in the act of destroying the idea of ,divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum4 ,with a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man2 and his head has come off with it4 ,lest this should be called loose assertion1 it is perhaps desirable1 though dull1 to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thought which have this effect of stopping thought itself4 ,materialism and the view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect2 for if the mind is mechanical1 thought cannot be very exciting1 and if the cosmos is unreal1 there is nothing to think about4 ,but in these cases the effect is indirect and doubtful4 ,in some cases it is direct and clear2 notably in the case of what is generally called evolution4 ,evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which1 if it destroys anything1 destroys itself4 ,evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about2 or1 if it is anything more than this1 it is an attack upon thought itself4 ,if evolution destroys anything1 it does not destroy religion but rationalism4 ,if evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man1 then it is stingless for the most orthodox2 for a personal ,god might just as well do things slowly as quickly1 especially if1 like the ,christian ,god1 he were outside time4 ,but if it means anything more1 it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change1 and no such thing as a man for him to change into4 ,it means that there is no such thing as a thing4 ,at best1 there is only one thing1 and that is a flux of everything and anything4 ,this is an attack not upon the faith1 but upon the mind2 you cannot think if there are no things to think about4 ,you cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought4 ,descartes said1 ,i think2 therefore ,i am4 ,the philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram4 ,he says1 ,i am not2 therefore ,i cannot think4 ,then there is the opposite attack on thought3 that urged by ,mr4 ,h4,g4 ,wells when he insists that every separate thing is unique1 and there are no categories at all4 ,this also is merely destructive4 ,thinking means connecting things1 and stops if they cannot be connected4 ,it need hardly be said that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarily forbids speech2 a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting it4 ,thus when ,mr4 ,wells says 7as he did somewhere71 ,all chairs are quite different1 he utters not merely a misstatement1 but a contradiction in terms4 ,if all chairs were quite different1 you could not call them all chairs4 ,akin to these is the false theory of progress1 which maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass the test4 ,we often hear it said1 for instance1 ,what is right in one age is wrong in another4 ,this is quite reasonable1 if it means that there is a fixed aim1 and that certain methods attain at certain times and not at other times4 ,if women1 say1 desire to be elegant1 it may be that they are improved at one time by growing fatter and at another time by growing thinner4 ,but you cannot say that they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegant and beginning to wish to be oblong4 ,if the standard changes1 how can there be improvement1 which implies a standard8 ,nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil2 if it were so1 we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them4 ,how can you overtake ,jones if you walk in the other direction8 ,you cannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserable than another succeeded in being happy4 ,it would be like discussing whether ,milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat4 ,it is true that a man 7a silly man7 might make change itself his object or ideal4 ,but as an ideal1 change itself becomes unchangeable4 ,if the change-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress1 he must be sternly loyal to the ideal of change2 he must not begin to flirt gaily with the ideal of monotony4 ,progress itself cannot progress4 ,it is worth remark1 in passing1 that when ,tennyson1 in a wild and rather weak manner1 welcomed the idea of infinite alteration in society1 he instinctively took a metaphor which suggests an imprisoned tedium4 ,he wrote-- ,let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change4 ,he thought of change itself as an unchangeable groove2 and so it is4 ,change is about the narrowest and hardest groove that a man can get into4 ,the main point here1 however1 is that this idea of a fundamental alteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought about the past or future simply impossible4 ,the theory of a complete change of standards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of honouring our fathers2 it deprives us even of the more modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them4 ,this bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our time would not be complete without some reference to pragmatism2 for though ,i have here used and should everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary guide to truth1 there is an extreme application of it which involves the absence of all truth whatever4 ,my meaning can be put shortly thus4 ,i agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter2 that there is an authoritative need to believe the things that are necessary to the human mind4 ,but ,i say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth4 ,the pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the ,absolute4 ,but precisely one of the things that he must think is the ,absolute4 ,this philosophy1 indeed1 is a kind of verbal paradox4 ,pragmatism is a matter of human needs2 and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist4 ,extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as the determinism it so powerfully attacks4 ,the determinist 7who1 to do him justice1 does not pretend to be a human being7 makes nonsense of the human sense of actual choice4 ,the pragmatist1 who professes to be specially human1 makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact4 ,to sum up our contention so far1 we may say that the most characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of mania1 but a touch of suicidal mania4 ,the mere questioner has knocked his head against the limits of human thought2 and cracked it4 ,this is what makes so futile the warnings of the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced about the dangerous boyhood of free thought4 ,what we are looking at is not the boyhood of free thought2 it is the old age and ultimate dissolution of free thought4 ,it is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild scepticism runs its course4 ,it has run its course4 ,it is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin4 ,we have seen it end4 ,it has no more questions to ask2 it has questioned itself4 ,you cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves4 ,you cannot fancy a more sceptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world4 ,it might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretence that modern ,england is ,christian4 ,but it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow4 ,militant atheists are still unjustly persecuted2 but rather because they are an old minority than because they are a new one4 ,free thought has exhausted its own freedom4 ,it is weary of its own success4 ,if any eager freethinker now hails philosophic freedom as the dawn1 he is only like the man in ,mark ,twain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was just in time to see it set4 ,if any frightened curate still says that it will be awful if the darkness of free thought should spread1 we can only answer him in the high and powerful words of ,mr4 ,belloc1 ,do not1 ,i beseech you1 be troubled about the increase of forces already in dissolution4 ,you have mistaken the hour of the night3 it is already morning4 ,we have no more questions left to ask4 ,we have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks4 ,we have found all the questions that can be found4 ,it is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers4 ,but one more word must be added4 ,at the beginning of this preliminary negative sketch ,i said that our mental ruin has been wrought by wild reason1 not by wild imagination4 ,a man does not go mad because he makes a statue a mile high1 but he may go mad by thinking it out in square inches4 ,now1 one school of thinkers has seen this and jumped at it as a way of renewing the pagan health of the world4 ,they see that reason destroys2 but ,will1 they say1 creates4 ,the ultimate authority1 they say1 is in will1 not in reason4 ,the supreme point is not why a man demands a thing1 but the fact that he does demand it4 ,i have no space to trace or expound this philosophy of ,will4 ,it came1 ,i suppose1 through ,nietzsche1 who preached something that is called egoism4 ,that1 indeed1 was simple-minded enough2 for ,nietzsche denied egoism simply by preaching it4 ,to preach anything is to give it away4 ,first1 the egoist calls life a war without mercy1 and then he takes the greatest possible trouble to drill his enemies in war4 ,to preach egoism is to practise altruism4 ,but however it began1 the view is common enough in current literature4 ,the main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers2 they are makers4 ,they say that choice is itself the divine thing4 ,thus ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw has attacked the old idea that men's acts are to be judged by the standard of the desire of happiness4 ,he says that a man does not act for his happiness1 but from his will4 ,he does not say1 ,jam will make me happy1 but ,i want jam4 ,and in all this others follow him with yet greater enthusiasm4 ,mr4 ,john ,davidson1 a remarkable poet1 is so passionately excited about it that he is obliged to write prose4 ,he publishes a short play with several long prefaces4 ,this is natural enough in ,mr4 ,shaw1 for all his plays are prefaces3 ,mr4 ,shaw is 7,i suspect7 the only man on earth who has never written any poetry4 ,but that ,mr4 ,davidson 7who can write excellent poetry7 should write instead laborious metaphysics in defence of this doctrine of will1 does show that the doctrine of will has taken hold of men4 ,even ,mr4 ,h4,g4 ,wells has half spoken in its language2 saying that one should test acts not like a thinker1 but like an artist1 saying1 ,i feel this curve is right1 or that line shall go thus4 ,they are all excited2 and well they may be4 ,for by this doctrine of the divine authority of will1 they think they can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism4 ,they think they can escape4 ,but they cannot escape4 ,this pure praise of volition ends in the same break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic4 ,exactly as complete free thought involves the doubting of thought itself1 so the acceptation of mere willing really paralyzes the will4 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw has not perceived the real difference between the old utilitarian test of pleasure 7clumsy1 of course1 and easily misstated7 and that which he propounds4 ,the real difference between the test of happiness and the test of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and the other isn't4 ,you can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliff was directed towards happiness2 you cannot discuss whether it was derived from will4 ,of course it was4 ,you can praise an action by saying that it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to save the soul4 ,but you cannot praise an action because it shows will2 for to say that is merely to say that it is an action4 ,by this praise of will you cannot really choose one course as better than another4 ,and yet choosing one course as better than another is the very definition of the will you are praising4 ,the worship of will is the negation of will4 ,to admire mere choice is to refuse to choose4 ,if ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw comes up to me and says1 ,will something1 that is tantamount to saying1 ,i do not mind what you will1 and that is tantamount to saying1 ,i have no will in the matter4 ,you cannot admire will in general1 because the essence of will is that it is particular4 ,a brilliant anarchist like ,mr4 ,john ,davidson feels an irritation against ordinary morality1 and therefore he invokes will--will to anything4 ,he only wants humanity to want something4 ,but humanity does want something4 ,it wants ordinary morality4 ,he rebels against the law and tells us to will something or anything4 ,but we have willed something4 ,we have willed the law against which he rebels4 ,all the will-worshippers1 from ,nietzsche to ,mr4 ,davidson1 are really quite empty of volition4 ,they cannot will1 they can hardly wish4 ,and if any one wants a proof of this1 it can be found quite easily4 ,it can be found in this fact3 that they always talk of will as something that expands and breaks out4 ,but it is quite the opposite4 ,every act of will is an act of self-limitation4 ,to desire action is to desire limitation4 ,in that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice4 ,when you choose anything1 you reject everything else4 ,that objection1 which men of this school used to make to the act of marriage1 is really an objection to every act4 ,every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion4 ,just as when you marry one woman you give up all the others1 so when you take one course of action you give up all the other courses4 ,if you become ,king of ,england1 you give up the post of ,beadle in ,brompton4 ,if you go to ,rome1 you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in ,wimbledon4 ,it is the existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense4 ,for instance1 ,mr4 ,john ,davidson tells us to have nothing to do with ,thou shalt not2 but it is surely obvious that ,thou shalt not is only one of the necessary corollaries of ,i will4 ,i will go to the ,lord ,mayor's ,show1 and thou shalt not stop me4 ,anarchism adjures us to be bold creative artists1 and care for no laws or limits4 ,but it is impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits4 ,art is limitation2 the essence of every picture is the frame4 ,if you draw a giraffe1 you must draw him with a long neck4 ,if1 in your bold creative way1 you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck1 you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe4 ,the moment you step into the world of facts1 you step into a world of limits4 ,you can free things from alien or accidental laws1 but not from the laws of their own nature4 ,you may1 if you like1 free a tiger from his bars2 but do not free him from his stripes4 ,do not free a camel of the burden of his hump3 you may be freeing him from being a camel4 ,do not go about as a demagogue1 encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their three sides4 ,if a triangle breaks out of its three sides1 its life comes to a lamentable end4 ,somebody wrote a work called ,the ,loves of the ,triangles2 ,i never read it1 but ,i am sure that if triangles ever were loved1 they were loved for being triangular4 ,this is certainly the case with all artistic creation1 which is in some ways the most decisive example of pure will4 ,the artist loves his limitations3 they constitute the thing he is doing4 ,the painter is glad that the canvas is flat4 ,the sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless4 ,in case the point is not clear1 an historic example may illustrate it4 ,the ,french ,revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing1 because the ,jacobins willed something definite and limited4 ,they desired the freedoms of democracy1 but also all the vetoes of democracy4 ,they wished to have votes and not to have titles4 ,republicanism had an ascetic side in ,franklin or ,robespierre as well as an expansive side in ,danton or ,wilkes4 ,therefore they have created something with a solid substance and shape1 the square social equality and peasant wealth of ,france4 ,but since then the revolutionary or speculative mind of ,europe has been weakened by shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of that proposal4 ,liberalism has been degraded into liberality4 ,men have tried to turn revolutionise from a transitive to an intransitive verb4 ,the ,jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against1 but 7what was more important7 the system he would not rebel against1 the system he would trust4 ,but the new rebel is a sceptic1 and will not entirely trust anything4 ,he has no loyalty2 therefore he can never be really a revolutionist4 ,and the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything4 ,for all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind2 and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces1 but the doctrine by which he denounces it4 ,thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women1 and then he writes another book 7about the sex problem7 in which he insults it himself4 ,he curses the ,sultan because ,christian girls lose their virginity1 and then curses ,mrs4 ,grundy because they keep it4 ,as a politician1 he will cry out that war is a waste of life1 and then1 as a philosopher1 that all life is waste of time4 ,a ,russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant1 and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself4 ,a man denounces marriage as a lie1 and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie4 ,he calls a flag a bauble1 and then blames the oppressors of ,poland or ,ireland because they take away that bauble4 ,the man of this school goes first to a political meeting1 where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts2 then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting1 where he proves that they practically are beasts4 ,in short1 the modern revolutionist1 being an infinite sceptic1 is always engaged in undermining his own mines4 ,in his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality2 in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men4 ,therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt4 ,by rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything4 ,it may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed in all fierce and terrible types of literature1 especially in satire4 ,satire may be mad and anarchic1 but it presupposes an admitted superiority in certain things over others2 it presupposes a standard4 ,when little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of some distinguished journalist1 they are unconsciously assuming a standard of ,greek sculpture4 ,they are appealing to the marble ,apollo4 ,and the curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about4 ,nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm3 he could sneer1 though he could not laugh2 but there is always something bodiless and without weight in his satire1 simply because it has not any mass of common morality behind it4 ,he is himself more preposterous than anything he denounces4 ,but1 indeed1 ,nietzsche will stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of abstract violence4 ,the softening of the brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident4 ,if ,nietzsche had not ended in imbecility1 ,nietzscheism would end in imbecility4 ,thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot4 ,every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain4 ,this last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism1 and therefore in death4 ,the sortie has failed4 ,the wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void4 ,nietzsche scales staggering mountains1 but he turns up ultimately in ,tibet4 ,he sits down beside ,tolstoy in the land of nothing and ,nirvana4 ,they are both helpless--one because he must not grasp anything1 and the other because he must not let go of anything4 ,the ,tolstoyan's will is frozen by a ,buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil4 ,but the ,nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good2 for if all special actions are good1 none of them are special4 ,they stand at the cross-roads1 and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads4 ,the result is--well1 some things are not hard to calculate4 ,they stand at the cross-roads4 ,here ,i end 7thank ,god7 the first and dullest business of this book--the rough review of recent thought4 ,after this ,i begin to sketch a view of life which may not interest my reader1 but which1 at any rate1 interests me4 ,in front of me1 as ,i close this page1 is a pile of modern books that ,i have been turning over for the purpose--a pile of ingenuity1 a pile of futility4 ,by the accident of my present detachment1 ,i can see the inevitable smash of the philosophies of ,schopenhauer and ,tolstoy1 ,nietzsche and ,shaw1 as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be seen from a balloon4 ,they are all on the road to the emptiness of the asylum4 ,for madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness2 and they have nearly reached it4 ,he who thinks he is made of glass1 thinks to the destruction of thought2 for glass cannot think4 ,so he who wills to reject nothing1 wills the destruction of will2 for will is not only the choice of something1 but the rejection of almost everything4 ,and as ,i turn and tumble over the clever1 wonderful1 tiresome1 and useless modern books1 the title of one of them rivets my eye4 ,it is called ,jeanne d',arc1 by ,anatole ,france4 ,i have only glanced at it1 but a glance was enough to remind me of ,renan's ,vie de ,jsus4 ,it has the same strange method of the reverent sceptic4 ,it discredits supernatural stories that have some foundation1 simply by telling natural stories that have no foundation4 ,because we cannot believe in what a saint did1 we are to pretend that we know exactly what he felt4 ,but ,i do not mention either book in order to criticise it1 but because the accidental combination of the names called up two startling images of sanity which blasted all the books before me4 ,joan of ,arc was not stuck at the cross-roads1 either by rejecting all the paths like ,tolstoy1 or by accepting them all like ,nietzsche4 ,she chose a path1 and went down it like a thunderbolt4 ,yet ,joan1 when ,i came to think of her1 had in her all that was true either in ,tolstoy or ,nietzsche1 all that was even tolerable in either of them4 ,i thought of all that is noble in ,tolstoy1 the pleasure in plain things1 especially in plain pity1 the actualities of the earth1 the reverence for the poor1 the dignity of the bowed back4 ,joan of ,arc had all that and with this great addition1 that she endured poverty as well as admiring it2 whereas ,tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret4 ,and then ,i thought of all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor ,nietzsche1 and his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time4 ,i thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger1 his hunger for the rush of great horses1 his cry to arms4 ,well1 ,joan of ,arc had all that1 and again with this difference1 that she did not praise fighting1 but fought4 ,we know that she was not afraid of an army1 while ,nietzsche1 for all we know1 was afraid of a cow4 ,tolstoy only praised the peasant2 she was the peasant4 ,nietzsche only praised the warrior2 she was the warrior4 ,she beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals2 she was more gentle than the one1 more violent than the other4 ,yet she was a perfectly practical person who did something1 while they are wild speculators who do nothing4 ,it was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been lost4 ,and with that thought came a larger one1 and the colossal figure of her ,master had also crossed the theatre of my thoughts4 ,the same modern difficulty which darkened the subject-matter of ,anatole ,france also darkened that of ,ernest ,renan4 ,renan also divided his hero's pity from his hero's pugnacity4 ,renan even represented the righteous anger at ,jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the idyllic expectations of ,galilee4 ,as if there were any inconsistency between having a love for humanity and having a hatred for inhumanity6 ,altruists1 with thin1 weak voices1 denounce ,christ as an egoist4 ,egoists 7with even thinner and weaker voices7 denounce ,him as an altruist4 ,in our present atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough4 ,the love of a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant4 ,the hatred of a hero is more generous than the love of a philanthropist4 ,there is a huge and heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments4 ,there is a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about4 ,they have torn the soul of ,christ into silly strips1 labelled egoism and altruism1 and they are equally puzzled by ,his insane magnificence and ,his insane meekness4 ,they have parted ,his garments among them1 and for ,his vesture they have cast lots2 though the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout4 ,,chapter ,,iv--,the ,ethics of ,elfland ,when the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy1 it is commonly in some such speech as this3 ,ah1 yes1 when one is young1 one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air2 but in middle age they all break up like clouds1 and one comes down to a belief in practical politics1 to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is4 ,thus1 at least1 venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when ,i was a boy4 ,but since then ,i have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies4 ,what has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen4 ,they said that ,i should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians4 ,now1 ,i have not lost my ideals in the least2 my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was4 ,what ,i have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics4 ,i am still as much concerned as ever about the ,battle of ,armageddon2 but ,i am not so much concerned about the ,general ,election4 ,as a babe ,i leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it4 ,no2 the vision is always solid and reliable4 ,the vision is always a fact4 ,it is the reality that is often a fraud4 ,as much as ,i ever did1 more than ,i ever did1 ,i believe in ,liberalism4 ,but there was a rosy time of innocence when ,i believed in ,liberals4 ,i take this instance of one of the enduring faiths because1 having now to trace the roots of my personal speculation1 this may be counted1 ,i think1 as the only positive bias4 ,i was brought up a ,liberal1 and have always believed in democracy1 in the elementary liberal doctrine of a self-governing humanity4 ,if any one finds the phrase vague or threadbare1 ,i can only pause for a moment to explain that the principle of democracy1 as ,i mean it1 can be stated in two propositions4 ,the first is this3 that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men4 ,ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things2 nay1 they are more extraordinary4 ,man is something more awful than men2 something more strange4 ,the sense of the miracle of humanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels of power1 intellect1 art1 or civilization4 ,the mere man on two legs1 as such1 should be felt as something more heart-breaking than any music and more startling than any caricature4 ,death is more tragic even than death by starvation4 ,having a nose is more comic even than having a ,norman nose4 ,this is the first principle of democracy3 that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common1 not the things they hold separately4 ,and the second principle is merely this3 that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common4 ,falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry4 ,the democratic contention is that government 7helping to rule the tribe7 is a thing like falling in love1 and not a thing like dropping into poetry4 ,it is not something analogous to playing the church organ1 painting on vellum1 discovering the ,north ,pole 7that insidious habit71 looping the loop1 being ,astronomer ,royal1 and so on4 ,for these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well4 ,it is1 on the contrary1 a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose4 ,these things we want a man to do for himself1 even if he does them badly4 ,i am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions2 ,i know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists1 and they may soon be asking1 for all ,i know1 to have their noses blown by nurses4 ,i merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions1 and that democracy classes government among them4 ,in short1 the democratic faith is this3 that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves--the mating of the sexes1 the rearing of the young1 the laws of the state4 ,this is democracy2 and in this ,i have always believed4 ,but there is one thing that ,i have never from my youth up been able to understand4 ,i have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition4 ,it is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time4 ,it is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record4 ,the man who quotes some ,german historian against the tradition of the ,catholic ,church1 for instance1 is strictly appealing to aristocracy4 ,he is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob4 ,it is quite easy to see why a legend is treated1 and ought to be treated1 more respectfully than a book of history4 ,the legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village1 who are sane4 ,the book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad4 ,those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the ,carlton ,club1 along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant4 ,it will not do for us4 ,if we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters1 there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable4 ,tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise4 ,tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes1 our ancestors4 ,it is the democracy of the dead4 ,tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about4 ,all democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth2 tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death4 ,democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion1 even if he is our groom2 tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion1 even if he is our father4 ,i1 at any rate1 cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition2 it seems evident to me that they are the same idea4 ,we will have the dead at our councils4 ,the ancient ,greeks voted by stones2 these shall vote by tombstones4 ,it is all quite regular and official1 for most tombstones1 like most ballot papers1 are marked with a cross4 ,i have first to say1 therefore1 that if ,i have had a bias1 it was always a bias in favour of democracy1 and therefore of tradition4 ,before we come to any theoretic or logical beginnings ,i am content to allow for that personal equation2 ,i have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which ,i belong4 ,i prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside4 ,i would always trust the old wives' fables against the old maids' facts4 ,as long as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases4 ,now1 ,i have to put together a general position1 and ,i pretend to no training in such things4 ,i propose to do it1 therefore1 by writing down one after another the three or four fundamental ideas which ,i have found for myself1 pretty much in the way that ,i found them4 ,then ,i shall roughly synthesise them1 summing up my personal philosophy or natural religion2 then ,i shall describe my startling discovery that the whole thing had been discovered before4 ,it had been discovered by ,christianity4 ,but of these profound persuasions which ,i have to recount in order1 the earliest was concerned with this element of popular tradition4 ,and without the foregoing explanation touching tradition and democracy ,i could hardly make my mental experience clear4 ,as it is1 ,i do not know whether ,i can make it clear1 but ,i now propose to try4 ,my first and last philosophy1 that which ,i believe in with unbroken certainty1 ,i learnt in the nursery4 ,i generally learnt it from a nurse2 that is1 from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition4 ,the things ,i believed most then1 the things ,i believe most now1 are the things called fairy tales4 ,they seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things4 ,they are not fantasies3 compared with them other things are fantastic4 ,compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal1 though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong4 ,fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense4 ,it is not earth that judges heaven1 but heaven that judges earth2 so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland1 but elfland that criticised the earth4 ,i knew the magic beanstalk before ,i had tasted beans2 ,i was sure of the ,man in the ,moon before ,i was certain of the moon4 ,this was at one with all popular tradition4 ,modern minor poets are naturalists1 and talk about the bush or the brook2 but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists1 and talked about the gods of brook and bush4 ,that is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not appreciate ,nature1 because they said that ,nature was divine4 ,old nurses do not tell children about the grass1 but about the fairies that dance on the grass2 and the old ,greeks could not see the trees for the dryads4 ,but ,i deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales4 ,if ,i were describing them in detail ,i could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them4 ,there is the chivalrous lesson of ,jack the ,giant ,killer2 that giants should be killed because they are gigantic4 ,it is a manly mutiny against pride as such4 ,for the rebel is older than all the kingdoms1 and the ,jacobin has more tradition than the ,jacobite4 ,there is the lesson of ,cinderella1 which is the same as that of the ,magnificat--exaltavit humiles4 ,there is the great lesson of ,beauty and the ,beast2 that a thing must be loved before it is loveable4 ,there is the terrible allegory of the ,sleeping ,beauty1 which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts1 yet cursed with death2 and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep4 ,but ,i am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of elfland1 but with the whole spirit of its law1 which ,i learnt before ,i could speak1 and shall retain when ,i cannot write4 ,i am concerned with a certain way of looking at life1 which was created in me by the fairy tales1 but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts4 ,it might be stated this way4 ,there are certain sequences or developments 7cases of one thing following another71 which are1 in the true sense of the word1 reasonable4 ,they are1 in the true sense of the word1 necessary4 ,such are mathematical and merely logical sequences4 ,we in fairyland 7who are the most reasonable of all creatures7 admit that reason and that necessity4 ,for instance1 if the ,ugly ,sisters are older than ,cinderella1 it is 7in an iron and awful sense7 necessary that ,cinderella is younger than the ,ugly ,sisters4 ,there is no getting out of it4 ,haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases3 it really must be4 ,if ,jack is the son of a miller1 a miller is the father of ,jack4 ,cold reason decrees it from her awful throne3 and we in fairyland submit4 ,if the three brothers all ride horses1 there are six animals and eighteen legs involved3 that is true rationalism1 and fairyland is full of it4 ,but as ,i put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world1 ,i observed an extraordinary thing4 ,i observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened--dawn and death and so on--as if they were rational and inevitable4 ,they talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as necessary as the fact that two and one trees make three4 ,but it is not4 ,there is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland2 which is the test of the imagination4 ,you cannot imagine two and one not making three4 ,but you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit2 you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail4 ,these men in spectacles spoke much of a man named ,newton1 who was hit by an apple1 and who discovered a law4 ,but they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law1 a law of reason1 and the mere fact of apples falling4 ,if the apple hit ,newton's nose1 ,newton's nose hit the apple4 ,that is a true necessity3 because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other4 ,but we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose2 we can fancy it flying ardently through the air to hit some other nose1 of which it had a more definite dislike4 ,we have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations1 in which there really are laws1 and the science of physical facts1 in which there are no laws1 but only weird repetitions4 ,we believe in bodily miracles1 but not in mental impossibilities4 ,we believe that a ,bean-stalk climbed up to ,heaven2 but that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five4 ,here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales4 ,the man of science says1 ,cut the stalk1 and the apple will fall2 but he says it calmly1 as if the one idea really led up to the other4 ,the witch in the fairy tale says1 ,blow the horn1 and the ogre's castle will fall2 but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause4 ,doubtless she has given the advice to many champions1 and has seen many castles fall1 but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason4 ,she does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower4 ,but the scientific men do muddle their heads1 until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground4 ,they do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts1 but a truth connecting those facts4 ,they do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically4 ,they feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing4 ,two black riddles make a white answer4 ,in fairyland we avoid the word law2 but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it4 ,thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet1 ,grimm's ,law4 ,but ,grimm's ,law is far less intellectual than ,grimm's ,fairy ,tales4 ,the tales are1 at any rate1 certainly tales2 while the law is not a law4 ,a law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enactment2 not merely that we have noticed some of the effects4 ,if there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison1 it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets4 ,and we know what the idea is4 ,we can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties4 ,but we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince4 ,as ideas1 the egg and the chicken are further off each other than the bear and the prince2 for no egg in itself suggests a chicken1 whereas some princes do suggest bears4 ,granted1 then1 that certain transformations do happen1 it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales1 not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the ,laws of ,nature4 ,when we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn1 we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if ,cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock4 ,we must answer that it is magic4 ,it is not a law1 for we do not understand its general formula4 ,it is not a necessity1 for though we can count on it happening practically1 we have no right to say that it must always happen4 ,it is no argument for unalterable law 7as ,huxley fancied7 that we count on the ordinary course of things4 ,we do not count on it2 we bet on it4 ,we risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet4 ,we leave it out of account1 not because it is a miracle1 and therefore an impossibility1 but because it is a miracle1 and therefore an exception4 ,all the terms used in the science books1 law1 necessity1 order1 tendency1 and so on1 are really unintellectual1 because they assume an inner synthesis which we do not possess4 ,the only words that ever satisfied me as describing ,nature are the terms used in the fairy books1 charm1 spell1 enchantment4 ,they express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery4 ,a tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree4 ,water runs downhill because it is bewitched4 ,the sun shines because it is bewitched4 ,i deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical4 ,we may have some mysticism later on2 but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic4 ,it is the only way ,i can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another2 that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs4 ,it is the man who talks about a law that he has never seen who is the mystic4 ,nay1 the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist4 ,he is a sentimentalist in this essential sense1 that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations4 ,he has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy1 tender connection between the two ideas1 whereas there is none4 ,a forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love2 so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide4 ,in both cases there is no connection1 except that one has seen them together4 ,a sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom1 because1 by a dark association of his own1 it reminded him of his boyhood4 ,so the materialist professor 7though he conceals his tears7 is yet a sentimentalist1 because1 by a dark association of his own1 apple-blossoms remind him of apples4 ,but the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why1 in the abstract1 the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips2 it sometimes does in his country4 ,this elementary wonder1 however1 is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales2 on the contrary1 all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this4 ,just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex1 we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment4 ,this is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales3 we only need tales4 ,mere life is interesting enough4 ,a child of seven is excited by being told that ,tommy opened a door and saw a dragon4 ,but a child of three is excited by being told that ,tommy opened a door4 ,boys like romantic tales2 but babies like realistic tales--because they find them romantic4 ,in fact1 a baby is about the only person1 ,i should think1 to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him4 ,this proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement4 ,these tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green4 ,they make rivers run with wine only to make us remember1 for one wild moment1 that they run with water4 ,i have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic4 ,and1 indeed1 on this point ,i am all for the higher agnosticism2 its better name is ,ignorance4 ,we have all read in scientific books1 and1 indeed1 in all romances1 the story of the man who has forgotten his name4 ,this man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything2 only he cannot remember who he is4 ,well1 every man is that man in the story4 ,every man has forgotten who he is4 ,one may understand the cosmos1 but never the ego2 the self is more distant than any star4 ,thou shalt love the ,lord thy ,god2 but thou shalt not know thyself4 ,we are all under the same mental calamity2 we have all forgotten our names4 ,we have all forgotten what we really are4 ,all that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten4 ,all that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget4 ,but though 7like the man without memory in the novel7 we walk the streets with a sort of half-witted admiration1 still it is admiration4 ,it is admiration in ,english and not only admiration in ,latin4 ,the wonder has a positive element of praise4 ,this is the next milestone to be definitely marked on our road through fairyland4 ,i shall speak in the next chapter about optimists and pessimists in their intellectual aspect1 so far as they have one4 ,here ,i am only trying to describe the enormous emotions which cannot be described4 ,and the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling4 ,it was an ecstacy because it was an adventure2 it was an adventure because it was an opportunity4 ,the goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact that there might be more dragons than princesses2 it was good to be in a fairy tale4 ,the test of all happiness is gratitude2 and ,i felt grateful1 though ,i hardly knew to whom4 ,children are grateful when ,santa ,claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets4 ,could ,i not be grateful to ,santa ,claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs8 ,we thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers4 ,can ,i thank no one for the birthday present of birth8 ,there were1 then1 these two first feelings1 indefensible and indisputable4 ,the world was a shock1 but it was not merely shocking2 existence was a surprise1 but it was a pleasant surprise4 ,in fact1 all my first views were exactly uttered in a riddle that stuck in my brain from boyhood4 ,the question was1 ,what did the first frog say8 ,and the answer was1 ,lord1 how you made me jump6 ,that says succinctly all that ,i am saying4 ,god made the frog jump2 but the frog prefers jumping4 ,but when these things are settled there enters the second great principle of the fairy philosophy4 ,any one can see it who will simply read ,grimm's ,fairy ,tales or the fine collections of ,mr4 ,andrew ,lang4 ,for the pleasure of pedantry ,i will call it the ,doctrine of ,conditional ,joy4 ,touchstone talked of much virtue in an if2 according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an if4 ,the note of the fairy utterance always is1 ,you may live in a palace of gold and sapphire1 if you do not say the word 'cow'2 or ,you may live happily with the ,king's daughter1 if you do not show her an onion4 ,the vision always hangs upon a veto4 ,all the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld4 ,all the wild and whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden4 ,mr4 ,w4,b4 ,yeats1 in his exquisite and piercing elfin poetry1 describes the elves as lawless2 they plunge in innocent anarchy on the unbridled horses of the air-- ,ride on the crest of the dishevelled tide1 ,and dance upon the mountains like a flame4 ,it is a dreadful thing to say that ,mr4 ,w4,b4 ,yeats does not understand fairyland4 ,but ,i do say it4 ,he is an ironical ,irishman1 full of intellectual reactions4 ,he is not stupid enough to understand fairyland4 ,fairies prefer people of the yokel type like myself2 people who gape and grin and do as they are told4 ,mr4 ,yeats reads into elfland all the righteous insurrection of his own race4 ,but the lawlessness of ,ireland is a ,christian lawlessness1 founded on reason and justice4 ,the ,fenian is rebelling against something he understands only too well2 but the true citizen of fairyland is obeying something that he does not understand at all4 ,in the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition4 ,a box is opened1 and all evils fly out4 ,a word is forgotten1 and cities perish4 ,a lamp is lit1 and love flies away4 ,a flower is plucked1 and human lives are forfeited4 ,an apple is eaten1 and the hope of ,god is gone4 ,this is the tone of fairy tales1 and it is certainly not lawlessness or even liberty1 though men under a mean modern tyranny may think it liberty by comparison4 ,people out of ,portland ,gaol might think ,fleet ,street free2 but closer study will prove that both fairies and journalists are the slaves of duty4 ,fairy godmothers seem at least as strict as other godmothers4 ,cinderella received a coach out of ,wonderland and a coachman out of nowhere1 but she received a command--which might have come out of ,brixton--that she should be back by twelve4 ,also1 she had a glass slipper2 and it cannot be a coincidence that glass is so common a substance in folk-lore4 ,this princess lives in a glass castle1 that princess on a glass hill2 this one sees all things in a mirror2 they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones4 ,for this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle1 like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat4 ,and this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world4 ,i felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond1 but as brittle as the window-pane2 and when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal ,i can remember a shudder4 ,i was afraid that ,god would drop the cosmos with a crash4 ,remember1 however1 that to be breakable is not the same as to be perishable4 ,strike a glass1 and it will not endure an instant2 simply do not strike it1 and it will endure a thousand years4 ,such1 it seemed1 was the joy of man1 either in elfland or on earth2 the happiness depended on not doing something which you could at any moment do and which1 very often1 it was not obvious why you should not do4 ,now1 the point here is that to me this did not seem unjust4 ,if the miller's third son said to the fairy1 ,explain why ,i must not stand on my head in the fairy palace1 the other might fairly reply1 ,well1 if it comes to that1 explain the fairy palace4 ,if ,cinderella says1 ,how is it that ,i must leave the ball at twelve8 her godmother might answer1 ,how is it that you are going there till twelve8 ,if ,i leave a man in my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses1 he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift4 ,he must not look a winged horse in the mouth4 ,and it seemed to me that existence was itself so very eccentric a legacy that ,i could not complain of not understanding the limitations of the vision when ,i did not understand the vision they limited4 ,the frame was no stranger than the picture4 ,the veto might well be as wild as the vision2 it might be as startling as the sun1 as elusive as the waters1 as fantastic and terrible as the towering trees4 ,for this reason 7we may call it the fairy godmother philosophy7 ,i never could join the young men of my time in feeling what they called the general sentiment of revolt4 ,i should have resisted1 let us hope1 any rules that were evil1 and with these and their definition ,i shall deal in another chapter4 ,but ,i did not feel disposed to resist any rule merely because it was mysterious4 ,estates are sometimes held by foolish forms1 the breaking of a stick or the payment of a peppercorn3 ,i was willing to hold the huge estate of earth and heaven by any such feudal fantasy4 ,it could not well be wilder than the fact that ,i was allowed to hold it at all4 ,at this stage ,i give only one ethical instance to show my meaning4 ,i could never mix in the common murmur of that rising generation against monogamy1 because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself4 ,to be allowed1 like ,endymion1 to make love to the moon and then to complain that ,jupiter kept his own moons in a harem seemed to me 7bred on fairy tales like ,endymion's7 a vulgar anti-climax4 ,keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman4 ,to complain that ,i could only be married once was like complaining that ,i had only been born once4 ,it was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking4 ,it showed1 not an exaggerated sensibility to sex1 but a curious insensibility to it4 ,a man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter ,eden by five gates at once4 ,polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex2 it is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind4 ,the sthetes touched the last insane limits of language in their eulogy on lovely things4 ,the thistledown made them weep2 a burnished beetle brought them to their knees4 ,yet their emotion never impressed me for an instant1 for this reason1 that it never occurred to them to pay for their pleasure in any sort of symbolic sacrifice4 ,men 7,i felt7 might fast forty days for the sake of hearing a blackbird sing4 ,men might go through fire to find a cowslip4 ,yet these lovers of beauty could not even keep sober for the blackbird4 ,they would not go through common ,christian marriage by way of recompense to the cowslip4 ,surely one might pay for extraordinary joy in ordinary morals4 ,oscar ,wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets4 ,but ,oscar ,wilde was wrong2 we can pay for sunsets4 ,we can pay for them by not being ,oscar ,wilde4 ,well1 ,i left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery1 and ,i have not found any books so sensible since4 ,i left the nurse guardian of tradition and democracy1 and ,i have not found any modern type so sanely radical or so sanely conservative4 ,but the matter for important comment was here1 that when ,i first went out into the mental atmosphere of the modern world1 ,i found that the modern world was positively opposed on two points to my nurse and to the nursery tales4 ,it has taken me a long time to find out that the modern world is wrong and my nurse was right4 ,the really curious thing was this3 that modern thought contradicted this basic creed of my boyhood on its two most essential doctrines4 ,i have explained that the fairy tales founded in me two convictions2 first1 that this world is a wild and startling place1 which might have been quite different1 but which is quite delightful2 second1 that before this wildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerest limitations of so queer a kindness4 ,but ,i found the whole modern world running like a high tide against both my tendernesses2 and the shock of that collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments1 which ,i have had ever since and which1 crude as they were1 have since hardened into convictions4 ,first1 ,i found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism2 saying that everything is as it must always have been1 being unfolded without fault from the beginning4 ,the leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else4 ,now1 the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet4 ,he feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it4 ,he is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonable ground that it might have been black4 ,every colour has in it a bold quality as of choice2 the red of garden roses is not only decisive but dramatic1 like suddenly spilt blood4 ,he feels that something has been done4 ,but the great determinists of the nineteenth century were strongly against this native feeling that something had happened an instant before4 ,in fact1 according to them1 nothing ever really had happened since the beginning of the world4 ,nothing ever had happened since existence had happened2 and even about the date of that they were not very sure4 ,the modern world as ,i found it was solid for modern ,calvinism1 for the necessity of things being as they are4 ,but when ,i came to ask them ,i found they had really no proof of this unavoidable repetition in things except the fact that the things were repeated4 ,now1 the mere repetition made the things to me rather more weird than more rational4 ,it was as if1 having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street and dismissed it as an accident1 ,i had then seen six other noses of the same astonishing shape4 ,i should have fancied for a moment that it must be some local secret society4 ,so one elephant having a trunk was odd2 but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot4 ,i speak here only of an emotion1 and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle4 ,but the repetition in ,nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition1 like that of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again4 ,the grass seemed signalling to me with all its fingers at once2 the crowded stars seemed bent upon being understood4 ,the sun would make me see him if he rose a thousand times4 ,the recurrences of the universe rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation1 and ,i began to see an idea4 ,all the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption2 a false assumption4 ,it is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead2 a piece of clockwork4 ,people feel that if the universe was personal it would vary2 if the sun were alive it would dance4 ,this is a fallacy even in relation to known fact4 ,for the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them1 not by life1 but by death2 by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire4 ,a man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue4 ,he gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking2 or he walks because he is tired of sitting still4 ,but if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to ,islington1 he might go to ,islington as regularly as the ,thames goes to ,sheerness4 ,the very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death4 ,the sun rises every morning4 ,i do not rise every morning2 but the variation is due not to my activity1 but to my inaction4 ,now1 to put the matter in a popular phrase1 it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising4 ,his routine might be due1 not to a lifelessness1 but to a rush of life4 ,the thing ,i mean can be seen1 for instance1 in children1 when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy4 ,a child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess1 not absence1 of life4 ,because children have abounding vitality1 because they are in spirit fierce and free1 therefore they want things repeated and unchanged4 ,they always say1 ,do it again2 and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead4 ,for grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony4 ,but perhaps ,god is strong enough to exult in monotony4 ,it is possible that ,god says every morning1 ,do it again to the sun2 and every evening1 ,do it again to the moon4 ,it may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike2 it may be that ,god makes every daisy separately1 but has never got tired of making them4 ,it may be that ,he has the eternal appetite of infancy2 for we have sinned and grown old1 and our ,father is younger than we4 ,the repetition in ,nature may not be a mere recurrence2 it may be a theatrical encore4 ,heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg4 ,if the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish1 or a bat1 or a griffin1 the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose4 ,it may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods1 that they admire it from their starry galleries1 and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain4 ,repetition may go on for millions of years1 by mere choice1 and at any instant it may stop4 ,man may stand on the earth generation after generation1 and yet each birth be his positively last appearance4 ,this was my first conviction2 made by the shock of my childish emotions meeting the modern creed in mid-career4 ,i had always vaguely felt facts to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful3 now ,i began to think them miracles in the stricter sense that they were wilful4 ,i mean that they were1 or might be1 repeated exercises of some will4 ,in short1 ,i had always believed that the world involved magic3 now ,i thought that perhaps it involved a magician4 ,and this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious2 that this world of ours has some purpose2 and if there is a purpose1 there is a person4 ,i had always felt life first as a story3 and if there is a story there is a story-teller4 ,but modern thought also hit my second human tradition4 ,it went against the fairy feeling about strict limits and conditions4 ,the one thing it loved to talk about was expansion and largeness4 ,herbert ,spencer would have been greatly annoyed if any one had called him an imperialist1 and therefore it is highly regrettable that nobody did4 ,but he was an imperialist of the lowest type4 ,he popularized this contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man4 ,why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a whale8 ,if mere size proves that man is not the image of ,god1 then a whale may be the image of ,god2 a somewhat formless image2 what one might call an impressionist portrait4 ,it is quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the cosmos2 for man was always small compared to the nearest tree4 ,but ,herbert ,spencer1 in his headlong imperialism1 would insist that we had in some way been conquered and annexed by the astronomical universe4 ,he spoke about men and their ideals exactly as the most insolent ,unionist talks about the ,irish and their ideals4 ,he turned mankind into a small nationality4 ,and his evil influence can be seen even in the most spirited and honourable of later scientific authors2 notably in the early romances of ,mr4 ,h4,g4 ,wells4 ,many moralists have in an exaggerated way represented the earth as wicked4 ,but ,mr4 ,wells and his school made the heavens wicked4 ,we should lift up our eyes to the stars from whence would come our ruin4 ,but the expansion of which ,i speak was much more evil than all this4 ,i have remarked that the materialist1 like the madman1 is in prison2 in the prison of one thought4 ,these people seemed to think it singularly inspiring to keep on saying that the prison was very large4 ,the size of this scientific universe gave one no novelty1 no relief4 ,the cosmos went on for ever1 but not in its wildest constellation could there be anything really interesting2 anything1 for instance1 such as forgiveness or free will4 ,the grandeur or infinity of the secret of its cosmos added nothing to it4 ,it was like telling a prisoner in ,reading gaol that he would be glad to hear that the gaol now covered half the county4 ,the warder would have nothing to show the man except more and more long corridors of stone lit by ghastly lights and empty of all that is human4 ,so these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except more and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and empty of all that is divine4 ,in fairyland there had been a real law2 a law that could be broken1 for the definition of a law is something that can be broken4 ,but the machinery of this cosmic prison was something that could not be broken2 for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery4 ,we were either unable to do things or we were destined to do them4 ,the idea of the mystical condition quite disappeared2 one can neither have the firmness of keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them4 ,the largeness of this universe had nothing of that freshness and airy outbreak which we have praised in the universe of the poet4 ,this modern universe is literally an empire2 that is1 it is vast1 but it is not free4 ,one went into larger and larger windowless rooms1 rooms big with ,babylonian perspective2 but one never found the smallest window or a whisper of outer air4 ,their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance2 but for me all good things come to a point1 swords for instance4 ,so finding the boast of the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to my emotions ,i began to argue about it a little2 and ,i soon found that the whole attitude was even shallower than could have been expected4 ,according to these people the cosmos was one thing since it had one unbroken rule4 ,only 7they would say7 while it is one thing it is also the only thing there is4 ,why1 then1 should one worry particularly to call it large8 ,there is nothing to compare it with4 ,it would be just as sensible to call it small4 ,a man may say1 ,i like this vast cosmos1 with its throng of stars and its crowd of varied creatures4 ,but if it comes to that why should not a man say1 ,i like this cosy little cosmos1 with its decent number of stars and as neat a provision of live stock as ,i wish to see8 ,one is as good as the other2 they are both mere sentiments4 ,it is mere sentiment to rejoice that the sun is larger than the earth2 it is quite as sane a sentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger than it is4 ,a man chooses to have an emotion about the largeness of the world2 why should he not choose to have an emotion about its smallness8 ,it happened that ,i had that emotion4 ,when one is fond of anything one addresses it by diminutives1 even if it is an elephant or a lifeguardsman4 ,the reason is1 that anything1 however huge1 that can be conceived of as complete1 can be conceived of as small4 ,if military moustaches did not suggest a sword or tusks a tail1 then the object would be vast because it would be immeasurable4 ,but the moment you can imagine a guardsman you can imagine a small guardsman4 ,the moment you really see an elephant you can call it ,tiny4 ,if you can make a statue of a thing you can make a statuette of it4 ,these people professed that the universe was one coherent thing2 but they were not fond of the universe4 ,but ,i was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive4 ,i often did so2 and it never seemed to mind4 ,actually and in truth ,i did feel that these dim dogmas of vitality were better expressed by calling the world small than by calling it large4 ,for about infinity there was a sort of carelessness which was the reverse of the fierce and pious care which ,i felt touching the pricelessness and the peril of life4 ,they showed only a dreary waste2 but ,i felt a sort of sacred thrift4 ,for economy is far more romantic than extravagance4 ,to them stars were an unending income of halfpence2 but ,i felt about the golden sun and the silver moon as a schoolboy feels if he has one sovereign and one shilling4 ,these subconscious convictions are best hit off by the colour and tone of certain tales4 ,thus ,i have said that stories of magic alone can express my sense that life is not only a pleasure but a kind of eccentric privilege4 ,i may express this other feeling of cosmic cosiness by allusion to another book always read in boyhood1 ,robinson ,crusoe1 which ,i read about this time1 and which owes its eternal vivacity to the fact that it celebrates the poetry of limits1 nay1 even the wild romance of prudence4 ,crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few comforts just snatched from the sea3 the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck4 ,the greatest of poems is an inventory4 ,every kitchen tool becomes ideal because ,crusoe might have dropped it in the sea4 ,it is a good exercise1 in empty or ugly hours of the day1 to look at anything1 the coal-scuttle or the book-case1 and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of the sinking ship on to the solitary island4 ,but it is a better exercise still to remember how all things have had this hair-breadth escape3 everything has been saved from a wreck4 ,every man has had one horrible adventure3 as a hidden untimely birth he had not been1 as infants that never see the light4 ,men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius3 and it was common to say that many a man was a ,great ,might-,have-,been4 ,to me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a ,great ,might-,not-,have-,been4 ,but ,i really felt 7the fancy may seem foolish7 as if all the order and number of things were the romantic remnant of ,crusoe's ship4 ,that there are two sexes and one sun1 was like the fact that there were two guns and one axe4 ,it was poignantly urgent that none should be lost2 but somehow1 it was rather fun that none could be added4 ,the trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck3 and when ,i saw the ,matterhorn ,i was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion4 ,i felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires 7they are called so in ,milton's ,eden73 ,i hoarded the hills4 ,for the universe is a single jewel1 and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless1 of this jewel it is literally true4 ,this cosmos is indeed without peer and without price3 for there cannot be another one4 ,thus ends1 in unavoidable inadequacy1 the attempt to utter the unutterable things4 ,these are my ultimate attitudes towards life2 the soils for the seeds of doctrine4 ,these in some dark way ,i thought before ,i could write1 and felt before ,i could think3 that we may proceed more easily afterwards1 ,i will roughly recapitulate them now4 ,i felt in my bones2 first1 that this world does not explain itself4 ,it may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation2 it may be a conjuring trick1 with a natural explanation4 ,but the explanation of the conjuring trick1 if it is to satisfy me1 will have to be better than the natural explanations ,i have heard4 ,the thing is magic1 true or false4 ,second1 ,i came to feel as if magic must have a meaning1 and meaning must have some one to mean it4 ,there was something personal in the world1 as in a work of art2 whatever it meant it meant violently4 ,third1 ,i thought this purpose beautiful in its old design1 in spite of its defects1 such as dragons4 ,fourth1 that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint3 we should thank ,god for beer and ,burgundy by not drinking too much of them4 ,we owed1 also1 an obedience to whatever made us4 ,and last1 and strangest1 there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin4 ,man had saved his good as ,crusoe saved his goods3 he had saved them from a wreck4 ,all this ,i felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it4 ,and all this time ,i had not even thought of ,christian theology4 ,,chapter ,v4--,the ,flag of the ,world ,when ,i was a boy there were two curious men running about who were called the optimist and the pessimist4 ,i constantly used the words myself1 but ,i cheerfully confess that ,i never had any very special idea of what they meant4 ,the only thing which might be considered evident was that they could not mean what they said2 for the ordinary verbal explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be1 while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be4 ,both these statements being obviously raving nonsense1 one had to cast about for other explanations4 ,an optimist could not mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong4 ,for that is meaningless2 it is like calling everything right and nothing left4 ,upon the whole1 ,i came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist1 and that the pessimist thought everything bad1 except himself4 ,it would be unfair to omit altogether from the list the mysterious but suggestive definition said to have been given by a little girl1 ,an optimist is a man who looks after your eyes1 and a pessimist is a man who looks after your feet4 ,i am not sure that this is not the best definition of all4 ,there is even a sort of allegorical truth in it4 ,for there might1 perhaps1 be a profitable distinction drawn between that more dreary thinker who thinks merely of our contact with the earth from moment to moment1 and that happier thinker who considers rather our primary power of vision and of choice of road4 ,but this is a deep mistake in this alternative of the optimist and the pessimist4 ,the assumption of it is that a man criticises this world as if he were house-hunting1 as if he were being shown over a new suite of apartments4 ,if a man came to this world from some other world in full possession of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage of midsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs1 just as a man looking for lodgings might balance the presence of a telephone against the absence of a sea view4 ,but no man is in that position4 ,a man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it4 ,he has fought for the flag1 and often won heroic victories for the flag long before he has ever enlisted4 ,to put shortly what seems the essential matter1 he has a loyalty long before he has any admiration4 ,in the last chapter it has been said that the primary feeling that this world is strange and yet attractive is best expressed in fairy tales4 ,the reader may1 if he likes1 put down the next stage to that bellicose and even jingo literature which commonly comes next in the history of a boy4 ,we all owe much sound morality to the penny dreadfuls4 ,whatever the reason1 it seemed and still seems to me that our attitude towards life can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than in terms of criticism and approval4 ,my acceptance of the universe is not optimism1 it is more like patriotism4 ,it is a matter of primary loyalty4 ,the world is not a lodging-house at ,brighton1 which we are to leave because it is miserable4 ,it is the fortress of our family1 with the flag flying on the turret1 and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it4 ,the point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love2 the point is that when you do love a thing1 its gladness is a reason for loving it1 and its sadness a reason for loving it more4 ,all optimistic thoughts about ,england and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike reasons for the ,english patriot4 ,similarly1 optimism and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot4 ,let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing--say ,pimlico4 ,if we think what is really best for ,pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitary4 ,it is not enough for a man to disapprove of ,pimlico3 in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to ,chelsea4 ,nor1 certainly1 is it enough for a man to approve of ,pimlico3 for then it will remain ,pimlico1 which would be awful4 ,the only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love ,pimlico3 to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason4 ,if there arose a man who loved ,pimlico1 then ,pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles2 ,pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved4 ,for decoration is not given to hide horrible things2 but to decorate things already adorable4 ,a mother does not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it4 ,a lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck4 ,if men loved ,pimlico as mothers love children1 arbitarily1 because it is theirs ,pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than ,florence4 ,some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy4 ,i answer that this is the actual history of mankind4 ,this1 as a fact1 is how cities did grow great4 ,go back to the darkest roots of civilisation and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well4 ,people first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it4 ,men did not love ,rome because she was great4 ,she was great because they had loved her4 ,the eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have been exposed to much clumsy criticism in our time2 in so far as they meant that there is at the back of all historic government an idea of content and co-operation1 they were demonstrably right4 ,but they really were wrong in so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics directly by a conscious exchange of interests4 ,morality did not begin by one man saying to another1 ,i will not hit you if you do not hit me2 there is no trace of such a transaction4 ,there is a trace of both men having said1 ,we must not hit each other in the holy place4 ,they gained their morality by guarding their religion4 ,they did not cultivate courage4 ,they fought for the shrine1 and found they had become courageous4 ,they did not cultivate cleanliness4 ,they purified themselves for the altar1 and found that they were clean4 ,the history of the ,jews is the only early document known to most ,englishmen1 and the facts can be judged sufficiently from that4 ,the ,ten ,commandments which have been found substantially common to mankind were merely military commands2 a code of regimental orders1 issued to protect a certain ark across a certain desert4 ,anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity4 ,and only when they made a holy day for ,god did they find they had made a holiday for men4 ,if it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is a source of creative energy1 we can pass on to a very peculiar fact4 ,let us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort of universal patriotism4 ,what is the matter with the pessimist8 ,i think it can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot4 ,and what is the matter with the anti-patriot8 ,i think it can be stated1 without undue bitterness1 by saying that he is the candid friend4 ,and what is the matter with the candid friend8 ,there we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature4 ,i venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid4 ,he is keeping something back--his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things4 ,he has a secret desire to hurt1 not merely to help4 ,this is certainly1 ,i think1 what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens4 ,i do not speak 7of course7 of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses2 that is only patriotism speaking plainly4 ,a man who says that no patriot should attack the ,boer ,war until it is over is not worth answering intelligently2 he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it4 ,but there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men1 and the explanation of him is1 ,i think1 what ,i have suggested3 he is the uncandid candid friend2 the man who says1 ,i am sorry to say we are ruined1 and is not sorry at all4 ,and he may be said1 without rhetoric1 to be a traitor2 for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army1 to discourage people from joining it4 ,because he is allowed to be pessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as a recruiting sergeant4 ,just in the same way the pessimist 7who is the cosmic anti-patriot7 uses the freedom that life allows to her counsellors to lure away the people from her flag4 ,granted that he states only facts1 it is still essential to know what are his emotions1 what is his motive4 ,it may be that twelve hundred men in ,tottenham are down with smallpox2 but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher who wants to curse the gods1 or only by some common clergyman who wants to help the men4 ,the evil of the pessimist is1 then1 not that he chastises gods and men1 but that he does not love what he chastises--he has not this primary and supernatural loyalty to things4 ,what is the evil of the man commonly called an optimist8 ,obviously1 it is felt that the optimist1 wishing to defend the honour of this world1 will defend the indefensible4 ,he is the jingo of the universe2 he will say1 ,my cosmos1 right or wrong4 ,he will be less inclined to the reform of things2 more inclined to a sort of front-bench official answer to all attacks1 soothing every one with assurances4 ,he will not wash the world1 but whitewash the world4 ,all this 7which is true of a type of optimist7 leads us to the one really interesting point of psychology1 which could not be explained without it4 ,we say there must be a primal loyalty to life3 the only question is1 shall it be a natural or a supernatural loyalty8 ,if you like to put it so1 shall it be a reasonable or an unreasonable loyalty8 ,now1 the extraordinary thing is that the bad optimism 7the whitewashing1 the weak defence of everything7 comes in with the reasonable optimism4 ,rational optimism leads to stagnation3 it is irrational optimism that leads to reform4 ,let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism4 ,the man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason4 ,the man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason4 ,if a man loves some feature of ,pimlico 7which seems unlikely71 he may find himself defending that feature against ,pimlico itself4 ,but if he simply loves ,pimlico itself1 he may lay it waste and turn it into the ,new ,jerusalem4 ,i do not deny that reform may be excessive2 ,i only say that it is the mystic patriot who reforms4 ,mere jingo self-contentment is commonest among those who have some pedantic reason for their patriotism4 ,the worst jingoes do not love ,england1 but a theory of ,england4 ,if we love ,england for being an empire1 we may overrate the success with which we rule the ,hindoos4 ,but if we love it only for being a nation1 we can face all events3 for it would be a nation even if the ,hindoos ruled us4 ,thus also only those will permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on history4 ,a man who loves ,england for being ,english will not mind how she arose4 ,but a man who loves ,england for being ,anglo-,saxon may go against all facts for his fancy4 ,he may end 7like ,carlyle and ,freeman7 by maintaining that the ,norman ,conquest was a ,saxon ,conquest4 ,he may end in utter unreason--because he has a reason4 ,a man who loves ,france for being military will palliate the army of #ahgj4 ,but a man who loves ,france for being ,france will improve the army of #ahgj4 ,this is exactly what the ,french have done1 and ,france is a good instance of the working paradox4 ,nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary2 and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping4 ,the more transcendental is your patriotism1 the more practical are your politics4 ,perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case of women2 and their strange and strong loyalty4 ,some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything1 therefore women are blind and do not see anything4 ,they can hardly have known any women4 ,the same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin are 7in their personal intercourse with the man7 almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head4 ,a man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is3 his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else4 ,women who are utter mystics in their creed are utter cynics in their criticism4 ,thackeray expressed this well when he made ,pendennis' mother1 who worshipped her son as a god1 yet assume that he would go wrong as a man4 ,she underrated his virtue1 though she overrated his value4 ,the devotee is entirely free to criticise2 the fanatic can safely be a sceptic4 ,love is not blind2 that is the last thing that it is4 ,love is bound2 and the more it is bound the less it is blind4 ,this at least had come to be my position about all that was called optimism1 pessimism1 and improvement4 ,before any cosmic act of reform we must have a cosmic oath of allegiance4 ,a man must be interested in life1 then he could be disinterested in his views of it4 ,my son give me thy heart2 the heart must be fixed on the right thing3 the moment we have a fixed heart we have a free hand4 ,i must pause to anticipate an obvious criticism4 ,it will be said that a rational person accepts the world as mixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent endurance4 ,but this is exactly the attitude which ,i maintain to be defective4 ,it is1 ,i know1 very common in this age2 it was perfectly put in those quiet lines of ,matthew ,arnold which are more piercingly blasphemous than the shrieks of ,schopenhauer-- ,enough we live3--and if a life1 ,with large results so little rife1 ,though bearable1 seem hardly worth ,this pomp of worlds1 this pain of birth4 ,i know this feeling fills our epoch1 and ,i think it freezes our epoch4 ,for our ,titanic purposes of faith and revolution1 what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise1 but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it4 ,we do not want joy and anger to neutralise each other and produce a surly contentment2 we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent4 ,we have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle1 to be stormed1 and yet as our own cottage1 to which we can return at evening4 ,no one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world3 but we demand not strength enough to get on with it1 but strength enough to get it on4 ,can he hate it enough to change it1 and yet love it enough to think it worth changing8 ,can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence8 ,can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair8 ,can he1 in short1 be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist1 but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist8 ,is he enough of a pagan to die for the world1 and enough of a ,christian to die to it8 ,in this combination1 ,i maintain1 it is the rational optimist who fails1 the irrational optimist who succeeds4 ,he is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself4 ,i put these things not in their mature logical sequence1 but as they came3 and this view was cleared and sharpened by an accident of the time4 ,under the lengthening shadow of ,ibsen1 an argument arose whether it was not a very nice thing to murder one's self4 ,grave moderns told us that we must not even say poor fellow1 of a man who had blown his brains out1 since he was an enviable person1 and had only blown them out because of their exceptional excellence4 ,mr4 ,william ,archer even suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines1 by which a man could kill himself for a penny4 ,in all this ,i found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and humane4 ,not only is suicide a sin1 it is the sin4 ,it is the ultimate and absolute evil1 the refusal to take an interest in existence2 the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life4 ,the man who kills a man1 kills a man4 ,the man who kills himself1 kills all men2 as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world4 ,his act is worse 7symbolically considered7 than any rape or dynamite outrage4 ,for it destroys all buildings3 it insults all women4 ,the thief is satisfied with diamonds2 but the suicide is not3 that is his crime4 ,he cannot be bribed1 even by the blazing stones of the ,celestial ,city4 ,the thief compliments the things he steals1 if not the owner of them4 ,but the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it4 ,he defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake4 ,there is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer4 ,when a man hangs himself on a tree1 the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury3 for each has received a personal affront4 ,of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act4 ,there often are for rape1 and there almost always are for dynamite4 ,but if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things1 then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body1 than in ,mr4 ,archer's suicidal automatic machines4 ,there is a meaning in burying the suicide apart4 ,the man's crime is different from other crimes--for it makes even crimes impossible4 ,about the same time ,i read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker3 he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr4 ,the open fallacy of this helped to clear the question4 ,obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr4 ,a martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him1 that he forgets his own personal life4 ,a suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him1 that he wants to see the last of everything4 ,one wants something to begin3 the other wants everything to end4 ,in other words1 the martyr is noble1 exactly because 7however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity7 he confesses this ultimate link with life2 he sets his heart outside himself3 he dies that something may live4 ,the suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being3 he is a mere destroyer2 spiritually1 he destroys the universe4 ,and then ,i remembered the stake and the cross-roads1 and the queer fact that ,christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide4 ,for ,christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr4 ,historic ,christianity was accused1 not entirely without reason1 of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point1 desolate and pessimistic4 ,the early ,christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness4 ,they blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body3 they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers4 ,all this has seemed to many the very poetry of pessimism4 ,yet there is the stake at the cross-roads to show what ,christianity thought of the pessimist4 ,this was the first of the long train of enigmas with which ,christianity entered the discussion4 ,and there went with it a peculiarity of which ,i shall have to speak more markedly1 as a note of all ,christian notions1 but which distinctly began in this one4 ,the ,christian attitude to the martyr and the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modern morals4 ,it was not a matter of degree4 ,it was not that a line must be drawn somewhere1 and that the self-slayer in exaltation fell within the line1 the self-slayer in sadness just beyond it4 ,the ,christian feeling evidently was not merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom too far4 ,the ,christian feeling was furiously for one and furiously against the other3 these two things that looked so much alike were at opposite ends of heaven and hell4 ,one man flung away his life2 he was so good that his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence4 ,another man flung away life2 he was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren's4 ,i am not saying this fierceness was right2 but why was it so fierce8 ,here it was that ,i first found that my wandering feet were in some beaten track4 ,christianity had also felt this opposition of the martyr to the suicide3 had it perhaps felt it for the same reason8 ,had ,christianity felt what ,i felt1 but could not 7and cannot7 express--this need for a first loyalty to things1 and then for a ruinous reform of things8 ,then ,i remembered that it was actually the charge against ,christianity that it combined these two things which ,i was wildly trying to combine4 ,christianity was accused1 at one and the same time1 of being too optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about the world4 ,the coincidence made me suddenly stand still4 ,an imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another4 ,some dogma1 we are told1 was credible in the twelfth century1 but is not credible in the twentieth4 ,you might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on ,mondays1 but cannot be believed on ,tuesdays4 ,you might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was suitable to half-past three1 but not suitable to half-past four4 ,what a man can believe depends upon his philosophy1 not upon the clock or the century4 ,if a man believes in unalterable natural law1 he cannot believe in any miracle in any age4 ,if a man believes in a will behind law1 he can believe in any miracle in any age4 ,suppose1 for the sake of argument1 we are concerned with a case of thaumaturgic healing4 ,a materialist of the twelfth century could not believe it any more than a materialist of the twentieth century4 ,but a ,christian ,scientist of the twentieth century can believe it as much as a ,christian of the twelfth century4 ,it is simply a matter of a man's theory of things4 ,therefore in dealing with any historical answer1 the point is not whether it was given in our time1 but whether it was given in answer to our question4 ,and the more ,i thought about when and how ,christianity had come into the world1 the more ,i felt that it had actually come to answer this question4 ,it is commonly the loose and latitudinarian ,christians who pay quite indefensible compliments to ,christianity4 ,they talk as if there had never been any piety or pity until ,christianity came1 a point on which any medival would have been eager to correct them4 ,they represent that the remarkable thing about ,christianity was that it was the first to preach simplicity or self-restraint1 or inwardness and sincerity4 ,they will think me very narrow 7whatever that means7 if ,i say that the remarkable thing about ,christianity was that it was the first to preach ,christianity4 ,its peculiarity was that it was peculiar1 and simplicity and sincerity are not peculiar1 but obvious ideals for all mankind4 ,christianity was the answer to a riddle1 not the last truism uttered after a long talk4 ,only the other day ,i saw in an excellent weekly paper of ,puritan tone this remark1 that ,christianity when stripped of its armour of dogma 7as who should speak of a man stripped of his armour of bones71 turned out to be nothing but the ,quaker doctrine of the ,inner ,light4 ,now1 if ,i were to say that ,christianity came into the world specially to destroy the doctrine of the ,inner ,light1 that would be an exaggeration4 ,but it would be very much nearer to the truth4 ,the last ,stoics1 like ,marcus ,aurelius1 were exactly the people who did believe in the ,inner ,light4 ,their dignity1 their weariness1 their sad external care for others1 their incurable internal care for themselves1 were all due to the ,inner ,light1 and existed only by that dismal illumination4 ,notice that ,marcus ,aurelius insists1 as such introspective moralists always do1 upon small things done or undone2 it is because he has not hate or love enough to make a moral revolution4 ,he gets up early in the morning1 just as our own aristocrats living the ,simple ,life get up early in the morning2 because such altruism is much easier than stopping the games of the amphitheatre or giving the ,english people back their land4 ,marcus ,aurelius is the most intolerable of human types4 ,he is an unselfish egoist4 ,an unselfish egoist is a man who has pride without the excuse of passion4 ,of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the ,inner ,light4 ,of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within4 ,any one who knows any body knows how it would work2 any one who knows any one from the ,higher ,thought ,centre knows how it does work4 ,that ,jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that ,jones shall worship ,jones4 ,let ,jones worship the sun or moon1 anything rather than the ,inner ,light2 let ,jones worship cats or crocodiles1 if he can find any in his street1 but not the god within4 ,christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards1 but to look outwards1 to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain4 ,the only fun of being a ,christian was that a man was not left alone with the ,inner ,light1 but definitely recognised an outer light1 fair as the sun1 clear as the moon1 terrible as an army with banners4 ,all the same1 it will be as well if ,jones does not worship the sun and moon4 ,if he does1 there is a tendency for him to imitate them2 to say1 that because the sun burns insects alive1 he may burn insects alive4 ,he thinks that because the sun gives people sun-stroke1 he may give his neighbour measles4 ,he thinks that because the moon is said to drive men mad1 he may drive his wife mad4 ,this ugly side of mere external optimism had also shown itself in the ancient world4 ,about the time when the ,stoic idealism had begun to show the weaknesses of pessimism1 the old nature worship of the ancients had begun to show the enormous weaknesses of optimism4 ,nature worship is natural enough while the society is young1 or1 in other words1 ,pantheism is all right as long as it is the worship of ,pan4 ,but ,nature has another side which experience and sin are not slow in finding out1 and it is no flippancy to say of the god ,pan that he soon showed the cloven hoof4 ,the only objection to ,natural ,religion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural4 ,a man loves ,nature in the morning for her innocence and amiability1 and at nightfall1 if he is loving her still1 it is for her darkness and her cruelty4 ,he washes at dawn in clear water as did the ,wise ,man of the ,stoics1 yet1 somehow at the dark end of the day1 he is bathing in hot bull's blood1 as did ,julian the ,apostate4 ,the mere pursuit of health always leads to something unhealthy4 ,physical nature must not be made the direct object of obedience2 it must be enjoyed1 not worshipped4 ,stars and mountains must not be taken seriously4 ,if they are1 we end where the pagan nature worship ended4 ,because the earth is kind1 we can imitate all her cruelties4 ,because sexuality is sane1 we can all go mad about sexuality4 ,mere optimism had reached its insane and appropriate termination4 ,the theory that everything was good had become an orgy of everything that was bad4 ,on the other side our idealist pessimists were represented by the old remnant of the ,stoics4 ,marcus ,aurelius and his friends had really given up the idea of any god in the universe and looked only to the god within4 ,they had no hope of any virtue in nature1 and hardly any hope of any virtue in society4 ,they had not enough interest in the outer world really to wreck or revolutionise it4 ,they did not love the city enough to set fire to it4 ,thus the ancient world was exactly in our own desolate dilemma4 ,the only people who really enjoyed this world were busy breaking it up2 and the virtuous people did not care enough about them to knock them down4 ,in this dilemma 7the same as ours7 ,christianity suddenly stepped in and offered a singular answer1 which the world eventually accepted as the answer4 ,it was the answer then1 and ,i think it is the answer now4 ,this answer was like the slash of a sword2 it sundered2 it did not in any sense sentimentally unite4 ,briefly1 it divided ,god from the cosmos4 ,that transcendence and distinctness of the deity which some ,christians now want to remove from ,christianity1 was really the only reason why any one wanted to be a ,christian4 ,it was the whole point of the ,christian answer to the unhappy pessimist and the still more unhappy optimist4 ,as ,i am here only concerned with their particular problem ,i shall indicate only briefly this great metaphysical suggestion4 ,all descriptions of the creating or sustaining principle in things must be metaphorical1 because they must be verbal4 ,thus the pantheist is forced to speak of ,god in all things as if he were in a box4 ,thus the evolutionist has1 in his very name1 the idea of being unrolled like a carpet4 ,all terms1 religious and irreligious1 are open to this charge4 ,the only question is whether all terms are useless1 or whether one can1 with such a phrase1 cover a distinct idea about the origin of things4 ,i think one can1 and so evidently does the evolutionist1 or he would not talk about evolution4 ,and the root phrase for all ,christian theism was this1 that ,god was a creator1 as an artist is a creator4 ,a poet is so separate from his poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing he has thrown off4 ,even in giving it forth he has flung it away4 ,this principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as the evolutionary principle that all growth is a branching out4 ,a woman loses a child even in having a child4 ,all creation is separation4 ,birth is as solemn a parting as death4 ,it was the prime philosophic principle of ,christianity that this divorce in the divine act of making 7such as severs the poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child7 was the true description of the act whereby the absolute energy made the world4 ,according to most philosophers1 ,god in making the world enslaved it4 ,according to ,christianity1 in making it1 ,he set it free4 ,god had written1 not so much a poem1 but rather a play2 a play he had planned as perfect1 but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers1 who had since made a great mess of it4 ,i will discuss the truth of this theorem later4 ,here ,i have only to point out with what a startling smoothness it passed the dilemma we have discussed in this chapter4 ,in this way at least one could be both happy and indignant without degrading one's self to be either a pessimist or an optimist4 ,on this system one could fight all the forces of existence without deserting the flag of existence4 ,one could be at peace with the universe and yet be at war with the world4 ,st4 ,george could still fight the dragon1 however big the monster bulked in the cosmos1 though he were bigger than the mighty cities or bigger than the everlasting hills4 ,if he were as big as the world he could yet be killed in the name of the world4 ,st4 ,george had not to consider any obvious odds or proportions in the scale of things1 but only the original secret of their design4 ,he can shake his sword at the dragon1 even if it is everything2 even if the empty heavens over his head are only the huge arch of its open jaws4 ,and then followed an experience impossible to describe4 ,it was as if ,i had been blundering about since my birth with two huge and unmanageable machines1 of different shapes and without apparent connection--the world and the ,christian tradition4 ,i had found this hole in the world3 the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it2 somehow one must love the world without being worldly4 ,i found this projecting feature of ,christian theology1 like a sort of hard spike1 the dogmatic insistence that ,god was personal1 and had made a world separate from ,himself4 ,the spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in the world--it had evidently been meant to go there--and then the strange thing began to happen4 ,when once these two parts of the two machines had come together1 one after another1 all the other parts fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude4 ,i could hear bolt after bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of relief4 ,having got one part right1 all the other parts were repeating that rectitude1 as clock after clock strikes noon4 ,instinct after instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine4 ,or1 to vary the metaphor1 ,i was like one who had advanced into a hostile country to take one high fortress4 ,and when that fort had fallen the whole country surrendered and turned solid behind me4 ,the whole land was lit up1 as it were1 back to the first fields of my childhood4 ,all those blind fancies of boyhood which in the fourth chapter ,i have tried in vain to trace on the darkness1 became suddenly transparent and sane4 ,i was right when ,i felt that roses were red by some sort of choice3 it was the divine choice4 ,i was right when ,i felt that ,i would almost rather say that grass was the wrong colour than say that it must by necessity have been that colour3 it might verily have been any other4 ,my sense that happiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean something when all was said3 it meant the whole doctrine of the ,fall4 ,even those dim and shapeless monsters of notions which ,i have not been able to describe1 much less defend1 stepped quietly into their places like colossal caryatides of the creed4 ,the fancy that the cosmos was not vast and void1 but small and cosy1 had a fulfilled significance now1 for anything that is a work of art must be small in the sight of the artist2 to ,god the stars might be only small and dear1 like diamonds4 ,and my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used1 but a relic to be guarded1 like the goods from ,crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise1 for1 according to ,christianity1 we were indeed the survivors of a wreck1 the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world4 ,but the important matter was this1 that it entirely reversed the reason for optimism4 ,and the instant the reversal was made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket4 ,i had often called myself an optimist1 to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism4 ,but all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason1 that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world4 ,the ,christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world4 ,i had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal1 like any other which sought its meat from ,god4 ,but now ,i really was happy1 for ,i had learnt that man is a monstrosity4 ,i had been right in feeling all things as odd1 for ,i myself was at once worse and better than all things4 ,the optimist's pleasure was prosaic1 for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything2 the ,christian pleasure was poetic1 for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural4 ,the modern philosopher had told me again and again that ,i was in the right place1 and ,i had still felt depressed even in acquiescence4 ,but ,i had heard that ,i was in the wrong place1 and my soul sang for joy1 like a bird in spring4 ,the knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy4 ,i knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant1 and why ,i could feel homesick at home4 ,,chapter ,,vi4--,the ,paradoxes of ,christianity ,the real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world1 nor even that it is a reasonable one4 ,the commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable1 but not quite4 ,life is not an illogicality2 yet it is a trap for logicians4 ,it looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is2 its exactitude is obvious1 but its inexactitude is hidden2 its wildness lies in wait4 ,i give one coarse instance of what ,i mean4 ,suppose some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body2 he would at once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate4 ,a man is two men1 he on the right exactly resembling him on the left4 ,having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left1 a leg on the right and one on the left1 he might go further and still find on each side the same number of fingers1 the same number of toes1 twin eyes1 twin ears1 twin nostrils1 and even twin lobes of the brain4 ,at last he would take it as a law2 and then1 where he found a heart on one side1 would deduce that there was another heart on the other4 ,and just then1 where he most felt he was right1 he would be wrong4 ,it is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncanny element in everything4 ,it seems a sort of secret treason in the universe4 ,an apple or an orange is round enough to get itself called round1 and yet is not round after all4 ,the earth itself is shaped like an orange in order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it a globe4 ,a blade of grass is called after the blade of a sword1 because it comes to a point2 but it doesn't4 ,everywhere in things there is this element of the quiet and incalculable4 ,it escapes the rationalists1 but it never escapes till the last moment4 ,from the grand curve of our earth it could easily be inferred that every inch of it was thus curved4 ,it would seem rational that as a man has a brain on both sides1 he should have a heart on both sides4 ,yet scientific men are still organizing expeditions to find the ,north ,pole1 because they are so fond of flat country4 ,scientific men are also still organising expeditions to find a man's heart2 and when they try to find it1 they generally get on the wrong side of him4 ,now1 actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guesses these hidden malformations or surprises4 ,if our mathematician from the moon saw the two arms and the two ears1 he might deduce the two shoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain4 ,but if he guessed that the man's heart was in the right place1 then ,i should call him something more than a mathematician4 ,now1 this is exactly the claim which ,i have since come to propound for ,christianity4 ,not merely that it deduces logical truths1 but that when it suddenly becomes illogical1 it has found1 so to speak1 an illogical truth4 ,it not only goes right about things1 but it goes wrong 7if one may say so7 exactly where the things go wrong4 ,its plan suits the secret irregularities1 and expects the unexpected4 ,it is simple about the simple truth2 but it is stubborn about the subtle truth4 ,it will admit that a man has two hands1 it will not admit 7though all the ,modernists wail to it7 the obvious deduction that he has two hearts4 ,it is my only purpose in this chapter to point this out2 to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in ,christian theology1 we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth4 ,i have alluded to an unmeaning phrase to the effect that such and such a creed cannot be believed in our age4 ,of course1 anything can be believed in any age4 ,but1 oddly enough1 there really is a sense in which a creed1 if it is believed at all1 can be believed more fixedly in a complex society than in a simple one4 ,if a man finds ,christianity true in ,birmingham1 he has actually clearer reasons for faith than if he had found it true in ,mercia4 ,for the more complicated seems the coincidence1 the less it can be a coincidence4 ,if snowflakes fell in the shape1 say1 of the heart of ,midlothian1 it might be an accident4 ,but if snowflakes fell in the exact shape of the maze at ,hampton ,court1 ,i think one might call it a miracle4 ,it is exactly as of such a miracle that ,i have since come to feel of the philosophy of ,christianity4 ,the complication of our modern world proves the truth of the creed more perfectly than any of the plain problems of the ages of faith4 ,it was in ,notting ,hill and ,battersea that ,i began to see that ,christianity was true4 ,this is why the faith has that elaboration of doctrines and details which so much distresses those who admire ,christianity without believing in it4 ,when once one believes in a creed1 one is proud of its complexity1 as scientists are proud of the complexity of science4 ,it shows how rich it is in discoveries4 ,if it is right at all1 it is a compliment to say that it's elaborately right4 ,a stick might fit a hole or a stone a hollow by accident4 ,but a key and a lock are both complex4 ,and if a key fits a lock1 you know it is the right key4 ,but this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to do what ,i now have to do1 to describe this accumulation of truth4 ,it is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced4 ,it is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced4 ,he is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing1 and he can expound it4 ,but a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it4 ,he is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it4 ,and the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction1 the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up4 ,thus1 if one asked an ordinary intelligent man1 on the spur of the moment1 ,why do you prefer civilisation to savagery8 he would look wildly round at object after object1 and would only be able to answer vaguely1 ,why1 there is that bookcase 444 and the coals in the coal-scuttle 444 and pianos 444 and policemen4 ,the whole case for civilisation is that the case for it is complex4 ,it has done so many things4 ,but that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible4 ,there is1 therefore1 about all complete conviction a kind of huge helplessness4 ,the belief is so big that it takes a long time to get it into action4 ,and this hesitation chiefly arises1 oddly enough1 from an indifference about where one should begin4 ,all roads lead to ,rome2 which is one reason why many people never get there4 ,in the case of this defence of the ,christian conviction ,i confess that ,i would as soon begin the argument with one thing as another2 ,i would begin it with a turnip or a taximeter cab4 ,but if ,i am to be at all careful about making my meaning clear1 it will1 ,i think1 be wiser to continue the current arguments of the last chapter1 which was concerned to urge the first of these mystical coincidences1 or rather ratifications4 ,all ,i had hitherto heard of ,christian theology had alienated me from it4 ,i was a pagan at the age of twelve1 and a complete agnostic by the age of sixteen2 and ,i cannot understand any one passing the age of seventeen without having asked himself so simple a question4 ,i did1 indeed1 retain a cloudy reverence for a cosmic deity and a great historical interest in the ,founder of ,christianity4 ,but ,i certainly regarded ,him as a man2 though perhaps ,i thought that1 even in that point1 ,he had an advantage over some of ,his modern critics4 ,i read the scientific and sceptical literature of my time--all of it1 at least1 that ,i could find written in ,english and lying about2 and ,i read nothing else2 ,i mean ,i read nothing else on any other note of philosophy4 ,the penny dreadfuls which ,i also read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of ,christianity2 but ,i did not know this at the time4 ,i never read a line of ,christian apologetics4 ,i read as little as ,i can of them now4 ,it was ,huxley and ,herbert ,spencer and ,bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology4 ,they sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt4 ,our grandmothers were quite right when they said that ,tom ,paine and the free-thinkers unsettled the mind4 ,they do4 ,they unsettled mine horribly4 ,the rationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever2 and when ,i had finished ,herbert ,spencer ,i had got as far as doubting 7for the first time7 whether evolution had occurred at all4 ,as ,i laid down the last of ,colonel ,ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful thought broke across my mind1 ,almost thou persuadest me to be a ,christian4 ,i was in a desperate way4 ,this odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper than their own might be illustrated in many ways4 ,i take only one4 ,as ,i read and re-read all the non-,christian or anti-,christian accounts of the faith1 from ,huxley to ,bradlaugh1 a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind--the impression that ,christianity must be a most extraordinary thing4 ,for not only 7as ,i understood7 had ,christianity the most flaming vices1 but it had apparently a mystical talent for combining vices which seemed inconsistent with each other4 ,it was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons4 ,no sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to the west4 ,no sooner had my indignation died down at its angular and aggressive squareness than ,i was called up again to notice and condemn its enervating and sensual roundness4 ,in case any reader has not come across the thing ,i mean1 ,i will give such instances as ,i remember at random of this self-contradiction in the sceptical attack4 ,i give four or five of them2 there are fifty more4 ,thus1 for instance1 ,i was much moved by the eloquent attack on ,christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom2 for ,i thought 7and still think7 sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin4 ,insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment1 rather agreeable than otherwise2 and fortunately nearly all pessimism is insincere4 ,but if ,christianity was1 as these people said1 a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life1 then ,i was quite prepared to blow up ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedral4 ,but the extraordinary thing is this4 ,they did prove to me in ,chapter ,i4 7to my complete satisfaction7 that ,christianity was too pessimistic2 and then1 in ,chapter ,,ii41 they began to prove to me that it was a great deal too optimistic4 ,one accusation against ,christianity was that it prevented men1 by morbid tears and terrors1 from seeking joy and liberty in the bosom of ,nature4 ,but another accusation was that it comforted men with a fictitious providence1 and put them in a pink-and-white nursery4 ,one great agnostic asked why ,nature was not beautiful enough1 and why it was hard to be free4 ,another great agnostic objected that ,christian optimism1 the garment of make-believe woven by pious hands1 hid from us the fact that ,nature was ugly1 and that it was impossible to be free4 ,one rationalist had hardly done calling ,christianity a nightmare before another began to call it a fool's paradise4 ,this puzzled me2 the charges seemed inconsistent4 ,christianity could not at once be the black mask on a white world1 and also the white mask on a black world4 ,the state of the ,christian could not be at once so comfortable that he was a coward to cling to it1 and so uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it4 ,if it falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or another2 it could not wear both green and rose-coloured spectacles4 ,i rolled on my tongue with a terrible joy1 as did all young men of that time1 the taunts which ,swinburne hurled at the dreariness of the creed-- ,thou hast conquered1 ,o pale ,galilan1 the world has grown gray with ,thy breath4 ,but when ,i read the same poet's accounts of paganism 7as in ,atalanta71 ,i gathered that the world was1 if possible1 more gray before the ,galilan breathed on it than afterwards4 ,the poet maintained1 indeed1 in the abstract1 that life itself was pitch dark4 ,and yet1 somehow1 ,christianity had darkened it4 ,the very man who denounced ,christianity for pessimism was himself a pessimist4 ,i thought there must be something wrong4 ,and it did for one wild moment cross my mind that1 perhaps1 those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who1 by their own account1 had neither one nor the other4 ,it must be understood that ,i did not conclude hastily that the accusations were false or the accusers fools4 ,i simply deduced that ,christianity must be something even weirder and wickeder than they made out4 ,a thing might have these two opposite vices2 but it must be a rather queer thing if it did4 ,a man might be too fat in one place and too thin in another2 but he would be an odd shape4 ,at this point my thoughts were only of the odd shape of the ,christian religion2 ,i did not allege any odd shape in the rationalistic mind4 ,here is another case of the same kind4 ,i felt that a strong case against ,christianity lay in the charge that there is something timid1 monkish1 and unmanly about all that is called ,christian1 especially in its attitude towards resistance and fighting4 ,the great sceptics of the nineteenth century were largely virile4 ,bradlaugh in an expansive way1 ,huxley in a reticent way1 were decidedly men4 ,in comparison1 it did seem tenable that there was something weak and over patient about ,christian counsels4 ,the ,gospel paradox about the other cheek1 the fact that priests never fought1 a hundred things made plausible the accusation that ,christianity was an attempt to make a man too like a sheep4 ,i read it and believed it1 and if ,i had read nothing different1 ,i should have gone on believing it4 ,but ,i read something very different4 ,i turned the next page in my agnostic manual1 and my brain turned up-side down4 ,now ,i found that ,i was to hate ,christianity not for fighting too little1 but for fighting too much4 ,christianity1 it seemed1 was the mother of wars4 ,christianity had deluged the world with blood4 ,i had got thoroughly angry with the ,christian1 because he never was angry4 ,and now ,i was told to be angry with him because his anger had been the most huge and horrible thing in human history2 because his anger had soaked the earth and smoked to the sun4 ,the very people who reproached ,christianity with the meekness and non-resistance of the monastries were the very people who reproached it also with the violence and valour of the ,crusades4 ,it was the fault of poor old ,christianity 7somehow or other7 both that ,edward the ,confessor did not fight and that ,richard ,coeur de ,lion did4 ,the ,quakers 7we were told7 were the only characteristic ,christians2 and yet the massacres of ,cromwell and ,alva were characteristic ,christian crimes4 ,what could it all mean8 ,what was this ,christianity which always forbade war and always produced wars8 ,what could be the nature of the thing which one could abuse first because it would not fight1 and second because it was always fighting8 ,in what world of riddles was born this monstrous murder and this monstrous meekness8 ,the shape of ,christianity grew a queerer shape every instant4 ,i take a third case2 the strangest of all1 because it involves the one real objection to the faith4 ,the one real objection to the ,christian religion is simply that it is one religion4 ,the world is a big place1 full of very different kinds of people4 ,christianity 7it may reasonably be said7 is one thing confined to one kind of people2 it began in ,palestine1 it has practically stopped with ,europe4 ,i was duly impressed with this argument in my youth1 and ,i was much drawn towards the doctrine often preached in ,ethical ,societies--,i mean the doctrine that there is one great unconscious church of all humanity founded on the omnipresence of the human conscience4 ,creeds1 it was said1 divided men2 but at least morals united them4 ,the soul might seek the strangest and most remote lands and ages and still find essential ethical common sense4 ,it might find ,confucius under ,eastern trees1 and he would be writing ,thou shalt not steal4 ,it might decipher the darkest hieroglyphic on the most primeval desert1 and the meaning when deciphered would be ,little boys should tell the truth4 ,i believed this doctrine of the brotherhood of all men in the possession of a moral sense1 and ,i believe it still--with other things4 ,and ,i was thoroughly annoyed with ,christianity for suggesting 7as ,i supposed7 that whole ages and empires of men had utterly escaped this light of justice and reason4 ,but then ,i found an astonishing thing4 ,i found that the very people who said that mankind was one church from ,plato to ,emerson were the very people who said that morality had changed altogether1 and that what was right in one age was wrong in another4 ,if ,i asked1 say1 for an altar1 ,i was told that we needed none1 for men our brothers gave us clear oracles and one creed in their universal customs and ideals4 ,but if ,i mildly pointed out that one of men's universal customs was to have an altar1 then my agnostic teachers turned clean round and told me that men had always been in darkness and the superstitions of savages4 ,i found it was their daily taunt against ,christianity that it was the light of one people and had left all others to die in the dark4 ,but ,i also found that it was their special boast for themselves that science and progress were the discovery of one people1 and that all other peoples had died in the dark4 ,their chief insult to ,christianity was actually their chief compliment to themselves1 and there seemed to be a strange unfairness about all their relative insistence on the two things4 ,when considering some pagan or agnostic1 we were to remember that all men had one religion2 when considering some mystic or spiritualist1 we were only to consider what absurd religions some men had4 ,we could trust the ethics of ,epictetus1 because ethics had never changed4 ,we must not trust the ethics of ,bossuet1 because ethics had changed4 ,they changed in two hundred years1 but not in two thousand4 ,this began to be alarming4 ,it looked not so much as if ,christianity was bad enough to include any vices1 but rather as if any stick was good enough to beat ,christianity with4 ,what again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict1 that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves8 ,i saw the same thing on every side4 ,i can give no further space to this discussion of it in detail2 but lest any one supposes that ,i have unfairly selected three accidental cases ,i will run briefly through a few others4 ,thus1 certain sceptics wrote that the great crime of ,christianity had been its attack on the family2 it had dragged women to the loneliness and contemplation of the cloister1 away from their homes and their children4 ,but1 then1 other sceptics 7slightly more advanced7 said that the great crime of ,christianity was forcing the family and marriage upon us2 that it doomed women to the drudgery of their homes and children1 and forbade them loneliness and contemplation4 ,the charge was actually reversed4 ,or1 again1 certain phrases in the ,epistles or the ,marriage ,service1 were said by the anti-,christians to show contempt for woman's intellect4 ,but ,i found that the anti-,christians themselves had a contempt for woman's intellect2 for it was their great sneer at the ,church on the ,continent that only women went to it4 ,or again1 ,christianity was reproached with its naked and hungry habits2 with its sackcloth and dried peas4 ,but the next minute ,christianity was being reproached with its pomp and its ritualism2 its shrines of porphyry and its robes of gold4 ,it was abused for being too plain and for being too coloured4 ,again ,christianity had always been accused of restraining sexuality too much1 when ,bradlaugh the ,malthusian discovered that it restrained it too little4 ,it is often accused in the same breath of prim respectability and of religious extravagance4 ,between the covers of the same atheistic pamphlet ,i have found the faith rebuked for its disunion1 ,one thinks one thing1 and one another1 and rebuked also for its union1 ,it is difference of opinion that prevents the world from going to the dogs4 ,in the same conversation a free-thinker1 a friend of mine1 blamed ,christianity for despising ,jews1 and then despised it himself for being ,jewish4 ,i wished to be quite fair then1 and ,i wish to be quite fair now2 and ,i did not conclude that the attack on ,christianity was all wrong4 ,i only concluded that if ,christianity was wrong1 it was very wrong indeed4 ,such hostile horrors might be combined in one thing1 but that thing must be very strange and solitary4 ,there are men who are misers1 and also spendthrifts2 but they are rare4 ,there are men sensual and also ascetic2 but they are rare4 ,but if this mass of mad contradictions really existed1 quakerish and bloodthirsty1 too gorgeous and too thread-bare1 austere1 yet pandering preposterously to the lust of the eye1 the enemy of women and their foolish refuge1 a solemn pessimist and a silly optimist1 if this evil existed1 then there was in this evil something quite supreme and unique4 ,for ,i found in my rationalist teachers no explanation of such exceptional corruption4 ,christianity 7theoretically speaking7 was in their eyes only one of the ordinary myths and errors of mortals4 ,they gave me no key to this twisted and unnatural badness4 ,such a paradox of evil rose to the stature of the supernatural4 ,it was1 indeed1 almost as supernatural as the infallibility of the ,pope4 ,an historic institution1 which never went right1 is really quite as much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong4 ,the only explanation which immediately occurred to my mind was that ,christianity did not come from heaven1 but from hell4 ,really1 if ,jesus of ,nazareth was not ,christ1 ,he must have been ,antichrist4 ,and then in a quiet hour a strange thought struck me like a still thunderbolt4 ,there had suddenly come into my mind another explanation4 ,suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men4 ,suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short2 some objected to his fatness1 some lamented his leanness2 some thought him too dark1 and some too fair4 ,one explanation 7as has been already admitted7 would be that he might be an odd shape4 ,but there is another explanation4 ,he might be the right shape4 ,outrageously tall men might feel him to be short4 ,very short men might feel him to be tall4 ,old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out2 old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance4 ,perhaps ,swedes 7who have pale hair like tow7 called him a dark man1 while negroes considered him distinctly blonde4 ,perhaps 7in short7 this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing2 at least the normal thing1 the centre4 ,perhaps1 after all1 it is ,christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad--in various ways4 ,i tested this idea by asking myself whether there was about any of the accusers anything morbid that might explain the accusation4 ,i was startled to find that this key fitted a lock4 ,for instance1 it was certainly odd that the modern world charged ,christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp4 ,but then it was also odd1 very odd1 that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp4 ,the modern man thought ,becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor4 ,but then the modern man was really exceptional in history2 no man before ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes4 ,the modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex2 he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy4 ,the man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on entres4 ,the man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers4 ,and surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was in the trousers1 not in the simply falling robe4 ,if there was any insanity at all1 it was in the extravagant entres1 not in the bread and wine4 ,i went over all the cases1 and ,i found the key fitted so far4 ,the fact that ,swinburne was irritated at the unhappiness of ,christians and yet more irritated at their happiness was easily explained4 ,it was no longer a complication of diseases in ,christianity1 but a complication of diseases in ,swinburne4 ,the restraints of ,christians saddened him simply because he was more hedonist than a healthy man should be4 ,the faith of ,christians angered him because he was more pessimist than a healthy man should be4 ,in the same way the ,malthusians by instinct attacked ,christianity2 not because there is anything especially anti-,malthusian about ,christianity1 but because there is something a little anti-human about ,malthusianism4 ,nevertheless it could not1 ,i felt1 be quite true that ,christianity was merely sensible and stood in the middle4 ,there was really an element in it of emphasis and even frenzy which had justified the secularists in their superficial criticism4 ,it might be wise1 ,i began more and more to think that it was wise1 but it was not merely worldly wise2 it was not merely temperate and respectable4 ,its fierce crusaders and meek saints might balance each other2 still1 the crusaders were very fierce and the saints were very meek1 meek beyond all decency4 ,now1 it was just at this point of the speculation that ,i remembered my thoughts about the martyr and the suicide4 ,in that matter there had been this combination between two almost insane positions which yet somehow amounted to sanity4 ,this was just such another contradiction2 and this ,i had already found to be true4 ,this was exactly one of the paradoxes in which sceptics found the creed wrong2 and in this ,i had found it right4 ,madly as ,christians might love the martyr or hate the suicide1 they never felt these passions more madly than ,i had felt them long before ,i dreamed of ,christianity4 ,then the most difficult and interesting part of the mental process opened1 and ,i began to trace this idea darkly through all the enormous thoughts of our theology4 ,the idea was that which ,i had outlined touching the optimist and the pessimist2 that we want not an amalgam or compromise1 but both things at the top of their energy2 love and wrath both burning4 ,here ,i shall only trace it in relation to ethics4 ,but ,i need not remind the reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central in orthodox theology4 ,for orthodox theology has specially insisted that ,christ was not a being apart from ,god and man1 like an elf1 nor yet a being half human and half not1 like a centaur1 but both things at once and both things thoroughly1 very man and very ,god4 ,now let me trace this notion as ,i found it4 ,all sane men can see that sanity is some kind of equilibrium2 that one may be mad and eat too much1 or mad and eat too little4 ,some moderns have indeed appeared with vague versions of progress and evolution which seeks to destroy the or balance of ,aristotle4 ,they seem to suggest that we are meant to starve progressively1 or to go on eating larger and larger breakfasts every morning for ever4 ,but the great truism of the remains for all thinking men1 and these people have not upset any balance except their own4 ,but granted that we have all to keep a balance1 the real interest comes in with the question of how that balance can be kept4 ,that was the problem which ,paganism tried to solve3 that was the problem which ,i think ,christianity solved and solved in a very strange way4 ,paganism declared that virtue was in a balance2 ,christianity declared it was in a conflict3 the collision of two passions apparently opposite4 ,of course they were not really inconsistent2 but they were such that it was hard to hold simultaneously4 ,let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the suicide2 and take the case of courage4 ,no quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages4 ,courage is almost a contradiction in terms4 ,it means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die4 ,he that will lose his life1 the same shall save it1 is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes4 ,it is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers4 ,it might be printed in an ,alpine guide or a drill book4 ,this paradox is the whole principle of courage2 even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage4 ,a man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice4 ,he can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it4 ,a soldier surrounded by enemies1 if he is to cut his way out1 needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying4 ,he must not merely cling to life1 for then he will be a coward1 and will not escape4 ,he must not merely wait for death1 for then he will be a suicide1 and will not escape4 ,he must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it2 he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine4 ,no philosopher1 ,i fancy1 has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity1 and ,i certainly have not done so4 ,but ,christianity has done more3 it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero1 showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying4 ,and it has held up ever since above the ,european lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry3 the ,christian courage1 which is a disdain of death2 not the ,chinese courage1 which is a disdain of life4 ,and now ,i began to find that this duplex passion was the ,christian key to ethics everywhere4 ,everywhere the creed made a moderation out of the still crash of two impetuous emotions4 ,take1 for instance1 the matter of modesty1 of the balance between mere pride and mere prostration4 ,the average pagan1 like the average agnostic1 would merely say that he was content with himself1 but not insolently self-satisfied1 that there were many better and many worse1 that his deserts were limited1 but he would see that he got them4 ,in short1 he would walk with his head in the air2 but not necessarily with his nose in the air4 ,this is a manly and rational position1 but it is open to the objection we noted against the compromise between optimism and pessimism--the resignation of ,matthew ,arnold4 ,being a mixture of two things1 it is a dilution of two things2 neither is present in its full strength or contributes its full colour4 ,this proper pride does not lift the heart like the tongue of trumpets2 you cannot go clad in crimson and gold for this4 ,on the other hand1 this mild rationalist modesty does not cleanse the soul with fire and make it clear like crystal2 it does not 7like a strict and searching humility7 make a man as a little child1 who can sit at the feet of the grass4 ,it does not make him look up and see marvels2 for ,alice must grow small if she is to be ,alice in ,wonderland4 ,thus it loses both the poetry of being proud and the poetry of being humble4 ,christianity sought by this same strange expedient to save both of them4 ,it separated the two ideas and then exaggerated them both4 ,in one way ,man was to be haughtier than he had ever been before2 in another way he was to be humbler than he had ever been before4 ,in so far as ,i am ,man ,i am the chief of creatures4 ,in so far as ,i am a man ,i am the chief of sinners4 ,all humility that had meant pessimism1 that had meant man taking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny--all that was to go4 ,we were to hear no more the wail of ,ecclesiastes that humanity had no pre-eminence over the brute1 or the awful cry of ,homer that man was only the saddest of all the beasts of the field4 ,man was a statue of ,god walking about the garden4 ,man had pre-eminence over all the brutes2 man was only sad because he was not a beast1 but a broken god4 ,the ,greek had spoken of men creeping on the earth1 as if clinging to it4 ,now ,man was to tread on the earth as if to subdue it4 ,christianity thus held a thought of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crowns rayed like the sun and fans of peacock plumage4 ,yet at the same time it could hold a thought about the abject smallness of man that could only be expressed in fasting and fantastic submission1 in the grey ashes of ,st4 ,dominic and the white snows of ,st4 ,bernard4 ,when one came to think of one's self1 there was vista and void enough for any amount of bleak abnegation and bitter truth4 ,there the realistic gentleman could let himself go--as long as he let himself go at himself4 ,there was an open playground for the happy pessimist4 ,let him say anything against himself short of blaspheming the original aim of his being2 let him call himself a fool and even a damned fool 7though that is ,calvinistic72 but he must not say that fools are not worth saving4 ,he must not say that a man1 qu man1 can be valueless4 ,here again1 in short1 ,christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites1 by keeping them both1 and keeping them both furious4 ,the ,church was positive on both points4 ,one can hardly think too little of one's self4 ,one can hardly think too much of one's soul4 ,take another case3 the complicated question of charity1 which some highly uncharitable idealists seem to think quite easy4 ,charity is a paradox1 like modesty and courage4 ,stated baldly1 charity certainly means one of two things--pardoning unpardonable acts1 or loving unlovable people4 ,but if we ask ourselves 7as we did in the case of pride7 what a sensible pagan would feel about such a subject1 we shall probably be beginning at the bottom of it4 ,a sensible pagan would say that there were some people one could forgive1 and some one couldn't3 a slave who stole wine could be laughed at2 a slave who betrayed his benefactor could be killed1 and cursed even after he was killed4 ,in so far as the act was pardonable1 the man was pardonable4 ,that again is rational1 and even refreshing2 but it is a dilution4 ,it leaves no place for a pure horror of injustice1 such as that which is a great beauty in the innocent4 ,and it leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men as men1 such as is the whole fascination of the charitable4 ,christianity came in here as before4 ,it came in startlingly with a sword1 and clove one thing from another4 ,it divided the crime from the criminal4 ,the criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven4 ,the crime we must not forgive at all4 ,it was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired partly anger and partly kindness4 ,we must be much more angry with theft than before1 and yet much kinder to thieves than before4 ,there was room for wrath and love to run wild4 ,and the more ,i considered ,christianity1 the more ,i found that while it had established a rule and order1 the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild4 ,mental and emotional liberty are not so simple as they look4 ,really they require almost as careful a balance of laws and conditions as do social and political liberty4 ,the ordinary sthetic anarchist who sets out to feel everything freely gets knotted at last in a paradox that prevents him feeling at all4 ,he breaks away from home limits to follow poetry4 ,but in ceasing to feel home limits he has ceased to feel the ,odyssey4 ,he is free from national prejudices and outside patriotism4 ,but being outside patriotism he is outside ,henry ,v4 ,such a literary man is simply outside all literature3 he is more of a prisoner than any bigot4 ,for if there is a wall between you and the world1 it makes little difference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as locked out4 ,what we want is not the universality that is outside all normal sentiments2 we want the universality that is inside all normal sentiments4 ,it is all the difference between being free from them1 as a man is free from a prison1 and being free of them as a man is free of a city4 ,i am free from ,windsor ,castle 7that is1 ,i am not forcibly detained there71 but ,i am by no means free of that building4 ,how can man be approximately free of fine emotions1 able to swing them in a clear space without breakage or wrong8 ,this was the achievement of this ,christian paradox of the parallel passions4 ,granted the primary dogma of the war between divine and diabolic1 the revolt and ruin of the world1 their optimism and pessimism1 as pure poetry1 could be loosened like cataracts4 ,st4 ,francis1 in praising all good1 could be a more shouting optimist than ,walt ,whitman4 ,st4 ,jerome1 in denouncing all evil1 could paint the world blacker than ,schopenhauer4 ,both passions were free because both were kept in their place4 ,the optimist could pour out all the praise he liked on the gay music of the march1 the golden trumpets1 and the purple banners going into battle4 ,but he must not call the fight needless4 ,the pessimist might draw as darkly as he chose the sickening marches or the sanguine wounds4 ,but he must not call the fight hopeless4 ,so it was with all the other moral problems1 with pride1 with protest1 and with compassion4 ,by defining its main doctrine1 the ,church not only kept seemingly inconsistent things side by side1 but1 what was more1 allowed them to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible only to anarchists4 ,meekness grew more dramatic than madness4 ,historic ,christianity rose into a high and strange coup de thatre of morality--things that are to virtue what the crimes of ,nero are to vice4 ,the spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and attractive forms1 ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged like a dog the first and greatest of the ,plantagenets1 to the sublime pity of ,st4 ,catherine1 who1 in the official shambles1 kissed the bloody head of the criminal4 ,poetry could be acted as well as composed4 ,this heroic and monumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished with supernatural religion4 ,they1 being humble1 could parade themselves2 but we are too proud to be prominent4 ,our ethical teachers write reasonably for prison reform2 but we are not likely to see ,mr4 ,cadbury1 or any eminent philanthropist1 go into ,reading ,gaol and embrace the strangled corpse before it is cast into the quicklime4 ,our ethical teachers write mildly against the power of millionaires2 but we are not likely to see ,mr4 ,rockefeller1 or any modern tyrant1 publicly whipped in ,westminster ,abbey4 ,thus1 the double charges of the secularists1 though throwing nothing but darkness and confusion on themselves1 throw a real light on the faith4 ,it is true that the historic ,church has at once emphasised celibacy and emphasised the family2 has at once 7if one may put it so7 been fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children4 ,it has kept them side by side like two strong colours1 red and white1 like the red and white upon the shield of ,st4 ,george4 ,it has always had a healthy hatred of pink4 ,it hates that combination of two colours which is the feeble expedient of the philosophers4 ,it hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey4 ,in fact1 the whole theory of the ,church on virginity might be symbolized in the statement that white is a colour3 not merely the absence of a colour4 ,all that ,i am urging here can be expressed by saying that ,christianity sought in most of these cases to keep two colours co-existent but pure4 ,it is not a mixture like russet or purple2 it is rather like a shot silk1 for a shot silk is always at right angles1 and is in the pattern of the cross4 ,so it is also1 of course1 with the contradictory charges of the anti-,christians about submission and slaughter4 ,it is true that the ,church told some men to fight and others not to fight2 and it is true that those who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fight were like statues4 ,all this simply means that the ,church preferred to use its ,supermen and to use its ,tolstoyans4 ,there must be some good in the life of battle1 for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers4 ,there must be some good in the idea of non-resistance1 for so many good men seem to enjoy being ,quakers4 ,all that the ,church did 7so far as that goes7 was to prevent either of these good things from ousting the other4 ,they existed side by side4 ,the ,tolstoyans1 having all the scruples of monks1 simply became monks4 ,the ,quakers became a club instead of becoming a sect4 ,monks said all that ,tolstoy says2 they poured out lucid lamentations about the cruelty of battles and the vanity of revenge4 ,but the ,tolstoyans are not quite right enough to run the whole world2 and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to run it4 ,the world did not lose the last charge of ,sir ,james ,douglas or the banner of ,joan the ,maid4 ,and sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture2 the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled1 and1 in the soul of ,st4 ,louis1 the lion lay down with the lamb4 ,but remember that this text is too lightly interpreted4 ,it is constantly assured1 especially in our ,tolstoyan tendencies1 that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like4 ,but that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb4 ,that is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb4 ,the real problem is--,can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity8 ,that is the problem the ,church attempted2 that is the miracle she achieved4 ,this is what ,i have called guessing the hidden eccentricities of life4 ,this is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle4 ,this is knowing not only that the earth is round1 but knowing exactly where it is flat4 ,christian doctrine detected the oddities of life4 ,it not only discovered the law1 but it foresaw the exceptions4 ,those underrate ,christianity who say that it discovered mercy2 any one might discover mercy4 ,in fact every one did4 ,but to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe--that was to anticipate a strange need of human nature4 ,for no one wants to be forgiven for a big sin as if it were a little one4 ,any one might say that we should be neither quite miserable nor quite happy4 ,but to find out how far one may be quite miserable without making it impossible to be quite happy--that was a discovery in psychology4 ,any one might say1 ,neither swagger nor grovel2 and it would have been a limit4 ,but to say1 ,here you can swagger and there you can grovel--that was an emancipation4 ,this was the big fact about ,christian ethics2 the discovery of the new balance4 ,paganism had been like a pillar of marble1 upright because proportioned with symmetry4 ,christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock1 which1 though it sways on its pedestal at a touch1 yet1 because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other1 is enthroned there for a thousand years4 ,in a ,gothic cathedral the columns were all different1 but they were all necessary4 ,every support seemed an accidental and fantastic support2 every buttress was a flying buttress4 ,so in ,christendom apparent accidents balanced4 ,becket wore a hair shirt under his gold and crimson1 and there is much to be said for the combination2 for ,becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold4 ,it is at least better than the manner of the modern millionaire1 who has the black and the drab outwardly for others1 and the gold next his heart4 ,but the balance was not always in one man's body as in ,becket's2 the balance was often distributed over the whole body of ,christendom4 ,because a man prayed and fasted on the ,northern snows1 flowers could be flung at his festival in the ,southern cities2 and because fanatics drank water on the sands of ,syria1 men could still drink cider in the orchards of ,england4 ,this is what makes ,christendom at once so much more perplexing and so much more interesting than the ,pagan empire2 just as ,amiens ,cathedral is not better but more interesting than the ,parthenon4 ,if any one wants a modern proof of all this1 let him consider the curious fact that1 under ,christianity1 ,europe 7while remaining a unity7 has broken up into individual nations4 ,patriotism is a perfect example of this deliberate balancing of one emphasis against another emphasis4 ,the instinct of the ,pagan empire would have said1 ,you shall all be ,roman citizens1 and grow alike2 let the ,german grow less slow and reverent2 the ,frenchmen less experimental and swift4 ,but the instinct of ,christian ,europe says1 ,let the ,german remain slow and reverent1 that the ,frenchman may the more safely be swift and experimental4 ,we will make an equipoise out of these excesses4 ,the absurdity called ,germany shall correct the insanity called ,france4 ,last and most important1 it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of ,christianity4 ,i mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology1 the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word4 ,it was only a matter of an inch2 but an inch is everything when you are balancing4 ,the ,church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium4 ,once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful4 ,it was no flock of sheep the ,christian shepherd was leading1 but a herd of bulls and tigers1 of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines1 each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world4 ,remember that the ,church went in specifically for dangerous ideas2 she was a lion tamer4 ,the idea of birth through a ,holy ,spirit1 of the death of a divine being1 of the forgiveness of sins1 or the fulfilment of prophecies1 are ideas which1 any one can see1 need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious4 ,the smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the ,mediterranean1 and the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests of the north4 ,of these theological equalisations ,i have to speak afterwards4 ,here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were made in doctrine1 huge blunders might be made in human happiness4 ,a sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in ,europe4 ,a slip in the definitions might stop all the dances2 might wither all the ,christmas trees or break all the ,easter eggs4 ,doctrines had to be defined within strict limits1 even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties4 ,the ,church had to be careful1 if only that the world might be careless4 ,this is the thrilling romance of ,orthodoxy4 ,people have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy1 humdrum1 and safe4 ,there never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy4 ,it was sanity3 and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad4 ,it was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses1 seeming to stoop this way and to sway that1 yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic4 ,the ,church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse2 yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea1 like a vulgar fanaticism4 ,she swerved to left and right1 so as exactly to avoid enormous obstacles4 ,she left on one hand the huge bulk of ,arianism1 buttressed by all the worldly powers to make ,christianity too worldly4 ,the next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism1 which would have made it too unworldly4 ,the orthodox ,church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions2 the orthodox ,church was never respectable4 ,it would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the ,arians4 ,it would have been easy1 in the ,calvinistic seventeenth century1 to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination4 ,it is easy to be a madman3 it is easy to be a heretic4 ,it is always easy to let the age have its head2 the difficult thing is to keep one's own4 ,it is always easy to be a modernist2 as it is easy to be a snob4 ,to have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of ,christendom--that would indeed have been simple4 ,it is always simple to fall2 there are an infinity of angles at which one falls1 only one at which one stands4 ,to have fallen into any one of the fads from ,gnosticism to ,christian ,science would indeed have been obvious and tame4 ,but to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure2 and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages1 the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate1 the wild truth reeling but erect4 ,,chapter ,,vii4--,the ,eternal ,revolution ,the following propositions have been urged3 ,first1 that some faith in our life is required even to improve it2 second1 that some dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be satisfied2 third1 that to have this necessary content and necessary discontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the ,stoic4 ,for mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure nor the superb intolerance of pain4 ,there is a vital objection to the advice merely to grin and bear it4 ,the objection is that if you merely bear it1 you do not grin4 ,greek heroes do not grin2 but gargoyles do--because they are ,christian4 ,and when a ,christian is pleased1 he is 7in the most exact sense7 frightfully pleased2 his pleasure is frightful4 ,christ prophesied the whole of ,gothic architecture in that hour when nervous and respectable people 7such people as now object to barrel organs7 objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of ,jerusalem4 ,he said1 ,if these were silent1 the very stones would cry out4 ,under the impulse of ,his spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the facades of the medival cathedrals1 thronged with shouting faces and open mouths4 ,the prophecy has fulfilled itself3 the very stones cry out4 ,if these things be conceded1 though only for argument1 we may take up where we left it the thread of the thought of the natural man1 called by the ,scotch 7with regrettable familiarity71 ,the ,old ,man4 ,we can ask the next question so obviously in front of us4 ,some satisfaction is needed even to make things better4 ,but what do we mean by making things better8 ,most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle--that circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere rationalism4 ,evolution is only good if it produces good2 good is only good if it helps evolution4 ,the elephant stands on the tortoise1 and the tortoise on the elephant4 ,obviously1 it will not do to take our ideal from the principle in nature2 for the simple reason that 7except for some human or divine theory71 there is no principle in nature4 ,for instance1 the cheap anti-democrat of to-day will tell you solemnly that there is no equality in nature4 ,he is right1 but he does not see the logical addendum4 ,there is no equality in nature2 also there is no inequality in nature4 ,inequality1 as much as equality1 implies a standard of value4 ,to read aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to read democracy into it4 ,both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals3 the one saying that all men are valuable1 the other that some men are more valuable4 ,but nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice2 nature makes no remark on the subject4 ,she does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable4 ,we think the cat superior because we have 7or most of us have7 a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death4 ,but if the mouse were a ,german pessimist mouse1 he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all4 ,he might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first4 ,or he might feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on the cat by keeping him alive4 ,just as a microbe might feel proud of spreading a pestilence1 so the pessimistic mouse might exult to think that he was renewing in the cat the torture of conscious existence4 ,it all depends on the philosophy of the mouse4 ,you cannot even say that there is victory or superiority in nature unless you have some doctrine about what things are superior4 ,you cannot even say that the cat scores unless there is a system of scoring4 ,you cannot even say that the cat gets the best of it unless there is some best to be got4 ,we cannot1 then1 get the ideal itself from nature1 and as we follow here the first and natural speculation1 we will leave out 7for the present7 the idea of getting it from ,god4 ,we must have our own vision4 ,but the attempts of most moderns to express it are highly vague4 ,some fall back simply on the clock3 they talk as if mere passage through time brought some superiority2 so that even a man of the first mental calibre carelessly uses the phrase that human morality is never up to date4 ,how can anything be up to date8 a date has no character4 ,how can one say that ,christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifth of a month8 ,what the writer meant1 of course1 was that the majority is behind his favourite minority--or in front of it4 ,other vague modern people take refuge in material metaphors2 in fact1 this is the chief mark of vague modern people4 ,not daring to define their doctrine of what is good1 they use physical figures of speech without stint or shame1 and1 what is worst of all1 seem to think these cheap analogies are exquisitely spiritual and superior to the old morality4 ,thus they think it intellectual to talk about things being high4 ,it is at least the reverse of intellectual2 it is a mere phrase from a steeple or a weathercock4 ,tommy was a good boy is a pure philosophical statement1 worthy of ,plato or ,aquinas4 ,tommy lived the higher life is a gross metaphor from a ten-foot rule4 ,this1 incidentally1 is almost the whole weakness of ,nietzsche1 whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker4 ,no one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker2 but he was quite the reverse of strong4 ,he was not at all bold4 ,he never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words3 as did ,aristotle and ,calvin1 and even ,karl ,marx1 the hard1 fearless men of thought4 ,nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor1 like a cheery minor poet4 ,he said1 beyond good and evil1 because he had not the courage to say1 more good than good and evil1 or1 more evil than good and evil4 ,had he faced his thought without metaphors1 he would have seen that it was nonsense4 ,so1 when he describes his hero1 he does not dare to say1 the purer man1 or the happier man1 or the sadder man1 for all these are ideas2 and ideas are alarming4 ,he says the upper man1 or over man1 a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers4 ,nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker4 ,he does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce4 ,and if he does not know1 certainly the ordinary evolutionists1 who talk about things being higher1 do not know either4 ,then again1 some people fall back on sheer submission and sitting still4 ,nature is going to do something some day2 nobody knows what1 and nobody knows when4 ,we have no reason for acting1 and no reason for not acting4 ,if anything happens it is right3 if anything is prevented it was wrong4 ,again1 some people try to anticipate nature by doing something1 by doing anything4 ,because we may possibly grow wings they cut off their legs4 ,yet nature may be trying to make them centipedes for all they know4 ,lastly1 there is a fourth class of people who take whatever it is that they happen to want1 and say that that is the ultimate aim of evolution4 ,and these are the only sensible people4 ,this is the only really healthy way with the word evolution1 to work for what you want1 and to call that evolution4 ,the only intelligible sense that progress or advance can have among men1 is that we have a definite vision1 and that we wish to make the whole world like that vision4 ,if you like to put it so1 the essence of the doctrine is that what we have around us is the mere method and preparation for something that we have to create4 ,this is not a world1 but rather the materials for a world4 ,god has given us not so much the colours of a picture as the colours of a palette4 ,but ,he has also given us a subject1 a model1 a fixed vision4 ,we must be clear about what we want to paint4 ,this adds a further principle to our previous list of principles4 ,we have said we must be fond of this world1 even in order to change it4 ,we now add that we must be fond of another world 7real or imaginary7 in order to have something to change it to4 ,we need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress3 personally ,i prefer to call it reform4 ,for reform implies form4 ,it implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image2 to make it something that we see already in our minds4 ,evolution is a metaphor from mere automatic unrolling4 ,progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road--very likely the wrong road4 ,but reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men3 it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape4 ,and we know what shape4 ,now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age4 ,we have mixed up two different things1 two opposite things4 ,progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision4 ,progress does mean 7just now7 that we are always changing the vision4 ,it should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men3 it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy3 a wild page from any ,prussian sophist makes men doubt it4 ,progress should mean that we are always walking towards the ,new ,jerusalem4 ,it does mean that the ,new ,jerusalem is always walking away from us4 ,we are not altering the real to suit the ideal4 ,we are altering the ideal3 it is easier4 ,silly examples are always simpler2 let us suppose a man wanted a particular kind of world2 say1 a blue world4 ,he would have no cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task2 he might toil for a long time at the transformation2 he could work away 7in every sense7 until all was blue4 ,he could have heroic adventures2 the putting of the last touches to a blue tiger4 ,he could have fairy dreams2 the dawn of a blue moon4 ,but if he worked hard1 that high-minded reformer would certainly 7from his own point of view7 leave the world better and bluer than he found it4 ,if he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every day1 he would get on slowly4 ,but if he altered his favourite colour every day1 he would not get on at all4 ,if1 after reading a fresh philosopher1 he started to paint everything red or yellow1 his work would be thrown away3 there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about1 specimens of his early bad manner4 ,this is exactly the position of the average modern thinker4 ,it will be said that this is avowedly a preposterous example4 ,but it is literally the fact of recent history4 ,the great and grave changes in our political civilization all belonged to the early nineteenth century1 not to the later4 ,they belonged to the black and white epoch when men believed fixedly in ,toryism1 in ,protestantism1 in ,calvinism1 in ,reform1 and not unfrequently in ,revolution4 ,and whatever each man believed in he hammered at steadily1 without scepticism3 and there was a time when the ,established ,church might have fallen1 and the ,house of ,lords nearly fell4 ,it was because ,radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent2 it was because ,radicals were wise enough to be ,conservative4 ,but in the existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in ,radicalism to pull anything down4 ,there is a great deal of truth in ,lord ,hugh ,cecil's suggestion 7made in a fine speech7 that the era of change is over1 and that ours is an era of conservation and repose4 ,but probably it would pain ,lord ,hugh ,cecil if he realised 7what is certainly the case7 that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of complete unbelief4 ,let beliefs fade fast and frequently1 if you wish institutions to remain the same4 ,the more the life of the mind is unhinged1 the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself4 ,the net result of all our political suggestions1 ,collectivism1 ,tolstoyanism1 ,neo-,feudalism1 ,communism1 ,anarchy1 ,scientific ,bureaucracy--the plain fruit of all of them is that the ,monarchy and the ,house of ,lords will remain4 ,the net result of all the new religions will be that the ,church of ,england will not 7for heaven knows how long7 be disestablished4 ,it was ,karl ,marx1 ,nietzsche1 ,tolstoy1 ,cunninghame ,grahame1 ,bernard ,shaw and ,auberon ,herbert1 who between them1 with bowed gigantic backs1 bore up the throne of the ,archbishop of ,canterbury4 ,we may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the safeguards against freedom4 ,managed in a modern style the emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the slave4 ,teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free1 and he will not free himself4 ,again1 it may be said that this instance is remote or extreme4 ,but1 again1 it is exactly true of the men in the streets around us4 ,it is true that the negro slave1 being a debased barbarian1 will probably have either a human affection of loyalty1 or a human affection for liberty4 ,but the man we see every day--the worker in ,mr4 ,gradgrind's factory1 the little clerk in ,mr4 ,gradgrind's office--he is too mentally worried to believe in freedom4 ,he is kept quiet with revolutionary literature4 ,he is calmed and kept in his place by a constant succession of wild philosophies4 ,he is a ,marxian one day1 a ,nietzscheite the next day1 a ,superman 7probably7 the next day2 and a slave every day4 ,the only thing that remains after all the philosophies is the factory4 ,the only man who gains by all the philosophies is ,gradgrind4 ,it would be worth his while to keep his commercial helotry supplied with sceptical literature4 ,and now ,i come to think of it1 of course1 ,gradgrind is famous for giving libraries4 ,he shows his sense4 ,all modern books are on his side4 ,as long as the vision of heaven is always changing1 the vision of earth will be exactly the same4 ,no ideal will remain long enough to be realised1 or even partly realised4 ,the modern young man will never change his environment2 for he will always change his mind4 ,this1 therefore1 is our first requirement about the ideal towards which progress is directed2 it must be fixed4 ,whistler used to make many rapid studies of a sitter2 it did not matter if he tore up twenty portraits4 ,but it would matter if he looked up twenty times1 and each time saw a new person sitting placidly for his portrait4 ,so it does not matter 7comparatively speaking7 how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal2 for then all its old failures are fruitful4 ,but it does frightfully matter how often humanity changes its ideal2 for then all its old failures are fruitless4 ,the question therefore becomes this3 ,how can we keep the artist discontented with his pictures while preventing him from being vitally discontented with his art8 ,how can we make a man always dissatisfied with his work1 yet always satisfied with working8 ,how can we make sure that the portrait painter will throw the portrait out of window instead of taking the natural and more human course of throwing the sitter out of window8 ,a strict rule is not only necessary for ruling2 it is also necessary for rebelling4 ,this fixed and familiar ideal is necessary to any sort of revolution4 ,man will sometimes act slowly upon new ideas2 but he will only act swiftly upon old ideas4 ,if ,i am merely to float or fade or evolve1 it may be towards something anarchic2 but if ,i am to riot1 it must be for something respectable4 ,this is the whole weakness of certain schools of progress and moral evolution4 ,they suggest that there has been a slow movement towards morality1 with an imperceptible ethical change in every year or at every instant4 ,there is only one great disadvantage in this theory4 ,it talks of a slow movement towards justice2 but it does not permit a swift movement4 ,a man is not allowed to leap up and declare a certain state of things to be intrinsically intolerable4 ,to make the matter clear1 it is better to take a specific example4 ,certain of the idealistic vegetarians1 such as ,mr4 ,salt1 say that the time has now come for eating no meat2 by implication they assume that at one time it was right to eat meat1 and they suggest 7in words that could be quoted7 that some day it may be wrong to eat milk and eggs4 ,i do not discuss here the question of what is justice to animals4 ,i only say that whatever is justice ought1 under given conditions1 to be prompt justice4 ,if an animal is wronged1 we ought to be able to rush to his rescue4 ,but how can we rush if we are1 perhaps1 in advance of our time8 ,how can we rush to catch a train which may not arrive for a few centuries8 ,how can ,i denounce a man for skinning cats1 if he is only now what ,i may possibly become in drinking a glass of milk8 ,a splendid and insane ,russian sect ran about taking all the cattle out of all the carts4 ,how can ,i pluck up courage to take the horse out of my hansom-cab1 when ,i do not know whether my evolutionary watch is only a little fast or the cabman's a little slow8 ,suppose ,i say to a sweater1 ,slavery suited one stage of evolution4 ,and suppose he answers1 ,and sweating suits this stage of evolution4 ,how can ,i answer if there is no eternal test8 ,if sweaters can be behind the current morality1 why should not philanthropists be in front of it8 ,what on earth is the current morality1 except in its literal sense--the morality that is always running away8 ,thus we may say that a permanent ideal is as necessary to the innovator as to the conservative2 it is necessary whether we wish the king's orders to be promptly executed or whether we only wish the king to be promptly executed4 ,the guillotine has many sins1 but to do it justice there is nothing evolutionary about it4 ,the favourite evolutionary argument finds its best answer in the axe4 ,the ,evolutionist says1 ,where do you draw the line8 the ,revolutionist answers1 ,i draw it here3 exactly between your head and body4 ,there must at any given moment be an abstract right and wrong if any blow is to be struck2 there must be something eternal if there is to be anything sudden4 ,therefore for all intelligible human purposes1 for altering things or for keeping things as they are1 for founding a system for ever1 as in ,china1 or for altering it every month as in the early ,french ,revolution1 it is equally necessary that the vision should be a fixed vision4 ,this is our first requirement4 ,when ,i had written this down1 ,i felt once again the presence of something else in the discussion3 as a man hears a church bell above the sound of the street4 ,something seemed to be saying1 ,my ideal at least is fixed2 for it was fixed before the foundations of the world4 ,my vision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered2 for it is called ,eden4 ,you may alter the place to which you are going2 but you cannot alter the place from which you have come4 ,to the orthodox there must always be a case for revolution2 for in the hearts of men ,god has been put under the feet of ,satan4 ,in the upper world hell once rebelled against heaven4 ,but in this world heaven is rebelling against hell4 ,for the orthodox there can always be a revolution2 for a revolution is a restoration4 ,at any instant you may strike a blow for the perfection which no man has seen since ,adam4 ,no unchanging custom1 no changing evolution can make the original good anything but good4 ,man may have had concubines as long as cows have had horns3 still they are not a part of him if they are sinful4 ,men may have been under oppression ever since fish were under water2 still they ought not to be1 if oppression is sinful4 ,the chain may seem as natural to the slave1 or the paint to the harlot1 as does the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox2 still they are not1 if they are sinful4 ,i lift my prehistoric legend to defy all your history4 ,your vision is not merely a fixture3 it is a fact4 ,i paused to note the new coincidence of ,christianity3 but ,i passed on4 ,i passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of progress4 ,some people 7as we have said7 seem to believe in an automatic and impersonal progress in the nature of things4 ,but it is clear that no political activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and inevitable2 that is not a reason for being active1 but rather a reason for being lazy4 ,if we are bound to improve1 we need not trouble to improve4 ,the pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive4 ,but it is to none of these obvious comments that ,i wish primarily to call attention4 ,the only arresting point is this3 that if we suppose improvement to be natural1 it must be fairly simple4 ,the world might conceivably be working towards one consummation1 but hardly towards any particular arrangement of many qualities4 ,to take our original simile3 ,nature by herself may be growing more blue2 that is1 a process so simple that it might be impersonal4 ,but ,nature cannot be making a careful picture made of many picked colours1 unless ,nature is personal4 ,if the end of the world were mere darkness or mere light it might come as slowly and inevitably as dusk or dawn4 ,but if the end of the world is to be a piece of elaborate and artistic chiaroscuro1 then there must be design in it1 either human or divine4 ,the world1 through mere time1 might grow black like an old picture1 or white like an old coat2 but if it is turned into a particular piece of black and white art--then there is an artist4 ,if the distinction be not evident1 ,i give an ordinary instance4 ,we constantly hear a particularly cosmic creed from the modern humanitarians2 ,i use the word humanitarian in the ordinary sense1 as meaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those of humanity4 ,they suggest that through the ages we have been growing more and more humane1 that is to say1 that one after another1 groups or sections of beings1 slaves1 children1 women1 cows1 or what not1 have been gradually admitted to mercy or to justice4 ,they say that we once thought it right to eat men 7we didn't72 but ,i am not here concerned with their history1 which is highly unhistorical4 ,as a fact1 anthropophagy is certainly a decadent thing1 not a primitive one4 ,it is much more likely that modern men will eat human flesh out of affectation than that primitive man ever ate it out of ignorance4 ,i am here only following the outlines of their argument1 which consists in maintaining that man has been progressively more lenient1 first to citizens1 then to slaves1 then to animals1 and then 7presumably7 to plants4 ,i think it wrong to sit on a man4 ,soon1 ,i shall think it wrong to sit on a horse4 ,eventually 7,i suppose7 ,i shall think it wrong to sit on a chair4 ,that is the drive of the argument4 ,and for this argument it can be said that it is possible to talk of it in terms of evolution or inevitable progress4 ,a perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might1 one feels1 be a mere brute unconscious tendency1 like that of a species to produce fewer and fewer children4 ,this drift may be really evolutionary1 because it is stupid4 ,darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities1 but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one4 ,the kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental2 but not for a healthy love of animals4 ,on the evolutionary basis you may be inhumane1 or you may be absurdly humane2 but you cannot be human4 ,that you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender to a tiger4 ,or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger4 ,it is one way to train the tiger to imitate you1 it is a shorter way to imitate the tiger4 ,but in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat a tiger reasonably1 that is1 to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws4 ,if you want to treat a tiger reasonably1 you must go back to the garden of ,eden4 ,for the obstinate reminder continued to recur3 only the supernatural has taken a sane view of ,nature4 ,the essence of all pantheism1 evolutionism1 and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition3 that ,nature is our mother4 ,unfortunately1 if you regard ,nature as a mother1 you discover that she is a step-mother4 ,the main point of ,christianity was this3 that ,nature is not our mother3 ,nature is our sister4 ,we can be proud of her beauty1 since we have the same father2 but she has no authority over us2 we have to admire1 but not to imitate4 ,this gives to the typically ,christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity4 ,nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of ,isis and ,cybele4 ,nature was a solemn mother to ,wordsworth or to ,emerson4 ,but ,nature is not solemn to ,francis of ,assisi or to ,george ,herbert4 ,to ,st4 ,francis1 ,nature is a sister1 and even a younger sister3 a little1 dancing sister1 to be laughed at as well as loved4 ,this1 however1 is hardly our main point at present2 ,i have admitted it only in order to show how constantly1 and as it were accidentally1 the key would fit the smallest doors4 ,our main point is here1 that if there be a mere trend of impersonal improvement in ,nature1 it must presumably be a simple trend towards some simple triumph4 ,one can imagine that some automatic tendency in biology might work for giving us longer and longer noses4 ,but the question is1 do we want to have longer and longer noses8 ,i fancy not2 ,i believe that we most of us want to say to our noses1 ,thus far1 and no farther2 and here shall thy proud point be stayed3 we require a nose of such length as may ensure an interesting face4 ,but we cannot imagine a mere biological trend towards producing interesting faces2 because an interesting face is one particular arrangement of eyes1 nose1 and mouth1 in a most complex relation to each other4 ,proportion cannot be a drift3 it is either an accident or a design4 ,so with the ideal of human morality and its relation to the humanitarians and the anti-humanitarians4 ,it is conceivable that we are going more and more to keep our hands off things3 not to drive horses2 not to pick flowers4 ,we may eventually be bound not to disturb a man's mind even by argument2 not to disturb the sleep of birds even by coughing4 ,the ultimate apotheosis would appear to be that of a man sitting quite still1 not daring to stir for fear of disturbing a fly1 nor to eat for fear of incommoding a microbe4 ,to so crude a consummation as that we might perhaps unconsciously drift4 ,but do we want so crude a consummation8 ,similarly1 we might unconsciously evolve along the opposite or ,nietzscheian line of development--superman crushing superman in one tower of tyrants until the universe is smashed up for fun4 ,but do we want the universe smashed up for fun8 ,is it not quite clear that what we really hope for is one particular management and proposition of these two things2 a certain amount of restraint and respect1 a certain amount of energy and mastery4 ,if our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy-tale1 we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this3 that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear4 ,if he is afraid of the giant1 there is an end of him2 but also if he is not astonished at the giant1 there is an end of the fairy-tale4 ,the whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder1 and haughty enough to defy4 ,so our attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasing contempt3 it must be one particular proportion of the two--which is exactly right4 ,we must have in us enough reverence for all things outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass4 ,we must also have enough disdain for all things outside us1 to make us1 on due occasion1 spit at the stars4 ,yet these two things 7if we are to be good or happy7 must be combined1 not in any combination1 but in one particular combination4 ,the perfect happiness of men on the earth 7if it ever comes7 will not be a flat and solid thing1 like the satisfaction of animals4 ,it will be an exact and perilous balance2 like that of a desperate romance4 ,man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures1 and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them4 ,this1 then1 is our second requirement for the ideal of progress4 ,first1 it must be fixed2 second1 it must be composite4 ,it must not 7if it is to satisfy our souls7 be the mere victory of some one thing swallowing up everything else1 love or pride or peace or adventure2 it must be a definite picture composed of these elements in their best proportion and relation4 ,i am not concerned at this moment to deny that some such good culmination may be1 by the constitution of things1 reserved for the human race4 ,i only point out that if this composite happiness is fixed for us it must be fixed by some mind2 for only a mind can place the exact proportions of a composite happiness4 ,if the beatification of the world is a mere work of nature1 then it must be as simple as the freezing of the world1 or the burning up of the world4 ,but if the beatification of the world is not a work of nature but a work of art1 then it involves an artist4 ,and here again my contemplation was cloven by the ancient voice which said1 ,i could have told you all this a long time ago4 ,if there is any certain progress it can only be my kind of progress1 the progress towards a complete city of virtues and dominations where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other4 ,an impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of perfect flatness or a peak of perfect height4 ,but only a personal ,god can possibly be leading you 7if1 indeed1 you are being led7 to a city with just streets and architectural proportions1 a city in which each of you can contribute exactly the right amount of your own colour to the many-coloured coat of ,joseph4 ,twice again1 therefore1 ,christianity had come in with the exact answer that ,i required4 ,i had said1 ,the ideal must be fixed1 and the ,church had answered1 ,mine is literally fixed1 for it existed before anything else4 ,i said secondly1 ,it must be artistically combined1 like a picture2 and the ,church answered1 ,mine is quite literally a picture1 for ,i know who painted it4 ,then ,i went on to the third thing1 which1 as it seemed to me1 was needed for an ,utopia or goal of progress4 ,and of all the three it is infinitely the hardest to express4 ,perhaps it might be put thus3 that we need watchfulness even in ,utopia1 lest we fall from ,utopia as we fell from ,eden4 ,we have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better4 ,but the only real reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse4 ,the corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive2 it is also the only argument against being conservative4 ,the conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact4 ,but all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are4 ,but you do not4 ,if you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change4 ,if you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post4 ,if you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again2 that is1 you must be always having a revolution4 ,briefly1 if you want the old white post you must have a new white post4 ,but this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things4 ,an almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old4 ,it is the custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies4 ,but1 as a fact1 men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies2 under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before4 ,thus ,england went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy of ,elizabeth2 and then 7almost immediately afterwards7 went mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of ,charles the ,first4 ,so1 again1 in ,france the monarchy became intolerable1 not just after it had been tolerated1 but just after it had been adored4 ,the son of ,louis the well-beloved was ,louis the guillotined4 ,so in the same way in ,england in the nineteenth century the ,radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the people1 until suddenly we heard the cry of the ,socialist that he was a tyrant eating the people like bread4 ,so again1 we have almost up to the last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion4 ,just recently some of us have seen 7not slowly1 but with a start7 that they are obviously nothing of the kind4 ,they are1 by the nature of the case1 the hobbies of a few rich men4 ,we have not any need to rebel against antiquity2 we have to rebel against novelty4 ,it is the new rulers1 the capitalist or the editor1 who really hold up the modern world4 ,there is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution2 it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its back2 he will take no advantage of his kingly power2 it is more likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness1 of the fact that he is free from criticism and publicity4 ,for the king is the most private person of our time4 ,it will not be necessary for any one to fight again against the proposal of a censorship of the press4 ,we do not need a censorship of the press4 ,we have a censorship by the press4 ,this startling swiftness with which popular systems turn oppressive is the third fact for which we shall ask our perfect theory of progress to allow4 ,it must always be on the look out for every privilege being abused1 for every working right becoming a wrong4 ,in this matter ,i am entirely on the side of the revolutionists4 ,they are really right to be always suspecting human institutions2 they are right not to put their trust in princes nor in any child of man4 ,the chieftain chosen to be the friend of the people becomes the enemy of the people2 the newspaper started to tell the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told4 ,here1 ,i say1 ,i felt that ,i was really at last on the side of the revolutionary4 ,and then ,i caught my breath again3 for ,i remembered that ,i was once again on the side of the orthodox4 ,christianity spoke again and said1 ,i have always maintained that men were naturally backsliders2 that human virtue tended of its own nature to rust or to rot2 ,i have always said that human beings as such go wrong1 especially happy human beings1 especially proud and prosperous human beings4 ,this eternal revolution1 this suspicion sustained through centuries1 you 7being a vague modern7 call the doctrine of progress4 ,if you were a philosopher you would call it1 as ,i do1 the doctrine of original sin4 ,you may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like2 ,i call it what it is--the ,fall4 ,i have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword2 here ,i confess it came in like a battle-axe4 ,for really 7when ,i came to think of it7 ,christianity is the only thing left that has any real right to question the power of the well-nurtured or the well-bred4 ,i have listened often enough to ,socialists1 or even to democrats1 saying that the physical conditions of the poor must of necessity make them mentally and morally degraded4 ,i have listened to scientific men 7and there are still scientific men not opposed to democracy7 saying that if we give the poor healthier conditions vice and wrong will disappear4 ,i have listened to them with a horrible attention1 with a hideous fascination4 ,for it was like watching a man energetically sawing from the tree the branch he is sitting on4 ,if these happy democrats could prove their case1 they would strike democracy dead4 ,if the poor are thus utterly demoralized1 it may or may not be practical to raise them4 ,but it is certainly quite practical to disfranchise them4 ,if the man with a bad bedroom cannot give a good vote1 then the first and swiftest deduction is that he shall give no vote4 ,the governing class may not unreasonably say1 ,it may take us some time to reform his bedroom4 ,but if he is the brute you say1 it will take him very little time to ruin our country4 ,therefore we will take your hint and not give him the chance4 ,it fills me with horrible amusement to observe the way in which the earnest ,socialist industriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy1 expatiating blandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule4 ,it is like listening to somebody at an evening party apologising for entering without evening dress1 and explaining that he had recently been intoxicated1 had a personal habit of taking off his clothes in the street1 and had1 moreover1 only just changed from prison uniform4 ,at any moment1 one feels1 the host might say that really1 if it was as bad as that1 he need not come in at all4 ,so it is when the ordinary ,socialist1 with a beaming face1 proves that the poor1 after their smashing experiences1 cannot be really trustworthy4 ,at any moment the rich may say1 ,very well1 then1 we won't trust them1 and bang the door in his face4 ,on the basis of ,mr4 ,blatchford's view of heredity and environment1 the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming4 ,if clean homes and clean air make clean souls1 why not give the power 7for the present at any rate7 to those who undoubtedly have the clean air8 ,if better conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves1 why should not better conditions already make the rich more fit to govern them8 ,on the ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest4 ,the comfortable class must be merely our vanguard in ,utopia4 ,is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides8 ,is there any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide for those who have breathed foul8 ,as far as ,i know1 there is only one answer1 and that answer is ,christianity4 ,only the ,christian ,church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich4 ,for she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment1 but in man4 ,further1 she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment1 the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment4 ,i know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle4 ,i know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel4 ,but if we diminish the camel to his smallest1 or open the eye of the needle to its largest--if1 in short1 we assume the words of ,christ to have meant the very least that they could mean1 ,his words must at the very least mean this--that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy4 ,christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags4 ,the mere minimum of the ,church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world4 ,for the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption1 not that the rich are necessary 7which is tenable71 but that the rich are trustworthy1 which 7for a ,christian7 is not tenable4 ,you will hear everlastingly1 in all discussions about newspapers1 companies1 aristocracies1 or party politics1 this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed4 ,the fact is1 of course1 that the rich man is bribed2 he has been bribed already4 ,that is why he is a rich man4 ,the whole case for ,christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man1 spiritually corrupt1 politically corrupt1 financially corrupt4 ,there is one thing that ,christ and all the ,christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony4 ,they have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck4 ,it is not demonstrably un-,christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice4 ,it is not demonstrably un-,christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society4 ,it is not certainly un-,christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich4 ,but it is quite certainly un-,christian to trust the rich1 to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor4 ,a ,christian may consistently say1 ,i respect that man's rank1 although he takes bribes4 ,but a ,christian cannot say1 as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast1 a man of that rank would not take bribes4 ,for it is a part of ,christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes4 ,it is a part of ,christian dogma2 it also happens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history4 ,when people say that a man in that position would be incorruptible1 there is no need to bring ,christianity into the discussion4 ,was ,lord ,bacon a bootblack8 ,was the ,duke of ,marlborough a crossing sweeper8 ,in the best ,utopia1 ,i must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment2 especially for my fall from my position at this moment4 ,much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the effect that ,christianity is akin to democracy1 and most of it is scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have often quarrelled4 ,the real ground upon which ,christianity and democracy are one is very much deeper4 ,the one specially and peculiarly un-,christian idea is the idea of ,carlyle--the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule4 ,whatever else is ,christian1 this is heathen4 ,if our faith comments on government at all1 its comment must be this--that the man should rule who does not think that he can rule4 ,carlyle's hero may say1 ,i will be king2 but the ,christian saint must say1 ,nolo episcopari4 ,if the great paradox of ,christianity means anything1 it means this--that we must take the crown in our hands1 and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it4 ,carlyle was quite wrong2 we have not got to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule4 ,rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't4 ,now1 this is one of the two or three vital defences of working democracy4 ,the mere machinery of voting is not democracy1 though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method4 ,but even the machinery of voting is profoundly ,christian in this practical sense--that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too modest to offer it4 ,it is a mystical adventure2 it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves4 ,that enigma is strictly peculiar to ,christendom4 ,there is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the ,buddhist2 the mild ,hindoo is mild1 but he is not meek4 ,but there is something psychologically ,christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent4 ,to say that voting is particularly ,christian may seem somewhat curious4 ,to say that canvassing is ,christian may seem quite crazy4 ,but canvassing is very ,christian in its primary idea4 ,it is encouraging the humble2 it is saying to the modest man1 ,friend1 go up higher4 ,or if there is some slight defect in canvassing1 that is in its perfect and rounded piety1 it is only because it may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the canvasser4 ,aristocracy is not an institution3 aristocracy is a sin2 generally a very venial one4 ,it is merely the drift or slide of men into a sort of natural pomposity and praise of the powerful1 which is the most easy and obvious affair in the world4 ,it is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive perversion of modern force that the promptest and boldest agencies are also the most fragile or full of sensibility4 ,the swiftest things are the softest things4 ,a bird is active1 because a bird is soft4 ,a stone is helpless1 because a stone is hard4 ,the stone must by its own nature go downwards1 because hardness is weakness4 ,the bird can of its nature go upwards1 because fragility is force4 ,in perfect force there is a kind of frivolity1 an airiness that can maintain itself in the air4 ,modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levitation4 ,they might go further2 a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity4 ,angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly4 ,this has been always the instinct of ,christendom1 and especially the instinct of ,christian art4 ,remember how ,fra ,angelico represented all his angels1 not only as birds1 but almost as butterflies4 ,remember how the most earnest medival art was full of light and fluttering draperies1 of quick and capering feet4 ,it was the one thing that the modern ,pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real ,pre-raphaelites4 ,burne-,jones could never recover the deep levity of the ,middle ,ages4 ,in the old ,christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute4 ,every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens4 ,the tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels4 ,but the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards1 for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation4 ,pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity4 ,one settles down into a sort of selfish seriousness2 but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness4 ,a man falls into a brown study2 he reaches up at a blue sky4 ,seriousness is not a virtue4 ,it would be a heresy1 but a much more sensible heresy1 to say that seriousness is a vice4 ,it is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely1 because it is the easiest thing to do4 ,it is much easier to write a good ,times leading article than a good joke in ,punch4 ,for solemnity flows out of men naturally2 but laughter is a leap4 ,it is easy to be heavy3 hard to be light4 ,satan fell by the force of gravity4 ,now1 it is the peculiar honour of ,europe since it has been ,christian that while it has had aristocracy it has always at the back of its heart treated aristocracy as a weakness--generally as a weakness that must be allowed for4 ,if any one wishes to appreciate this point1 let him go outside ,christianity into some other philosophical atmosphere4 ,let him1 for instance1 compare the classes of ,europe with the castes of ,india4 ,there aristocracy is far more awful1 because it is far more intellectual4 ,it is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale of spiritual values2 that the baker is better than the butcher in an invisible and sacred sense4 ,but no ,christianity1 not even the most ignorant or perverse1 ever suggested that a baronet was better than a butcher in that sacred sense4 ,no ,christianity1 however ignorant or extravagant1 ever suggested that a duke would not be damned4 ,in pagan society there may have been 7,i do not know7 some such serious division between the free man and the slave4 ,but in ,christian society we have always thought the gentleman a sort of joke1 though ,i admit that in some great crusades and councils he earned the right to be called a practical joke4 ,but we in ,europe never really and at the root of our souls took aristocracy seriously4 ,it is only an occasional non-,european alien 7such as ,dr4 ,oscar ,levy1 the only intelligent ,nietzscheite7 who can even manage for a moment to take aristocracy seriously4 ,it may be a mere patriotic bias1 though ,i do not think so1 but it seems to me that the ,english aristocracy is not only the type1 but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies2 it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects4 ,it is casual1 it is kind1 it is courageous in obvious matters2 but it has one great merit that overlaps even these4 ,the great and very obvious merit of the ,english aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously4 ,in short1 ,i had spelled out slowly1 as usual1 the need for an equal law in ,utopia2 and1 as usual1 ,i found that ,christianity had been there before me4 ,the whole history of my ,utopia has the same amusing sadness4 ,i was always rushing out of my architectural study with plans for a new turret only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight1 shining1 and a thousand years old4 ,for me1 in the ancient and partly in the modern sense1 ,god answered the prayer1 ,prevent us1 ,o ,lord1 in all our doings4 ,without vanity1 ,i really think there was a moment when ,i could have invented the marriage vow 7as an institution7 out of my own head2 but ,i discovered1 with a sigh1 that it had been invented already4 ,but1 since it would be too long a business to show how1 fact by fact and inch by inch1 my own conception of ,utopia was only answered in the ,new ,jerusalem1 ,i will take this one case of the matter of marriage as indicating the converging drift1 ,i may say the converging crash of all the rest4 ,when the ordinary opponents of ,socialism talk about impossibilities and alterations in human nature they always miss an important distinction4 ,in modern ideal conceptions of society there are some desires that are possibly not attainable3 but there are some desires that are not desirable4 ,that all men should live in equally beautiful houses is a dream that may or may not be attained4 ,but that all men should live in the same beautiful house is not a dream at all2 it is a nightmare4 ,that a man should love all old women is an ideal that may not be attainable4 ,but that a man should regard all old women exactly as he regards his mother is not only an unattainable ideal1 but an ideal which ought not to be attained4 ,i do not know if the reader agrees with me in these examples2 but ,i will add the example which has always affected me most4 ,i could never conceive or tolerate any ,utopia which did not leave to me the liberty for which ,i chiefly care1 the liberty to bind myself4 ,complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have any discipline or fidelity2 it would also make it impossible to have any fun4 ,to take an obvious instance1 it would not be worth while to bet if a bet were not binding4 ,the dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality but spoil sport4 ,now betting and such sports are only the stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure and romance1 of which much has been said in these pages4 ,and the perils1 rewards1 punishments1 and fulfilments of an adventure must be real1 or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare4 ,if ,i bet ,i must be made to pay1 or there is no poetry in betting4 ,if ,i challenge ,i must be made to fight1 or there is no poetry in challenging4 ,if ,i vow to be faithful ,i must be cursed when ,i am unfaithful1 or there is no fun in vowing4 ,you could not even make a fairy tale from the experiences of a man who1 when he was swallowed by a whale1 might find himself at the top of the ,eiffel ,tower1 or when he was turned into a frog might begin to behave like a flamingo4 ,for the purpose even of the wildest romance1 results must be real2 results must be irrevocable4 ,christian marriage is the great example of a real and irrevocable result2 and that is why it is the chief subject and centre of all our romantic writing4 ,and this is my last instance of the things that ,i should ask1 and ask imperatively1 of any social paradise2 ,i should ask to be kept to my bargain1 to have my oaths and engagements taken seriously2 ,i should ask ,utopia to avenge my honour on myself4 ,all my modern ,utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully1 for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties4 ,but again ,i seem to hear1 like a kind of echo1 an answer from beyond the world4 ,you will have real obligations1 and therefore real adventures when you get to my ,utopia4 ,but the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is to get there4 ,,chapter ,,viii4--,the ,romance of ,orthodoxy ,it is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch4 ,but in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue2 and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle4 ,take one quite external case2 the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motor-cars2 but this is not due to human activity but to human repose4 ,there would be less bustle if there were more activity1 if people were simply walking about4 ,our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous4 ,and this which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect4 ,most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery2 and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought4 ,scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable4 ,long words go rattling by us like long railway trains4 ,we know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves4 ,it is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable4 ,if you say ,the social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognised by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment1 you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the grey matter inside your skull4 ,but if you begin ,i wish ,jones to go to gaol and ,brown to say when ,jones shall come out1 you will discover1 with a thrill of horror1 that you are obliged to think4 ,the long words are not the hard words1 it is the short words that are hard4 ,there is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word damn than in the word degeneration4 ,but these long comfortable words that save modern people the toil of reasoning have one particular aspect in which they are especially ruinous and confusing4 ,this difficulty occurs when the same long word is used in different connections to mean quite different things4 ,thus1 to take a well-known instance1 the word idealist has one meaning as a piece of philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric4 ,in the same way the scientific materialists have had just reason to complain of people mixing up materialist as a term of cosmology with materialist as a moral taunt4 ,so1 to take a cheaper instance1 the man who hates progressives in ,london always calls himself a progressive in ,south ,africa4 ,a confusion quite as unmeaning as this has arisen in connection with the word liberal as applied to religion and as applied to politics and society4 ,it is often suggested that all ,liberals ought to be freethinkers1 because they ought to love everything that is free4 ,you might just as well say that all idealists ought to be ,high ,churchmen1 because they ought to love everything that is high4 ,you might as well say that ,low ,churchmen ought to like ,low ,mass1 or that ,broad ,churchmen ought to like broad jokes4 ,the thing is a mere accident of words4 ,in actual modern ,europe a free-thinker does not mean a man who thinks for himself4 ,it means a man who1 having thought for himself1 has come to one particular class of conclusions1 the material origin of phenomena1 the impossibility of miracles1 the improbability of personal immortality and so on4 ,and none of these ideas are particularly liberal4 ,nay1 indeed almost all these ideas are definitely illiberal1 as it is the purpose of this chapter to show4 ,in the few following pages ,i propose to point out as rapidly as possible that on every single one of the matters most strongly insisted on by liberalisers of theology their effect upon social practice would be definitely illiberal4 ,almost every contemporary proposal to bring freedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the world4 ,for freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in all directions4 ,it means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas loosely called scientific1 dogmas of monism1 of pantheism1 or of ,arianism1 or of necessity4 ,and every one of these 7and we will take them one by one7 can be shown to be the natural ally of oppression4 ,in fact1 it is a remarkable circumstance 7indeed not so very remarkable when one comes to think of it7 that most things are the allies of oppression4 ,there is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression--and that is orthodoxy4 ,i may1 it is true1 twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant4 ,but ,i can easily make up a ,german philosophy to justify him entirely4 ,now let us take in order the innovations that are the notes of the new theology or the modernist church4 ,we concluded the last chapter with the discovery of one of them4 ,the very doctrine which is called the most old-fashioned was found to be the only safeguard of the new democracies of the earth4 ,the doctrine seemingly most unpopular was found to be the only strength of the people4 ,in short1 we found that the only logical negation of oligarchy was in the affirmation of original sin4 ,so it is1 ,i maintain1 in all the other cases4 ,i take the most obvious instance first1 the case of miracles4 ,for some extraordinary reason1 there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them4 ,why1 ,i cannot imagine1 nor can anybody tell me4 ,for some inconceivable cause a broad or liberal clergyman always means a man who wishes at least to diminish the number of miracles2 it never means a man who wishes to increase that number4 ,it always means a man who is free to disbelieve that ,christ came out of ,his grave2 it never means a man who is free to believe that his own aunt came out of her grave4 ,it is common to find trouble in a parish because the parish priest cannot admit that ,st4 ,peter walked on water2 yet how rarely do we find trouble in a parish because the clergyman says that his father walked on the ,serpentine8 ,and this is not because 7as the swift secularist debater would immediately retort7 miracles cannot be believed in our experience4 ,it is not because miracles do not happen1 as in the dogma which ,matthew ,arnold recited with simple faith4 ,more supernatural things are alleged to have happened in our time than would have been possible eighty years ago4 ,men of science believe in such marvels much more than they did3 the most perplexing1 and even horrible1 prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled in modern psychology4 ,things that the old science at least would frankly have rejected as miracles are hourly being asserted by the new science4 ,the only thing which is still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles is the ,new ,theology4 ,but in truth this notion that it is free to deny miracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against them4 ,it is a lifeless verbal prejudice of which the original life and beginning was not in the freedom of thought1 but simply in the dogma of materialism4 ,the man of the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the ,resurrection because his liberal ,christianity allowed him to doubt it4 ,he disbelieved in it because his very strict materialism did not allow him to believe it4 ,tennyson1 a very typical nineteenth-century man1 uttered one of the instinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that there was faith in their honest doubt4 ,there was indeed4 ,those words have a profound and even a horrible truth4 ,in their doubt of miracles there was a faith in a fixed and godless fate2 a deep and sincere faith in the incurable routine of the cosmos4 ,the doubts of the agnostic were only the dogmas of the monist4 ,of the fact and evidence of the supernatural ,i will speak afterwards4 ,here we are only concerned with this clear point2 that in so far as the liberal idea of freedom can be said to be on either side in the discussion about miracles1 it is obviously on the side of miracles4 ,reform or 7in the only tolerable sense7 progress means simply the gradual control of matter by mind4 ,a miracle simply means the swift control of matter by mind4 ,if you wish to feed the people1 you may think that feeding them miraculously in the wilderness is impossible--but you cannot think it illiberal4 ,if you really want poor children to go to the seaside1 you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there on flying dragons2 you can only think it unlikely4 ,a holiday1 like ,liberalism1 only means the liberty of man4 ,a miracle only means the liberty of ,god4 ,you may conscientiously deny either of them1 but you cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea4 ,the ,catholic ,church believed that man and ,god both had a sort of spiritual freedom4 ,calvinism took away the freedom from man1 but left it to ,god4 ,scientific materialism binds the ,creator ,himself2 it chains up ,god as the ,apocalypse chained the devil4 ,it leaves nothing free in the universe4 ,and those who assist this process are called the liberal theologians4 ,this1 as ,i say1 is the lightest and most evident case4 ,the assumption that there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality or reform is literally the opposite of the truth4 ,if a man cannot believe in miracles there is an end of the matter2 he is not particularly liberal1 but he is perfectly honourable and logical1 which are much better things4 ,but if he can believe in miracles1 he is certainly the more liberal for doing so2 because they mean first1 the freedom of the soul1 and secondly1 its control over the tyranny of circumstance4 ,sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naive way1 even by the ablest men4 ,for instance1 ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw speaks with a hearty old-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles1 as if they were a sort of breach of faith on the part of nature3 he seems strangely unconscious that miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree1 the doctrine of the omnipotence of will4 ,just in the same way he calls the desire for immortality a paltry selfishness1 forgetting that he has just called the desire for life a healthy and heroic selfishness4 ,how can it be noble to wish to make one's life infinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal8 ,no1 if it is desirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of nature or custom1 then miracles are certainly desirable2 we will discuss afterwards whether they are possible4 ,but ,i must pass on to the larger cases of this curious error2 the notion that the liberalising of religion in some way helps the liberation of the world4 ,the second example of it can be found in the question of pantheism--or rather of a certain modern attitude which is often called immanentism1 and which often is ,buddhism4 ,but this is so much more difficult a matter that ,i must approach it with rather more preparation4 ,the things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are generally those quite opposite to the fact2 it is actually our truisms that are untrue4 ,here is a case4 ,there is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion3 the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms1 but they are the same in what they teach4 ,it is false2 it is the opposite of the fact4 ,the religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms2 they do greatly differ in what they teach4 ,it is as if a man were to say1 ,do not be misled by the fact that the ,church ,times and the ,freethinker look utterly different1 that one is painted on vellum and the other carved on marble1 that one is triangular and the other hectagonal2 read them and you will see that they say the same thing4 ,the truth is1 of course1 that they are alike in everything except in the fact that they don't say the same thing4 ,an atheist stockbroker in ,surbiton looks exactly like a ,swedenborgian stockbroker in ,wimbledon4 ,you may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal and offensive study without seeing anything ,swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly godless in the umbrella4 ,it is exactly in their souls that they are divided4 ,so the truth is that the difficulty of all the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim3 that they agree in meaning1 but differ in machinery4 ,it is exactly the opposite4 ,they agree in machinery2 almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods1 with priests1 scriptures1 altars1 sworn brotherhoods1 special feasts4 ,they agree in the mode of teaching2 what they differ about is the thing to be taught4 ,pagan optimists and ,eastern pessimists would both have temples1 just as ,liberals and ,tories would both have newspapers4 ,creeds that exist to destroy each other both have scriptures1 just as armies that exist to destroy each other both have guns4 ,the great example of this alleged identity of all human religions is the alleged spiritual identity of ,buddhism and ,christianity4 ,those who adopt this theory generally avoid the ethics of most other creeds1 except1 indeed1 ,confucianism1 which they like because it is not a creed4 ,but they are cautious in their praises of ,mahommedanism1 generally confining themselves to imposing its morality only upon the refreshment of the lower classes4 ,they seldom suggest the ,mahommedan view of marriage 7for which there is a great deal to be said71 and towards ,thugs and fetish worshippers their attitude may even be called cold4 ,but in the case of the great religion of ,gautama they feel sincerely a similarity4 ,students of popular science1 like ,mr4 ,blatchford1 are always insisting that ,christianity and ,buddhism are very much alike1 especially ,buddhism4 ,this is generally believed1 and ,i believed it myself until ,i read a book giving the reasons for it4 ,the reasons were of two kinds3 resemblances that meant nothing because they were common to all humanity1 and resemblances which were not resemblances at all4 ,the author solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things in which all creeds are alike1 or else he described them as alike in some point in which they are quite obviously different4 ,thus1 as a case of the first class1 he said that both ,christ and ,buddha were called by the divine voice coming out of the sky1 as if you would expect the divine voice to come out of the coal-cellar4 ,or1 again1 it was gravely urged that these two ,eastern teachers1 by a singular coincidence1 both had to do with the washing of feet4 ,you might as well say that it was a remarkable coincidence that they both had feet to wash4 ,and the other class of similarities were those which simply were not similar4 ,thus this reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the fact that at certain religious feasts the robe of the ,lama is rent in pieces out of respect1 and the remnants highly valued4 ,but this is the reverse of a resemblance1 for the garments of ,christ were not rent in pieces out of respect1 but out of derision2 and the remnants were not highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops4 ,it is rather like alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword3 when it taps a man's shoulder1 and when it cuts off his head4 ,it is not at all similar for the man4 ,these scraps of puerile pedantry would indeed matter little if it were not also true that the alleged philosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds1 either proving too much or not proving anything4 ,that ,buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to say that it is specially like ,christianity2 it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence4 ,buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess4 ,but to say that ,buddhism and ,christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false4 ,all humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin4 ,most of humanity agrees that there is some way out4 ,but as to what is the way out1 ,i do not think that there are two institutions in the universe which contradict each other so flatly as ,buddhism and ,christianity4 ,even when ,i thought1 with most other well-informed1 though unscholarly1 people1 that ,buddhism and ,christianity were alike1 there was one thing about them that always perplexed me2 ,i mean the startling difference in their type of religious art4 ,i do not mean in its technical style of representation1 but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent4 ,no two ideals could be more opposite than a ,christian saint in a ,gothic cathedral and a ,buddhist saint in a ,chinese temple4 ,the opposition exists at every point2 but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the ,buddhist saint always has his eyes shut1 while the ,christian saint always has them very wide open4 ,the ,buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body1 but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep4 ,the medival saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones1 but his eyes are frightfully alive4 ,there cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that4 ,granted that both images are extravagances1 are perversions of the pure creed1 it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances4 ,the ,buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards4 ,the ,christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards4 ,if we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things4 ,a short time ago ,mrs4 ,besant1 in an interesting essay1 announced that there was only one religion in the world1 that all faiths were only versions or perversions of it1 and that she was quite prepared to say what it was4 ,according to ,mrs4 ,besant this universal ,church is simply the universal self4 ,it is the doctrine that we are really all one person2 that there are no real walls of individuality between man and man4 ,if ,i may put it so1 she does not tell us to love our neighbours2 she tells us to be our neighbours4 ,that is ,mrs4 ,besant's thoughtful and suggestive description of the religion in which all men must find themselves in agreement4 ,and ,i never heard of any suggestion in my life with which ,i more violently disagree4 ,i want to love my neighbour not because he is ,i1 but precisely because he is not ,i4 ,i want to adore the world1 not as one likes a looking-glass1 because it is one's self1 but as one loves a woman1 because she is entirely different4 ,if souls are separate love is possible4 ,if souls are united love is obviously impossible4 ,a man may be said loosely to love himself1 but he can hardly fall in love with himself1 or1 if he does1 it must be a monotonous courtship4 ,if the world is full of real selves1 they can be really unselfish selves4 ,but upon ,mrs4 ,besant's principle the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish person4 ,it is just here that ,buddhism is on the side of modern pantheism and immanence4 ,and it is just here that ,christianity is on the side of humanity and liberty and love4 ,love desires personality2 therefore love desires division4 ,it is the instinct of ,christianity to be glad that ,god has broken the universe into little pieces1 because they are living pieces4 ,it is her instinct to say little children love one another rather than to tell one large person to love himself4 ,this is the intellectual abyss between ,buddhism and ,christianity2 that for the ,buddhist or ,theosophist personality is the fall of man1 for the ,christian it is the purpose of ,god1 the whole point of his cosmic idea4 ,the world-soul of the ,theosophists asks man to love it only in order that man may throw himself into it4 ,but the divine centre of ,christianity actually threw man out of it in order that he might love it4 ,the oriental deity is like a giant who should have lost his leg or hand and be always seeking to find it2 but the ,christian power is like some giant who in a strange generosity should cut off his right hand1 so that it might of its own accord shake hands with him4 ,we come back to the same tireless note touching the nature of ,christianity2 all modern philosophies are chains which connect and fetter2 ,christianity is a sword which separates and sets free4 ,no other philosophy makes ,god actually rejoice in the separation of the universe into living souls4 ,but according to orthodox ,christianity this separation between ,god and man is sacred1 because this is eternal4 ,that a man may love ,god it is necessary that there should be not only a ,god to be loved1 but a man to love him4 ,all those vague theosophical minds for whom the universe is an immense melting-pot are exactly the minds which shrink instinctively from that earthquake saying of our ,gospels1 which declare that the ,son of ,god came not with peace but with a sundering sword4 ,the saying rings entirely true even considered as what it obviously is2 the statement that any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate4 ,it is as true of democratic fraternity as of divine love2 sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy2 but real love has always ended in bloodshed4 ,yet there is another and yet more awful truth behind the obvious meaning of this utterance of our ,lord4 ,according to ,himself the ,son was a sword separating brother and brother that they should for an on hate each other4 ,but the ,father also was a sword1 which in the black beginning separated brother and brother1 so that they should love each other at last4 ,this is the meaning of that almost insane happiness in the eyes of the medival saint in the picture4 ,this is the meaning of the sealed eyes of the superb ,buddhist image4 ,the ,christian saint is happy because he has verily been cut off from the world2 he is separate from things and is staring at them in astonishment4 ,but why should the ,buddhist saint be astonished at things8 since there is really only one thing1 and that being impersonal can hardly be astonished at itself4 ,there have been many pantheist poems suggesting wonder1 but no really successful ones4 ,the pantheist cannot wonder1 for he cannot praise ,god or praise anything as really distinct from himself4 ,our immediate business here however is with the effect of this ,christian admiration 7which strikes outwards1 towards a deity distinct from the worshipper7 upon the general need for ethical activity and social reform4 ,and surely its effect is sufficiently obvious4 ,there is no real possibility of getting out of pantheism any special impulse to moral action4 ,for pantheism implies in its nature that one thing is as good as another2 whereas action implies in its nature that one thing is greatly preferable to another4 ,swinburne in the high summer of his scepticism tried in vain to wrestle with this difficulty4 ,in ,songs before ,sunrise1 written under the inspiration of ,garibaldi and the revolt of ,italy1 he proclaimed the newer religion and the purer ,god which should wither up all the priests of the world4 ,what doest thou now ,looking ,godward to cry ,i am ,i1 thou art thou1 ,i am low1 thou art high1 ,i am thou that thou seekest to find him1 find thou but thyself1 thou art ,i4 ,of which the immediate and evident deduction is that tyrants are as much the sons of ,god as ,garibaldis2 and that ,king ,bomba of ,naples having1 with the utmost success1 found himself is identical with the ultimate good in all things4 ,the truth is that the western energy that dethrones tyrants has been directly due to the western theology that says ,i am ,i1 thou art thou4 ,the same spiritual separation which looked up and saw a good king in the universe looked up and saw a bad king in ,naples4 ,the worshippers of ,bomba's god dethroned ,bomba4 ,the worshippers of ,swinburne's god have covered ,asia for centuries and have never dethroned a tyrant4 ,the ,indian saint may reasonably shut his eyes because he is looking at that which is ,i and ,thou and ,we and ,they and ,it4 ,it is a rational occupation3 but it is not true in theory and not true in fact that it helps the ,indian to keep an eye on ,lord ,curzon4 ,that external vigilance which has always been the mark of ,christianity 7the command that we should watch and pray7 has expressed itself both in typical western orthodoxy and in typical western politics3 but both depend on the idea of a divinity transcendent1 different from ourselves1 a deity that disappears4 ,certainly the most sagacious creeds may suggest that we should pursue ,god into deeper and deeper rings of the labyrinth of our own ego4 ,but only we of ,christendom have said that we should hunt ,god like an eagle upon the mountains3 and we have killed all monsters in the chase4 ,here again1 therefore1 we find that in so far as we value democracy and the self-renewing energies of the west1 we are much more likely to find them in the old theology than the new4 ,if we want reform1 we must adhere to orthodoxy3 especially in this matter 7so much disputed in the counsels of ,mr4 ,r4,j4 ,campbell71 the matter of insisting on the immanent or the transcendent deity4 ,by insisting specially on the immanence of ,god we get introspection1 self-isolation1 quietism1 social indifference--,tibet4 ,by insisting specially on the transcendence of ,god we get wonder1 curiosity1 moral and political adventure1 righteous indignation--,christendom4 ,insisting that ,god is inside man1 man is always inside himself4 ,by insisting that ,god transcends man1 man has transcended himself4 ,if we take any other doctrine that has been called old-fashioned we shall find the case the same4 ,it is the same1 for instance1 in the deep matter of the ,trinity4 ,unitarians 7a sect never to be mentioned without a special respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and high intellectual honour7 are often reformers by the accident that throws so many small sects into such an attitude4 ,but there is nothing in the least liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism for the ,trinity4 ,the complex ,god of the ,athanasian ,creed may be an enigma for the intellect2 but ,he is far less likely to gather the mystery and cruelty of a ,sultan than the lonely god of ,omar or ,mahomet4 ,the god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an ,eastern king4 ,the heart of humanity1 especially of ,european humanity1 is certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the ,trinitarian idea1 the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice1 the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world4 ,for ,western religion has always felt keenly the idea it is not well for man to be alone4 ,the social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the ,eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the ,western idea of monks4 ,so even asceticism became brotherly2 and the ,trappists were sociable even when they were silent4 ,if this love of a living complexity be our test1 it is certainly healthier to have the ,trinitarian religion than the ,unitarian4 ,for to us ,trinitarians 7if ,i may say it with reverence7--to us ,god ,himself is a society4 ,it is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology1 and even if ,i were theologian enough to deal with it directly1 it would not be relevant to do so here4 ,suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an ,english fireside2 that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart3 but out of the desert1 from the dry places and the dreadful suns1 come the cruel children of the lonely ,god2 the real ,unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world4 ,for it is not well for ,god to be alone4 ,again1 the same is true of that difficult matter of the danger of the soul1 which has unsettled so many just minds4 ,to hope for all souls is imperative2 and it is quite tenable that their salvation is inevitable4 ,it is tenable1 but it is not specially favourable to activity or progress4 ,our fighting and creative society ought rather to insist on the danger of everybody1 on the fact that every man is hanging by a thread or clinging to a precipice4 ,to say that all will be well anyhow is a comprehensible remark3 but it cannot be called the blast of a trumpet4 ,europe ought rather to emphasise possible perdition2 and ,europe always has emphasised it4 ,here its highest religion is at one with all its cheapest romances4 ,to the ,buddhist or the eastern fatalist existence is a science or a plan1 which must end up in a certain way4 ,but to a ,christian existence is a story1 which may end up in any way4 ,in a thrilling novel 7that purely ,christian product7 the hero is not eaten by cannibals2 but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he might be eaten by cannibals4 ,the hero must 7so to speak7 be an eatable hero4 ,so ,christian morals have always said to the man1 not that he would lose his soul1 but that he must take care that he didn't4 ,in ,christian morals1 in short1 it is wicked to call a man damned3 but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable4 ,all ,christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads4 ,the vast and shallow philosophies1 the huge syntheses of humbug1 all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate developments4 ,the true philosophy is concerned with the instant4 ,will a man take this road or that8 that is the only thing to think about1 if you enjoy thinking4 ,the ons are easy enough to think about1 any one can think about them4 ,the instant is really awful3 and it is because our religion has intensely felt the instant1 that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in theology dealt much with hell4 ,it is full of danger like a boy's book3 it is at an immortal crisis4 ,there is a great deal of real similarity between popular fiction and the religion of the western people4 ,if you say that popular fiction is vulgar and tawdry1 you only say what the dreary and well-informed say also about the images in the ,catholic churches4 ,life 7according to the faith7 is very like a serial story in a magazine3 life ends with the promise 7or menace7 to be continued in our next4 ,also1 with a noble vulgarity1 life imitates the serial and leaves off at the exciting moment4 ,for death is distinctly an exciting moment4 ,but the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an element of will1 of what theology calls free-will4 ,you cannot finish a sum how you like4 ,but you can finish a story how you like4 ,when somebody discovered the ,differential ,calculus there was only one ,differential ,calculus he could discover4 ,but when ,shakespeare killed ,romeo he might have married him to ,juliet's old nurse if he had felt inclined4 ,and ,christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the theological free-will4 ,it is a large matter and too much to one side of the road to be discussed adequately here2 but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease1 about making a prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital1 of healing sin by slow scientific methods4 ,the fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice1 whereas disease is not4 ,if you say that you are going to cure a profligate as you cure an asthmatic1 my cheap and obvious answer is1 ,produce the people who want to be asthmatics as many people want to be ,profligates4 ,a man may lie still and be cured of a malady4 ,but he must not lie still if he wants to be cured of a sin2 on the contrary1 he must get up and jump about violently4 ,the whole point indeed is perfectly expressed in the very word which we use for a man in hospital2 patient is in the passive mood2 sinner is in the active4 ,if a man is to be saved from influenza1 he may be a patient4 ,but if he is to be saved from forging1 he must be not a patient but an impatient4 ,he must be personally impatient with forgery4 ,all moral reform must start in the active not the passive will4 ,here again we reach the same substantial conclusion4 ,in so far as we desire the definite reconstructions and the dangerous revolutions which have distinguished ,european civilisation1 we shall not discourage the thought of possible ruin2 we shall rather encourage it4 ,if we want1 like the ,eastern saints1 merely to contemplate how right things are1 of course we shall only say that they must go right4 ,but if we particularly want to make them go right1 we must insist that they may go wrong4 ,lastly1 this truth is yet again true in the case of the common modern attempts to diminish or to explain away the divinity of ,christ4 ,the thing may be true or not2 that ,i shall deal with before ,i end4 ,but if the divinity is true it is certainly terribly revolutionary4 ,that a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already2 but that ,god could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever4 ,christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made ,god incomplete4 ,christianity alone has felt that ,god1 to be wholly ,god1 must have been a rebel as well as a king4 ,alone of all creeds1 ,christianity has added courage to the virtues of the ,creator4 ,for the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point--and does not break4 ,in this indeed ,i approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss2 and ,i apologise in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverent touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach4 ,but in that terrific tale of the ,passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things 7in some unthinkable way7 went not only through agony1 but through doubt4 ,it is written1 ,thou shalt not tempt the ,lord thy ,god4 ,no2 but the ,lord thy ,god may tempt ,himself2 and it seems as if this was what happened in ,gethsemane4 ,in a garden ,satan tempted man3 and in a garden ,god tempted ,god4 ,he passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism4 ,when the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven1 it was not at the crucifixion1 but at the cry from the cross3 the cry which confessed that ,god was forsaken of ,god4 ,and now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world1 carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power4 ,they will not find another god who has himself been in revolt4 ,nay1 7the matter grows too difficult for human speech7 but let the atheists themselves choose a god4 ,they will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation2 only one religion in which ,god seemed for an instant to be an atheist4 ,these can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy1 of which the chief merit is that it is the natural fountain of revolution and reform2 and of which the chief defect is that it is obviously only an abstract assertion4 ,its main advantage is that it is the most adventurous and manly of all theologies4 ,its chief disadvantage is simply that it is a theology4 ,it can always be urged against it that it is in its nature arbitrary and in the air4 ,but it is not so high in the air but that great archers spend their whole lives in shooting arrows at it--yes1 and their last arrows2 there are men who will ruin themselves and ruin their civilisation if they may ruin also this old fantastic tale4 ,this is the last and most astounding fact about this faith2 that its enemies will use any weapon against it1 the swords that cut their own fingers1 and the firebrands that burn their own homes4 ,men who begin to fight the ,church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the ,church4 ,this is no exaggeration2 ,i could fill a book with the instances of it4 ,mr4 ,blatchford set out1 as an ordinary ,bible-smasher1 to prove that ,adam was guiltless of sin against ,god2 in manoeuvring so as to maintain this he admitted1 as a mere side issue1 that all the tyrants1 from ,nero to ,king ,leopold1 were guiltless of any sin against humanity4 ,i know a man who has such a passion for proving that he will have no personal existence after death that he falls back on the position that he has no personal existence now4 ,he invokes ,buddhism and says that all souls fade into each other2 in order to prove that he cannot go to heaven he proves that he cannot go to ,hartlepool4 ,i have known people who protested against religious education with arguments against any education1 saying that the child's mind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young4 ,i have known people who showed that there could be no divine judgment by showing that there can be no human judgment1 even for practical purposes4 ,they burned their own corn to set fire to the church2 they smashed their own tools to smash it2 any stick was good enough to beat it with1 though it were the last stick of their own dismembered furniture4 ,we do not admire1 we hardly excuse1 the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other4 ,but what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other8 ,he sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of ,god4 ,he offers his victims not to the altar1 but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne4 ,he is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live1 for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all4 ,and yet the thing hangs in the heavens unhurt4 ,its opponents only succeed in destroying all that they themselves justly hold dear4 ,they do not destroy orthodoxy2 they only destroy political courage and common sense4 ,they do not prove that ,adam was not responsible to ,god2 how could they prove it8 ,they only prove 7from their premises7 that the ,czar is not responsible to ,russia4 ,they do not prove that ,adam should not have been punished by ,god2 they only prove that the nearest sweater should not be punished by men4 ,with their oriental doubts about personality they do not make certain that we shall have no personal life hereafter2 they only make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or complete one here4 ,with their paralysing hints of all conclusions coming out wrong they do not tear the book of the ,recording ,angel2 they only make it a little harder to keep the books of ,marshall and ,snelgrove4 ,not only is the faith the mother of all worldly energies1 but its foes are the fathers of all worldly confusion4 ,the secularists have not wrecked divine things2 but the secularists have wrecked secular things1 if that is any comfort to them4 ,the ,titans did not scale heaven2 but they laid waste the world4 ,,chapter ,,ix4--,authority and the ,adventurer ,the last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy is not only 7as is often urged7 the only safe guardian of morality or order1 but is also the only logical guardian of liberty1 innovation and advance4 ,if we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility2 we can do it with the old doctrine of ,original ,sin4 ,if we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind2 we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter4 ,if we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practise1 we cannot help it much by insisting on the ,immanent ,god and the ,inner ,light3 for these are at best reasons for contentment2 we can help it much by insisting on the transcendant ,god and the flying and escaping gleam2 for that means divine discontent4 ,if we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively be ,trinitarian rather than ,unitarian4 ,if we desire ,european civilisation to be a raid and a rescue1 we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal4 ,and if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified1 we shall rather wish to think that a veritable ,god was crucified1 rather than a mere sage or hero4 ,above all1 if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas4 ,the rules of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member4 ,the drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one4 ,and now we come to the crucial question which truly concludes the whole matter4 ,a reasonable agnostic1 if he has happened to agree with me so far1 may justly turn round and say1 ,you have found a practical philosophy in the doctrine of the ,fall2 very well4 ,you have found a side of democracy now dangerously neglected wisely asserted in ,original ,sin2 all right4 ,you have found a truth in the doctrine of hell2 ,i congratulate you4 ,you are convinced that worshippers of a personal ,god look outwards and are progressive2 ,i congratulate them4 ,but even supposing that those doctrines do include those truths1 why cannot you take the truths and leave the doctrines8 ,granted that all modern society is trusting the rich too much because it does not allow for human weakness2 granted that orthodox ages have had a great advantage because 7believing in the ,fall7 they did allow for human weakness1 why cannot you simply allow for human weakness without believing in the ,fall8 ,if you have discovered that the idea of damnation represents a healthy idea of danger1 why can you not simply take the idea of danger and leave the idea of damnation8 ,if you see clearly the kernel of common-sense in the nut of ,christian orthodoxy1 why cannot you simply take the kernel and leave the nut8 ,why cannot you 7to use that cant phrase of the newspapers which ,i1 as a highly scholarly agnostic1 am a little ashamed of using7 why cannot you simply take what is good in ,christianity1 what you can define as valuable1 what you can comprehend1 and leave all the rest1 all the absolute dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible8 ,this is the real question2 this is the last question2 and it is a pleasure to try to answer it4 ,the first answer is simply to say that ,i am a rationalist4 ,i like to have some intellectual justification for my intuitions4 ,if ,i am treating man as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me to believe that he fell2 and ,i find1 for some odd psychological reason1 that ,i can deal better with a man's exercise of freewill if ,i believe that he has got it4 ,but ,i am in this matter yet more definitely a rationalist4 ,i do not propose to turn this book into one of ordinary ,christian apologetics2 ,i should be glad to meet at any other time the enemies of ,christianity in that more obvious arena4 ,here ,i am only giving an account of my own growth in spiritual certainty4 ,but ,i may pause to remark that the more ,i saw of the merely abstract arguments against the ,christian cosmology the less ,i thought of them4 ,i mean that having found the moral atmosphere of the ,incarnation to be common sense1 ,i then looked at the established intellectual arguments against the ,incarnation and found them to be common nonsense4 ,in case the argument should be thought to suffer from the absence of the ordinary apologetic ,i will here very briefly summarise my own arguments and conclusions on the purely objective or scientific truth of the matter4 ,if ,i am asked1 as a purely intellectual question1 why ,i believe in ,christianity1 ,i can only answer1 ,for the same reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in ,christianity4 ,i believe in it quite rationally upon the evidence4 ,but the evidence in my case1 as in that of the intelligent agnostic1 is not really in this or that alleged demonstration2 it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts4 ,the secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to ,christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy2 it is precisely such scrappy evidence that does convince the mind4 ,i mean that a man may well be less convinced of a philosophy from four books1 than from one book1 one battle1 one landscape1 and one old friend4 ,the very fact that the things are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact that they all point to one conclusion4 ,now1 the non-,christianity of the average educated man to-day is almost always1 to do him justice1 made up of these loose but living experiences4 ,i can only say that my evidences for ,christianity are of the same vivid but varied kind as his evidences against it4 ,for when ,i look at these various anti-,christian truths1 ,i simply discover that none of them are true4 ,i discover that the true tide and force of all the facts flows the other way4 ,let us take cases4 ,many a sensible modern man must have abandoned ,christianity under the pressure of three such converging convictions as these3 first1 that men1 with their shape1 structure1 and sexuality1 are1 after all1 very much like beasts1 a mere variety of the animal kingdom2 second1 that primeval religion arose in ignorance and fear2 third1 that priests have blighted societies with bitterness and gloom4 ,those three anti-,christian arguments are very different2 but they are all quite logical and legitimate2 and they all converge4 ,the only objection to them 7,i discover7 is that they are all untrue4 ,if you leave off looking at books about beasts and men1 if you begin to look at beasts and men then 7if you have any humour or imagination1 any sense of the frantic or the farcical7 you will observe that the startling thing is not how like man is to the brutes1 but how unlike he is4 ,it is the monstrous scale of his divergence that requires an explanation4 ,that man and brute are like is1 in a sense1 a truism2 but that being so like they should then be so insanely unlike1 that is the shock and the enigma4 ,that an ape has hands is far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that having hands he does next to nothing with them2 does not play knuckle-bones or the violin2 does not carve marble or carve mutton4 ,people talk of barbaric architecture and debased art4 ,but elephants do not build colossal temples of ivory even in a roccoco style2 camels do not paint even bad pictures1 though equipped with the material of many camel's-hair brushes4 ,certain modern dreamers say that ants and bees have a society superior to ours4 ,they have1 indeed1 a civilisation2 but that very truth only reminds us that it is an inferior civilisation4 ,who ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated ants8 ,who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens of old8 ,no2 the chasm between man and other creatures may have a natural explanation1 but it is a chasm4 ,we talk of wild animals2 but man is the only wild animal4 ,it is man that has broken out4 ,all other animals are tame animals2 following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type4 ,all other animals are domestic animals2 man alone is ever undomestic1 either as a profligate or a monk4 ,so that this first superficial reason for materialism is1 if anything1 a reason for its opposite2 it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins4 ,it would be the same if ,i examined the second of the three chance rationalist arguments2 the argument that all that we call divine began in some darkness and terror4 ,when ,i did attempt to examine the foundations of this modern idea ,i simply found that there were none4 ,science knows nothing whatever about pre-historic man2 for the excellent reason that he is pre-historic4 ,a few professors choose to conjecture that such things as human sacrifice were once innocent and general and that they gradually dwindled2 but there is no direct evidence of it1 and the small amount of indirect evidence is very much the other way4 ,in the earliest legends we have1 such as the tales of ,isaac and of ,iphigenia1 human sacrifice is not introduced as something old1 but rather as something new2 as a strange and frightful exception darkly demanded by the gods4 ,history says nothing2 and legends all say that the earth was kinder in its earliest time4 ,there is no tradition of progress2 but the whole human race has a tradition of the ,fall4 ,amusingly enough1 indeed1 the very dissemination of this idea is used against its authenticity4 ,learned men literally say that this pre-historic calamity cannot be true because every race of mankind remembers it4 ,i cannot keep pace with these paradoxes4 ,and if we took the third chance instance1 it would be the same2 the view that priests darken and embitter the world4 ,i look at the world and simply discover that they don't4 ,those countries in ,europe which are still influenced by priests1 are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air4 ,catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls2 but they are the walls of a playground4 ,christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of ,paganism4 ,we might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea4 ,so long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries4 ,but the walls were knocked down1 leaving the naked peril of the precipice4 ,they did not fall over2 but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island2 and their song had ceased4 ,thus these three facts of experience1 such facts as go to make an agnostic1 are1 in this view1 turned totally round4 ,i am left saying1 ,give me an explanation1 first1 of the towering eccentricity of man among the brutes2 second1 of the vast human tradition of some ancient happiness2 third1 of the partial perpetuation of such pagan joy in the countries of the ,catholic ,church4 ,one explanation1 at any rate1 covers all three3 the theory that twice was the natural order interrupted by some explosion or revelation such as people now call psychic4 ,once ,heaven came upon the earth with a power or seal called the image of ,god1 whereby man took command of ,nature2 and once again 7when in empire after empire men had been found wanting7 ,heaven came to save mankind in the awful shape of a man4 ,this would explain why the mass of men always look backwards2 and why the only corner where they in any sense look forwards is the little continent where ,christ has ,his ,church4 ,i know it will be said that ,japan has become progressive4 ,but how can this be an answer when even in saying ,japan has become progressive1 we really only mean1 ,japan has become ,european8 ,but ,i wish here not so much to insist on my own explanation as to insist on my original remark4 ,i agree with the ordinary unbelieving man in the street in being guided by three or four odd facts all pointing to something2 only when ,i came to look at the facts ,i always found they pointed to something else4 ,i have given an imaginary triad of such ordinary anti-,christian arguments2 if that be too narrow a basis ,i will give on the spur of the moment another4 ,these are the kind of thoughts which in combination create the impression that ,christianity is something weak and diseased4 ,first1 for instance1 that ,jesus was a gentle creature1 sheepish and unworldly1 a mere ineffectual appeal to the world2 second1 that ,christianity arose and flourished in the dark ages of ignorance1 and that to these the ,church would drag us back2 third1 that the people still strongly religious or 7if you will7 superstitious--such people as the ,irish--are weak1 unpractical1 and behind the times4 ,i only mention these ideas to affirm the same thing3 that when ,i looked into them independently ,i found1 not that the conclusions were unphilosophical1 but simply that the facts were not facts4 ,instead of looking at books and pictures about the ,new ,testament ,i looked at the ,new ,testament4 ,there ,i found an account1 not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal1 but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision1 flinging down tables1 casting out devils1 passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy2 a being who often acted like an angry god--and always like a god4 ,christ had even a literary style of his own1 not to be found1 ,i think1 elsewhere2 it consists of an almost furious use of the a fortiori4 ,his how much more is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds4 ,the diction used about ,christ has been1 and perhaps wisely1 sweet and submissive4 ,but the diction used by ,christ is quite curiously gigantesque2 it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea4 ,morally it is equally terrific2 he called himself a sword of slaughter1 and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats for them4 ,that he used other even wilder words on the side of non-resistance greatly increases the mystery2 but it also1 if anything1 rather increases the violence4 ,we cannot even explain it by calling such a being insane2 for insanity is usually along one consistent channel4 ,the maniac is generally a monomaniac4 ,here we must remember the difficult definition of ,christianity already given2 ,christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside each other4 ,the one explanation of the ,gospel language that does explain it1 is that it is the survey of one who from some supernatural height beholds some more startling synthesis4 ,i take in order the next instance offered3 the idea that ,christianity belongs to the dark ages4 ,here ,i did not satisfy myself with reading modern generalisations2 ,i read a little history4 ,and in history ,i found that ,christianity1 so far from belonging to the dark ages1 was the one path across the dark ages that was not dark4 ,it was a shining bridge connecting two shining civilisations4 ,if any one says that the faith arose in ignorance and savagery the answer is simple3 it didn't4 ,it arose in the ,mediterranean civilisation in the full summer of the ,roman ,empire4 ,the world was swarming with sceptics1 and pantheism was as plain as the sun1 when ,constantine nailed the cross to the mast4 ,it is perfectly true that afterwards the ship sank2 but it is far more extraordinary that the ship came up again3 repainted and glittering1 with the cross still at the top4 ,this is the amazing thing the religion did3 it turned a sunken ship into a submarine4 ,the ark lived under the load of waters2 after being buried under the dbris of dynasties and clans1 we arose and remembered ,rome4 ,if our faith had been a mere fad of the fading empire1 fad would have followed fad in the twilight1 and if the civilisation ever re-emerged 7and many such have never re-emerged7 it would have been under some new barbaric flag4 ,but the ,christian ,church was the last life of the old society and was also the first life of the new4 ,she took the people who were forgetting how to make an arch and she taught them to invent the ,gothic arch4 ,in a word1 the most absurd thing that could be said of the ,church is the thing we have all heard said of it4 ,how can we say that the ,church wishes to bring us back into the ,dark ,ages8 ,the ,church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them4 ,i added in this second trinity of objections an idle instance taken from those who feel such people as the ,irish to be weakened or made stagnant by superstition4 ,i only added it because this is a peculiar case of a statement of fact that turns out to be a statement of falsehood4 ,it is constantly said of the ,irish that they are impractical4 ,but if we refrain for a moment from looking at what is said about them and look at what is done about them1 we shall see that the ,irish are not only practical1 but quite painfully successful4 ,the poverty of their country1 the minority of their members are simply the conditions under which they were asked to work2 but no other group in the ,british ,empire has done so much with such conditions4 ,the ,nationalists were the only minority that ever succeeded in twisting the whole ,british ,parliament sharply out of its path4 ,the ,irish peasants are the only poor men in these islands who have forced their masters to disgorge4 ,these people1 whom we call priest-ridden1 are the only ,britons who will not be squire-ridden4 ,and when ,i came to look at the actual ,irish character1 the case was the same4 ,irishmen are best at the specially hard professions--the trades of iron1 the lawyer1 and the soldier4 ,in all these cases1 therefore1 ,i came back to the same conclusion3 the sceptic was quite right to go by the facts1 only he had not looked at the facts4 ,the sceptic is too credulous2 he believes in newspapers or even in encyclopdias4 ,again the three questions left me with three very antagonistic questions4 ,the average sceptic wanted to know how ,i explained the namby-pamby note in the ,gospel1 the connection of the creed with medival darkness and the political impracticability of the ,celtic ,christians4 ,but ,i wanted to ask1 and to ask with an earnestness amounting to urgency1 ,what is this incomparable energy which appears first in one walking the earth like a living judgment and this energy which can die with a dying civilisation and yet force it to a resurrection from the dead2 this energy which last of all can inflame a bankrupt peasantry with so fixed a faith in justice that they get what they ask1 while others go empty away2 so that the most helpless island of the ,empire can actually help itself8 ,there is an answer3 it is an answer to say that the energy is truly from outside the world2 that it is psychic1 or at least one of the results of a real psychical disturbance4 ,the highest gratitude and respect are due to the great human civilisations such as the old ,egyptian or the existing ,chinese4 ,nevertheless it is no injustice for them to say that only modern ,europe has exhibited incessantly a power of self-renewal recurring often at the shortest intervals and descending to the smallest facts of building or costume4 ,all other societies die finally and with dignity4 ,we die daily4 ,we are always being born again with almost indecent obstetrics4 ,it is hardly an exaggeration to say that there is in historic ,christendom a sort of unnatural life3 it could be explained as a supernatural life4 ,it could be explained as an awful galvanic life working in what would have been a corpse4 ,for our civilisation ought to have died1 by all parallels1 by all sociological probability1 in the ,ragnorak of the end of ,rome4 ,that is the weird inspiration of our estate3 you and ,i have no business to be here at all4 ,we are all revenants2 all living ,christians are dead pagans walking about4 ,just as ,europe was about to be gathered in silence to ,assyria and ,babylon1 something entered into its body4 ,and ,europe has had a strange life--it is not too much to say that it has had the jumps--ever since4 ,i have dealt at length with such typical triads of doubt in order to convey the main contention--that my own case for ,christianity is rational2 but it is not simple4 ,it is an accumulation of varied facts1 like the attitude of the ordinary agnostic4 ,but the ordinary agnostic has got his facts all wrong4 ,he is a non-believer for a multitude of reasons2 but they are untrue reasons4 ,he doubts because the ,middle ,ages were barbaric1 but they weren't2 because ,darwinism is demonstrated1 but it isn't2 because miracles do not happen1 but they do2 because monks were lazy1 but they were very industrious2 because nuns are unhappy1 but they are particularly cheerful2 because ,christian art was sad and pale1 but it was picked out in peculiarly bright colours and gay with gold2 because modern science is moving away from the supernatural1 but it isn't1 it is moving towards the supernatural with the rapidity of a railway train4 ,but among these million facts all flowing one way there is1 of course1 one question sufficiently solid and separate to be treated briefly1 but by itself2 ,i mean the objective occurrence of the supernatural4 ,in another chapter ,i have indicated the fallacy of the ordinary supposition that the world must be impersonal because it is orderly4 ,a person is just as likely to desire an orderly thing as a disorderly thing4 ,but my own positive conviction that personal creation is more conceivable than material fate1 is1 ,i admit1 in a sense1 undiscussable4 ,i will not call it a faith or an intuition1 for those words are mixed up with mere emotion1 it is strictly an intellectual conviction2 but it is a primary intellectual conviction like the certainty of self or the good of living4 ,any one who likes1 therefore1 may call my belief in ,god merely mystical2 the phrase is not worth fighting about4 ,but my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all2 ,i believe in them upon human evidence as ,i do in the discovery of ,america4 ,upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up4 ,somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly1 while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma4 ,the fact is quite the other way4 ,the believers in miracles accept them 7rightly or wrongly7 because they have evidence for them4 ,the disbelievers in miracles deny them 7rightly or wrongly7 because they have a doctrine against them4 ,the open1 obvious1 democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle1 just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder4 ,the plain1 popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord4 ,being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both4 ,still you could fill the ,british ,museum with evidence uttered by the peasant1 and given in favour of the ghost4 ,if it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural4 ,if you reject it1 you can only mean one of two things4 ,you reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story4 ,that is1 you either deny the main principle of democracy1 or you affirm the main principle of materialism--the abstract impossibility of miracle4 ,you have a perfect right to do so2 but in that case you are the dogmatist4 ,it is we ,christians who accept all actual evidence--it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence1 being constrained to do so by your creed4 ,but ,i am not constrained by any creed in the matter1 and looking impartially into certain miracles of medival and modern times1 ,i have come to the conclusion that they occurred4 ,all argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle4 ,if ,i say1 ,medival documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles1 they answer1 ,but medivals were superstitious2 if ,i want to know in what they were superstitious1 the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles4 ,if ,i say a peasant saw a ghost1 ,i am told1 ,but peasants are so credulous4 ,if ,i ask1 ,why credulous8 the only answer is--that they see ghosts4 ,iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it2 and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen ,iceland4 ,it is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles1 though he himself generally forgets to use it4 ,he may say that there has been in many miraculous stories a notion of spiritual preparation and acceptance3 in short1 that the miracle could only come to him who believed in it4 ,it may be so1 and if it is so how are we to test it8 ,if we are inquiring whether certain results follow faith1 it is useless to repeat wearily that 7if they happen7 they do follow faith4 ,if faith is one of the conditions1 those without faith have a most healthy right to laugh4 ,but they have no right to judge4 ,being a believer may be1 if you like1 as bad as being drunk2 still if we were extracting psychological facts from drunkards1 it would be absurd to be always taunting them with having been drunk4 ,suppose we were investigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before their eyes4 ,suppose sixty excellent householders swore that when angry they had seen this crimson cloud3 surely it would be absurd to answer ,oh1 but you admit you were angry at the time4 ,they might reasonably rejoin 7in a stentorian chorus71 ,how the blazes could we discover1 without being angry1 whether angry people see red8 ,so the saints and ascetics might rationally reply1 ,suppose that the question is whether believers can see visions--even then1 if you are interested in visions it is no point to object to believers4 ,you are still arguing in a circle--in that old mad circle with which this book began4 ,the question of whether miracles ever occur is a question of common sense and of ordinary historical imagination3 not of any final physical experiment4 ,one may here surely dismiss that quite brainless piece of pedantry which talks about the need for scientific conditions in connection with alleged spiritual phenomena4 ,if we are asking whether a dead soul can communicate with a living it is ludicrous to insist that it shall be under conditions in which no two living souls in their senses would seriously communicate with each other4 ,the fact that ghosts prefer darkness no more disproves the existence of ghosts than the fact that lovers prefer darkness disproves the existence of love4 ,if you choose to say1 ,i will believe that ,miss ,brown called her fianc a periwinkle or any other endearing term1 if she will repeat the word before seventeen psychologists1 then ,i shall reply1 ,very well1 if those are your conditions1 you will never get the truth1 for she certainly will not say it4 ,it is just as unscientific as it is unphilosophical to be surprised that in an unsympathetic atmosphere certain extraordinary sympathies do not arise4 ,it is as if ,i said that ,i could not tell if there was a fog because the air was not clear enough2 or as if ,i insisted on perfect sunlight in order to see a solar eclipse4 ,as a common-sense conclusion1 such as those to which we come about sex or about midnight 7well knowing that many details must in their own nature be concealed7 ,i conclude that miracles do happen4 ,i am forced to it by a conspiracy of facts3 the fact that the men who encounter elves or angels are not the mystics and the morbid dreamers1 but fishermen1 farmers1 and all men at once coarse and cautious2 the fact that we all know men who testify to spiritualist incidents but are not spiritualists2 the fact that science itself admits such things more and more every day4 ,science will even admit the ,ascension if you call it ,levitation1 and will very likely admit the ,resurrection when it has thought of another word for it4 ,i suggest the ,regalvanisation4 ,but the strongest of all is the dilemma above mentioned1 that these supernatural things are never denied except on the basis either of anti-democracy or of materialist dogmatism--,i may say materialist mysticism4 ,the sceptic always takes one of the two positions2 either an ordinary man need not be believed1 or an extraordinary event must not be believed4 ,for ,i hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds1 of swindling mediums or trick miracles4 ,that is not an argument at all1 good or bad4 ,a false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the ,bank of ,england--if anything1 it proves its existence4 ,given this conviction that the spiritual phenomena do occur 7my evidence for which is complex but rational71 we then collide with one of the worst mental evils of the age4 ,the greatest disaster of the nineteenth century was this3 that men began to use the word spiritual as the same as the word good4 ,they thought that to grow in refinement and uncorporeality was to grow in virtue4 ,when scientific evolution was announced1 some feared that it would encourage mere animality4 ,it did worse3 it encouraged mere spirituality4 ,it taught men to think that so long as they were passing from the ape they were going to the angel4 ,but you can pass from the ape and go to the devil4 ,a man of genius1 very typical of that time of bewilderment1 expressed it perfectly4 ,benjamin ,disraeli was right when he said he was on the side of the angels4 ,he was indeed2 he was on the side of the fallen angels4 ,he was not on the side of any mere appetite or animal brutality2 but he was on the side of all the imperialism of the princes of the abyss2 he was on the side of arrogance and mystery1 and contempt of all obvious good4 ,between this sunken pride and the towering humilities of heaven there are1 one must suppose1 spirits of shapes and sizes4 ,man1 in encountering them1 must make much the same mistakes that he makes in encountering any other varied types in any other distant continent4 ,it must be hard at first to know who is supreme and who is subordinate4 ,if a shade arose from the under world1 and stared at ,piccadilly1 that shade would not quite understand the idea of an ordinary closed carriage4 ,he would suppose that the coachman on the box was a triumphant conqueror1 dragging behind him a kicking and imprisoned captive4 ,so1 if we see spiritual facts for the first time1 we may mistake who is uppermost4 ,it is not enough to find the gods2 they are obvious2 we must find ,god1 the real chief of the gods4 ,we must have a long historic experience in supernatural phenomena--in order to discover which are really natural4 ,in this light ,i find the history of ,christianity1 and even of its ,hebrew origins1 quite practical and clear4 ,it does not trouble me to be told that the ,hebrew god was one among many4 ,i know he was1 without any research to tell me so4 ,jehovah and ,baal looked equally important1 just as the sun and the moon looked the same size4 ,it is only slowly that we learn that the sun is immeasurably our master1 and the small moon only our satellite4 ,believing that there is a world of spirits1 ,i shall walk in it as ,i do in the world of men1 looking for the thing that ,i like and think good4 ,just as ,i should seek in a desert for clean water1 or toil at the ,north ,pole to make a comfortable fire1 so ,i shall search the land of void and vision until ,i find something fresh like water1 and comforting like fire2 until ,i find some place in eternity1 where ,i am literally at home4 ,and there is only one such place to be found4 ,i have now said enough to show 7to any one to whom such an explanation is essential7 that ,i have in the ordinary arena of apologetics1 a ground of belief4 ,in pure records of experiment 7if these be taken democratically without contempt or favour7 there is evidence first1 that miracles happen1 and second that the nobler miracles belong to our tradition4 ,but ,i will not pretend that this curt discussion is my real reason for accepting ,christianity instead of taking the moral good of ,christianity as ,i should take it out of ,confucianism4 ,i have another far more solid and central ground for submitting to it as a faith1 instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme4 ,and that is this3 that the ,christian ,church in its practical relation to my soul is a living teacher1 not a dead one4 ,it not only certainly taught me yesterday1 but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow4 ,once ,i saw suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross2 some day ,i may see suddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre4 ,one fine morning ,i saw why windows were pointed2 some fine morning ,i may see why priests were shaven4 ,plato has told you a truth2 but ,plato is dead4 ,shakespeare has startled you with an image2 but ,shakespeare will not startle you with any more4 ,but imagine what it would be to live with such men still living1 to know that ,plato might break out with an original lecture to-morrow1 or that at any moment ,shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song4 ,the man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living ,church is a man always expecting to meet ,plato and ,shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast4 ,he is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before4 ,there is one only other parallel to this position2 and that is the parallel of the life in which we all began4 ,when your father told you1 walking about the garden1 that bees stung or that roses smelt sweet1 you did not talk of taking the best out of his philosophy4 ,when the bees stung you1 you did not call it an entertaining coincidence4 ,when the rose smelt sweet you did not say ,my father is a rude1 barbaric symbol1 enshrining 7perhaps unconsciously7 the deep delicate truths that flowers smell4 ,no3 you believed your father1 because you had found him to be a living fountain of facts1 a thing that really knew more than you2 a thing that would tell you truth to-morrow1 as well as to-day4 ,and if this was true of your father1 it was even truer of your mother2 at least it was true of mine1 to whom this book is dedicated4 ,now1 when society is in a rather futile fuss about the subjection of women1 will no one say how much every man owes to the tyranny and privilege of women1 to the fact that they alone rule education until education becomes futile3 for a boy is only sent to be taught at school when it is too late to teach him anything4 ,the real thing has been done already1 and thank ,god it is nearly always done by women4 ,every man is womanised1 merely by being born4 ,they talk of the masculine woman2 but every man is a feminised man4 ,and if ever men walk to ,westminster to protest against this female privilege1 ,i shall not join their procession4 ,for ,i remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact2 that the very time when ,i was most under a woman's authority1 ,i was most full of flame and adventure4 ,exactly because when my mother said that ants bit they did bite1 and because snow did come in winter 7as she said72 therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful fulfilments1 and it was like living in some ,hebraic age1 when prophecy after prophecy came true4 ,i went out as a child into the garden1 and it was a terrible place to me1 precisely because ,i had a clue to it3 if ,i had held no clue it would not have been terrible1 but tame4 ,a mere unmeaning wilderness is not even impressive4 ,but the garden of childhood was fascinating1 exactly because everything had a fixed meaning which could be found out in its turn4 ,inch by inch ,i might discover what was the object of the ugly shape called a rake2 or form some shadowy conjecture as to why my parents kept a cat4 ,so1 since ,i have accepted ,christendom as a mother and not merely as a chance example1 ,i have found ,europe and the world once more like the little garden where ,i stared at the symbolic shapes of cat and rake2 ,i look at everything with the old elvish ignorance and expectancy4 ,this or that rite or doctrine may look as ugly and extraordinary as a rake2 but ,i have found by experience that such things end somehow in grass and flowers4 ,a clergyman may be apparently as useless as a cat1 but he is also as fascinating1 for there must be some strange reason for his existence4 ,i give one instance out of a hundred2 ,i have not myself any instinctive kinship with that enthusiasm for physical virginity1 which has certainly been a note of historic ,christianity4 ,but when ,i look not at myself but at the world1 ,i perceive that this enthusiasm is not only a note of ,christianity1 but a note of ,paganism1 a note of high human nature in many spheres4 ,the ,greeks felt virginity when they carved ,artemis1 the ,romans when they robed the vestals1 the worst and wildest of the great ,elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of a woman as to the central pillar of the world4 ,above all1 the modern world 7even while mocking sexual innocence7 has flung itself into a generous idolatry of sexual innocence--the great modern worship of children4 ,for any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt by a hint of physical sex4 ,with all this human experience1 allied with the ,christian authority1 ,i simply conclude that ,i am wrong1 and the church right2 or rather that ,i am defective1 while the church is universal4 ,it takes all sorts to make a church2 she does not ask me to be celibate4 ,but the fact that ,i have no appreciation of the celibates1 ,i accept like the fact that ,i have no ear for music4 ,the best human experience is against me1 as it is on the subject of ,bach4 ,celibacy is one flower in my father's garden1 of which ,i have not been told the sweet or terrible name4 ,but ,i may be told it any day4 ,this1 therefore1 is1 in conclusion1 my reason for accepting the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion4 ,i do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth1 but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing4 ,all other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true2 only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true1 but is true4 ,alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive2 it turns out to be right1 like my father in the garden4 ,theosophists1 for instance1 will preach an obviously attractive idea like re-incarnation2 but if we wait for its logical results1 they are spiritual superciliousness and the cruelty of caste4 ,for if a man is a beggar by his own pre-natal sins1 people will tend to despise the beggar4 ,but ,christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea1 such as original sin2 but when we wait for its results1 they are pathos and brotherhood1 and a thunder of laughter and pity2 for only with original sin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king4 ,men of science offer us health1 an obvious benefit2 it is only afterwards that we discover that by health1 they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium4 ,orthodoxy makes us jump by the sudden brink of hell2 it is only afterwards that we realise that jumping was an athletic exercise highly beneficial to our health4 ,it is only afterwards that we realise that this danger is the root of all drama and romance4 ,the strongest argument for the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness4 ,the unpopular parts of ,christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people4 ,the outer ring of ,christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests2 but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children1 and drinking wine like men2 for ,christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom4 ,but in the modern philosophy the case is opposite2 it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated2 its despair is within4 ,and its despair is this1 that it does not really believe that there is any meaning in the universe2 therefore it cannot hope to find any romance2 its romances will have no plots4 ,a man cannot expect any adventures in the land of anarchy4 ,but a man can expect any number of adventures if he goes travelling in the land of authority4 ,one can find no meanings in a jungle of scepticism2 but the man will find more and more meanings who walks through a forest of doctrine and design4 ,here everything has a story tied to its tail1 like the tools or pictures in my father's house2 for it is my father's house4 ,i end where ,i began--at the right end4 ,i have entered at least the gate of all good philosophy4 ,i have come into my second childhood4 ,but this larger and more adventurous ,christian universe has one final mark difficult to express2 yet as a conclusion of the whole matter ,i will attempt to express it4 ,all the real argument about religion turns on the question of whether a man who was born upside down can tell when he comes right way up4 ,the primary paradox of ,christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition2 that the normal itself is an abnormality4 ,that is the inmost philosophy of the ,fall4 ,in ,sir ,oliver ,lodge's interesting new ,catechism1 the first two questions were3 ,what are you8 and ,what1 then1 is the meaning of the ,fall of ,man8 ,i remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to the questions2 but ,i soon found that they were very broken and agnostic answers4 ,to the question1 ,what are you8 ,i could only answer1 ,god knows4 ,and to the question1 ,what is meant by the ,fall8 ,i could answer with complete sincerity1 ,that whatever ,i am1 ,i am not myself4 ,this is the prime paradox of our religion2 something that we have never in any full sense known1 is not only better than ourselves1 but even more natural to us than ourselves4 ,and there is really no test of this except the merely experimental one with which these pages began1 the test of the padded cell and the open door4 ,it is only since ,i have known orthodoxy that ,i have known mental emancipation4 ,but1 in conclusion1 it has one special application to the ultimate idea of joy4 ,it is said that ,paganism is a religion of joy and ,christianity of sorrow2 it would be just as easy to prove that ,paganism is pure sorrow and ,christianity pure joy4 ,such conflicts mean nothing and lead nowhere4 ,everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow2 the only matter of interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced or divided4 ,and the really interesting thing is this1 that the pagan was 7in the main7 happier and happier as he approached the earth1 but sadder and sadder as he approached the heavens4 ,the gaiety of the best ,paganism1 as in the playfulness of ,catullus or ,theocritus1 is1 indeed1 an eternal gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity4 ,but it is all a gaiety about the facts of life1 not about its origin4 ,to the pagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the mountain2 but the broad things are as bitter as the sea4 ,when the pagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold4 ,behind the gods1 who are merely despotic1 sit the fates1 who are deadly4 ,nay1 the fates are worse than deadly2 they are dead4 ,and when rationalists say that the ancient world was more enlightened than the ,christian1 from their point of view they are right4 ,for when they say enlightened they mean darkened with incurable despair4 ,it is profoundly true that the ancient world was more modern than the ,christian4 ,the common bond is in the fact that ancients and moderns have both been miserable about existence1 about everything1 while medivals were happy about that at least4 ,i freely grant that the pagans1 like the moderns1 were only miserable about everything--they were quite jolly about everything else4 ,i concede that the ,christians of the ,middle ,ages were only at peace about everything--they were at war about everything else4 ,but if the question turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos1 then there was more cosmic contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of ,florence than in the theatre of ,athens or the open garden of ,epicurus4 ,giotto lived in a gloomier town than ,euripides1 but he lived in a gayer universe4 ,the mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things1 but sad about the big ones4 ,nevertheless 7,i offer my last dogma defiantly7 it is not native to man to be so4 ,man is more himself1 man is more manlike1 when joy is the fundamental thing in him1 and grief the superficial4 ,melancholy should be an innocent interlude1 a tender and fugitive frame of mind2 praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul4 ,pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday2 joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live4 ,yet1 according to the apparent estate of man as seen by the pagan or the agnostic1 this primary need of human nature can never be fulfilled4 ,joy ought to be expansive2 but for the agnostic it must be contracted1 it must cling to one corner of the world4 ,grief ought to be a concentration2 but for the agnostic its desolation is spread through an unthinkable eternity4 ,this is what ,i call being born upside down4 ,the sceptic may truly be said to be topsy-turvy2 for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstacies1 while his brain is in the abyss4 ,to the modern man the heavens are actually below the earth4 ,the explanation is simple2 he is standing on his head2 which is a very weak pedestal to stand on4 ,but when he has found his feet again he knows it4 ,christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up2 satisfies it supremely in this2 that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small4 ,the vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot2 the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world4 ,rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick room4 ,we are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy3 because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce4 ,we can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels4 ,so we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence1 while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear4 ,joy1 which was the small publicity of the pagan1 is the gigantic secret of the ,christian4 ,and as ,i close this chaotic volume ,i open again the strange small book from which all ,christianity came2 and ,i am again haunted by a kind of confirmation4 ,the tremendous figure which fills the ,gospels towers in this respect1 as in every other1 above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall4 ,his pathos was natural1 almost casual4 ,the ,stoics1 ancient and modern1 were proud of concealing their tears4 ,he never concealed ,his tears2 ,he showed them plainly on ,his open face at any daily sight1 such as the far sight of ,his native city4 ,yet ,he concealed something4 ,solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger4 ,he never restrained ,his anger4 ,he flung furniture down the front steps of the ,temple1 and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of ,hell4 ,yet ,he restrained something4 ,i say it with reverence2 there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness4 ,there was something that ,he hid from all men when ,he went up a mountain to pray4 ,there was something that ,he covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation4 ,there was some one thing that was too great for ,god to show us when ,he walked upon our earth2 and ,i have sometimes fancied that it was ,his mirth4