,,the ,,everlasting ,,man ,,the ,,everlasting ,,man ,,by ,g4 ,k4 ,,chesterton ,,hodder ,,and ,,stoughton ,,limited ,,london ,made and ,printed in ,great ,britain ,t4 and ,a4 ,,constable ,,ltd41 ,printers1 ,edinburgh ,,prefatory ,,note ,this book needs a preliminary note that its scope be not misunderstood4 ,the view suggested is historical rather than theological1 and does not deal directly with a religious change which has been the chief event of my own life2 and about which ,i am already writing a more purely controversial volume4 ,it is impossible1 ,i hope1 for any ,catholic to write any book on any subject1 above all this subject1 without showing that he is a ,catholic2 but this study is not specially concerned with the differences between a ,catholic and a ,protestant4 ,much of it is devoted to many sorts of ,pagans rather than any sort of ,christians2 and its thesis is that those who say that ,christ stands side by side with similar myths1 and his religion side by side with similar religions1 are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact4 ,to suggest this ,i have not needed to go much beyond matters known to us all2 ,i make no claim to learning2 and have to depend for some things1 as has rather become the fashion1 on those who are more learned4 ,as ,i have more than once differed from ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells in his view of history1 it is the more right that ,i should here congratulate him on the courage and constructive imagination which carried through his vast and varied and intensely interesting work2 but still more on having asserted the reasonable right of the amateur to do what he can with the facts which the specialists provide4 ,,contents ,,page ,,introduction3 ,,the ,,plan ,,of ,,this ,,book #c ,,part ,i ,,on ,,the ,,creature ,,called ,,man ,,chap4 ,i4 ,,the ,,man ,,in ,,the ,,cave #ai ,,ii4 ,,professors ,,and ,,prehistoric ,,men #ci ,,iii4 ,,the ,,antiquity ,,of ,,civilisation #eh ,,iv4 ,,god ,,and ,,comparative ,,religion #hi ,v4 ,,man ,,and ,,mythologies #aaa ,,vi4 ,,the ,,demons ,,and ,,the ,,philosophers #abi ,,vii4 ,,the ,,war ,,of ,,the ,,gods ,,and ,,demons #aed ,,viii4 ,,the ,,end ,,of ,,the ,,world #aga ,,part ,,ii ,,on ,,the ,,man ,,called ,,christ ,,chap4 ,i4 ,,the ,,god ,,in ,,the ,,cave #aia ,,ii4 ,,the ,,riddles ,,of ,,the ,,gospel #baa ,,iii4 ,,the ,,strangest ,,story ,,in ,,the ,,world #bbg ,,iv4 ,,the ,,witness ,,of ,,the ,,heretics #bde ,v4 ,,the ,,escape ,,from ,,paganism #bfg ,,vi4 ,,the ,,five ,,deaths ,,of ,,the ,,faith #bhh ,,conclusion3 ,,the ,,summary ,,of ,,this ,,book #cjb ,,appendix ,i43 ,,on ,,prehistoric ,,man #cac ,,appendix ,,ii43 ,,on ,,authority ,,and ,,accuracy #cae ,,introduction ,,the ,,plan ,,of ,,this ,,book ,there are two ways of getting home2 and one of them is to stay there4 ,the other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place2 and ,i tried to trace such a journey in a story ,i once wrote4 ,it is1 however1 a relief to turn from that topic to another story that ,i never wrote4 ,like every book ,i never wrote1 it is by far the best book ,i have ever written4 ,it is only too probable that ,i shall never write it1 so ,i will use it symbolically here2 for it was a symbol of the same truth4 ,i conceived it as a romance of those vast valleys with sloping sides1 like those along which the ancient ,white ,horses of ,wessex are scrawled along the flanks of the hills4 ,it concerned some boy whose farm or cottage stood on such a slope1 and who went on his travels to find something1 such as the effigy and grave of some giant2 and when he was far enough from home he looked back and saw that his own farm and kitchen-garden1 shining flat on the hill-side like the colours and quarterings of a shield1 were but parts of some such gigantic figure1 on which he had always lived1 but which was too large and too close to be seen4 ,that1 ,i think1 is a true picture of the progress of any real independent intelligence to-day2 and that is the point of this book4 ,the point of this book1 in other words1 is that the next best thing to being really inside ,christendom is to be really outside it4 ,and a particular point of it is that the popular critics of ,christianity are not really outside it4 ,they are on a debatable ground1 in every sense of the term4 ,they are doubtful in their very doubts4 ,their criticism has taken on a curious tone2 as of a random and illiterate heckling4 ,thus they make current an anti-clerical cant as a sort of small-talk4 ,they will complain of parsons dressing like parsons2 as if we should be any more free if all the police who shadowed or collared us were plain-clothes detectives4 ,or they will complain that a sermon cannot be interrupted1 and call a pulpit a coward's castle2 though they do not call an editor's office a coward's castle4 ,it would be unjust both to journalists and priests2 but it would be much truer of journalists4 ,the clergyman appears in person and could easily be kicked as he came out of church2 the journalist conceals even his name so that nobody can kick him4 ,they write wild and pointless articles and letters in the press about why the churches are empty1 without even going there to find out if they are empty1 or which of them are empty4 ,their suggestions are more vapid and vacant than the most insipid curate in a three-act farce1 and move us to comfort him after the manner of the curate in the ,bab ,ballads2 #8,your mind is not so blank as that of ,hopley ,porter4' ,so we may truly say to the very feeblest cleric3 #8,your mind is not so blank as that of ,indignant ,layman or ,plain ,man or ,man in the ,street1 or any of your critics in the newspapers2 for they have not the most shadowy notion of what they want themselves1 let alone of what you ought to give them4' ,they will suddenly turn round and revile the ,church for not having prevented the ,war1 which they themselves did not want to prevent2 and which nobody had ever professed to be able to prevent1 except some of that very school of progressive and cosmopolitan sceptics who are the chief enemies of the ,church4 ,it was the anti-clerical and agnostic world that was always prophesying the advent of universal peace2 it is that world that was1 or should have been1 abashed and confounded by the advent of universal war4 ,as for the general view that the ,church was discredited by the ,war--they might as well say that the ,ark was discredited by the ,flood4 ,when the world goes wrong1 it proves rather that the ,church is right4 ,the ,church is justified1 not because her children do not sin1 but because they do4 ,but that marks their mood about the whole religious tradition3 they are in a state of reaction against it4 ,it is well with the boy when he lives on his father's land2 and well with him again when he is far enough from it to look back on it and see it as a whole4 ,but these people have got into an intermediate state1 have fallen into an intervening valley from which they can see neither the heights beyond them nor the heights behind4 ,they cannot get out of the penumbra of ,christian controversy4 ,they cannot be ,christians and they cannot leave off being ,anti-,christians4 ,their whole atmosphere is the atmosphere of a reaction3 sulks1 perversity1 petty criticism4 ,they still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of the faith4 ,now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it4 ,but the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it4 ,it is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of ,christianity is a ,christian1 the next best judge would be something more like a ,confucian4 ,the worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments2 the ill-educated ,christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic1 entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning1 blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what1 and already weary of hearing what he has never heard4 ,he does not judge ,christianity calmly as a ,confucian would2 he does not judge it as he would judge ,confucianism4 ,he cannot by an effort of fancy set the ,catholic ,church thousands of miles away in strange skies of morning and judge it as impartially as a ,chinese pagoda4 ,it is said that the great ,st4 ,francis ,xavier1 who very nearly succeeded in setting up the ,church there as a tower overtopping all pagodas1 failed partly because his followers were accused by their fellow missionaries of representing the ,twelve ,apostles with the garb or attributes of ,chinamen4 ,but it would be far better to see them as ,chinamen1 and judge them fairly as ,chinamen1 than to see them as featureless idols merely made to be battered by iconoclasts2 or rather as cockshies to be pelted by empty-headed cockneys4 ,it would be better to see the whole thing as a remote ,asiatic cult2 the mitres of its bishops as the towering head-dresses of mysterious bonzes2 its pastoral staffs as the sticks twisted like serpents carried in some ,asiatic procession2 to see the prayer-book as fantastic as the prayer-wheel and the ,cross as crooked as the ,swastika4 ,then at least we should not lose our temper as some of the sceptical critics seem to lose their temper1 not to mention their wits4 ,their anti-clericalism has become an atmosphere1 an atmosphere of negation and hostility from which they cannot escape4 ,compared with that1 it would be better to see the whole thing as something belonging to another continent1 or to another planet4 ,it would be more philosophical to stare indifferently at bonzes than to be perpetually and pointlessly grumbling at bishops4 ,it would be better to walk past a church as if it were a pagoda than to stand permanently in the porch1 impotent either to go inside and help or to go outside and forget4 ,for those in whom a mere reaction has thus become an obsession1 ,i do seriously recommend the imaginative effort of conceiving the ,twelve ,apostles as ,chinamen4 ,in other words1 ,i recommend these critics to try to do as much justice to ,christian saints as if they were ,pagan sages4 ,but with this we come to the final and vital point4 ,i shall try to show in these pages that when we do make this imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside1 we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it inside4 ,it is exactly when the boy gets far enough off to see the giant that he sees that he really is a giant4 ,it is exactly when we do at last see the ,christian ,church afar under those clear and level eastern skies that we see that it is really the ,church of ,christ4 ,to put it shortly1 the moment we are really impartial about it we know why people are partial to it4 ,but this second proposition requires more serious discussion2 and ,i shall here set myself to discuss it4 ,as soon as ,i had clearly in my mind this conception of something solid in the solitary and unique character of the divine story1 it struck me that there was exactly the same strange and yet solid character in the human story that had led up to it2 because that human story also had a root that was divine4 ,i mean that just as the ,church seems to grow more remarkable when it is fairly compared with the common religious life of mankind1 so mankind itself seems to grow more remarkable when we compare it with the common life of nature4 ,and ,i have noticed that most modern history is driven to something like sophistry1 first to soften the sharp transition from animals to men1 and then to soften the sharp transition from heathens to ,christians4 ,now the more we really read in a realistic spirit of those two transitions the sharper we shall find them to be4 ,it is because the critics are not detached that they do not see this detachment2 it is because they are not looking at things in a dry light that they cannot see the difference between black and white4 ,it is because they are in a particular mood of reaction and revolt that they have a motive for making out that all the white is dirty grey and the black not so black as it is painted4 ,i do not say there are not human excuses for their revolt2 ,i do not say it is not in some ways sympathetic2 what ,i say is that it is not in any way scientific4 ,an iconoclast may be indignant2 an iconoclast may be justly indignant2 but an iconoclast is not impartial4 ,and it is stark hypocrisy to pretend that nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific evolutionists and professors of comparative religion are in the least impartial4 ,why should they be impartial1 what is being impartial1 when the whole world is at war about whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a divine hope8 ,i do not pretend to be impartial in the sense that the final act of faith fixes a man's mind because it satisfies his mind4 ,but ,i do profess to be a great deal more impartial than they are2 in the sense that ,i can tell the story fairly1 with some sort of imaginative justice to all sides2 and they cannot4 ,i do profess to be impartial in the sense that ,i should be ashamed to talk such nonsense about the ,lama of ,thibet as they do about the ,pope of ,rome1 or to have as little sympathy with ,julian the ,apostate as they have with the ,society of ,jesus4 ,they are not impartial2 they never by any chance hold the historical scales even2 and above all they are never impartial upon this point of evolution and transition4 ,they suggest everywhere the grey gradations of twilight1 because they believe it is the twilight of the gods4 ,i propose to maintain that whether or no it is the twilight of gods1 it is not the daylight of men4 ,i maintain that when brought out into the daylight1 these two things look altogether strange and unique2 and that it is only in the false twilight of an imaginary period of transition that they can be made to look in the least like anything else4 ,the first of these is the creature called man1 and the second is the man called ,christ4 ,i have therefore divided this book into two parts3 the former being a sketch of the main adventure of the human race in so far as it remained heathen2 and the second a summary of the real difference that was made by it becoming ,christian4 ,both motives necessitate a certain method1 a method which is not very easy to manage1 and perhaps even less easy to define or defend4 ,in order to strike1 in the only sane or possible sense1 the note of impartiality1 it is necessary to touch the nerve of novelty4 ,i mean that in one sense we see things fairly when we see them first4 ,that1 ,i may remark in passing1 is why children generally have very little difficulty about the dogmas of the ,church4 ,but the ,church1 being a highly practical thing for working and fighting1 is necessarily a thing for men and not merely for children4 ,there must be in it for working purposes a great deal of tradition1 of familiarity1 and even of routine4 ,so long as its fundamentals are sincerely felt1 this may even be the saner condition4 ,but when its fundamentals are doubted1 as at present1 we must try to recover the candour and wonder of the child2 the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence4 ,or if we cannot do that1 we must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new1 if only by seeing it as unnatural4 ,things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt4 ,for in connection with things so great as are here considered1 whatever our view of them1 contempt must be a mistake4 ,indeed contempt must be an illusion4 ,we must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of imagination2 the imagination that can see what is there4 ,the only way to suggest the point is by an example of something1 indeed of almost anything1 that has been considered beautiful or wonderful4 ,george ,wyndham once told me that he had seen one of the first aeroplanes rise for the first time1 and it was very wonderful2 but not so wonderful as a horse allowing a man to ride on him4 ,somebody else has said that a fine man on a fine horse is the noblest bodily object in the world4 ,now1 so long as people feel this in the right way1 all is well4 ,the first and best way of appreciating it is to come of people with a tradition of treating animals properly2 of men in the right relation to horses4 ,a boy who remembers his father who rode a horse1 who rode it well and treated it well1 will know that the relation can be satisfactory and will be satisfied4 ,he will be all the more indignant at the ill-treatment of horses because he knows how they ought to be treated2 but he will see nothing but what is normal in a man riding on a horse4 ,he will not listen to the great modern philosopher who explains to him that the horse ought to be riding on the man4 ,he will not pursue the pessimist fancy of ,swift and say that men must be despised as monkeys1 and horses worshipped as gods4 ,and horse and man together making an image that is to him human and civilised1 it will be easy1 as it were1 to lift horse and man together into something heroic or symbolical2 like a vision of ,st4 ,george in the clouds4 ,the fable of the winged horse will not be wholly unnatural to him3 and he will know why ,ariosto set many a ,christian hero in such an airy saddle1 and made him the rider of the sky4 ,for the horse has really been lifted up along with the man in the wildest fashion in the very word we use when we speak of #8chivalry4' ,the very name of the horse has been given to the highest mood and moment of the man2 so that we might almost say that the handsomest compliment to a man is to call him a horse4 ,but if a man has got into a mood in which he is not able to feel this sort of wonder1 then his cure must begin right at the other end4 ,we must now suppose that he has drifted into a dull mood1 in which somebody sitting on a horse means no more than somebody sitting on a chair4 ,the wonder of which ,wyndham spoke1 the beauty that made the thing seem an equestrian statue1 the meaning of the more chivalric horseman1 may have become to him merely a convention and a bore4 ,perhaps they have been merely a fashion2 perhaps they have gone out of fashion2 perhaps they have been talked about too much or talked about in the wrong way2 perhaps it was then difficult to care for horses without the horrible risk of being horsy4 ,anyhow1 he has got into a condition when he cares no more for a horse than for a towel-horse4 ,his grandfather's charge at ,balaclava seems to him as dull and dusty as the album containing such family portraits4 ,such a person has not really become enlightened about the album2 on the contrary1 he has only become blind with the dust4 ,but when he has reached that degree of blindness1 he will not be able to look at a horse or a horseman at all until he has seen the whole thing as a thing entirely unfamiliar and almost unearthly4 ,out of some dark forest under some ancient dawn there must come towards us1 with lumbering yet dancing motions1 one of the very queerest of the prehistoric creatures4 ,we must see for the first time the strangely small head set on a neck not only longer but thicker than itself1 as the face of a gargoyle is thrust out upon a gutter-spout1 the one disproportionate crest of hair running along the ridge of that heavy neck like a beard in the wrong place2 the feet1 each like a solid club of horn1 alone amid the feet of so many cattle2 so that the true fear is to be found in showing not the cloven but the uncloven hoof4 ,nor is it mere verbal fancy to see him thus as a unique monster2 for in a sense a monster means what is unique1 and he is really unique4 ,but the point is that when we thus see him as the first man saw him1 we begin once more to have some imaginative sense of what it meant when the first man rode him4 ,in such a dream he may seem ugly1 but he does not seem unimpressive2 and certainly that two-legged dwarf who could get on top of him will not seem unimpressive4 ,by a longer and more erratic road we shall come back to the same marvel of the man and the horse2 and the marvel will be1 if possible1 even more marvellous4 ,we shall have again a glimpse of ,st4 ,george2 the more glorious because ,st4 ,george is not riding on the horse1 but rather riding on the dragon4 ,in this example1 which ,i have taken merely because it is an example1 it will be noted that ,i do not say that the nightmare seen by the first man of the forest is either more true or more wonderful than the normal mare of the stable seen by the civilised person who can appreciate what is normal4 ,of the two extremes1 ,i think on the whole that the traditional grasp of truth is the better4 ,but ,i say that the truth is found at one or other of these two extremes1 and is lost in the intermediate condition of mere fatigue and forgetfulness of tradition4 ,in other words1 ,i say it is better to see a horse as a monster than to see it only as a slow substitute for a motor-car4 ,if we have got into that state of mind about a horse as something stale1 it is far better to be frightened of a horse because it is a good deal too fresh4 ,now1 as it is with the monster that is called a horse1 so it is with the monster that is called a man4 ,of course the best condition of all1 in my opinion1 is always to have regarded man as he is regarded in my philosophy4 ,he who holds the ,christian and ,catholic view of human nature will feel certain that it is a universal and therefore a sane view1 and will be satisfied4 ,but if he has lost the sane vision1 he can only get it back by something very like a mad vision2 that is1 by seeing man as a strange animal and realising how strange an animal he is4 ,but just as seeing the horse as a prehistoric prodigy ultimately led back to1 and not away from1 an admiration for the mastery of man1 so the really detached consideration of the curious career of man will lead back to1 and not away from1 the ancient faith in the dark designs of ,god4 ,in other words1 it is exactly when we do see how queer the quadruped is that we praise the man who mounts him2 and exactly when we do see how queer the biped is that we praise the ,providence that made him4 ,in short1 it is the purpose of this introduction to maintain this thesis3 that it is exactly when we do regard man as an animal that we know he is not an animal4 ,it is precisely when we do try to picture him as a sort of horse on its hind legs that we suddenly realise that he must be something as miraculous as the winged horse that towered up into the clouds of heaven4 ,all roads lead to ,rome1 all ways lead round again to the central and civilised philosophy1 including this road through elfland and topsyturvydom4 ,but it may be that it is better never to have left the land of a reasonable tradition1 where men ride lightly upon horses and are mighty hunters before the ,lord4 ,so also in the specially ,christian case we have to react against the heavy bias of fatigue4 ,it is almost impossible to make the facts vivid1 because the facts are familiar2 and for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue4 ,i am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story of ,christ word for word as of a ,chinese hero1 call him the ,son of ,heaven instead of the ,son of ,god1 and trace his rayed nimbus in the gold thread of ,chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of ,chinese pottery instead of in the gold leaf of our own old ,catholic paintings1 there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story4 ,we should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or the illogicality of atonement1 of the superstitious exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature4 ,we should admire the chivalry of the ,chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly4 ,we should admire the subtlety of the ,chinese view of life1 which perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection4 ,we should admire the ,chinese esoteric and superior wisdom1 which said there are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know2 we believe every common ,indian conjurer who chooses to come to us and talk in the same style4 ,if ,christianity were only a new oriental fashion1 it would never be reproached with being an old and oriental faith4 ,i do not propose in this book to follow the alleged example of ,st4 ,francis ,xavier with the opposite imaginative intention1 and turn the ,twelve ,apostles into ,mandarins2 not so much to make them look like natives as to make them look like foreigners4 ,i do not propose to work what ,i believe would be a completely successful practical joke2 that of telling the whole story of the ,gospel and the whole history of the ,church in a setting of pagodas and pigtails2 and noting with malignant humour how much it was admired as a heathen story in the very quarters where it is condemned as a ,christian story4 ,but ,i do propose to strike wherever possible this note of what is new and strange1 and for that reason the style even on so serious a subject may sometimes be deliberately grotesque and fanciful4 ,i do desire to help the reader to see ,christendom from the outside in the sense of seeing it as a whole1 against the background of other historic things2 just as ,i desire him to see humanity as a whole against the background of natural things4 ,and ,i say that in both cases1 when seen thus1 they stand out from their background like supernatural things4 ,they do not fade into the rest with the colours of impressionism2 they stand out from the rest with the colours of heraldry2 as vivid as a red cross on a white shield or a black lion on a ground of gold4 ,so stands the ,red ,clay against the green field of nature1 or the ,white ,christ against the red clay of his race4 ,but in order to see them clearly we have to see them as a whole4 ,we have to see how they developed as well as how they began2 for the most incredible part of the story is that things which began thus should have developed thus4 ,any one who chooses to indulge in mere imagination can imagine that other things might have happened or other entities evolved4 ,any one thinking of what might have happened may conceive a sort of evolutionary equality2 but any one facing what did happen must face an exception and a prodigy4 ,if there was ever a moment when man was only an animal1 we can if we choose make a fancy picture of his career transferred to some other animal4 ,an entertaining fantasia might be made in which elephants built in elephantine architecture1 with towers and turrets like tusks and trunks1 cities beyond the scale of any colossus4 ,a pleasant fable might be conceived in which a cow had developed a costume1 and put on four boots and two pairs of trousers4 ,we could imagine a ,supermonkey more marvellous than any ,superman1 a quadrumanous creature carving and painting with his hands and cooking and carpentering with his feet4 ,but if we are considering what did happen1 we shall certainly decide that man has distanced everything else with a distance like that of the astronomical spaces and a speed like that of the still thunderbolt of the light4 ,and in the same fashion1 while we can if we choose see the ,church amid a mob of ,mithraic or ,manichean superstitions squabbling and killing each other at the end of the ,empire1 while we can if we choose imagine the ,church killed in the struggle and some other chance cult taking its place1 we shall be the more surprised 7and possibly puzzled7 if we meet it two thousand years afterwards rushing through the ages as the winged thunderbolt of thought and everlasting enthusiasm2 a thing without rival or resemblance2 and still as new as it is old4 ,,part ,i ,,on ,,the ,,creature ,,called ,,man ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,man ,,in ,,the ,,cave ,far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote1 there is a small star1 which astronomers may some day discover4 ,at least ,i could never observe in the faces or demeanour of most astronomers or men of science any evidence that they had discovered it2 though as a matter of fact they were walking about on it all the time4 ,it is a star that brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals2 and none stranger than the men of science4 ,that at least is the way in which ,i should begin a history of the world if ,i had to follow the scientific custom of beginning with an account of the astronomical universe4 ,i should try to see even this earth from the outside1 not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun1 but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the dehumanised spectator4 ,only ,i do not believe in being dehumanised in order to study humanity4 ,i do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are supposed to dwarf the world2 ,i think there is even something a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size4 ,and as the first idea is not feasible1 that of making the earth a strange planet so as to make it significant1 ,i will not stoop to the other trick of making it a small planet in order to make it insignificant4 ,i would rather insist that we do not even know that it is a planet at all1 in the sense in which we know that it is a place2 and a very extraordinary place too4 ,that is the note which ,i wish to strike from the first1 if not in the astronomical1 then in some more familiar fashion4 ,one of my first journalistic adventures1 or misadventures1 concerned a comment on ,grant ,allen1 who had written a book about the ,evolution of the ,idea of ,god4 ,i happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if ,god wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of ,grant ,allen4 ,and ,i remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous2 which naturally amused me not a little4 ,for the joke of it was1 of course1 that it never occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself1 which really was blasphemous2 for it was1 when translated into ,english1 #8,i will show you how this nonsensical notion that there is a ,god grew up among men4' ,my remark was strictly pious and proper2 confessing the divine purpose even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations4 ,in that hour ,i learned many things1 including the fact that there is something purely acoustic in much of that agnostic sort of reverence4 ,the editor had not seen the point1 because in the title of the book the long word came at the beginning and the short word at the end2 whereas in my comment the short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock4 ,i have noticed that if you put a word like ,god into the same sentence with a word like dog1 these abrupt and angular words affect people like pistol-shots4 ,whether you say that ,god made the dog or the dog made ,god does not seem to matter2 that is only one of the sterile disputations of the too subtle theologians4 ,but so long as you begin with a long word like evolution the rest will roll harmlessly past2 very probably the editor had not read the whole of the title1 for it is rather a long title and he was rather a busy man4 ,but this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable4 ,most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution1 and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution1 for much the same reason that operated in this case4 ,there is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea4 ,as a matter of fact1 it is not1 touching these primary things1 a very practical word or a very profitable idea4 ,nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something4 ,nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else4 ,it is really far more logical to start by saying #8,in the beginning ,god created heaven and earth' even if you only mean #8,in the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process4' ,for ,god is by its nature a name of mystery1 and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one4 ,but evolution really is mistaken for explanation4 ,it has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else2 just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the ,origin of ,species4 ,but this notion of something smooth and slow1 like the ascent of a slope1 is a great part of the illusion4 ,it is an illogicality as well as an illusion2 for slowness has really nothing to do with the question4 ,an event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves4 ,for a man who does not believe in a miracle1 a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one4 ,the ,greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand4 ,but to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day1 till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail1 would not be any more soothing4 ,it might be rather more creepy and uncanny4 ,the medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower2 but to see an old gentleman walking through the air1 in a leisurely and lounging manner1 would still seem to call for some explanation4 ,yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided1 or even mystery eliminated1 by dwelling on mere delay or on something dilatory in the processes of things4 ,there will be something to be said upon particular examples elsewhere2 the question here is the false atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going slow2 the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman travelling for the first time in a motor-car4 ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells has confessed to being a prophet2 and in this matter he was a prophet at his own expense4 ,it is curious that his first fairy-tale was a complete answer to his last book of history4 ,the ,time ,machine destroyed in advance all comfortable conclusions founded on the mere relativity of time4 ,in that sublime nightmare the hero saw trees shoot up like green rockets1 and vegetation spread visibly like a green conflagration1 or the sun shoot across the sky from east to west with the swiftness of a meteor4 ,yet in his sense these things were quite as natural when they went swiftly2 and in our sense they are quite as supernatural when they go slowly4 ,the ultimate question is why they go at all2 and anybody who really understands that question will know that it always has been and always will be a religious question2 or at any rate a philosophical or metaphysical question4 ,and most certainly he will not think the question answered by some substitution of gradual for abrupt change2 or1 in other words1 by a merely relative question of the same story being spun out or rattled rapidly through1 as can be done with any story at a cinema by turning a handle4 ,now what is needed for these problems of primitive existence is something more like a primitive spirit4 ,in calling up this vision of the first things1 ,i would ask the reader to make with me a sort of experiment in simplicity4 ,and by simplicity ,i do not mean stupidity1 but rather the sort of clarity that sees things like life rather than words like evolution4 ,for this purpose it would really be better to turn the handle of the ,time ,machine a little more quickly and see the grass growing and the trees springing up into the sky1 if that experiment could contract and concentrate and make vivid the upshot of the whole affair4 ,what we know1 in a sense in which we know nothing else1 is that the trees and the grass did grow and that a number of other extraordinary things do in fact happen2 that queer creatures support themselves in the empty air by beating it with fans of various fantastic shapes2 that other queer creatures steer themselves about alive under a load of mighty waters2 that other queer creatures walk about on four legs1 and that the queerest creature of all walks about on two4 ,these are things and not theories2 and compared with them evolution and the atom and even the solar system are merely theories4 ,the matter here is one of history and not of philosophy2 so that it need only be noted that no philosopher denies that a mystery still attaches to the two great transitions3 the origin of the universe itself and the origin of the principle of life itself4 ,most philosophers have the enlightenment to add that a third mystery attaches to the origin of man himself4 ,in other words1 a third bridge was built across a third abyss of the unthinkable when there came into the world what we call reason and what we call will4 ,man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution4 ,that he has a backbone or other parts upon a similar pattern to birds and fishes is an obvious fact1 whatever be the meaning of the fact4 ,but if we attempt to regard him1 as it were1 as a quadruped standing on his hind legs1 we shall find what follows far more fantastic and subversive than if he were standing on his head4 ,i will take one example to serve for an introduction to the story of man4 ,it illustrates what ,i mean by saying that a certain childish directness is needed to see the truth about the childhood of the world4 ,it illustrates what ,i mean by saying that a mixture of popular science and journalistic jargon has confused the facts about the first things1 so that we cannot see which of them really comes first4 ,it illustrates1 though only in one convenient illustration1 all that ,i mean by the necessity of seeing the sharp differences that give its shape to history1 instead of being submerged in all these generalisations about slowness and sameness4 ,for we do indeed require1 in ,mr4 ,wells's phrase1 an outline of history4 ,but we may venture to say1 in ,mr4 ,mantalini's phrase1 that this evolutionary history has no outline or is a demd outline4 ,but1 above all1 it illustrates what ,i mean by saying that the more we really look at man as an animal1 the less he will look like one4 ,to-day all our novels and newspapers will be found swarming with numberless allusions to a popular character called a ,cave-,man4 ,he seems to be quite familiar to us1 not only as a public character but as a private character4 ,his psychology is seriously taken into account in psychological fiction and psychological medicine4 ,so far as ,i can understand1 his chief occupation in life was knocking his wife about1 or treating women in general with what is1 ,i believe1 known in the world of the film as #8rough stuff4' ,i have never happened to come upon the evidence for this idea2 and ,i do not know on what primitive diaries or prehistoric divorce-reports it is founded4 ,nor1 as ,i have explained elsewhere1 have ,i ever been able to see the probability of it1 even considered a priori4 ,we are always told without any explanation or authority that primitive man waved a club and knocked the woman down before he carried her off4 ,but on every animal analogy1 it would seem an almost morbid modesty and reluctance1 on the part of the lady1 always to insist on being knocked down before consenting to be carried off4 ,and ,i repeat that ,i can never comprehend why1 when the male was so very rude1 the female should have been so very refined4 ,the cave-man may have been a brute1 but there is no reason why he should have been more brutal than the brutes4 ,and the loves of the giraffes and the river romances of the hippopotami are effected without any of this preliminary fracas or shindy4 ,the cave-man may have been no better than the cave-bear2 but the child she-bear1 so famous in hymnology1 is not trained with any such bias for spinsterhood4 ,in short1 these details of the domestic life of the cave puzzle me upon either the evolutionary or the static hypothesis2 and in any case ,i should like to look into the evidence for them2 but unfortunately ,i have never been able to find it4 ,but the curious thing is this3 that while ten thousand tongues of more or less scientific or literary gossip seemed to be talking at once about this unfortunate fellow1 under the title of the cave-man1 the one connection in which it is really relevant and sensible to talk about him as the cave-man has been comparatively neglected4 ,people have used this loose term in twenty loose ways2 but they have never even looked at their own term for what could really be learned from it4 ,in fact1 people have been interested in everything about the cave-man except what he did in the cave4 ,now there does happen to be some real evidence of what he did in the cave4 ,it is little enough1 like all the prehistoric evidence1 but it is concerned with the real cave-man and his cave and not the literary cave-man and his club4 ,and it will be valuable to our sense of reality to consider quite simply what that real evidence is1 and not to go beyond it4 ,what was found in the cave was not the club1 the horrible gory club notched with the number of women it had knocked on the head4 ,the cave was not a ,bluebeard's ,chamber filled with the skeletons of slaughtered wives2 it was not filled with female skulls all arranged in rows and all cracked like eggs4 ,it was something quite unconnected1 one way or the other1 with all the modern phrases and philosophical implications and literary rumours which confuse the whole question for us4 ,and if we wish to see as it really is this authentic glimpse of the morning of the world1 it will be far better to conceive even the story of its discovery as some such legend of the land of morning4 ,it would be far better to tell the tale of what was really found as simply as the tale of heroes finding the ,golden ,fleece or the ,gardens of the ,hesperides1 if we could so escape from a fog of controversial theories into the clear colours and clean-cut outlines of such a dawn4 ,the old epic poets at least knew how to tell a story1 possibly a tall story but never a twisted story1 never a story tortured out of its own shape to fit theories and philosophies invented centuries afterwards4 ,it would be well if modern investigators could describe their discoveries in the bald narrative style of the earliest travellers1 and without any of these long allusive words that are full of irrelevant implication and suggestion4 ,then we might realise exactly what we do know about the cave-man1 or at any rate about the cave4 ,a priest and a boy entered some time ago a hollow in the hills and passed into a sort of subterranean tunnel that led into a labyrinth of such sealed and secret corridors of rock4 ,they crawled through cracks that seemed almost impassable1 they crept through tunnels that might have been made for moles1 they dropped into holes as hopeless as wells1 they seemed to be burying themselves alive seven times over beyond the hope of resurrection4 ,this is but the commonplace of all such courageous exploration2 but what is needed here is some one who shall put such stories in the primary light1 in which they are not commonplace4 ,there is1 for instance1 something strangely symbolic in the accident that the first intruders into that sunken world were a priest and a boy1 the types of the antiquity and of the youth of the world4 ,but here ,i am even more concerned with the symbolism of the boy than with that of the priest4 ,nobody who remembers boyhood needs to be told what it might be to a boy to enter like ,peter ,pan under a roof of the roots of all the trees and go deeper and deeper1 till he reach what ,william ,morris called the very roots of the mountains4 ,suppose somebody1 with that simple and unspoilt realism that is a part of innocence1 to pursue that journey to its end1 not for the sake of what he could deduce or demonstrate in some dusty magazine controversy1 but simply for the sake of what he could see4 ,what he did see at last was a cavern so far from the light of day that it might have been the legendary ,domdaniel cavern that was under the floor of the sea4 ,this secret chamber of rock1 when illuminated after its long night of unnumbered ages1 revealed on its walls large and sprawling outlines diversified with coloured earths2 and when they followed the lines of them they recognised1 across that vast and void of ages1 the movement and the gesture of a man's hand4 ,they were drawings or paintings of animals2 and they were drawn or painted not only by a man but by an artist4 ,under whatever archaic limitations1 they showed that love of the long sweeping or the long wavering line which any man who has ever drawn or tried to draw will recognise2 and about which no artist will allow himself to be contradicted by any scientist4 ,they showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the artist1 the spirit that does not avoid but attempt difficult things2 as where the draughtsman had represented the action of the stag when he swings his head clean round and noses towards his tail1 an action familiar enough in the horse4 ,but there are many modern animal-painters who would set themselves something of a task in rendering it truly4 ,in this and twenty other details it is clear that the artist had watched animals with a certain interest and presumably a certain pleasure4 ,in that sense it would seem that he was not only an artist but a naturalist2 the sort of naturalist who is really natural4 ,now it is needless to note1 except in passing1 that there is nothing whatever in the atmosphere of that cave to suggest the bleak and pessimistic atmosphere of that journalistic cave of the winds1 that blows and bellows about us with countless echoes concerning the cave-man4 ,so far as any human character can be hinted at by such traces of the past1 that human character is quite human and even humane4 ,it is certainly not the ideal of an inhuman character1 like the abstraction invoked in popular science4 ,when novelists and educationists and psychologists of all sorts talk about the cave-man1 they never conceive him in connection with anything that is really in the cave4 ,when the realist of the sex novel writes1 #8,red sparks danced in ,dagmar ,doubledick's brain2 he felt the spirit of the cave-man rising within him1' the novelist's readers would be very much disappointed if ,dagmar only went off and drew large pictures of cows on the drawing-room wall4 ,when the psychoanalyst writes to a patient1 #8,the submerged instincts of the cave-man are doubtless prompting you to gratify a violent impulse1' he does not refer to the impulse to paint in water-colours2 or to make conscientious studies of how cattle swing their heads when they graze4 ,yet we do know for a fact that the cave-man did these mild and innocent things2 and we have not the most minute speck of evidence that he did any of the violent and ferocious things4 ,in other words1 the cave-man as commonly presented to us is simply a myth or rather a muddle2 for a myth has at least an imaginative outline of truth4 ,the whole of the current way of talking is simply a confusion and a misunderstanding1 founded on no sort of scientific evidence and valued only as an excuse for a very modern mood of anarchy4 ,if any gentleman wants to knock a woman about1 he can surely be a cad without taking away the character of the cave-man1 about whom we know next to nothing except what we can gather from a few harmless and pleasing pictures on a wall4 ,but this is not the point about the pictures or the particular moral here to be drawn from them4 ,that moral is something much larger and simpler1 so large and simple that when it is first stated it will sound childish4 ,and indeed it is in the highest sense childish2 and that is why ,i have in this apologue in some sense seen it through the eyes of a child4 ,it is the biggest of all the facts really facing the boy in the cavern2 and is perhaps too big to be seen4 ,if the boy was one of the flock of the priest1 it may be presumed that he had been trained in a certain quality of common sense2 that common sense that often comes to us in the form of tradition4 ,in that case he would simply recognise the primitive man's work as the work of a man1 interesting but in no way incredible in being primitive4 ,he would see what was there to see2 and he would not be tempted into seeing what was not there1 by any evolutionary excitement or fashionable speculation4 ,if he had heard of such things he would admit1 of course1 that the speculations might be true and were not incompatible with the facts that were true4 ,the artist may have had another side to his character besides that which he has alone left on record in his works of art4 ,the primitive man may have taken a pleasure in beating women as well as in drawing animals2 all we can say is that the drawings record the one but not the other4 ,it may be true that when the cave-man's finished jumping on his mother1 or his wife as the case may be1 he loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling1 and also to watch the deer as they come down to drink at the brook4 ,these things are not impossible1 but they are irrelevant4 ,the common sense of the child could confine itself to learning from the facts what the facts have to teach2 and the pictures in the cave are very nearly all the facts there are4 ,so far as that evidence goes1 the child would be justified in assuming that a man had represented animals with rock and red ochre for the same reason as he himself was in the habit of trying to represent animals with charcoal and red chalk4 ,the man had drawn a stag just as the child had drawn a horse2 because it was fun4 ,the man had drawn a stag with his head turned as the child had drawn a pig with his eyes shut2 because it was difficult4 ,the child and the man1 being both human1 would be united by the brotherhood of men2 and the brotherhood of men is even nobler when it bridges the abyss of ages than when it bridges only the chasm of class4 ,but anyhow he would see no evidence of the cave-man of crude evolutionism2 because there is none to be seen4 ,if somebody told him that the pictures had all been drawn by ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi out of pure and saintly love of animals1 there would be nothing in the cave to contradict it4 ,indeed ,i once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that the cave was a crche1 in which the babies were put to be specially safe1 and that coloured animals were drawn on the walls to amuse them2 very much as diagrams of elephants and giraffes adorn a modern infant school4 ,and though this was but a jest1 it does draw attention to some of the other assumptions that we make only too readily4 ,the pictures do not prove even that the cave-men lived in caves1 any more than the discovery of a wine-cellar in ,balham 7long after that suburb had been destroyed by human or divine wrath7 would prove that the ,victorian middle classes lived entirely underground4 ,the cave might have had a special purpose like the cellar2 it might have been a religious shrine or a refuge in war or the meeting-place of a secret society or all sorts of things4 ,but it is quite true that its artistic decoration has much more of the atmosphere of a nursery than of any of these nightmares of anarchical fury and fear4 ,i have conceived a child as standing in the cave2 and it is easy to conceive any child1 modern or immeasurably remote1 as making a living gesture as if to pat the painted beasts upon the wall4 ,in that gesture there is a foreshadowing1 as we shall see later1 of another cavern and another child4 ,but suppose the boy had not been taught by a priest but by a professor1 by one of the professors who simplify the relation of men and beasts to a mere evolutionary variation4 ,suppose the boy saw himself1 with the same simplicity and sincerity1 as a mere ,mowgli running with the pack of nature and roughly indistinguishable from the rest save by a relative and recent variation4 ,what would be for him the simplest lesson of that strange stone picture-book8 ,after all1 it would come back to this2 that he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn a picture of a reindeer4 ,but he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man4 ,that sounds like a truism1 but in this connection it is really a very tremendous truth4 ,he might descend to depths unthinkable1 he might sink into sunken continents as strange as remote stars1 he might find himself in the inside of the world as far from men as the other side of the moon2 he might see in those cold chasms or colossal terraces of stone1 traced in the faint hieroglyphic of the fossil1 the ruins of lost dynasties of biological life1 rather like the ruins of successive creations and separate universes than the stages in the story of one4 ,he would find the trail of monsters blindly developing in directions outside all our common imagery of fish and bird2 groping and grasping and touching life with every extravagant elongation of horn and tongue and tentacle2 growing a forest of fantastic caricatures of the claw and the fin and the finger4 ,but nowhere would he find one finger that had traced one significant line upon the sand2 nowhere one claw that had even begun to scratch the faint suggestion of a form4 ,to all appearance1 the thing would be as unthinkable in all those countless cosmic variations of forgotten aeons as it would be in the beasts and birds before our eyes4 ,the child would no more expect to see it than to see the cat scratch on the wall a vindictive caricature of the dog4 ,the childish common sense would keep the most evolutionary child from expecting to see anything like that2 yet in the traces of the rude and recently evolved ancestors of humanity he would have seen exactly that4 ,it must surely strike him as strange that men so remote from him should be so near1 and that beasts so near to him should be so remote4 ,to his simplicity it must seem at least odd that he could not find any trace of the beginning of any arts among any animals4 ,that is the simplest lesson to learn in the cavern of the coloured pictures2 only it is too simple to be learnt4 ,it is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not in degree2 and the proof of it is here2 that it sounds like a truism to say that the most primitive man drew a picture of a monkey1 and that it sounds like a joke to say that the most intelligent monkey drew a picture of a man4 ,something of division and disproportion has appeared2 and it is unique4 ,art is the signature of man4 ,that is the sort of simple truth with which a story of the beginnings ought really to begin4 ,the evolutionist stands staring in the painted cavern at the things that are too large to be seen and too simple to be understood4 ,he tries to deduce all sorts of other indirect and doubtful things from the details of the pictures1 because he cannot see the primary significance of the whole2 thin and theoretical deductions about the absence of religion or the presence of superstition2 about tribal government and hunting and human sacrifice and heaven knows what4 ,in the next chapter ,i shall try to trace in a little more detail the much disputed question about these prehistoric origins of human ideas and especially of the religious idea4 ,here ,i am only taking this one case of the cave as a sort of symbol of the simpler sort of truth with which the story ought to start4 ,when all is said1 the main fact that the record of the reindeer men attests1 along with all other records1 is that the reindeer man could draw and the reindeer could not4 ,if the reindeer man was as much an animal as the reindeer1 it was all the more extraordinary that he could do what all other animals could not4 ,if he was an ordinary product of biological growth1 like any other beast or bird1 then it is all the more extraordinary that he was not in the least like any other beast or bird4 ,he seems rather more supernatural as a natural product than as a supernatural one4 ,but ,i have begun this story in the cave1 like the cave of the speculations of ,plato1 because it is a sort of model of the mistake of merely evolutionary introductions and prefaces4 ,it is useless to begin by saying that everything was slow and smooth and a mere matter of development and degree4 ,for in a plain matter like the pictures there is in fact not a trace of any such development or degree4 ,monkeys did not begin pictures and men finish them2 ,pithecanthropus did not draw a reindeer badly and ,homo ,sapiens draw it well4 ,the higher animals did not draw better and better portraits2 the dog did not paint better in his best period than in his early bad manner as a jackal2 the wild horse was not an ,impressionist and the race-horse a ,post-,impressionist4 ,all we can say of this notion of reproducing things in shadow or representative shape is that it exists nowhere in nature except in man2 and that we cannot even talk about it without treating man as something separate from nature4 ,in other words1 every sane sort of history must begin with man as man1 a thing standing absolute and alone4 ,how he came there1 or indeed how anything else came there1 is a thing for theologians and philosophers and scientists and not for historians4 ,but an excellent test case of this isolation and mystery is the matter of the impulse of art4 ,this creature was truly different from all other creatures2 because he was a creator as well as a creature4 ,nothing in that sense could be made in any other image but the image of man4 ,but the truth is so true that1 even in the absence of any religious belief1 it must be assumed in the form of some moral or metaphysical principle4 ,in the next chapter we shall see how this principle applies to all the historical hypotheses and evolutionary ethics now in fashion2 to the origins of tribal government or mythological belief4 ,but the clearest and most convenient example to start with is this popular one of what the cave-man really did in his cave4 ,it means that somehow or other a new thing had appeared in the cavernous night of nature2 a mind that is like a mirror4 ,it is like a mirror because it is truly a thing of reflection4 ,it is like a mirror because in it alone all the other shapes can be seen like shining shadows in a vision4 ,above all1 it is like a mirror because it is the only thing of its kind4 ,other things may resemble it or resemble each other in various ways2 other things may excel it or excel each other in various ways2 just as in the furniture of a room a table may be round like a mirror or a cupboard may be larger than a mirror4 ,but the mirror is the only thing that can contain them all4 ,man is the microcosm2 man is the measure of all things2 man is the image of ,god4 ,these are the only real lessons to be learnt in the cave1 and it is time to leave it for the open road4 ,it will be well in this place1 however1 to sum up once and for all what is meant by saying that man is at once the exception to everything and the mirror and the measure of all things4 ,but to see man as he is1 it is necessary once more to keep close to that simplicity that can clear itself of accumulated clouds of sophistry4 ,the simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being2 almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth4 ,in all sobriety1 he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one4 ,he has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage4 ,he cannot sleep in his own skin2 he cannot trust his own instincts4 ,he is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple4 ,he is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes2 he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture4 ,his mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations4 ,alone among the animals1 he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter2 as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the universe itself4 ,alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thoughts from the root realities of his own bodily being2 of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame4 ,whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature1 they remain in the same sense unique4 ,this is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion1 until disturbed by pedants1 especially the laborious pedants of the ,simple ,life4 ,the most sophistical of all sophists are ,gymnosophists4 ,it is not natural to see man as a natural product4 ,it is not common sense to call man a common object of the country or the seashore4 ,it is not seeing straight to see him as an animal4 ,it is not sane4 ,it sins against the light2 against that broad daylight of proportion which is the principle of all reality4 ,it is reached by stretching a point1 by making out a case1 by artificially selecting a certain light and shade1 by bringing into prominence the lesser or lower things which may happen to be similar4 ,the solid thing standing in the sunlight1 the thing we can walk round and see from all sides1 is quite different4 ,it is also quite extraordinary2 and the more sides we see of it the more extraordinary it seems4 ,it is emphatically not a thing that follows or flows naturally from anything else4 ,if we imagine that an inhuman or impersonal intelligence could have felt from the first the general nature of the non-human world sufficiently to see that things would evolve in whatever way they did evolve1 there would have been nothing whatever in all that natural world to prepare such a mind for such an unnatural novelty4 ,to such a mind1 man would most certainly not have seemed something like one herd out of a hundred herds finding richer pasture2 or one swallow out of a hundred swallows making a summer under a strange sky4 ,it would not be in the same scale and scarcely in the same dimension4 ,we might as truly say that it would not be in the same universe4 ,it would be more like seeing one cow out of a hundred cows suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a hundred pigs grow wings in a flash and fly4 ,it would not be a question of the cattle finding their own grazing-ground but of their building their own cattle-sheds1 not a question of one swallow making a summer but of his making a summer-house4 ,for the very fact that birds do build nests is one of those similarities that sharpen the startling difference4 ,the very fact that a bird can get as far as building a nest1 and cannot get any farther1 proves that he has not a mind as man has a mind2 it proves it more completely than if he built nothing at all4 ,if he built nothing at all1 he might possibly be a philosopher of the ,quietist or ,buddhistic school1 indifferent to all but the mind within4 ,but when he builds as he does build and is satisfied and sings aloud with satisfaction1 then we know there is really an invisible veil like a pane of glass between him and us1 like the window on which a bird will beat in vain4 ,but suppose our abstract onlooker saw one of the birds begin to build as men build4 ,suppose in an incredibly short space of time there were seven styles of architecture for one style of nest4 ,suppose the bird carefully selected forked twigs and pointed leaves to express the piercing piety of ,gothic1 but turned to broad foliage and black mud when he sought in a darker mood to call up the heavy columns of ,bel and ,ashtaroth2 making his nest indeed one of the hanging gardens of ,babylon4 ,suppose the bird made little clay statues of birds celebrated in letters or politics and stuck them up in front of the nest4 ,suppose that one bird out of a thousand birds began to do one of the thousand things that man had already done even in the morning of the world2 and we can be quite certain that the onlooker would not regard such a bird as a mere evolutionary variety of the other birds2 he would regard it as a very fearful wild-fowl indeed2 possibly as a bird of ill-omen1 certainly as an omen4 ,that bird would tell the augurs1 not of something that would happen1 but of something that had happened4 ,that something would be the appearance of a mind with a new dimension of depth2 a mind like that of man4 ,if there be no ,god1 no other mind could conceivably have foreseen it4 ,now1 as a matter of fact1 there is not a shadow of evidence that this thing was evolved at all4 ,there is not a particle of proof that this transition came slowly1 or even that it came naturally4 ,in a strictly scientific sense1 we simply know nothing whatever about how it grew1 or whether it grew1 or what it is4 ,there may be a broken trail of stones and bones faintly suggesting the development of the human body4 ,there is nothing even faintly suggesting such a development of this human mind4 ,it was not and it was2 we know not in what instant or in what infinity of years4 ,something happened2 and it has all the appearance of a transaction outside time4 ,it has therefore nothing to do with history in the ordinary sense4 ,the historian must take it or something like it for granted2 it is not his business as a historian to explain it4 ,but if he cannot explain it as a historian1 he will not explain it as a biologist4 ,in neither case is there any disgrace to him in accepting it without explaining it2 for it is a reality1 and history and biology deal with realities4 ,he is quite justified in calmly confronting the pig with wings and the cow that jumped over the moon1 merely because they have happened4 ,he can reasonably accept man as a freak1 because he accepts man as a fact4 ,he can be perfectly comfortable in a crazy and disconnected world1 or in a world that can produce such a crazy and disconnected thing4 ,for reality is a thing in which we can all repose1 even if it hardly seems related to anything else4 ,the thing is there2 and that is enough for most of us4 ,but if we do indeed want to know how it can conceivably have come there1 if we do indeed wish to see it related realistically to other things1 if we do insist on seeing it evolved before our very eyes from an environment nearer to its own nature1 then assuredly it is to very different things that we must go4 ,we must stir very strange memories and return to very simple dreams if we desire some origin that can make man other than a monster4 ,we shall have discovered very different causes before he becomes a creature of causation2 and invoked other authority to turn him into something reasonable1 or even into anything probable4 ,that way lies all that is at once awful and familiar and forgotten1 with dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms4 ,we can accept man as a fact1 if we are content with an unexplained fact4 ,we can accept him as an animal1 if we can live with a fabulous animal4 ,but if we must needs have sequence and necessity1 then indeed we must provide a prelude and crescendo of mounting miracles1 that ushered in with unthinkable thunders in all the seven heavens of another order1 a man may be an ordinary thing4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,professors ,,and ,,prehistoric ,,men ,science is weak about these prehistoric things in a way that has hardly been noticed4 ,the science whose modern marvels we all admire succeeds by incessantly adding to its data4 ,in all practical inventions1 in most natural discoveries1 it can always increase evidence by experiment4 ,but it cannot experiment in making men2 or even in watching to see what the first men make4 ,an inventor can advance step by step in the construction of an aeroplane1 even if he is only experimenting with sticks and scraps of metal in his own back-yard4 ,but he cannot watch the ,missing ,link evolving in his own back-yard4 ,if he has made a mistake in his calculations1 the aeroplane will correct it by crashing to the ground4 ,but if he has made a mistake about the arboreal habitat of his ancestor1 he cannot see his arboreal ancestor falling off the tree4 ,he cannot keep a cave-man like a cat in the back-yard and watch him to see whether he does really practise cannibalism or carry off his mate on the principles of marriage by capture4 ,he cannot keep a tribe of primitive men like a pack of hounds and notice how far they are influenced by the herd instinct4 ,if he sees a particular bird behave in a particular way1 he can get other birds and see if they behave in that way2 but if he finds a skull1 or the scrap of a skull1 in the hollow of a hill1 he cannot multiply it into a vision of the valley of dry bones4 ,in dealing with a past that has almost entirely perished1 he can only go by evidence and not by experiment4 ,and there is hardly enough evidence to be even evidential4 ,thus while most science moves in a sort of curve1 being constantly corrected by new evidence1 this science flies off into space in a straight line uncorrected by anything4 ,but the habit of forming conclusions1 as they can really be formed in more fruitful fields1 is so fixed in the scientific mind that it cannot resist talking like this4 ,it talks about the idea suggested by one scrap of bone as if it were something like the aeroplane which is constructed at last out of whole scrap-heaps of scraps of metal4 ,the trouble with the professor of the prehistoric is that he cannot scrap his scrap4 ,the marvellous and triumphant aeroplane is made out of a hundred mistakes4 ,the student of origins can only make one mistake and stick to it4 ,we talk very truly of the patience of science2 but in this department it would be truer to talk of the impatience of science4 ,owing to the difficulty above described1 the theorist is in far too much of a hurry4 ,we have a series of hypotheses so hasty that they may well be called fancies1 and cannot in any case be further corrected by facts4 ,the most empirical anthropologist is here as limited as an antiquary4 ,he can only cling to a fragment of the past and has no way of increasing it for the future4 ,he can only clutch his fragment of fact1 almost as the primitive man clutched his fragment of flint4 ,and indeed he does deal with it in much the same way and for much the same reason4 ,it is his tool and his only tool4 ,it is his weapon and his only weapon4 ,he often wields it with a fanaticism far in excess of anything shown by men of science when they can collect more facts from experience and even add new facts by experiment4 ,sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone4 ,and the dog at least does not deduce a theory from it1 proving that mankind is going to the dogs--or that it came from them4 ,for instance1 ,i have pointed out the difficulty of keeping a monkey and watching it evolve into a man4 ,experimental evidence of such an evolution being impossible1 the professor is not content to say 7as most of us would be ready to say7 that such an evolution is likely enough anyhow4 ,he produces his little bone1 or little collection of bones1 and deduces the most marvellous things from it4 ,he found in ,java a part of a skull1 seeming by its contour to be smaller than the human4 ,somewhere near it he found an upright thigh-bone1 and in the same scattered fashion some teeth that were not human4 ,if they all form part of one creature1 which is doubtful1 our conception of the creature would be almost equally doubtful4 ,but the effect on popular science was to produce a complete and even complex figure1 finished down to the last details of hair and habits4 ,he was given a name as if he were an ordinary historical character4 ,people talked of ,pithecanthropus as of ,pitt or ,fox or ,napoleon4 ,popular histories published portraits of him like the portraits of ,charles the ,first and ,george the ,fourth4 ,a detailed drawing was reproduced1 carefully shaded1 to show that the very hairs of his head were all numbered4 ,no uninformed person looking at its carefully lined face and wistful eyes would imagine for a moment that this was the portrait of a thigh-bone2 or of a few teeth and a fragment of a cranium4 ,in the same way people talked about him as if he were an individual whose influence and character were familiar to us all4 ,i have just read a story in a magazine about ,java1 and how modern white inhabitants of that island are prevailed on to misbehave themselves by the personal influence of poor old ,pithecanthropus4 ,that the modern inhabitants of ,java misbehave themselves ,i can very readily believe2 but ,i do not imagine that they need any encouragement from the discovery of a few highly doubtful bones4 ,anyhow1 those bones are far too few and fragmentary and dubious to fill up the whole of the vast void that does in reason and in reality lie between man and his bestial ancestors1 if they were his ancestors4 ,on the assumption of that evolutionary connection 7a connection which ,i am not in the least concerned to deny71 the really arresting and remarkable fact is the comparative absence of any such remains recording that connection at that point4 ,the sincerity of ,darwin really admitted this2 and that is how we came to use such a term as the ,missing ,link4 ,but the dogmatism of ,darwinians has been too strong for the agnosticism of ,darwin2 and men have insensibly fallen into turning this entirely negative term into a positive image4 ,they talk of searching for the habits and habitat of the ,missing ,link2 as if one were to talk of being on friendly terms with the gap in a narrative or the hole in an argument1 of taking a walk with a non-sequitur or dining with an undistributed middle4 ,in this sketch1 therefore1 of man in his relation to certain religious and historical problems1 ,i shall waste no further space on these speculations on the nature of man before he became man4 ,his body may have been evolved from the brutes2 but we know nothing of any such transition that throws the smallest light upon his soul as it has shown itself in history4 ,unfortunately the same school of writers pursue the same style of reasoning when they come to the first real evidence about the first real men4 ,strictly speaking of course we know nothing about prehistoric man1 for the simple reason that he was prehistoric4 ,the history of prehistoric man is a very obvious contradiction in terms4 ,it is the sort of unreason in which only rationalists are allowed to indulge4 ,if a parson had casually observed that the ,flood was antediluvian1 it is possible that he might be a little chaffed about his logic4 ,if a bishop were to say that ,adam was ,preadamite1 we might think it a little odd4 ,but we are not supposed to notice such verbal trifles when sceptical historians talk of the part of history that is prehistoric4 ,the truth is that they are using the terms historic and prehistoric without any clear test or definition in their minds4 ,what they mean is that there are traces of human lives before the beginning of human stories2 and in that sense we do at least know that humanity was before history4 ,human civilisation is older than human records4 ,that is the sane way of stating our relations to these remote things4 ,humanity has left examples of its other arts earlier than the art of writing2 or at least of any writing that we can read4 ,but it is certain that the primitive arts were arts2 and it is in every way probable that the primitive civilisations were civilisations4 ,the man left a picture of the reindeer1 but he did not leave a narrative of how he hunted the reindeer2 and therefore what we say of him is hypothesis and not history4 ,but the art he did practise was quite artistic2 his drawing was quite intelligent1 and there is no reason to doubt that his story of the hunt would be quite intelligent1 only if it exists it is not intelligible4 ,in short1 the prehistoric period need not mean the primitive period1 in the sense of the barbaric or bestial period4 ,it does not mean the time before civilisation or the time before arts and crafts4 ,it simply means the time before any connected narratives that we can read4 ,this does indeed make all the practical difference between remembrance and forgetfulness2 but it is perfectly possible that there were all sorts of forgotten forms of civilisation1 as well as all sorts of forgotten forms of barbarism4 ,and in any case everything indicated that many of these forgotten or half-forgotten social stages were much more civilised and much less barbaric than is vulgarly imagined to-day4 ,but even about these unwritten histories of humanity1 when humanity was quite certainly human1 we can only conjecture with the greatest doubt and caution4 ,and unfortunately doubt and caution are the last things commonly encouraged by the loose evolutionism of current culture4 ,for that culture is full of curiosity2 and the one thing that it cannot endure is the agony of agnosticism4 ,it was in the ,darwinian age that the word first became known and the thing first became impossible4 ,it is necessary to say plainly that all this ignorance is simply covered by impudence4 ,statements are made so plainly and positively that men have hardly the moral courage to pause upon them and find that they are without support4 ,the other day a scientific summary of the state of a prehistoric tribe began confidently with the words #8,they wore no clothes4' ,not one reader in a hundred probably stopped to ask himself how we should come to know whether clothes had once been worn by people of whom everything has perished except a few chips of bone and stone4 ,it was doubtless hoped that we should find a stone hat as well as a stone hatchet4 ,it was evidently anticipated that we might discover an everlasting pair of trousers of the same substance as the everlasting rock4 ,but to persons of a less sanguine temperament it will be immediately apparent that people might wear simple garments1 or even highly ornamental garments1 without leaving any more traces of them than these people have left4 ,the plaiting of rushes and grasses1 for instance1 might have become more and more elaborate without in the least becoming more eternal4 ,one civilisation might specialise in things that happened to be perishable1 like weaving and embroidering1 and not in things that happen to be more permanent1 like architecture and sculpture4 ,there have been plenty of examples of such specialist societies4 ,a man of the future finding the ruins of our factory machinery might as fairly say that we were acquainted with iron and with no other substance2 and announce the discovery that the proprietor and manager of the factory undoubtedly walked about naked--or possibly wore iron hats and trousers4 ,it is not contended here that these primitive men did wear clothes any more than they did weave rushes2 but merely that we have not enough evidence to know whether they did or not4 ,but it may be worth while to look back for a moment at some of the very few things that we do know and that they did do4 ,if we consider them1 we shall certainly not find them inconsistent with such ideas as dress and decoration4 ,we do not know whether they decorated themselves2 but we do know that they decorated other things4 ,we do not know whether they had embroideries1 and if they had1 the embroideries could not be expected to have remained4 ,but we do know that they did have pictures2 and the pictures have remained4 ,and there remains with them1 as already suggested1 the testimony to something that is absolute and unique2 that belongs to man and to nothing else except man2 that is a difference of kind and not a difference of degree4 ,a monkey does not draw clumsily and a man cleverly2 a monkey does not begin the art of representation and a man carry it to perfection4 ,a monkey does not do it at all2 he does not begin to do it at all2 he does not begin to begin to do it at all4 ,a line of some kind is crossed before the first faint line can begin4 ,another distinguished writer1 again1 in commenting on the cave-drawings attributed to the neolithic men of the reindeer period1 said that none of their pictures appeared to have any religious purpose2 and he seemed almost to infer that they had no religion4 ,i can hardly imagine a thinner thread of argument than this which reconstructs the very inmost moods of the prehistoric mind from the fact that somebody who has scrawled a few sketches on a rock1 from what motive we do not know1 for what purpose we do not know1 acting under what customs or conventions we do not know1 may possibly have found it easier to draw reindeers than to draw religion4 ,he may have drawn it because it was his religious symbol4 ,he may have drawn it because it was not his religious symbol4 ,he may have drawn anything except his religious symbol4 ,he may have drawn his real religious symbol somewhere else2 or it may have been deliberately destroyed when it was drawn4 ,he may have done or not done half a million things2 but in any case it is an amazing leap of logic to infer that he had no religious symbol1 or even to infer from his having no religious symbol that he had no religion4 ,now this particular case happens to illustrate the insecurity of these guesses very clearly4 ,for a little while afterwards1 people discovered not only paintings but sculptures of animals in the caves4 ,some of these were said to be damaged with dints or holes supposed to be the marks of arrows2 and the damaged images were conjectured to be the remains of some magic rite of killing the beasts in effigy2 while the undamaged images were explained in connection with another magic rite invoking fertility upon the herds4 ,here again there is something faintly humorous about the scientific habit of having it both ways4 ,if the image is damaged it proves one superstition and if it is undamaged it proves another4 ,here again there is a rather reckless jumping to conclusions2 it has hardly occurred to the speculators that a crowd of hunters imprisoned in winter in a cave might conceivably have aimed at a mark for fun1 as a sort of primitive parlour game4 ,but in any case1 if it was done out of superstition1 what has become of the thesis that it had nothing to do with religion8 ,the truth is that all this guesswork has nothing to do with anything4 ,it is not half such a good parlour game as shooting arrows at a carved reindeer1 for it is shooting them into the air4 ,such speculators rather tend to forget1 for instance1 that men in the modern world also sometimes make marks in caves4 ,when a crowd of trippers is conducted through the labyrinth of the ,marvellous ,grotto or the ,magic ,stalactite ,cavern1 it has been observed that hieroglyphics spring into sight where they have passed2 initials and inscriptions which the learned refuse to refer to any remote date4 ,but the time will come when these inscriptions will really be of remote date4 ,and if the professors of the future are anything like the professors of the present1 they will be able to deduce a vast number of very vivid and interesting things from these cave-writings of the twentieth century4 ,if ,i know anything about the breed1 and if they have not fallen away from the full-blooded confidence of their fathers1 they will be able to discover the most fascinating facts about us from the initials left in the ,magic ,grotto by ',arry and ',arriet1 possibly in the form of two intertwined ,a's4 ,from this alone they will know 7#a7 ,that as the letters are rudely chipped with a blunt pocket-knife1 the twentieth century possessed no delicate graving-tools and was unacquainted with the art of sculpture4 7#b7 ,that as the letters are capital letters1 our civilisation never evolved any small letters or anything like a running hand4 7#c7 ,that because initial consonants stand together in an unpronounceable fashion1 our language was possibly akin to ,welsh or more probably of the early ,semitic type that ignored vowels4 7#d7 ,that as the initials of ',arry and ',arriet do not in any special fashion profess to be religious symbols1 our civilisation possessed no religion4 ,perhaps the last is about the nearest to the truth2 for a civilisation that had religion would have a little more reason4 ,it is commonly affirmed1 again1 that religion grew in a very slow and evolutionary manner2 and even that it grew not from one cause1 but from a combination that might be called a coincidence4 ,generally speaking1 the three chief elements in the combination are1 first1 the fear of the chief of the tribe 7whom ,mr4 ,wells insists on calling1 with regrettable familiarity1 the ,old ,man71 second1 the phenomena of dreams1 and third1 the sacrificial associations of the harvest and the resurrection symbolised in the growing corn4 ,i may remark in passing that it seems to me very doubtful psychology to refer one living and single spirit to three dead and disconnected causes1 if they were merely dead and disconnected causes4 ,suppose ,mr4 ,wells1 in one of his fascinating novels of the future1 were to tell us that there would arise among men a new and as yet nameless passion1 of which men will dream as they dream of first love1 for which they will die as they die for a flag and a fatherland4 ,i think we should be a little puzzled if he told us that this singular sentiment would be a combination of the habit of smoking ,woodbines1 the increase of the income tax and the pleasure of a motorist in exceeding the speed limit4 ,we could not easily imagine this1 because we could not imagine any connection between the three or any common feeling that could include them all4 ,nor could any one imagine any connection between corn and dreams and an old chief with a spear1 unless there was already a common feeling to include them all4 ,but if there was such a common feeling it could only be the religious feeling2 and these things could not be the beginnings of a religious feeling that existed already4 ,i think anybody's common sense will tell him that it is far more likely that this sort of mystical sentiment did exist already2 and that in the light of it dreams and kings and cornfields could appear mystical then1 as they can appear mystical now4 ,for the plain truth is that all this is a trick of making things seem distant and dehumanised1 merely by pretending not to understand things that we do understand4 ,it is like saying that prehistoric men had an ugly and uncouth habit of opening their mouths wide at intervals and stuffing strange substances into them1 as if we had never heard of eating4 ,it is like saying that the terrible ,troglodytes of the ,stone ,age lifted alternate legs in rotation1 as if we had never heard of walking4 ,if it were meant to touch the mystical nerve and awaken us to the wonder of walking and eating1 it might be a legitimate fancy4 ,as it is here intended to kill the mystical nerve and deaden us to the wonder of religion1 it is irrational rubbish4 ,it pretends to find something incomprehensible in the feelings that we all comprehend4 ,who does not find dreams mysterious1 and feel that they lie on the dark borderland of being8 ,who does not feel the death and resurrection of the growing things of the earth as something near to the secret of the universe8 ,who does not understand that there must always be the savour of something sacred about authority and the solidarity that is the soul of the tribe8 ,if there be any anthropologist who really finds these things remote and impossible to realise1 we can say nothing of that scientific gentleman except that he has not got so large and enlightened a mind as a primitive man4 ,to me it seems obvious that nothing but a spiritual sentiment already active could have clothed these separate and diverse things with sanctity4 ,to say that religion came from reverencing a chief or sacrificing at a harvest is to put a highly elaborate cart before a really primitive horse4 ,it is like saying that the impulse to draw pictures came from the contemplation of the pictures of reindeers in the cave4 ,in other words1 it is explaining painting by saying that it arose out of the work of painters2 or accounting for art by saying that it arose out of art4 ,it is even more like saying that the thing we call poetry arose as the result of certain customs2 such as that of an ode being officially composed to celebrate the advent of spring2 or that of a young man rising at a regular hour to listen to the skylark and then writing his report on a piece of paper4 ,it is quite true that young men often become poets in the spring2 and it is quite true that when once there are poets1 no mortal power can restrain them from writing about the skylark4 ,but the poems did not exist before the poets4 ,the poetry did not arise out of the poetic forms4 ,in other words1 it is hardly an adequate explanation of how a thing appeared for the first time to say it existed already4 ,similarly1 we cannot say that religion arose out of the religious forms1 because that is only another way of saying that it only arose when it existed already4 ,it needed a certain sort of mind to see that there was anything mystical about the dreams or the dead1 as it needed a particular sort of mind to see that there was anything poetical about the skylark or the spring4 ,that mind was presumably what we call the human mind1 very much as it exists to this day2 for mystics still meditate upon death and dreams as poets still write about spring and skylarks4 ,but there is not the faintest hint to suggest that anything short of the human mind we know feels any of these mystical associations at all4 ,a cow in a field seems to derive no lyrical impulse or instruction from her unrivalled opportunities for listening to the skylark4 ,and similarly there is no reason to suppose that live sheep will ever begin to use dead sheep as the basis of a system of elaborate ancestor-worship4 ,it is true that in the spring a young quadruped's fancy may lightly turn to thoughts of love1 but no succession of springs has ever led it to turn however lightly to thoughts of literature4 ,and in the same way1 while it is true that a dog has dreams1 while most other quadrupeds do not seem even to have that1 we have waited a long time for the dog to develop his dreams into an elaborate system of religious ceremonial4 ,we have waited so long that we have really ceased to expect it2 and we no more look to see a dog apply his dreams to ecclesiastical construction than to see him examine his dreams by the rules of psycho-analysis4 ,it is obvious1 in short1 that for some reason or other these natural experiences1 and even natural excitements1 never do pass the line that separates them from creative expression like art and religion1 in any creature except man4 ,they never do1 they never have1 and it is now to all appearance very improbable that they ever will4 ,it is not impossible1 in the sense of self-contradictory1 that we should see cows fasting from grass every ,friday or going on their knees as in the old legend about ,christmas ,eve4 ,it is not in that sense impossible that cows should contemplate death until they can lift up a sublime psalm of lamentation to the tune the old cow died of4 ,it is not in that sense impossible that they should express their hopes of a heavenly career in a symbolical dance1 in honour of the cow that jumped over the moon4 ,it may be that the dog will at last have laid in a sufficient store of dreams to enable him to build a temple to ,cerberus as a sort of canine trinity4 ,it may be that his dreams have already begun to turn into visions capable of verbal expression1 in some revelation about the ,dog ,star as the spiritual home for lost dogs4 ,these things are logically possible1 in the sense that it is logically difficult to prove the universal negative which we call an impossibility4 ,but all that instinct for the probable1 which we call common sense1 must long ago have told us that the animals are not to all appearance evolving in that sense2 and that1 to say the least1 we are not likely to have any personal evidence of their passing from the animal experience to the human experiments4 ,but spring and death and even dreams1 considered merely as experiences1 are their experiences as much as ours4 ,the only possible conclusion is that these experiences1 considered as experiences1 do not generate anything like a religious sense in any mind except a mind like ours4 ,we come back to the fact of a certain kind of mind as already alive and alone4 ,it was unique and it could make creeds as it could make cave-drawings4 ,the materials for religion had lain there for countless ages like the materials for everything else2 but the power of religion was in the mind4 ,man could already see in these things the riddles and hints and hopes that he still sees in them4 ,he could not only dream but dream about dreams4 ,he could not only see the dead but see the shadow of death2 and was possessed with that mysterious mystification that for ever finds death incredible4 ,it is quite true that we have even these hints chiefly about man when he unmistakably appears as man4 ,we cannot affirm this or anything else about the alleged animal originally connecting man and the brutes4 ,but that is only because he is not an animal but an allegation4 ,we cannot be certain that ,pithecanthropus ever worshipped1 because we cannot be certain that he ever lived4 ,he is only a vision called up to fill the void that does in fact yawn between the first creatures who were certainly men and any other creatures that are certainly apes or other animals4 ,a few very doubtful fragments are scraped together to suggest such an intermediate creature because it is required by a certain philosophy2 but nobody supposes that these are sufficient to establish anything philosophical even in support of that philosophy4 ,a scrap of skull found in ,java cannot establish anything about religion or about the absence of religion4 ,if there ever was any such ape-man1 he may have exhibited as much ritual in religion as a man or as much simplicity in religion as an ape4 ,he may have been a mythologist or he may have been a myth4 ,it might be interesting to inquire whether this mystical quality appeared in a transition from the ape to the man1 if there were really any types of the transition to inquire about4 ,in other words1 the missing link might or might not be mystical if he were not missing4 ,but compared with the evidence we have of real human beings1 we have no evidence that he was a human being or a half-human being or a being at all4 ,even the most extreme evolutionists do not attempt to deduce any evolutionary views about the origin of religion from him4 ,even in trying to prove that religion grew slowly from rude or irrational sources1 they begin their proof with the first men who were men4 ,but their own proof only proves that the men who were already men were already mystics4 ,they used the rude and irrational elements as only men and mystics can use them4 ,we come back once more to the simple truth2 that at some time too early for these critics to trace1 a transition had occurred to which bones and stones cannot in their nature bear witness2 and man became a living soul4 ,touching this matter of the origin of religion1 the truth is that those who are thus trying to explain it are trying to explain it away4 ,subconsciously they feel that it looks less formidable when thus lengthened out into a gradual and almost invisible process4 ,but in fact this perspective entirely falsifies the reality of experience4 ,they bring together two things that are totally different1 the stray hints of evolutionary origins and the solid and self-evident block of humanity1 and try to shift their standpoint till they see them in a single foreshortened line4 ,but it is an optical illusion4 ,men do not in fact stand related to monkeys or missing links in any such chain as that in which men stand related to men4 ,there may have been intermediate creatures whose faint traces can be found here and there in the huge gap4 ,of these beings1 if they ever existed1 it may be true that they were things very unlike men or men very unlike ourselves4 ,but of prehistoric men1 such as those called the cave-men or the reindeer men1 it is not true in any sense whatever4 ,prehistoric men of that sort were things exactly like men and men exceedingly like ourselves4 ,they only happened to be men about whom we do not know much1 for the simple reason that they have left no records or chronicles2 but all that we do know about them makes them just as human and ordinary as men in a medieval manor or a ,greek city4 ,looking from our human standpoint up the long perspective of humanity1 we simply recognise this thing as human4 ,if we had to recognise it as animal1 we should have had to recognise it as abnormal4 ,if we chose to look through the other end of the telescope1 as ,i have done more than once in these speculations1 if we chose to project the human figure forward out of an unhuman world1 we could only say that one of the animals had obviously gone mad4 ,but seeing the thing from the right end1 or rather from the inside1 we know it is sanity2 and we know that these primitive men were sane4 ,we hail a certain human freemasonry wherever we see it1 in savages1 in foreigners or in historical characters4 ,for instance1 all we can infer from primitive legend1 and all we know of barbaric life1 supports a certain moral and even mystical idea of which the commonest symbol is clothes4 ,for clothes are very literally vestments1 and man wears them because he is a priest4 ,it is true that even as an animal he is here different from the animals4 ,nakedness is not nature to him2 it is not his life but rather his death2 even in the vulgar sense of his death of cold4 ,but clothes are worn for dignity or decency or decoration where they are not in any way wanted for warmth4 ,it would sometimes appear that they are valued for ornament before they are valued for use4 ,it would almost always appear that they are felt to have some connection with decorum4 ,conventions of this sort vary a great deal with various times and places2 and there are some who cannot get over this reflection1 and for whom it seems a sufficient argument for letting all conventions slide4 ,they never tire of repeating1 with simple wonder1 that dress is different in the ,cannibal ,islands and in ,camden ,town2 they cannot get any further and throw up the whole idea of decency in despair4 ,they might as well say that because there have been hats of a good many different shapes1 and some rather eccentric shapes1 therefore hats do not matter or do not exist4 ,they would probably add that there is no such thing as sunstroke or going bald4 ,men have felt everywhere that certain forms were necessary to fence off and protect certain private things from contempt or coarse misunderstanding2 and the keeping of those forms1 whatever they were1 made for dignity and mutual respect4 ,the fact that they mostly refer1 more or less remotely1 to the relations of the sexes illustrates the two facts that must be put at the very beginning of the record of the race4 ,the first is the fact that original sin is really original4 ,not merely in theology but in history it is a thing rooted in the origins4 ,whatever else men have believed1 they have all believed that there is something the matter with mankind4 ,this sense of sin has made it impossible to be natural and have no clothes1 just as it has made it impossible to be natural and have no laws4 ,but above all it is to be found in that other fact1 which is the father and mother of all laws as it is itself founded on a father and mother3 the thing that is before all thrones and even all commonwealths4 ,that fact is the family4 ,here again we must keep the enormous proportions of a normal thing clear of various modifications and degrees and doubts more or less reasonable1 like clouds clinging about a mountain4 ,it may be that what we call the family had to fight its way from or through various anarchies and aberrations2 but it certainly survived them and is quite as likely as not to have also preceded them4 ,as we shall see in the case of communism and nomadism1 more formless things could and did lie on the flank of societies that had taken a fixed form2 but there is nothing to show that the form did not exist before the formlessness4 ,what is vital is that form is more important than formlessness2 and that the material called mankind has taken this form4 ,for instance1 of the rules revolving round sex1 which were recently mentioned1 none is more curious than the savage custom commonly called the couvade4 ,that seems like a law out of topsyturvydom2 by which the father is treated as if he were the mother4 ,in any case it clearly involves the mystical sense of sex2 but many have maintained that it is really a symbolic act by which the father accepts the responsibility of fatherhood4 ,in that case that grotesque antic is really a very solemn act2 for it is the foundation of all we call the family and all we know as human society4 ,some groping in these dark beginnings have said that mankind was once under a matriarchy2 ,i suppose that under a matriarchy it would not be called mankind but womankind4 ,but others have conjectured that what is called matriarchy was simply moral anarchy1 in which the mother alone remained fixed because all the fathers were fugitive and irresponsible4 ,then came the moment when the man decided to guard and guide what he had created4 ,so he became the head of the family1 not as a bully with a big club to beat women with1 but rather as a respectable person trying to be a responsible person4 ,now all that might be perfectly true1 and might even have been the first family act1 and it would still be true that man then for the first time acted like a man1 and therefore for the first time became fully a man4 ,but it might quite as well be true that the matriarchy or moral anarchy1 or whatever we call it1 was only one of the hundred social dissolutions or barbaric backslidings which may have occurred at intervals in prehistoric as they certainly did in historic times4 ,a symbol like the couvade1 if it was really such a symbol1 may have commemorated the suppression of a heresy rather than the first rise of a religion4 ,we cannot conclude with any certainty about these things1 except in their big results in the building of mankind1 but we can say in what style the bulk of it and the best of it is built4 ,we can say that the family is the unit of the state2 that it is the cell that makes up the formation4 ,round the family do indeed gather the sanctities that separate men from ants and bees4 ,decency is the curtain of that tent2 liberty is the wall of that city2 property is but the family farm2 honour is but the family flag4 ,in the practical proportions of human history1 we come back to that fundamental of the father and the mother and the child4 ,it has been said already that if this story cannot start with religious assumptions1 it must none the less start with some moral or metaphysical assumptions1 or no sense can be made of the story of man4 ,and this is a very good instance of that alternative necessity4 ,if we are not of those who begin by invoking a divine ,trinity1 we must none the less invoke a human ,trinity2 and see that triangle repeated everywhere in the pattern of the world4 ,for the highest event in history to which all history looks forward and leads up1 is only something that is at once the reversal and the renewal of that triangle4 ,or rather it is the one triangle superimposed so as to intersect the other1 making a sacred pentacle of which1 in a mightier sense than that of the magicians1 the fiends are afraid4 ,the old ,trinity was of father and mother and child1 and is called the human family4 ,the new is of child and mother and father1 and has the name of the ,holy ,family4 ,it is in no way altered except in being entirely reversed2 just as the world which it transformed was not in the least different1 except in being turned upside-down4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,antiquity ,,of ,,civilisation ,the modern man looking at the most ancient origins has been like a man watching for daybreak in a strange land2 and expecting to see that dawn breaking behind bare uplands or solitary peaks4 ,but that dawn is breaking behind the black bulk of great cities long builded and lost for us in the original night2 colossal cities like the houses of giants1 in which even the carved ornamental animals are taller than the palm-trees2 in which the painted portrait can be twelve times the size of the man2 with tombs like mountains of man set four-square and pointing to the stars2 with winged and bearded bulls standing and staring enormous at the gates of temples2 standing still eternally as if a stamp would shake the world4 ,the dawn of history reveals a humanity already civilised4 ,perhaps it reveals a civilisation already old4 ,and among other more important things1 it reveals the folly of most of the generalisations about the previous and unknown period when it was really young4 ,the two first human societies of which we have any reliable and detailed record are ,babylon and ,egypt4 ,it so happens that these two vast and splendid achievements of the genius of the ancients bear witness against two of the commonest and crudest assumptions of the culture of the moderns4 ,if we want to get rid of half the nonsense about nomads and cave-men and the old man of the forest1 we need only look steadily at the two solid and stupendous facts called ,egypt and ,babylon4 ,of course most of these speculators who are talking about primitive men are thinking about modern savages4 ,they prove their progressive evolution by assuming that a great part of the human race has not progressed or evolved2 or even changed in any way at all4 ,i do not agree with their theory of change2 nor do ,i agree with their dogma of things unchangeable4 ,i may not believe that civilised man has had so rapid and recent a progress2 but ,i cannot quite understand why uncivilised man should be so mystically immortal and immutable4 ,a somewhat simpler mode of thought and speech seems to me to be needed throughout this inquiry4 ,modern savages cannot be exactly like primitive man1 because they are not primitive4 ,modern savages are not ancient because they are modern4 ,something has happened to their race as much as to ours1 during the thousands of years of our existence and endurance on the earth4 ,they have had some experiences1 and have presumably acted on them if not profited by them1 like the rest of us4 ,they have had some environment1 and even some change of environment1 and have presumably adapted themselves to it in a proper and decorous evolutionary manner4 ,this would be true even if the experiences were mild or the environment dreary2 for there is an effect in mere time when it takes the moral form of monotony4 ,but it has appeared to a good many intelligent and well-informed people quite as probable that the experience of the savages has been that of a decline from civilisation4 ,most of those who criticise this view do not seem to have any very clear notion of what a decline from civilisation would be like4 ,heaven help them1 it is likely enough that they will soon find out4 ,they seem to be content if cave-men and cannibal islanders have some things in common1 such as certain particular implements4 ,but it is obvious on the face of it that any peoples reduced for any reason to a ruder life would have some things in common4 ,if we lost all our firearms we should make bows and arrows2 but we should not necessarily resemble in every way the first men who made bows and arrows4 ,it is said that the ,russians in their great retreat were so short of armament that they fought with clubs cut in the wood4 ,but a professor of the future would err in supposing that the ,russian ,army of #aiaf was a naked ,scythian tribe that had never been out of the wood4 ,it is like saying that a man in his second childhood must exactly copy his first4 ,a baby is bald like an old man2 but it would be an error for one ignorant of infancy to infer that the baby had a long white beard4 ,both a baby and an old man walk with difficulty2 but he who shall expect the old gentleman to lie on his back1 and kick joyfully instead1 will be disappointed4 ,it is therefore absurd to argue that the first pioneers of humanity must have been identical with some of the last and most stagnant leavings of it4 ,there were almost certainly some things1 there were probably many things1 in which the two were widely different or flatly contrary4 ,an example of the way in which this distinction works1 and an example essential to our argument here1 is that of the nature and origin of government4 ,i have already alluded to ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells and the ,old ,man1 with whom he appears to be on such intimate terms4 ,if we considered the cold facts of prehistoric evidence for this portrait of the prehistoric chief of the tribe1 we could only excuse it by saying that its brilliant and versatile author simply forgot for a moment that he was supposed to be writing a history1 and dreamed he was writing one of his own very wonderful and imaginative romances4 ,at least ,i cannot imagine how he can possibly know that the prehistoric ruler was called the ,old ,man or that court etiquette requires it to be spelt with capital letters4 ,he says of the same potentate1 #8,no one was allowed to touch his spear or to sit in his seat4' ,i have difficulty in believing that anybody has dug up a prehistoric spear with a prehistoric label1 #8,visitors are ,requested not to ,touch1' or a complete throne with the inscription1 #8,reserved for the ,old ,man4' ,but it may be presumed that the writer1 who can hardly be supposed to be merely making up things out of his own head1 was merely taking for granted this very dubious parallel between the prehistoric and the decivilised man4 ,it may be that in certain savage tribes the chief is called the ,old ,man and nobody is allowed to touch his spear or sit on his seat4 ,it may be that in those cases he is surrounded with superstitious and traditional terrors2 and it may be that in those cases1 for all ,i know1 he is despotic and tyrannical4 ,but there is not a grain of evidence that primitive government was despotic and tyrannical4 ,it may have been1 of course1 for it may have been anything or even nothing2 it may not have existed at all4 ,but the despotism in certain dingy and decayed tribes in the twentieth century does not prove that the first men were ruled despotically4 ,it does not even suggest it2 it does not even begin to hint at it4 ,if there is one fact we really can prove1 from the history that we really do know1 it is that despotism can be a development1 often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic4 ,a despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy4 ,as fatigue falls on a community1 the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty2 and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep4 ,it is also true that they sometimes needed him for some sudden and militant act of reform2 it is equally true that he often took advantage of being the strong man armed to be a tyrant like some of the ,sultans of the ,east4 ,but ,i cannot see why the ,sultan should have appeared any earlier in history than many other human figures4 ,on the contrary1 the strong man armed obviously depends upon the superiority of his armour2 and armament of that sort comes with more complex civilisation4 ,one man may kill twenty with a machine-gun2 it is obviously less likely that he could do it with a piece of flint4 ,as for the current cant about the strongest man ruling by force and fear1 it is simply a nursery fairy-tale about a giant with a hundred hands4 ,twenty men could hold down the strongest strong man in any society1 ancient or modern4 ,undoubtedly they might admire1 in a romantic and poetical sense1 the man who was really the strongest2 but that is quite a different thing1 and is as purely moral and even mystical as the admiration for the purest or the wisest4 ,but the spirit that endures the mere cruelties and caprices of an established despot is the spirit of an ancient and settled and probably stiffened society1 not the spirit of a new one4 ,as his name implies1 the ,old ,man is the ruler of an old humanity4 ,it is far more probable that a primitive society was something like a pure democracy4 ,to this day the comparatively simple agricultural communities are by far the purest democracies4 ,democracy is a thing which is always breaking down through the complexity of civilisation4 ,any one who likes may state it by saying that democracy is the foe of civilisation4 ,but he must remember that some of us really prefer democracy to civilisation1 in the sense of preferring democracy to complexity4 ,anyhow1 peasants tilling patches of their own land in a rough equality1 and meeting to vote directly under a village tree1 are the most truly self-governing of men4 ,it is surely as likely as not that such a simple idea was found in the first condition of even simpler men4 ,indeed the despotic vision is exaggerated1 even if we do not regard the men as men4 ,even on an evolutionary assumption of the most materialistic sort1 there is really no reason why men should not have had at least as much camaraderie as rats or rooks4 ,leadership of some sort they doubtless had1 as have the gregarious animals2 but leadership implies no such irrational servility as that attributed to the superstitious subjects of the ,old ,man4 ,there was doubtless somebody corresponding1 to use ,tennyson's expression1 to the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home4 ,but ,i fancy that if that venerable fowl began to act after the fashion of some ,sultans in ancient and decayed ,asia1 it would become a very clanging rookery and the many-wintered crow would not see many more winters4 ,it may be remarked1 in this connection1 but even among animals it would seem that something else is respected more than bestial violence1 if it be only the familiarity which in men is called tradition or the experience which in men is called wisdom4 ,i do not know if crows really follow the oldest crow1 but if they do they are certainly not following the strongest crow4 ,and ,i do know1 in the human case1 that if some ritual of seniority keeps savages reverencing somebody called the ,old ,man1 then at least they have not our own servile sentimental weakness for worshipping the ,strong ,man4 ,it may be said then that primitive government1 like primitive art and religion and everything else1 is very imperfectly known or rather guessed at2 but that it is at least as good a guess to suggest that it was as popular as a ,balkan or ,pyrenean village as that it was as capricious and secret as a ,turkish divan4 ,both the mountain democracy and the oriental palace are modern in the sense that they are still there1 or are some sort of growth of history2 but of the two the palace has much more the look of being an accumulation and a corruption1 the village much more the look of being a really unchanged and primitive thing4 ,but my suggestions at this point do not go beyond expressing a wholesome doubt about the current assumption4 ,i think it interesting1 for instance1 that liberal institutions have been traced even by moderns back to barbarian or undeveloped states1 when it happened to be convenient for the support of some race or nation or philosophy4 ,so the ,socialists profess that their ideal of communal property existed in very early times4 ,so the ,jews are proud of the ,jubilees or juster redistributions under their ancient law4 ,so the ,teutonists boasted of tracing parliaments and juries and various popular things among the ,germanic tribes of the ,north4 ,so the ,celtophiles and those testifying to the wrongs of ,ireland have pleaded the more equal justice of the clan system1 to which the ,irish chiefs bore witness before ,strongbow4 ,the strength of the case varies in the different cases2 but as there is some case for all of them1 ,i suspect there is some case for the general proposition that popular institutions of some sort were by no means uncommon in early and simple societies4 ,each of these separate schools were making the admission to prove a particular modern thesis2 but taken together they suggest a more ancient and general truth1 that there was something more in prehistoric councils than ferocity and fear4 ,each of these separate theorists had his own axe to grind1 but he was willing to use a stone axe2 and he manages to suggest that the stone axe might have been as republican as the guillotine4 ,but the truth is that the curtain rises upon the play already in progress4 ,in one sense it is a true paradox that there was history before history4 ,but it is not the irrational paradox implied in prehistoric history2 for it is a history we do not know4 ,very probably it was exceedingly like the history we do know1 except in the one detail that we do not know it4 ,it is thus the very opposite of the pretentious prehistoric history1 which professes to trace everything in a consistent course from the amoeba to the anthropoid and from the anthropoid to the agnostic4 ,so far from being a question of our knowing all about queer creatures very different from ourselves1 they were very probably people very like ourselves1 except that we know nothing about them4 ,in other words1 our most ancient records only reach back to a time when humanity had long been human1 and even long been civilised4 ,the most ancient records we have not only mention but take for granted things like kings and priests and princes and assemblies of the people2 they describe communities that are roughly recognisable as communities in our own sense4 ,some of them are despotic2 but we cannot tell that they have always been despotic4 ,some of them may be already decadent1 and nearly all are mentioned as if they were old4 ,we do not know what really happened in the world before those records2 but the little we do know would leave us anything but astonished if we learnt that it was very much like what happens in this world now4 ,there would be nothing inconsistent or confounding about the discovery that those unknown ages were full of republics collapsing under monarchies and rising again as republics1 empires expanding and finding colonies and then losing colonies1 kingdoms combining again into world-states and breaking up again into small nationalities1 classes selling themselves into slavery and marching out once more into liberty2 all that procession of humanity which may or may not be a progress but is most assuredly a romance4 ,but the first chapters of the romance have been torn out of the book2 and we shall never read them4 ,it is so also with the more special fancy about evolution and social stability4 ,according to the real records available1 barbarism and civilisation were not successive stages in the progress of the world4 ,they were conditions that existed side by side1 as they still exist side by side4 ,there were civilisations then as there are civilisations now2 there are savages now as there were savages then4 ,it is suggested that all men passed through a nomadic stage2 but it is certain that there are some who have never passed out of it1 and it seems not unlikely that there were some who never passed into it4 ,it is probable that from very primitive times the static tiller of the soil and the wandering shepherd were two distinct types of men2 and the chronological rearrangement of them is but a mark of that mania for progressive stages that has largely falsified history4 ,it is suggested that there was a communist stage1 in which private property was everywhere unknown1 a whole humanity living on the negation of property2 but the evidences of this negation are themselves rather negative4 ,redistributions of property1 jubilees1 and agrarian laws occur at various intervals and in various forms2 but that humanity inevitably passed through a communist stage seems as doubtful as the parallel proposition that humanity will inevitably return to it4 ,it is chiefly interesting as evidence that the boldest plans for the future invoke the authority of the past2 and that even a revolutionary seeks to satisfy himself that he is also a reactionary4 ,there is an amusing parallel example in the case of what is called feminism4 ,in spite of all the pseudo-scientific gossip about marriage by capture and the cave-man beating the cave-woman with a club1 it may be noted that as soon as feminism became a fashionable cry1 it was insisted that human civilisation in its first stage had been a matriarchy4 ,apparently it was the cave-woman who carried the club4 ,anyhow all these ideas are little better than guesses2 and they have a curious way of following the fortune of modern theories and fads4 ,in any case they are not history in the sense of record2 and we may repeat that when it comes to record1 the broad truth is that barbarism and civilisation have always dwelt side by side in the world1 the civilisation sometimes spreading to absorb the barbarians1 sometimes decaying into relative barbarism1 and in almost all cases possessing in a more finished form certain ideas and institutions which the barbarians possess in a ruder form2 such as government or social authority1 the arts and especially the decorative arts1 mysteries and taboos of various kinds especially surrounding the matter of sex1 and some form of that fundamental thing which is the chief concern of this inquiry3 the thing that we call religion4 ,now ,egypt and ,babylon1 those two primeval monsters1 might in this matter have been specially provided as models4 ,they might almost be called working models to show how these modern theories do not work4 ,the two great truths we know about these two great cultures happen to contradict flatly the two current fallacies which have just been considered4 ,the story of ,egypt might have been invented to point the moral that man does not necessarily begin with despotism because he is barbarous1 but very often finds his way to despotism because he is civilised4 ,he finds it because he is experienced2 or1 what is often much the same thing1 because he is exhausted4 ,and the story of ,babylon might have been invented to point the moral that man need not be a nomad or a communist before he becomes a peasant or a citizen2 and that such cultures are not always in successive stages but often in contemporary states4 ,even touching these great civilisations with which our written history begins1 there is a temptation of course to be too ingenious or too cocksure4 ,we can read the bricks of ,babylon in a very different sense from that in which we guess about the ,cup and ,ring stones2 and we do definitely know what is meant by the animals in the ,egyptian hieroglyphic as we know nothing of the animals in the neolithic cave4 ,but even here the admirable archeologists who have deciphered line after line of miles of hieroglyphics may be tempted to read too much between the lines2 even the real authority on ,babylon may forget how fragmentary is his hard-won knowledge2 may forget that ,babylon has only heaved half a brick at him1 though half a brick is better than no cuneiform4 ,but some truths1 historic and not prehistoric1 dogmatic and not evolutionary1 facts and not fancies1 do indeed emerge from ,egypt and ,babylon2 and these two truths are among them4 ,egypt is a green ribbon along the river edging the dark red desolation of the desert4 ,it is a proverb1 and one of vast antiquity1 that it is created by the mysterious bounty and almost sinister benevolence of the ,nile4 ,when we first hear of ,egyptians they are living as in a string of river-side villages1 in small and separate but co-operative communities along the bank of the ,nile4 ,where the river branched into the broad ,delta there was traditionally the beginning of a somewhat different district or people2 but this need not complicate the main truth4 ,these more or less independent though interdependent peoples were considerably civilised already4 ,they had a sort of heraldry2 that is1 decorative art used for symbolic and social purposes2 each sailing the ,nile under its own ensign representing some bird or animal4 ,heraldry involves two things of enormous importance to normal humanity2 the combination of the two making that noble thing called co-operation2 on which rest all peasantries and peoples that are free4 ,the art of heraldry means independence2 an image chosen by the imagination to express the individuality4 ,the science of heraldry means interdependence2 an agreement between different bodies to recognise different images2 a science of imagery4 ,we have here therefore exactly that compromise of co-operation between free families or groups which is the most normal mode of life for humanity and is particularly apparent wherever men own their own land and live on it4 ,with the very mention of the images of bird and beast the student of mythology will murmur the word #8totem' almost in his sleep4 ,but to my mind much of the trouble arises from his habit of saying such words as if in his sleep4 ,throughout this rough outline ,i have made a necessarily inadequate attempt to keep on the inside rather than the outside of such things2 to consider them where possible in terms of thought and not merely in terms of terminology4 ,there is very little value in talking about totems unless we have some feeling of what it really felt like to have a totem4 ,granted that they had totems and we have no totems2 was it because they had more fear of animals or more familiarity with animals8 ,did a man whose totem was a wolf feel like a were-wolf or like a man running away from a were-wolf8 ,did he feel like ,uncle ,remus about ,brer ,wolf or like ,st4 ,francis about his brother the wolf1 or like ,mowgli about his brothers the wolves8 ,was a totem a thing like the ,british lion or a thing like the ,british bulldog8 ,was the worship of a totem like the feeling of niggers about ,mumbo ,jumbo1 or of children about ,jumbo8 ,i have never read any book of folk-lore1 however learned1 that gave me any light upon this question1 which ,i think by far the most important one4 ,i will confine myself to repeating that the earliest ,egyptian communities had a common understanding about the images that stood for their individual states2 and that this amount of communication is prehistoric in the sense that it is already there at the beginning of history4 ,but as history unfolds itself1 this question of communication is clearly the main question of these riverside communities4 ,with the need of communication comes the need of a common government and the growing greatness and spreading shadow of the king4 ,the other binding force besides the king1 and perhaps older than the king1 is the priesthood2 and the priesthood has presumably even more to do with these ritual symbols and signals by which men can communicate4 ,and here in ,egypt arose probably the primary and certainly the typical invention to which we owe all history1 and the whole difference between the historic and the prehistoric3 the archetypal script1 the art of writing4 ,the popular pictures of these primeval empires are not half so popular as they might be4 ,there is shed over them the shadow of an exaggerated gloom1 more than the normal and even healthy sadness of heathen men4 ,it is part of the same sort of secret pessimism that loves to make primitive man a crawling creature1 whose body is filth and whose soul is fear4 ,it comes of course from the fact that men are moved most by their religion2 especially when it is irreligion4 ,for them anything primary and elemental must be evil4 ,but it is the curious consequence that while we have been deluged with the wildest experiments in primitive romance1 they have all missed the real romance of being primitive4 ,they have described scenes that are wholly imaginary1 in which the men of the ,stone ,age are men of stone like walking statues2 in which the ,assyrians or ,egyptians are as stiff or as painted as their own most archaic art4 ,but none of these makers of imaginary scenes have tried to imagine what it must really have been like to see those things as fresh which we see as familiar4 ,they have not seen a man discovering fire like a child discovering fireworks4 ,they have not seen a man playing with the wonderful invention called the wheel1 like a boy playing at putting up a wireless station4 ,they have never put the spirit of youth into their descriptions of the youth of the world4 ,it follows that amid all their primitive or prehistoric fancies there are no jokes4 ,there are not even practical jokes1 in connection with the practical inventions4 ,and this is very sharply defined in the particular case of hieroglyphics2 for there seems to be serious indication that the whole high human art of scripture or writing began with a joke4 ,there are some who will learn with regret that it seems to have begun with a pun4 ,the king or the priests or some responsible persons1 wishing to send a message up the river in that inconveniently long and narrow territory1 hit on the idea of sending it in picture-writing1 like that of the ,red ,indian4 ,like most people who have written picture-writing for fun1 he found the words did not always fit4 ,but when the word for taxes sounded rather like the word for pig1 he boldly put down a pig as a bad pun and chanced it4 ,so a modern hieroglyphist might represent #8at once' by unscrupulously drawing a hat followed by a series of upright numerals4 ,it was good enough for the ,pharaohs and ought to be good enough for him4 ,but it must have been great fun to write or even to read these messages1 when writing and reading were really a new thing4 ,and if people must write romances about ancient ,egypt 7and it seems that neither prayers nor tears nor curses can withhold them from the habit71 ,i suggest that scenes like this would really remind us that the ancient ,egyptians were human beings4 ,i suggest that somebody should describe the scene of the great monarch sitting among his priests1 and all of them roaring with laughter and bubbling over with suggestions as the royal puns grew more and more wild and indefensible4 ,there might be another scene of almost equal excitement about the decoding of this cipher2 the guesses and clues and discoveries having all the popular thrill of a detective story4 ,that is how primitive romance and primitive history really ought to be written4 ,for whatever was the quality of the religious or moral life of remote times1 and it was probably much more human than is conventionally supposed1 the scientific interest of such a time must have been intense4 ,words must have been more wonderful than wireless telegraphy2 and experiments with common things a series of electric shocks4 ,we are still waiting for somebody to write a lively story of primitive life4 ,the point is in some sense a parenthesis here2 but it is connected with the general matter of political development1 by the institution which is most active in these first and most fascinating of all the fairy-tales of science4 ,it is admitted that we owe most of this science to the priests4 ,modern writers like ,mr4 ,wells cannot be accused of any weakness of sympathy with a pontifical hierarchy2 but they agree at least in recognising what pagan priesthoods did for the arts and sciences4 ,among the more ignorant of the enlightened there was indeed a convention of saying that priests had obstructed progress in all ages2 and a politician once told me in a debate that ,i was resisting modern reforms exactly as some ancient priest probably resisted the discovery of wheels4 ,i pointed out1 in reply1 that it was far more likely that the ancient priest made the discovery of the wheels4 ,it is overwhelmingly probable that the ancient priest had a great deal to do with the discovery of the art of writing4 ,it is obvious enough in the fact that the very word hieroglyphic is akin to the word hierarchy4 ,the religion of these priests was apparently a more or less tangled polytheism of a type that is more particularly described elsewhere4 ,it passed through a period when it co-operated with the king1 another period when it was temporarily destroyed by the king1 who happened to be a prince with a private theism of his own1 and a third period when it practically destroyed the king and ruled in his stead4 ,but the world has to thank it for many things which it considers common and necessary2 and the creators of those common things ought really to have a place among the heroes of humanity4 ,if we were at rest in a real paganism1 instead of being restless in a rather irrational reaction from ,christianity1 we might pay some sort of pagan honour to these nameless makers of mankind4 ,we might have veiled statues of the man who first found fire or the man who first made a boat or the man who first tamed a horse4 ,and if we brought them garlands or sacrifices1 there would be more sense in it than in disfiguring our cities with cockney statues of stale politicians and philanthropists4 ,but one of the strange marks of the strength of ,christianity is that1 since it came1 no pagan in our civilisation has been able to be really human4 ,the point is here1 however1 that the ,egyptian government1 whether pontifical or royal1 found it more and more necessary to establish communication2 and there always went with communication a certain element of coercion4 ,it is not necessarily an indefensible thing that the ,state grew more despotic as it grew more civilised2 it is arguable that it had to grow more despotic in order to grow more civilised4 ,that is the argument for autocracy in every age2 and the interest lies in seeing it illustrated in the earliest age4 ,but it is emphatically not true that it was most despotic in the earliest age and grew more liberal in a later age2 the practical process of history is exactly the reverse4 ,it is not true that the tribe began in the extreme of terror of the ,old ,man and his seat and spear2 it is probable1 at least in ,egypt1 that the ,old ,man was rather a ,new ,man armed to attack new conditions4 ,his spear grew longer and longer and his throne rose higher and higher1 as ,egypt rose into a complex and complete civilisation4 ,that is what ,i mean by saying that the history of the ,egyptian territory is in this the history of the earth2 and directly denies the vulgar assumption that terrorism can only come at the beginning and cannot come at the end4 ,we do not know what was the very first condition of the more or less feudal amalgam of landowners1 peasants1 and slaves in the little commonwealths beside the ,nile2 but it may have been a peasantry of an even more popular sort4 ,what we do know is that it was by experience and education that little commonwealths lose their liberty2 that absolute sovereignty is something not merely ancient but rather relatively modern2 and it is at the end of the path called progress that men return to the king4 ,egypt exhibits1 in that brief record of its remotest beginnings1 the primary problem of liberty and civilisation4 ,it is the fact that men actually lose variety by complexity4 ,we have not solved the problem properly any more than they did2 but it vulgarises the human dignity of the problem itself to suggest that even tyranny has no motive save in tribal terror4 ,and just as the ,egyptian example refutes the fallacy about despotism and civilisation1 so does the ,babylonian example refute the fallacy about civilisation and barbarism4 ,babylon also we first hear of when it is already civilised2 for the simple reason that we cannot hear of anything until it is educated enough to talk4 ,it talks to us in what is called cuneiform2 that strange and stiff triangular symbolism that contrasts with the picturesque alphabet of ,egypt4 ,however relatively rigid ,egyptian art may be1 there is always something different from the ,babylonian spirit which was too rigid to have any art4 ,there is always a living grace in the lines of the lotus and something of rapidity as well as rigidity in the movement of the arrows and the birds4 ,perhaps there is something of the restrained but living curve of the river1 which makes us in talking of the serpent of old ,nile almost think of the ,nile as a serpent4 ,babylon was a civilisation of diagrams rather than of drawings4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats1 who has a historical imagination to match his mythological imagination 7and indeed the former is impossible without the latter71 wrote truly of the men who watched the stars #8from their pedantic ,babylon4' ,the cuneiform was cut upon bricks1 of which all their architecture was built up2 the bricks were of baked mud1 and perhaps the material had something in it forbidding the sense of form to develop in sculpture or relief4 ,theirs was a static but a scientific civilisation1 far advanced in the machinery of life and in some ways highly modern4 ,it is said that they had much of the modern cult of the higher spinsterhood and recognised an official class of independent working women4 ,there is perhaps something in that mighty stronghold of hardened mud that suggests the utilitarian activity of a huge hive4 ,but though it was huge it was human2 we see many of the same social problems as in ancient ,egypt or modern ,england2 and whatever its evils this also was one of the earliest masterpieces of man4 ,it stood1 of course1 in the triangle formed by the almost legendary rivers of ,tigris and ,euphrates1 and the vast agriculture of its empire1 on which its towns depended1 was perfected by a highly scientific system of canals4 ,it had by tradition a high intellectual life1 though rather philosophic than artistic2 and there preside over its primal foundation those figures who have come to stand for the star-gazing wisdom of antiquity2 the teachers of ,abraham2 the ,chaldees4 ,against this solid society1 as against some vast bare wall of brick1 there surged age after age the nameless armies of the ,nomads4 ,they came out of the deserts where the nomadic life had been lived from the beginning and where it is still lived to-day4 ,it is needless to dwell on the nature of that life2 it was obvious enough and even easy enough to follow a herd or a flock which generally found its own grazing-ground and to live on the milk or meat it provided4 ,nor is there any reason to doubt that this habit of life could give almost every human thing except a home4 ,many such shepherds or herdsmen may have talked in the earliest times of all the truths and enigmas of the ,book of ,job2 and of these were ,abraham and his children1 who have given to the modern world for an endless enigma the almost monomaniac monotheism of the ,jews4 ,but they were a wild people without comprehension of complex social organisation2 and a spirit like the wind within them made them wage war on it again and again4 ,the history of ,babylonia is largely the history of its defence against the desert hordes2 who came on at intervals of a century or two and generally retreated as they came4 ,some say that an admixture of nomad invasion built at ,nineveh the arrogant kingdom of the ,assyrians1 who carved great monsters upon their temples1 bearded bulls with wings like cherubim1 and who sent forth many military conquerors who stamped the world as if with such colossal hooves4 ,assyria was an imperial interlude2 but it was an interlude4 ,the main story of all that land is the war between the wandering peoples and the state that was truly static4 ,presumably in prehistoric times1 and certainly in historic times1 those wanderers went westward to waste whatever they could find4 ,the last time they came they found ,babylon vanished2 but that was in historic times and the name of their leader was ,mahomet4 ,now it is worth while to pause upon that story because1 as has been suggested1 it directly contradicts the impression still current that nomadism is merely a prehistoric thing and social settlement a comparatively recent thing4 ,there is nothing to show that the ,babylonians had ever wandered2 there is very little to show that the tribes of the desert ever settled down4 ,indeed it is probable that this notion of a nomadic stage followed by a static stage has already been abandoned by the sincere and genuine scholars to whose researches we all owe so much4 ,but ,i am not at issue in this book with sincere and genuine scholars1 but with a vast and vague public opinion which has been prematurely spread from certain imperfect investigations1 and which has made fashionable a false notion of the whole history of humanity4 ,it is the whole vague notion that a monkey evolved into a man and in the same way a barbarian evolved into a civilised man1 and therefore at every stage we have to look back to barbarism and forward to civilisation4 ,unfortunately this notion is in a double sense entirely in the air4 ,it is an atmosphere in which men live rather than a thesis which they defend4 ,men in that mood are more easily answered by objects than by theories2 and it will be well if any one tempted to make that assumption1 in some trivial turn of talk or writing1 can be checked for a moment by shutting his eyes and seeing for an instant1 vast and vaguely crowded1 like a populous precipice1 the wonder of the ,babylonian wall4 ,one fact does certainly fall across us like its shadow4 ,our glimpses of both these early empires show that the first domestic relation had been complicated by something which was less human1 but was often regarded as equally domestic4 ,the dark giant called ,slavery had been called up like a genii and was labouring on gigantic works of brick and stone4 ,here again we must not too easily assume that what was backward was barbaric2 in the matter of manumission the earlier servitude seems in some ways more liberal than the later2 perhaps more liberal than the servitude of the future4 ,to insure food for humanity by forcing part of it to work was after all a very human expedient2 which is why it will probably be tried again4 ,but in one sense there is a significance in the old slavery4 ,it stands for one fundamental fact about all antiquity before ,christ2 something to be assumed from first to last4 ,it is the insignificance of the individual before the ,state4 ,it was as true of the most democratic ,city ,state in ,hellas as of any despotism in ,babylon4 ,it is one of the signs of this spirit that a whole class of individuals could be insignificant or even invisible4 ,it must be normal because it was needed for what would now be called #8social service4' ,somebody said1 #8,the ,man is nothing and the ,work is all1' meaning it for a breezy ,carlylean commonplace4 ,it was the sinister motto of the heathen ,servile ,state4 ,in that sense there is truth in the traditional vision of vast pillars and pyramids going up under those everlasting skies for ever1 by the labour of numberless and nameless men1 toiling like ants and dying like flies1 wiped out by the work of their own hands4 ,but there are two other reasons for beginning with the two fixed points of ,egypt and ,babylon4 ,for one thing they are fixed in tradition as the types of antiquity2 and history without tradition is dead4 ,babylon is still the burden of a nursery rhyme1 and ,egypt 7with its enormous population of princesses awaiting reincarnation7 is still the topic of an unnecessary number of novels4 ,but a tradition is generally a truth2 so long as the tradition is sufficiently popular2 even if it is almost vulgar4 ,and there is a significance in this ,babylonian and ,egyptian element in nursery rhymes and novels2 even the newspapers1 normally so much behind the times1 have already got as far as the reign of ,tutankhamen4 ,the first reason is full of the common sense of popular legend2 it is the simple fact that we do know more of these traditional things than of other contemporary things2 and that we always did4 ,all travellers from ,herodotus to ,lord ,carnarvon follow this route4 ,scientific speculations of to-day do indeed spread out a map of the whole primitive world1 with streams of racial emigration or admixture marked in dotted lines everywhere2 over spaces which the unscientific medieval map-maker would have been content to call #8terra incognita1' if he did not fill the inviting blank with a picture of a dragon1 to indicate the probable reception given to pilgrims4 ,but these speculations are only speculations at the best2 and at the worst the dotted lines can be far more fabulous than the dragon4 ,there is unfortunately one fallacy here into which it is very easy for men to fall1 even those who are most intelligent and perhaps especially those who are most imaginative4 ,it is the fallacy of supposing that because an idea is greater in the sense of larger1 therefore it is greater in the sense of more fundamental and fixed and certain4 ,if a man lives alone in a straw hut in the middle of ,thibet1 he may be told that he is living in the ,chinese ,empire2 and the ,chinese ,empire is certainly a splendid and spacious and impressive thing4 ,or alternatively he may be told that he is living in the ,british ,empire1 and be duly impressed4 ,but the curious thing is that in certain mental states he can feel much more certain about the ,chinese ,empire that he cannot see than about the straw hut that he can see4 ,he has some strange magical juggle in his mind1 by which his argument begins with the empire though his experience begins with the hut4 ,sometimes he goes mad and appears to be proving that a straw hut cannot exist in the domains of the ,dragon ,throne2 that it is impossible for such a civilisation as he enjoys to contain such a hovel as he inhabits4 ,but his insanity arises from the intellectual slip of supposing that because ,china is a large and all-embracing hypothesis1 therefore it is something more than a hypothesis4 ,now modern people are perpetually arguing in this way2 and they extend it to things much less real and certain than the ,chinese ,empire4 ,they seem to forget1 for instance1 that a man is not even certain of the ,solar ,system as he is certain of the ,south ,downs4 ,the ,solar ,system is a deduction1 and doubtless a true deduction2 but the point is that it is a very vast and far-reaching deduction1 and therefore he forgets that it is a deduction at all and treats it as a first principle4 ,he might discover that the whole calculation is a miscalculation2 and the sun and stars and street lamps would look exactly the same4 ,but he has forgotten that it is a calculation1 and is almost ready to contradict the sun if it does not fit into the ,solar ,system4 ,if this is a fallacy even in the case of facts pretty well ascertained1 such as the ,solar ,system and the ,chinese ,empire1 it is an even more devastating fallacy in connection with theories and other things that are not really ascertained at all4 ,thus history1 especially prehistoric history1 has a horrible habit of beginning with certain generalisations about races4 ,i will not describe the disorder and misery this inversion has produced in modern politics4 ,because the race is vaguely supposed to have produced the nation1 men talk as if the nation were something vaguer than the race4 ,because they have themselves invented a reason to explain a result1 they almost deny the result in order to justify the reason4 ,they first treat a ,celt as an axiom and then treat an ,irishman as an inference4 ,and then they are surprised that a great fighting1 roaring ,irishman is angry at being treated as an inference4 ,they cannot see that the ,irish are ,irish whether or no they are ,celtic1 whether or no there ever were any ,celts4 ,and what misleads them once more is the size of the theory2 the sense that the fancy is bigger than the fact4 ,a great scattered ,celtic race is supposed to contain the ,irish1 so of course the ,irish must depend for their very existence upon it4 ,the same confusion1 of course1 has eliminated the ,english and the ,germans by swamping them in the ,teutonic race2 and some tried to prove from the races being at one that the nations could not be at war4 ,but ,i only give these vulgar and hackneyed examples in passing1 as more familiar examples of the fallacy2 the matter at issue here is not its application to these modern things but rather to the most ancient things4 ,but the more remote and unrecorded was the racial problem1 the more fixed was this curious inverted certainty in the ,victorian man of science4 ,to this day it gives a man of those scientific traditions the same sort of shock to question these things1 which were only the last inferences when he turned them into first principles4 ,he is still more certain that he is an ,aryan even than that he is an ,anglo-,saxon1 just as he is more certain that he is an ,anglo-,saxon than that he is an ,englishman4 ,he has never really discovered that he is a ,european4 ,but he has never doubted that he is an ,indo-,european4 ,these ,victorian theories have shifted a great deal in their shape and scope2 but this habit of a rapid hardening of a hypothesis into a theory1 and of a theory into an assumption1 has hardly yet gone out of fashion4 ,people cannot easily get rid of the mental confusion of feeling that the foundations of history must surely be secure2 that the first steps must be safe2 that the biggest generalisation must be obvious4 ,but though the contradiction may seem to them a paradox1 this is the very contrary of the truth4 ,it is the large thing that is secret and invisible2 it is the small thing that is evident and enormous4 ,every race on the face of the earth has been the subject of these speculations1 and it is impossible even to suggest an outline of the subject4 ,but if we take the ,european race alone1 its history1 or rather its prehistory1 has undergone many retrospective revolutions in the short period of my own lifetime4 ,it used to be called the ,caucasian race2 and ,i read in childhood an account of its collision with the ,mongolian race2 it was written by ,bret ,harte and opened with the query1 #8,or is the ,caucasian played out8' ,apparently the ,caucasian was played out1 for in a very short time he had been turned into the ,indo-,european man2 sometimes1 ,i regret to say1 proudly presented as the ,indo-,germanic man4 ,it seems that the ,hindu and the ,german have similar words for mother or father2 there were other similarities between ,sanskrit and various ,western tongues2 and with that all superficial differences between a ,hindu and a ,german seemed suddenly to disappear4 ,generally this composite person was more conveniently described as the ,aryan1 and the really important point was that he had marched westward out of those high lands of ,india where fragments of his language could still be found4 ,when ,i read this as a child1 ,i had the fancy that after all the ,aryan need not have marched westward and left his language behind him2 he might also have marched eastward and taken his language with him4 ,if ,i were to read it now1 ,i should content myself with confessing my ignorance of the whole matter4 ,but as a matter of fact ,i have great difficulty in reading it now1 because it is not being written now4 ,it looks as if the ,aryan is also played out4 ,anyhow he has not merely changed his name but changed his address2 his starting-place and his route of travel4 ,one new theory maintains that our race did not come to its present home from the ,east but from the ,south4 ,some say the ,europeans did not come from ,asia but from ,africa4 ,some have even had the wild idea that the ,europeans came from ,europe2 or rather that they never left it4 ,then there is a certain amount of evidence of a more or less prehistoric pressure from the ,north1 such as that which seems to have brought the ,greeks to inherit the ,cretan culture and so often brought the ,gauls over the hills into the fields of ,italy4 ,but ,i merely mention this example of ,european ethnology to point out that the learned have pretty well boxed the compass by this time2 and that ,i1 who am not one of the learned1 cannot pretend for a moment to decide where such doctors disagree4 ,but ,i can use my own common sense1 and ,i sometimes fancy that theirs is a little rusty from want of use4 ,the first act of common sense is to recognise the difference between a cloud and a mountain4 ,and ,i will affirm that nobody knows any of these things1 in the sense that we all know of the existence of the ,pyramids of ,egypt4 ,the truth1 it may be repeated1 is that what we really see1 as distinct from what we may reasonably guess1 in this earliest phase of history is darkness covering the earth and great darkness the peoples1 with a light or two gleaming here and there on chance patches of humanity2 and that two of these flames do burn upon two of these tall primeval towns2 upon the high terraces of ,babylon and the huge pyramids of the ,nile4 ,there are indeed other ancient lights1 or lights that may be conjectured to be very ancient1 in very remote parts of that vast wilderness of night4 ,far away to the ,east there is a high civilisation of vast antiquity in ,china2 there are the remains of civilisations in ,mexico and ,south ,america and other places1 some of them apparently so high in civilisation as to have reached the most refined forms of devil-worship4 ,but the difference lies in the element of tradition2 the tradition of these lost cultures has been broken off1 and though the tradition of ,china still lives1 it is doubtful whether we know anything about it4 ,moreover1 a man trying to measure the ,chinese antiquity has to use ,chinese traditions of measurement2 and he has a strange sensation of having passed into another world under other laws of time and space4 ,time is telescoped outwards1 and centuries assume the slow and stiff movement of aeons2 the white man trying to see it as the yellow man sees1 feels as if his head were turning round and wonders wildly whether it is growing a pigtail4 ,anyhow he cannot take in a scientific sense that queer perspective that leads up to the primeval pagoda of the first of the ,sons of ,heaven4 ,he is in the real antipodes2 the only true alternative world to ,christendom2 and he is after a fashion walking upside down4 ,i have spoken of the medieval map-maker and his dragon2 but what medieval traveller1 however much interested in monsters1 would expect to find a country where a dragon is a benevolent and amiable being8 ,of the more serious side of ,chinese tradition something will be said in another connection2 but here ,i am only talking of tradition and the test of antiquity4 ,and ,i only mention ,china as an antiquity that is not for us reached by a bridge of tradition2 and ,babylon and ,egypt as antiquities that are4 ,herodotus is a human being1 in a sense in which a ,chinaman in a billycock hat1 sitting opposite to us in a ,london tea-shop1 is hardly human4 ,we feel as if we knew what ,david and ,isaiah felt like1 in a way in which we never were quite certain what ,li ,hung ,chang felt like4 ,the very sins that snatched away ,helen or ,bathsheba have passed into a proverb of private human weakness1 of pathos and even of pardon4 ,the very virtues of the ,chinaman have about them something terrifying4 ,this is the difference made by the destruction or preservation of a continuous historical inheritance2 as from ancient ,egypt to modern ,europe4 ,but when we ask what was that world that we inherit1 and why those particular people and places seem to belong to it1 we are led to the central fact of civilised history4 ,that centre was the ,mediterranean2 which was not so much a piece of water as a world4 ,but it was a world with something of the character of such a water2 for it became more and more a place of unification in which the streams of strange and very diverse cultures met4 ,the ,nile and the ,tiber alike flow into the ,mediterranean2 so did the ,egyptian and the ,etrurian alike contribute to a ,mediterranean civilisation4 ,the glamour of the great sea spread indeed very far inland1 and the unity was felt among the ,arabs alone in the deserts and the ,gauls beyond the northern hills4 ,but the gradual building up of a common culture running round all the coasts of this inner sea is the main business of antiquity4 ,as will be seen1 it was sometimes a bad business as well as a good business4 ,in that orbis terrarum or circle of lands there were the extremes of evil and of piety1 there were contrasted races and still more contrasted religions4 ,it was the scene of an endless struggle between ,asia and ,europe from the flight of the ,persian ships at ,salamis to the flight of the ,turkish ships at ,lepanto4 ,it was the scene1 as will be more especially suggested later1 of a supreme spiritual struggle between the two types of paganism1 confronting each other in the ,latin and the ,phoenician cities2 in the ,roman forum and the ,punic mart4 ,it was the world of war and peace1 the world of good and evil1 the world of all that matters most2 with all respect to the ,aztecs and the ,mongols of the ,far ,east1 they did not matter as the ,mediterranean tradition mattered and still matters4 ,between it and the ,far ,east there were1 of course1 interesting cults and conquests of various kinds1 more or less in touch with it1 and in proportion as they were so intelligible also to us4 ,the ,persians came riding in to make an end of ,babylon2 and we are told in a ,greek story how these barbarians learned to draw the bow and tell the truth4 ,alexander the great ,greek marched with his ,macedonians into the sunrise1 and brought back strange birds coloured like the sunrise clouds and strange flowers and jewels from the gardens and treasuries of nameless kings4 ,islam went eastward into that world and made it partly imaginable to us2 precisely because ,islam itself was born in that circle of lands that fringed our own ancient and ancestral sea4 ,in the ,middle ,ages the empire of the ,moguls increased its majesty without losing its mystery2 the ,tartars conquered ,china and the ,chinese apparently took very little notice of them4 ,all these things are interesting in themselves2 but it is impossible to shift the centre of gravity to the inland spaces of ,asia from the inland sea of ,europe4 ,when all is said1 if there were nothing in the world but what was said and done and written and built in the lands lying round the ,mediterranean1 it would still be in all the most vital and valuable things the world in which we live4 ,when that southern culture spread to the north-west it produced many very wonderful things2 of which doubtless we ourselves are the most wonderful4 ,when it spread thence to colonies and new countries1 it was still the same culture so long as it was culture at all4 ,but round that little sea like a lake were the things themselves1 apart from all extensions and echoes and commentaries on the things2 the ,republic and the ,church2 the ,bible and the heroic epics2 ,islam and ,israel and the memories of the lost empires2 ,aristotle and the measure of all things4 ,it is because the first light upon this world is really light1 the daylight in which we are still walking to-day1 and not merely the doubtful visitation of strange stars1 that ,i have begun here with noting where that light first falls on the towered cities of the eastern ,mediterranean4 ,but though ,babylon and ,egypt have thus a sort of first claim1 in the very fact of being familiar and traditional1 fascinating riddles to us but also fascinating riddles to our fathers1 we must not imagine that they were the only old civilisations on the southern sea2 or that all the civilisation was merely ,sumerian or ,semitic or ,coptic1 still less merely ,asiatic or ,african4 ,real research is more and more exalting the ancient civilisation of ,europe and especially of what we may still vaguely call the ,greeks4 ,it must be understood in the sense that there were ,greeks before the ,greeks1 as in so many of their mythologies there were gods before the gods4 ,the island of ,crete was the centre of the civilisation now called ,minoan1 after the ,minos who lingered in ancient legend and whose labyrinth was actually discovered by modern archeology4 ,this elaborate ,european society1 with its harbours and its drainage and its domestic machinery1 seems to have gone down before some invasion of its northern neighbours1 who made or inherited the ,hellas we know in history4 ,but that earlier period did not pass till it had given to the world gifts so great that the world has ever since been striving in vain to repay them1 if only by plagiarism4 ,somewhere along the ,ionian coast opposite ,crete and the islands was a town of some sort1 probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall4 ,it was called ,ilion but it came to be called ,troy1 and the name will never perish from the earth4 ,a poet who may have been a beggar and a balladmonger1 who may have been unable to read and write1 and was described by tradition as blind1 composed a poem about the ,greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world4 ,that the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend2 that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact4 ,it is said that the poem came at the end of the period2 that the primitive culture brought it forth in its decay2 in which case one would like to have seen that culture in its prime4 ,but anyhow it is true that this1 which is our first poem1 might very well be our last poem too4 ,it might well be the last word as well as the first word spoken by man about his mortal lot1 as seen by merely mortal vision4 ,if the world becomes pagan and perishes1 the last man left alive would do well to quote the ,iliad and die4 ,but in this one great human revelation of antiquity there is another element of great historical importance2 which has hardly ,i think been given its proper place in history4 ,the poet has so conceived the poem that his sympathies apparently1 and those of his reader certainly1 are on the side of the vanquished rather than of the victor4 ,and this is a sentiment which increases in the poetical tradition even as the poetical origin itself recedes4 ,achilles had some status as a sort of demigod in pagan times2 but he disappears altogether in later times4 ,but ,hector grows greater as the ages pass2 and it is his name that is the name of a ,knight of the ,round ,table and his sword that legend puts into the hand of ,roland1 laying about him with the weapon of the defeated ,hector in the last ruin and splendour of his own defeat4 ,the name anticipates all the defeats through which our race and religion were to pass2 that survival of a hundred defeats that is its triumph4 ,the tale of the end of ,troy shall have no ending2 for it is lifted up for ever into living echoes1 immortal as our hopelessness and our hope4 ,troy standing was a small thing that may have stood nameless for ages4 ,but ,troy falling has been caught up in a flame and suspended in an immortal instant of annihilation2 and because it was destroyed with fire the fire shall never be destroyed4 ,and as with the city so with the hero2 traced in archaic lines in that primeval twilight is found the first figure of the ,knight4 ,there is a prophetic coincidence in his title2 we have spoken of the word chivalry and how it seems to mingle the horseman with the horse4 ,it is almost anticipated ages before in the thunder of the ,homeric hexameter1 and that long leaping word with which the ,iliad ends4 ,it is that very unity for which we can find no name but the holy centaur of chivalry4 ,but there are other reasons for giving in this glimpse of antiquity the flame upon the sacred town4 ,the sanctity of such towns ran like a fire round the coasts and islands of the northern ,mediterranean2 the high-fenced hamlet for which heroes died4 ,from the smallness of the city came the greatness of the citizen4 ,hellas with her hundred statues produced nothing statelier than that walking statue2 the ideal of the self-commanding man4 ,hellas of the hundred statues was one legend and literature2 and all that labyrinth of little walled nations resounded with the lament of ,troy4 ,a later legend1 an afterthought but not an accident1 said that stragglers from ,troy founded a republic on the ,italian shore4 ,it was true in spirit that republican virtue had such a root4 ,a mystery of honour1 that was not born of ,babylon or the ,egyptian pride1 there shone like the shield of ,hector1 defying ,asia and ,africa2 till the light of a new day was loosened1 with the rushing of the eagles and the coming of the name2 the name that came like a thunderclap1 when the world woke to ,rome4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,god ,,and ,,comparative ,,religion ,i was once escorted over the ,roman foundations of an ancient ,british city by a professor1 who said something that seems to me a satire on a good many other professors4 ,possibly the professor saw the joke1 though he maintained an iron gravity1 and may or may not have realised that it was a joke against a great deal of what is called comparative religion4 ,i pointed out a sculpture of the head of the sun with the usual halo of rays1 but with the difference that the face in the disc1 instead of being boyish like ,apollo1 was bearded like ,neptune or ,jupiter4 #8,yes1' he said with a certain delicate exactitude1 #8that is supposed to represent the local god ,sul4 ,the best authorities identify ,sul with ,minerva2 but this has been held to show that the identification is not complete4' ,that is what we call a powerful understatement4 ,the modern world is madder than any satires on it2 long ago ,mr4 ,belloc made his burlesque don say that a bust of ,ariadne had been proved by modern research to be a ,silenus4 ,but that is not better than the real appearance of ,minerva as the ,bearded ,woman of ,mr4 ,barnum4 ,only both of them are very like many identifications by #8the best authorities' on comparative religion2 and when ,catholic creeds are identified with various wild myths1 ,i do not laugh or curse or misbehave myself2 ,i confine myself decorously to saying that the identification is not complete4 ,in the days of my youth the ,religion of ,humanity was a term commonly applied to ,comtism1 the theory of certain rationalists who worshipped corporate mankind as a ,supreme ,being4 ,even in the days of my youth ,i remarked that there was something slightly odd about despising and dismissing the doctrine of the ,trinity as a mystical and even maniacal contradiction2 and then asking us to adore a deity who is a hundred million persons in one ,god1 neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance4 ,but there is another entity1 more or less definable and much more imaginable than the many-headed and monstrous idol of mankind4 ,and it has a much better right to be called1 in a reasonable sense1 the religion of humanity4 ,man is not indeed the idol2 but man is almost everywhere the idolator4 ,and these multitudinous idolatries of mankind have something about them in many ways more human and sympathetic than modern metaphysical abstractions4 ,if an ,asiatic god has three heads and seven arms1 there is at least in it an idea of material incarnation bringing an unknown power nearer to us and not farther away4 ,but if our friends ,brown1 ,jones1 and ,robinson1 when out for a ,sunday walk1 were transformed and amalgamated into an ,asiatic idol before our eyes1 they would surely seem farther away4 ,if the arms of ,brown and the legs of ,robinson waved from the same composite body1 they would seem to be waving something of a sad farewell4 ,if the heads of all three gentlemen appeared smiling on the same neck1 we should hesitate even by what name to address our new and somewhat abnormal friend4 ,in the many-headed and many-handed ,oriental idol there is a certain sense of mysteries becoming at least partly intelligible2 of formless forces of nature taking some dark but material form1 but though this may be true of the multiform god it is not so of the multiform man4 ,the human beings become less human by becoming less separate2 we might say less human in being less lonely4 ,the human beings become less intelligible as they become less isolated2 we might say with strict truth that the closer they are to us the farther they are away4 ,an ,ethical ,hymn-book of this humanitarian sort of religion was carefully selected and expurgated on the principle of preserving anything human and eliminating anything divine4 ,one consequence was that a hymn appeared in the amended form of #8,nearer ,mankind to ,thee1 ,nearer to ,thee4' ,it always suggested to me the sensations of a strap-hanger during a crush on the ,tube4 ,but it is strange and wonderful how far away the souls of men can seem1 when their bodies are so near as all that4 ,the human unity with which ,i deal here is not to be confounded with this modern industrial monotony and herding1 which is rather a congestion than a communion4 ,it is a thing to which human groups left to themselves1 and even human individuals left to themselves1 have everywhere tended by an instinct that may truly be called human4 ,like all healthy human things1 it has varied very much within the limits of a general character2 for that is characteristic of everything belonging to that ancient land of liberty that lies before and around the servile industrial town4 ,industrialism actually boasts that its products are all of one pattern2 that men in ,jamaica or ,japan can break the same seal and drink the same bad whisky1 that a man at the ,north ,pole and another at the ,south might recognise the same optimistic label on the same dubious tinned salmon4 ,but wine1 the gift of gods to men1 can vary with every valley and every vineyard1 can turn into a hundred wines without any wine once reminding us of whisky2 and cheeses can change from county to county without forgetting the difference between chalk and cheese4 ,when ,i am speaking of this thing1 therefore1 ,i am speaking of something that doubtless includes very wide differences2 nevertheless ,i will here maintain that it is one thing4 ,i will maintain that most of the modern botheration comes from not realising that it is really one thing4 ,i will advance the thesis that before all talk about comparative religion and the separate religious founders of the world1 the first essential is to recognise this thing as a whole1 as a thing almost native and normal to the great fellowship that we call mankind4 ,this thing is ,paganism2 and ,i propose to show in these pages that it is the one real rival to the ,church of ,christ4 ,comparative religion is very comparative indeed4 ,that is1 it is so much a matter of degree and distance and difference that it is only comparatively successful when it tries to compare4 ,when we come to look at it closely we find it comparing things that are really quite incomparable4 ,we are accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the world's great religions in parallel columns1 until we fancy they are really parallel4 ,we are accustomed to see the names of the great religious founders all in a row3 ,christ2 ,mahomet2 ,buddha2 ,confucius4 ,but in truth this is only a trick2 another of these optical illusions by which any objects may be put into a particular relation by shifting to a particular point of sight4 ,those religions and religious founders1 or rather those whom we choose to lump together as religions and religious founders1 do not really show any common character4 ,the illusion is partly produced by ,islam coming immediately after ,christianity in the list2 as ,islam did come after ,christianity and was largely an imitation of ,christianity4 ,but the other eastern religions1 or what we call religions1 not only do not resemble the ,church but do not resemble each other4 ,when we come to ,confucianism at the end of the list1 we come to something in a totally different world of thought4 ,to compare the ,christian and ,confucian religions is like comparing a theist with an ,english squire or asking whether a man is a believer in immortality or a hundred-per-cent ,american4 ,confucianism may be a civilisation but it is not a religion4 ,in truth the ,church is too unique to prove herself unique4 ,for most popular and easy proof is by parallel2 and here there is no parallel4 ,it is not easy1 therefore1 to expose the fallacy by which a false classification is created to swamp a unique thing1 when it really is a unique thing4 ,as there is nowhere else exactly the same fact1 so there is nowhere else exactly the same fallacy4 ,but ,i will take the nearest thing ,i can find to such a solitary social phenomenon1 in order to show how it is thus swamped and assimilated4 ,i imagine most of us would agree that there is something unusual and unique about the position of the ,jews4 ,there is nothing that is quite in the same sense an international nation2 an ancient culture scattered in different countries but still distinct and indestructible4 ,now this business is like an attempt to make a list of nomadic nations in order to soften the strange solitude of the ,jew4 ,it would be easy enough to do it1 by the same process of putting a plausible approximation first1 and then tailing off into totally different things thrown in somehow to make up the list4 ,thus in the new list of nomadic nations the ,jews would be followed by the ,gypsies2 who at least are really nomadic if they are not really national4 ,then the professor of the new science of ,comparative ,nomadics could pass easily on to something different2 even if it was very different4 ,he could remark on the wandering adventure of the ,english who had scattered their colonies over so many seas2 and call them nomads4 ,it is quite true that a great many ,englishmen seem to be strangely restless in ,england4 ,it is quite true that not all of them have left their country for their country's good4 ,the moment we mention the wandering empire of the ,english1 we must add the strange exiled empire of the ,irish4 ,for it is a curious fact1 to be noted in our imperial literature1 that the same ubiquity and unrest which is a proof of ,english enterprise and triumph is a proof of ,irish futility and failure4 ,then the professor of ,nomadism would look round thoughtfully and remember that there was great talk recently of ,german waiters1 ,german barbers1 ,german clerks1 ,germans naturalising themselves in ,england and the ,united ,states and the ,south ,american republics4 ,the ,germans would go down as the fifth nomadic race2 the words ,wanderlust and ,folk-,wandering would come in very useful here4 ,for there really have been historians who explained the ,crusades by suggesting that the ,germans were found wandering 7as the police say7 in what happened to be the neighbourhood of ,palestine4 ,then the professor1 feeling he was now near the end1 would make a last leap in desperation4 ,he would recall the fact that the ,french ,army has captured nearly every capital in ,europe1 that it marched across countless conquered lands under ,charlemagne or ,napoleon2 and that would be wanderlust1 and that would be the note of a nomadic race4 ,thus he would have his six nomadic nations all compact and complete1 and would feel that the ,jew was no longer a sort of mysterious and even mystical exception4 ,but people with more common sense would probably realise that he had only extended nomadism by extending the meaning of nomadism2 and that he had extended that until it really had no meaning at all4 ,it is quite true that the ,french soldier has made some of the finest marches in all military history4 ,but it is equally true1 and far more self-evident1 that if the ,french peasant is not a rooted reality there is no such thing as a rooted reality in the world2 or in other words1 if he is a nomad there is nobody who is not a nomad4 ,now that is the sort of trick that has been tried in the case of comparative religion and the world's religious founders all standing respectably in a row4 ,it seeks to classify ,jesus as the other would classify ,jews1 by inventing a new class for the purpose and filling up the rest of it with stop-gaps and second-rate copies4 ,i do not mean that these other things are not often great things in their own real character and class4 ,confucianism and ,buddhism are great things1 but it is not true to call them ,churches2 just as the ,french and ,english are great peoples1 but it is nonsense to call them nomads4 ,there are some points of resemblance between ,christendom and its imitation in ,islam2 for that matter there are some points of resemblance between ,jews and ,gypsies4 ,but after that the lists are made up of anything that comes to hand2 of anything that can be put in the same catalogue without being in the same category4 ,in this sketch of religious history1 with all decent deference to men much more learned than myself1 ,i propose to cut across and disregard this modern method of classification1 which ,i feel sure has falsified the facts of history4 ,i shall here submit an alternative classification of religion or religions1 which ,i believe would be found to cover all the facts and1 what is quite as important here1 all the fancies4 ,instead of dividing religion geographically1 and as it were vertically1 into ,christian1 ,moslem1 ,brahmin1 ,buddhist1 and so on1 ,i would divide it psychologically and in some sense horizontally2 into the strata of spiritual elements and influences that could sometimes exist in the same country1 or even in the same man4 ,putting the ,church apart for the moment1 ,i should be disposed to divide the natural religion of the mass of mankind under such headings as these3 ,god2 the ,gods2 the ,demons2 the ,philosophers4 ,i believe some such classification will help us to sort out the spiritual experiences of men much more successfully than the conventional business of comparing religions2 and that many famous figures will naturally fall into their place in this way who are only forced into their place in the other4 ,as ,i shall make use of these titles or terms more than once in narrative and allusion1 it will be well to define at this stage for what ,i mean them to stand4 ,and ,i will begin with the first1 the simplest and the most sublime1 in this chapter4 ,in considering the elements of pagan humanity1 we must begin by an attempt to describe the indescribable4 ,many get over the difficulty of describing it by the expedient of denying it1 or at least ignoring it2 but the whole point of it is that it was something that was never quite eliminated even when it was ignored4 ,they are obsessed by their evolutionary monomania that every great thing grows from a seed1 or something smaller than itself4 ,they seem to forget that every seed comes from a tree1 or from something larger than itself4 ,now there is very good ground for guessing that religion did not originally come from some detail that was forgotten because it was too small to be traced4 ,much more probably it was an idea that was abandoned because it was too large to be managed4 ,there is very good reason to suppose that many people did begin with the simple but overwhelming idea of one ,god who governs all2 and afterwards fell away into such things as demon-worship almost as a sort of secret dissipation4 ,even the test of savage beliefs1 of which the folk-lore students are so fond1 is admittedly often found to support such a view4 ,some of the very rudest savages1 primitive in every sense in which anthropologists use the word1 the ,australian aborigines for instance1 are found to have a pure monotheism with a high moral tone4 ,a missionary was preaching to a very wild tribe of polytheists1 who had told him all their polytheistic tales1 and telling them in return of the existence of the one good ,god who is a spirit and judges men by spiritual standards4 ,and there was a sudden buzz of excitement among these stolid barbarians1 as at somebody who was letting out a secret1 and they cried to each other1 #8,atahocan6 ,he is speaking of ,atahocan6' ,probably it was a point of politeness and even decency among those polytheists not to speak of ,atahocan4 ,the name is not perhaps so much adapted as some of our own to direct and solemn religious exhortation2 but many other social forces are always covering up and confusing such simple ideas4 ,possibly the old god stood for an old morality found irksome in more expansive moments2 possibly intercourse with demons was more fashionable among the best people1 as in the modern fashion of ,spiritualism4 ,anyhow1 there are any number of similar examples4 ,they all testify to the unmistakable psychology of a thing taken for granted1 as distinct from a thing talked about4 ,there is a striking example in a tale taken down word for word from a ,red ,indian in ,california1 which starts out with hearty legendary and literary relish3 #8,the sun is the father and ruler of the heavens4 ,he is the big chief4 ,the moon is his wife and the stars are their children'2 and so on through a most ingenious and complicated story1 in the middle of which is a sudden parenthesis saying that sun and moon have to do something because #8,it is ordered that way by the ,great ,spirit ,who lives above the place of all4' ,that is exactly the attitude of most paganism towards ,god4 ,he is something assumed and forgotten and remembered by accident2 a habit possibly not peculiar to pagans4 ,sometimes the higher deity is remembered in the higher moral grades and is a sort of mystery4 ,but always1 it has been truly said1 the savage is talkative about his mythology and taciturn about his religion4 ,the ,australian savages1 indeed1 exhibit a topsyturvydom such as the ancients might have thought truly worthy of the antipodes4 ,the savage who thinks nothing of tossing off such a trifle as a tale of the sun and moon being the halves of a baby chopped in two1 or dropping into small-talk about a colossal cosmic cow milked to make the rain1 merely in order to be sociable1 will then retire to secret caverns sealed against women and white men1 temples of terrible initiation where to the thunder of the bull-roarer and the dripping of sacrificial blood1 the priest whispers the final secrets known only to the initiate3 that honesty is the best policy1 that a little kindness does nobody any harm1 that all men are brothers and that there is but one ,god1 the ,father ,almighty1 maker of all things visible and invisible4 ,in other words1 we have here the curiosity of religious history that the savage seems to be parading all the most repulsive and impossible parts of his belief and concealing all the most sensible and creditable parts4 ,but the explanation is that they are not in that sense parts of his belief2 or at least not parts of the same sort of belief4 ,the myths are merely tall stories1 though as tall as the sky1 the waterspout1 or the tropic rain4 ,the mysteries are true stories1 and are taken secretly that they may be taken seriously4 ,indeed it is only too easy to forget that there is a thrill in theism4 ,a novel in which a number of separate characters all turned out to be the same character would certainly be a sensational novel4 ,it is so with the idea that sun and tree and river are the disguises of one god and not of many4 ,alas1 we also find it only too easy to take ,atahocan for granted4 ,but whether he is allowed to fade into a truism or preserved as a sensation by being preserved as a secret1 it is clear that he is always either an old truism or an old tradition4 ,there is nothing to show that he is an improved product of the mere mythology and everything to show that he preceded it4 ,he is worshipped by the simplest tribes with no trace of ghosts or grave-offerings1 or any of the complications in which ,herbert ,spencer and ,grant ,allen sought the origin of the simplest of all ideas4 ,whatever else there was1 there was never any such thing as the ,evolution of the ,idea of ,god4 ,the idea was concealed1 was avoided1 was almost forgotten1 was even explained away2 but it was never evolved4 ,there are not a few indications of this change in other places4 ,it is implied1 for instance1 in the fact that even polytheism seems often the combination of several monotheisms4 ,a god will gain only a minor seat on ,mount ,olympus1 when he had owned earth and heaven and all the stars while he lived in his own little valley4 ,like many a small nation melting in a great empire1 he gives up local universality only to come under universal limitation4 ,the very name of ,pan suggests that he became a god of the wood when he had been a god of the world4 ,the very name of ,jupiter is almost a pagan translation of the words #8,our ,father which art in heaven4' ,as with the ,great ,father symbolised by the sky1 so with the ,great ,mother whom we still call ,mother ,earth4 ,demeter and ,ceres and ,cybele often seem to be almost incapable of taking over the whole business of godhood1 so that men should need no other gods4 ,it seems reasonably probable that a good many men did have no other gods but one of these1 worshipped as the author of all4 ,over some of the most immense and populous tracts of the world1 such as ,china1 it would seem that the simpler idea of the ,great ,father has never been very much complicated with rival cults1 though it may have in some sense ceased to be a cult itself4 ,the best authorities seem to think that though ,confucianism is in one sense agnosticism1 it does not directly contradict the old theism1 precisely because it has become a rather vague theism4 ,it is one in which ,god is called ,heaven1 as in the case of polite persons tempted to swear in drawing-rooms4 ,but ,heaven is still overhead1 even if it is very far overhead4 ,we have all the impression of a simple truth that has receded1 until it was remote without ceasing to be true4 ,and this phrase alone would bring us back to the same idea even in the pagan mythology of the ,west4 ,there is surely something of this very notion of the withdrawal of some higher power in all those mysterious and very imaginative myths about the separation of earth and sky4 ,in a hundred forms we are told that heaven and earth were once lovers1 or were once at one1 when some upstart thing1 often some undutiful child1 thrust them apart2 and the world was built on an abyss2 upon a division and a parting4 ,one of its grossest versions was given by ,greek civilisation in the myth of ,uranus and ,saturn4 ,one of its most charming versions was that of some savage people1 who say that a little pepper-plant grew taller and taller and lifted the whole sky like a lid2 a beautiful barbaric vision of daybreak for some of our painters who love that tropical twilight4 ,of myths1 and the highly mythical explanations which the moderns offer of myths1 something will be said in another section2 for ,i cannot but think that most mythology is on another and more superficial plane4 ,but in this primeval vision of the rending of one world into two there is surely something more of ultimate ideas4 ,as to what it means1 a man will learn far more about it by lying on his back in a field1 and merely looking at the sky1 than by reading all the libraries even of the most learned and valuable folk-lore4 ,he will know what is meant by saying that the sky ought to be nearer to us than it is1 that perhaps it was once nearer than it is1 that it is not a thing merely alien and abysmal but in some fashion sundered from us and saying farewell4 ,there will creep across his mind the curious suggestion that after all1 perhaps1 the myth-maker was not merely a moon-calf or village idiot thinking he could cut up the clouds like a cake1 but had in him something more than it is fashionable to attribute to the ,troglodyte2 that it is just possible that ,thomas ,hood was not talking like a ,troglodyte when he said that1 as time went on1 the tree-tops only told him he was further off from heaven than when he was a boy4 ,but anyhow the legend of ,uranus the ,lord of ,heaven dethroned by ,saturn the ,time ,spirit would mean something to the author of that poem4 ,and it would mean1 among other things1 this banishment of the first fatherhood4 ,there is the idea of ,god in the very notion that there were gods before the gods4 ,there is an idea of greater simplicity in all the allusions to that more ancient order4 ,the suggestion is supported by the process of propagation we see in historic times4 ,gods and demigods and heroes breed like herrings before our very eyes1 and suggest of themselves that the family may have had one founder2 mythology grows more and more complicated1 and the very complication suggests that at the beginning it was more simple4 ,even on the external evidence1 of the sort called scientific1 there is therefore a very good case for the suggestion that man began with monotheism before it developed or degenerated into polytheism4 ,but ,i am concerned rather with an internal than an external truth2 and1 as ,i have already said1 the internal truth is almost indescribable4 ,we have to speak of something of which it is the whole point that people did not speak of it2 we have not merely to translate from a strange tongue or speech1 but from a strange silence4 ,i suspect an immense implication behind all polytheism and paganism4 ,i suspect we have only a hint of it here and there in these savage creeds or ,greek origins4 ,it is not exactly what we mean by the presence of ,god2 in a sense it might more truly be called the absence of ,god4 ,but absence does not mean non-existence2 and a man drinking the toast of absent friends does not mean that from his life all friendship is absent4 ,it is a void but it is not a negation2 it is something as positive as an empty chair4 ,it would be an exaggeration to say that the pagan saw higher than ,olympus an empty throne4 ,it would be nearer the truth to take the gigantic imagery of the ,old ,testament1 in which the prophet saw ,god from behind2 it was as if some immeasurable presence had turned its back on the world4 ,yet the meaning will again be missed if it is supposed to be anything so conscious and vivid as the monotheism of ,moses and his people4 ,i do not mean that the pagan peoples were in the least overpowered by this idea merely because it is overpowering4 ,on the contrary1 it was so large that they all carried it lightly1 as we all carry the load of the sky4 ,gazing at some detail like a bird or a cloud1 we can all ignore its awful blue background2 we can neglect the sky2 and precisely because it bears down upon us with an annihilating force1 it is felt as nothing4 ,a thing of this kind can only be an impression and a rather subtle impression2 but to me it is a very strong impression made by pagan literature and religion4 ,i repeat that in our special sacramental sense there is1 of course1 the absence of the presence of ,god4 ,but there is in a very real sense the presence of the absence of ,god4 ,we feel it in the unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry2 for ,i doubt if there was ever in all the marvellous manhood of antiquity a man who was happy as ,st4 ,francis was happy4 ,we feel it in the legend of a ,golden ,age and again in the vague implication that the gods themselves are ultimately related to something else1 even when that ,unknown ,god has faded into a ,fate4 ,above all we feel it in those immortal moments when the pagan literature seems to return to a more innocent antiquity and speak with a more direct voice1 so that no word is worthy of it except our own monotheistic monosyllable4 ,we cannot say anything but #8,god' in a sentence like that of ,socrates bidding farewell to his judges3 #8,i go to die and you remain to live2 and ,god alone knows which of us goes the better way4' ,we can use no other word even for the best moments of ,marcus ,aurelius3 #8,can they say dear city of ,cecrops1 and canst thou not say dear city of ,god8' ,we can use no other word in that mighty line in which ,virgil spoke to all who suffer with the veritable cry of a ,christian before ,christ1 in the untranslatable3 #8,o passi graviora dabit deus his quoque finem4' ,in short1 there is a feeling that there is something higher than the gods2 but because it is higher it is also further away4 ,not yet could even ,virgil have read the riddle and the paradox of that other divinity1 who is both higher and nearer4 ,for them what was truly divine was very distant1 so distant that they dismissed it more and more from their minds4 ,it had less and less to do with the mere mythology of which ,i shall write later4 ,yet even in this there was a sort of tacit admission of its intangible purity1 when we consider what most of the mythology is like4 ,as the ,jews would not degrade it by images1 so the ,greeks did not degrade it even by imaginations4 ,when the gods were more and more remembered only by pranks and profligacies1 it was relatively a movement of reverence4 ,it was an act of piety to forget ,god4 ,in other words1 there is something in the whole tone of the time suggesting that men had accepted a lower level1 and still were half conscious that it was a lower level4 ,it is hard to find words for these things2 yet the one really just word stands ready4 ,these men were conscious of the ,fall1 if they were conscious of nothing else2 and the same is true of all heathen humanity4 ,those who have fallen may remember the fall1 even when they forget the height4 ,some such tantalising blank or break in memory is at the back of all pagan sentiment4 ,there is such a thing as the momentary power to remember that we forget4 ,and the most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of earth that they have forgotten heaven4 ,but it remains true that even for these men there were moments1 like the memories of childhood1 when they heard themselves talking with a simpler language2 there were moments when the ,roman1 like ,virgil in the line already quoted1 cut his way with a sword-stroke of song out of the tangle of the mythologies2 the motley mob of gods and goddesses sank suddenly out of sight and the ,sky-,father was alone in the sky4 ,this latter example is very relevant to the next step in the process4 ,a white light as of a lost morning still lingers on the figure of ,jupiter1 of ,pan1 or of the elder ,apollo2 and it may well be1 as already noted1 that each was once a divinity as solitary as ,jehovah or ,allah4 ,they lost this lonely universality by a process it is here very necessary to note2 a process of amalgamation very like what was afterwards called syncretism4 ,the whole pagan world set itself to build a ,pantheon4 ,they admitted more and more gods1 gods not only of the ,greeks but of the barbarians2 gods not only of ,europe but of ,asia and ,africa4 ,the more the merrier1 though some of the ,asian and ,african ones were not very merry4 ,they admitted them to equal thrones with their own2 sometimes they identified them with their own4 ,they may have regarded it as an enrichment of their religious life2 but it meant the final loss of all that we now call religion4 ,it meant that ancient light of simplicity1 that had a single source like the sun1 finally fades away in a dazzle of conflicting lights and colours4 ,god is really sacrificed to the gods2 in a very literal sense of the flippant phrase1 they have been too many for him4 ,polytheism1 therefore1 was really a sort of pool2 in the sense of the pagans having consented to the pooling of their pagan religions4 ,and this point is very important in many controversies ancient and modern4 ,it is regarded as a liberal and enlightened thing to say that the god of the stranger may be as good as our own2 and doubtless the pagans thought themselves very liberal and enlightened when they agreed to add to the gods of the city or the hearth some wild and fantastic ,dionysus coming down from the mountains or some shaggy and rustic ,pan creeping out of the woods4 ,but exactly what it lost by these larger ideas is the largest idea of all4 ,it is the idea of the fatherhood that makes the whole world one4 ,and the converse is also true4 ,doubtless those more antiquated men of antiquity who clung to their solitary statues and their single sacred names were regarded as superstitious savages benighted and left behind4 ,but these superstitious savages were preserving something that is much more like the cosmic power as conceived by philosophy1 or even as conceived by science4 ,this paradox by which the rude reactionary was a sort of prophetic progressive has one consequence very much to the point4 ,in a purely historical sense1 and apart from any other controversies in the same connection1 it throws a light1 a single and a steady light1 that shines from the beginning on a little and lonely people4 ,in this paradox1 as in some riddle of religion of which the answer was sealed up for centuries1 lies the mission and the meaning of the ,jews4 ,it is true in this sense1 humanly speaking1 that the world owes ,god to the ,jews4 ,it owes that truth to much that is blamed in the ,jews1 possibly to much that is blameable in the ,jews4 ,we have already noted the nomadic position of the ,jews amid the other pastoral peoples upon the fringe of the ,babylonian ,empire1 and something of that strange erratic course of theirs blazed across the dark territory of extreme antiquity1 as they passed from the seat of ,abraham and the shepherd princes into ,egypt and doubled back into the ,palestinian hills and held them against the ,philistines from ,crete and fell into captivity in ,babylon2 and yet again returned to their mountain city by the ,zionist policy of the ,persian conquerors2 and so continued that amazing romance of restlessness of which we have not yet seen the end4 ,but through all their wanderings1 and especially through all their early wanderings1 they did indeed carry the fate of the world in that wooden tabernacle1 that held perhaps a featureless symbol and certainly an invisible god4 ,we may say that one most essential feature was that it was featureless4 ,much as we may prefer that creative liberty which the ,christian culture has declared and by which it has eclipsed even the arts of antiquity1 we must not underrate the determining importance at the time of the ,hebrew inhibition of images4 ,it is a typical example of one of those limitations that did in fact preserve and perpetuate enlargement1 like a wall built round a wide open space4 ,the ,god who could not have a statue remained a spirit4 ,nor would his statue in any case have had the disarming dignity and grace of the ,greek statues then or the ,christian statues afterwards4 ,he was living in a land of monsters4 ,we shall have occasion to consider more fully what those monsters were1 ,moloch and ,dagon and ,tanit the terrible goddess4 ,if the deity of ,israel had ever had an image1 he would have had a phallic image4 ,by merely giving him a body they would have brought in all the worst elements of mythology2 all the polygamy of polytheism2 the vision of the harem in heaven4 ,this point about the refusal of art is the first example of the limitations which are often adversely criticised1 only because the critics themselves are limited4 ,but an even stronger case can be found in the other criticism offered by the same critics4 ,it is often said with a sneer that the ,god of ,israel was only a ,god of ,battles1 #8a mere barbaric ,lord of ,hosts' pitted in rivalry against other gods only as their envious foe4 ,well it is for the world that he was a ,god of ,battles4 ,well it is for us that he was to all the rest only a rival and a foe4 ,in the ordinary way1 it would have been only too easy for them to have achieved the desolate disaster of conceiving him as a friend4 ,it would have been only too easy for them to have seen him stretching out his hands in love and reconciliation1 embracing ,baal and kissing the painted face of ,astarte1 feasting in fellowship with the gods2 the last god to sell his crown of stars for the ,soma of the ,indian pantheon or the nectar of ,olympus or the mead of ,valhalla4 ,it would have been easy enough for his worshippers to follow the enlightened course of ,syncretism and the pooling of all the pagan traditions4 ,it is obvious indeed that his followers were always sliding down this easy slope2 and it required the almost demoniac energy of certain inspired demagogues1 who testified to the divine unity in words that are still like winds of inspiration and ruin4 ,the more we really understand of the ancient conditions that contributed to the final culture of the ,faith1 the more we shall have a real and even a realistic reverence for the greatness of the ,prophets of ,israel4 ,as it was1 while the whole world melted into this mass of confused mythology1 this ,deity who is called tribal and narrow1 precisely because he was what is called tribal and narrow1 preserved the primary religion of all mankind4 ,he was tribal enough to be universal4 ,he was as narrow as the universe4 ,in a word1 there was a popular pagan god called ,jupiter-,ammon4 ,there was never a god called ,jehovah-,ammon4 ,there was never a god called ,jehovah-,jupiter4 ,if there had been1 there would certainly have been another called ,jehovah-,moloch4 ,long before the liberal and enlightened amalgamators had got so far afield as ,jupiter1 the image of the ,lord of ,hosts would have been deformed out of all suggestion of a monotheistic maker and ruler and would have become an idol far worse than any savage fetish2 for he might have been as civilised as the gods of ,tyre and ,carthage4 ,what that civilisation meant we shall consider more fully in the chapter that follows2 when we note how the power of demons nearly destroyed ,europe and even the heathen health of the world4 ,but the world's destiny would have been distorted still more fatally if monotheism had failed in the ,mosaic tradition4 ,i hope in a subsequent section to show that ,i am not without sympathy with all that health in the heathen world that made its fairy-tales and its fanciful romances of religion4 ,but ,i hope also to show that these were bound to fail in the long run2 and the world would have been lost if it had been unable to return to that great original simplicity of a single authority in all things4 ,that we do preserve something of that primary simplicity1 that poets and philosophers can still indeed in some sense say an ,universal ,prayer1 that we live in a large and serene world under a sky that stretches paternally over all the peoples of the earth1 that philosophy and philanthropy are truisms in a religion of reasonable men1 all that we do most truly owe1 under heaven1 to a secretive and restless nomadic people2 who bestowed on men the supreme and serene blessing of a jealous ,god4 ,the unique possession was not available or accessible to the pagan world1 because it was also the possession of a jealous people4 ,the ,jews were unpopular1 partly because of this narrowness already noted in the ,roman world1 partly perhaps because they had already fallen into that habit of merely handling things for exchange instead of working to make them with their hands4 ,it was partly also because polytheism had become a sort of jungle in which solitary monotheism could be lost2 but it is strange to realise how completely it really was lost4 ,apart from more disputed matters1 there were things in the tradition of ,israel which belong to all humanity now1 and might have belonged to all humanity then4 ,they had one of the colossal corner-stones of the world3 the ,book of ,job4 ,it obviously stands over against the ,iliad and the ,greek tragedies2 and even more than they it was an early meeting and parting of poetry and philosophy in the morning of the world4 ,it is a solemn and uplifting sight to see those two eternal fools1 the optimist and the pessimist1 destroyed in the dawn of time4 ,and the philosophy really perfects the pagan tragic irony1 precisely because it is more monotheistic and therefore more mystical4 ,indeed the ,book of ,job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery4 ,job is comforted with riddles2 but he is comforted4 ,herein is indeed a type1 in the sense of a prophecy1 of things speaking with authority4 ,for when he who doubts can only say1 #8,i do not understand1' it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat1 #8,you do not understand4' ,and under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart2 and the sense of something that would be worth understanding4 ,but this mighty monotheistic poem remained unremarked by the whole world of antiquity1 which was thronged with polytheistic poetry4 ,it is a sign of the way in which the ,jews stood apart and kept their tradition unshaken and unshared1 that they should have kept a thing like the ,book of ,job out of the whole intellectual world of antiquity4 ,it is as if the ,egyptians had modestly concealed the ,great ,pyramid4 ,but there were other reasons for a cross-purpose and an impasse1 characteristic of the whole of the end of paganism4 ,after all1 the tradition of ,israel had only got hold of one half of the truth1 even if we use the popular paradox and call it the bigger half4 ,i shall try to sketch in the next chapter that love of locality and of personality that ran through mythology2 here it need only be said that there was a truth in it that could not be left out1 though it were a lighter and less essential truth4 ,the sorrow of ,job had to be joined with the sorrow of ,hector2 and while the former was the sorrow of the universe the latter was the sorrow of the city2 for ,hector could only stand pointing to heaven as the pillar of holy ,troy4 ,when ,god speaks out of the whirlwind ,he may well speak in the wilderness4 ,but the monotheism of the nomad was not enough for all that varied civilisation of fields and fences and walled cities and temples and towns2 and the turn of these things also was to come1 when the two could be combined in a more definite and domestic religion4 ,here and there in all that pagan crowd could be found a philosopher whose thoughts ran on pure theism2 but he never had1 or supposed that he had1 the power to change the customs of the whole populace4 ,nor is it easy even in such philosophies to find a true definition of this deep business of the relation of polytheism and theism4 ,perhaps the nearest we can come to striking the note1 or giving the thing a name1 is in something far away from all that civilisation and more remote from ,rome than the isolation of ,israel4 ,it is in a saying ,i once heard from some ,hindu tradition2 that gods as well as men are only the dreams of ,brahma2 and will perish when ,brahma wakes4 ,there is indeed in such an image something of the soul of ,asia which is less sane than the soul of ,christendom4 ,we should call it despair1 even if they would call it peace4 ,this note of nihilism can be considered later in a fuller comparison between ,asia and ,europe4 ,it is enough to say here that there is more of disillusion in that idea of a divine awakening than is implied for us in the passage from mythology to religion4 ,but the symbol is very subtle and exact in one respect2 that it does suggest the disproportion and even disruption between the very ideas of mythology and religion2 the chasm between the two categories4 ,it is really the collapse of comparative religion that there is no comparison between ,god and the gods4 ,there is no more comparison than there is between a man and the men who walk about in his dreams4 ,under the next heading some attempt will be made to indicate the twilight of that dream in which the gods walk about like men4 ,but if any one fancies the contrast of monotheism and polytheism is only a matter of some people having one god and others a few more1 for him it will be far nearer the truth to plunge into the elephantine extravagance of ,brahmin cosmology2 that he may feel a shudder going through the veil of things1 the many-handed creators1 and the throned and haloed animals and all the network of entangled stars and rulers of the night1 as the awful eyes of ,brahma open like dawn upon the death of all4 ,,chapter ,v ,,man ,,and ,,mythologies ,what are here called the ,gods might almost alternatively be called the ,day-,dreams4 ,to compare them to dreams is not to deny that dreams can come true4 ,to compare them to travellers' tales is not to deny that they may be true tales1 or at least truthful tales4 ,in truth they are the sort of tales the traveller tells to himself4 ,all this mythological business belongs to the poetical part of men4 ,it seems strangely forgotten nowadays that a myth is a work of imagination and therefore a work of art4 ,it needs a poet to make it4 ,it needs a poet to criticise it4 ,there are more poets than non-poets in the world1 as is proved by the popular origin of such legends4 ,but for some reason ,i have never heard explained1 it is only the minority of unpoetical people who are allowed to write critical studies of these popular poems4 ,we do not submit a sonnet to a mathematician or a song to a calculating boy2 but we do indulge the equally fantastic idea that folk-lore can be treated as a science4 ,unless these things are appreciated artistically they are not appreciated at all4 ,when the professor is told by the barbarian that once there was nothing except a great feathered serpent1 unless the learned man feels a thrill and a half temptation to wish it were true1 he is no judge of such things at all4 ,when he is assured1 on the best ,red ,indian authority1 that a primitive hero carried the sun and moon and stars in a box1 unless he claps his hands and almost kicks his legs as a child would at such a charming fancy1 he knows nothing about the matter4 ,this test is not nonsensical2 primitive children and barbaric children do laugh and kick like other children2 and we must have a certain simplicity to repicture the childhood of the world4 ,when ,hiawatha was told by his nurse that a warrior threw his grandmother up to the moon1 he laughed like any ,english child told by his nurse that a cow jumped over the moon4 ,the child sees the joke as well as most men1 and better than some scientific men4 ,but the ultimate test even of the fantastic is the appropriateness of the inappropriate4 ,and the test must appear merely arbitrary because it is merely artistic4 ,if any student tells me that the infant ,hiawatha only laughed out of respect for the tribal custom of sacrificing the aged to economical housekeeping1 ,i say he did not4 ,if any scholar tells me that the cow jumped over the moon only because a heifer was sacrificed to ,diana1 ,i answer that it did not4 ,it happened because it is obviously the right thing for a cow to jump over the moon4 ,mythology is a lost art1 one of the few arts that really are lost2 but it is an art4 ,the horned moon and the horned mooncalf make a harmonious and almost a quiet pattern4 ,and throwing your grandmother into the sky is not good behaviour2 but it is perfectly good taste4 ,thus scientists seldom understand1 as artists understand1 that one branch of the beautiful is the ugly4 ,they seldom allow for the legitimate liberty of the grotesque4 ,and they will dismiss a savage myth as merely coarse and clumsy and an evidence of degradation1 because it has not all the beauty of the herald ,mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill2 when it really has the beauty of the ,mock ,turtle of the ,mad ,hatter4 ,it is the supreme proof of a man being prosaic that he always insists on poetry being poetical4 ,sometimes the humour is in the very subject as well as the style of the fable4 ,the ,australian aborigines1 regarded as the rudest of savages1 have a story about a giant frog who had swallowed the sea and all the waters of the world2 and who was only forced to spill them by being made to laugh4 ,all the animals with all their antics passed before him and1 like ,queen ,victoria1 he was not amused4 ,he collapsed at last before an eel who stood delicately balanced on the tip of its tail1 doubtless with a rather desperate dignity4 ,any amount of fine fantastic literature might be made out of that fable4 ,there is philosophy in that vision of the dry world before the beatific ,deluge of laughter4 ,there is imagination in the mountainous monster erupting like an aqueous volcano2 there is plenty of fun in the thought of his goggling visage as the pelican or the penguin passed by4 ,anyhow the frog laughed2 but the folk-lore student remains grave4 ,moreover1 even where the fables are inferior as art1 they cannot be properly judged by science2 still less properly judged as science4 ,some myths are very crude and queer like the early drawings of children2 but the child is trying to draw4 ,it is none the less an error to treat his drawing as if it were a diagram1 or intended to be a diagram4 ,the student cannot make a scientific statement about the savage1 because the savage is not making a scientific statement about the world4 ,he is saying something quite different2 what might be called the gossip of the gods4 ,we may say1 if we like1 that it is believed before there is time to examine it4 ,it would be truer to say it is accepted before there is time to believe it4 ,i confess ,i doubt the whole theory of the dissemination of myths or 7as it commonly is7 of one myth4 ,it is true that something in our nature and conditions makes many stories similar2 but each of them may be original4 ,one man does not borrow the story from the other man1 though he may tell it from the same motive as the other man4 ,it would be easy to apply the whole argument about legend to literature2 and turn it into a vulgar monomania of plagiarism4 ,i would undertake to trace a notion like that of the ,golden ,bough through individual modern novels as easily as through communal and antiquated myths4 ,i would undertake to find something like a bunch of flowers figuring again and again from the fatal bouquet of ,becky ,sharpe to the spray of roses sent by the ,princess of ,ruritania4 ,but though these flowers may spring from the same soil1 it is not the same faded flower that is flung from hand to hand4 ,those flowers are always fresh4 ,the true origin of all the myths has been discovered much too often4 ,there are too many keys to mythology1 as there are too many cryptograms in ,shakespeare4 ,everything is phallic2 everything is totemistic2 everything is seed-time and harvest2 everything is ghosts and grave-offerings2 everything is the golden bough of sacrifice2 everything is the sun and moon2 everything is everything4 ,every folk-lore student who knew a little more than his own monomania1 every man of wider reading and critical culture like ,andrew ,lang1 has practically confessed that the bewilderment of these things left his brain spinning4 ,yet the whole trouble comes from a man trying to look at these stories from the outside1 as if they were scientific objects4 ,he has only to look at them from the inside1 and ask himself how he would begin a story4 ,a story may start with anything and go anywhere4 ,it may start with a bird without the bird being a totem2 it may start with the sun without being a solar myth4 ,it is said there are only ten plots in the world2 and there will certainly be common and recurrent elements4 ,set ten thousand children talking at once1 and telling tarradiddles about what they did in the wood2 and it will not be hard to find parallels suggesting sun-worship or animal-worship4 ,some of the stories may be pretty and some silly and some perhaps dirty2 but they can only be judged as stories4 ,in the modern dialect1 they can only be judged aesthetically4 ,it is strange that aesthetics1 or mere feeling1 which is now allowed to usurp where it has no rights at all1 to wreck reason with pragmatism and morals with anarchy1 is apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgment on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question4 ,we may be fanciful about everything except fairy-tales4 ,now the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle ideas4 ,everybody ought to know that1 for everybody has been a child4 ,ignorant as a child is1 he knows more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine shades4 ,and in this matter there are several fine shades4 ,nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the beautiful things he sees2 his hunger for secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its tale untold4 ,he feels that nothing is perfect unless it is personal4 ,without that the blind unconscious beauty of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue4 ,one need only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad4 ,it is often said that pagan mythology was a personification of the powers of nature4 ,the phrase is true in a sense1 but it is very unsatisfactory2 because it implies that the forces are abstractions and the personification is artificial4 ,myths are not allegories4 ,natural powers are not in this case abstractions4 ,it is not as if there were a ,god of ,gravitation4 ,there may be a genius of the waterfall2 but not of mere falling1 even less than of mere water4 ,the impersonation is not of something impersonal4 ,the point is that the personality perfects the water with significance4 ,father ,christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly2 he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form1 like a snow man4 ,he is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens2 so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold4 ,the test therefore is purely imaginative4 ,but imaginative does not mean imaginary4 ,it does not follow that it is all what the moderns call subjective1 when they mean false4 ,every true artist does feel1 consciously or unconsciously1 that he is touching transcendental truths2 that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil4 ,in other words1 the natural mystic does know that there is something there2 something behind the clouds or within the trees2 but he believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it2 that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up4 ,now we do not comprehend this process in ourselves1 far less in our most remote fellow-creatures4 ,and the danger of these things being classified is that they may seem to be comprehended4 ,a really fine work of folk-lore1 like ,the ,golden ,bough1 will leave too many readers with the idea1 for instance1 that this or that story of a giant's or wizard's heart in a casket or a cave only #8means' some stupid and static superstition called #8the external soul4' ,but we do not know what these things mean1 simply because we do not know what we ourselves mean when we are moved by them4 ,suppose somebody in a story says #8,pluck this flower and a princess will die in a castle beyond the sea1' we do not know why something stirs in the subconsciousness1 or why what is impossible seems also inevitable4 ,suppose we read #8,and in the hour when the king extinguished the candle his ships were wrecked far away on the coast of the ,hebrides4' ,we do not know why the imagination has accepted that image before the reason can reject it2 or why such correspondences seem really to correspond to something in the soul4 ,very deep things in our nature1 some dim sense of the dependence of great things upon small1 some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power1 some sacramental feeling of the magic in material substances1 and many more emotions past finding out1 are in an idea like that of the external soul4 ,the power even in the myths of savages is like the power in the metaphors of poets4 ,the soul of such a metaphor is often very emphatically an external soul4 ,the best critics have remarked that in the best poets the simile is often a picture that seems quite separate from the text4 ,it is as irrelevant as the remote castle to the flower or the ,hebridean coast to the candle4 ,shelley compares the skylark to a young woman in a turret1 to a rose embedded in thick foliage1 to a series of things that seem to be about as unlike a skylark in the sky as anything we can imagine4 ,i suppose the most potent piece of pure magic in ,english literature is the much-quoted passage in ,keats's ,nightingale about the casements opening on the perilous foam4 ,and nobody notices that the image seems to come from nowhere2 that it appears abruptly after some almost equally irrelevant remarks about ,ruth2 and that it has nothing in the world to do with the subject of the poem4 ,if there is one place in the world where nobody could reasonably expect to find a nightingale1 it is on a window-sill at the seaside4 ,but it is only in the same sense that nobody would expect to find a giant's heart in a casket under the sea4 ,now1 it would be very dangerous to classify the metaphors of the poets4 ,when ,shelley says that the cloud will rise #8like a child from the womb1 like a ghost from the tomb1' it would be quite possible to call the first a case of the coarse primitive birth-myth and the second a survival of the ghost-worship which became ancestor-worship4 ,but it is the wrong way of dealing with a cloud2 and is liable to leave the learned in the condition of ,polonius1 only too ready to think it like a weasel1 or very like a whale4 ,two facts follow from this psychology of day-dreams1 which must be kept in mind throughout their development in mythologies and even religions4 ,first1 these imaginative impressions are often strictly local4 ,so far from being abstractions turned into allegories1 they are often images almost concentrated into idols4 ,the poet feels the mystery of a particular forest2 not of the science of afforestation or the department of woods and forests4 ,he worships the peak of a particular mountain1 not the abstract idea of altitude4 ,so we find the god is not merely water but often one special river2 he may be the sea because the sea is single like a stream2 the river that runs round the world4 ,ultimately doubtless many deities are enlarged into elements2 but they are something more than omnipresent4 ,apollo does not merely dwell wherever the sun shines2 his home is on the rock of ,delphi4 ,diana is great enough to be in three places at once1 earth and heaven and hell1 but greater is ,diana of the ,ephesians4 ,this localised feeling has its lowest form in the mere fetish or talisman1 such as millionaires put on their motor-cars4 ,but it can also harden into something like a high and serious religion1 where it is connected with high and serious duties2 into the gods of the city or even the gods of the hearth4 ,the second consequence is this3 that in these pagan cults there is every shade of sincerity--and insincerity4 ,in what sense exactly did an ,athenian really think he had to sacrifice to ,pallas ,athene8 ,what scholar is really certain of the answer8 ,in what sense did ,dr4 ,johnson really think that he had to touch all the posts in the street or that he had to collect orange-peel8 ,in what sense does a child really think that he ought to step on every alternate paving-stone8 ,two things are at least fairly clear4 ,first1 in simpler and less self-conscious times these forms could become more solid without really becoming more serious4 ,day-dreams could be acted in broad daylight1 with more liberty of artistic expression2 but still perhaps with something of the light step of the somnambulist4 ,wrap ,dr4 ,johnson in an antique mantle1 crown him 7by his kind permission7 with a garland1 and he will move in state under those ancient skies of morning2 touching a series of sacred posts carved with the heads of the strange terminal gods1 that stand at the limits of the land and of the life of man4 ,make the child free of the marbles and mosaics of some classic temple1 to play on a whole floor inlaid with squares of black and white2 and he will willingly make this fulfilment of his idle and drifting day-dream the clear field for a grave and graceful dance4 ,but the posts and the paving-stones are little more and little less real than they are under modern limits4 ,they are not really much more serious for being taken seriously4 ,they have the sort of sincerity that they always had2 the sincerity of art as a symbol that expresses very real spiritualities under the surface of life4 ,but they are only sincere in the same sense as art2 not sincere in the same sense as morality4 ,the eccentric's collection of orange-peel may turn to oranges in a ,mediterranean festival or to golden apples in a ,mediterranean myth4 ,but they are never on the same plane with the difference between giving the orange to a blind beggar and carefully placing the orange-peel so that the beggar may fall and break his leg4 ,between these two things there is a difference of kind and not of degree4 ,the child does not think it wrong to step on the paving-stone as he thinks it wrong to step on the dog's tail4 ,and it is very certain that whatever jest or sentiment or fancy first set ,johnson touching the wooden posts1 he never touched wood with any of the feeling with which he stretched out his hands to the timber of that terrible tree1 which was the death of ,god and the life of man4 ,as already noted1 this does not mean that there was no reality or even no religious sentiment in such a mood4 ,as a matter of fact the ,catholic ,church has taken over with uproarious success the whole of this popular business of giving people local legends and lighter ceremonial movements4 ,in so far as all this sort of paganism was innocent and in touch with nature1 there is no reason why it should not be patronised by patron saints as much as by pagan gods4 ,and in any case there are degrees of seriousness in the most natural make-believe4 ,there is all the difference between fancying there are fairies in the wood1 which often only means fancying a certain wood as fit for fairies1 and really frightening ourselves until we will walk a mile rather than pass a house we have told ourselves is haunted4 ,behind all these things is the fact that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual world2 and to touch them at all1 even in doubt or fancy1 is to stir the deep things of the soul4 ,we all understand that and the pagans understood it4 ,the point is that paganism did not really stir the soul except with these doubts and fancies2 with the consequence that we to-day can have little beyond doubts and fancies about paganism4 ,all the best critics agree that all the greatest poets1 in pagan ,hellas for example1 had an attitude towards their gods which is quite queer and puzzling to men in the ,christian era4 ,there seems to be an admitted conflict between the god and the man2 but everybody seems to be doubtful about which is the hero and which is the villain4 ,this doubt does not merely apply to a doubter like ,euripides in the ,bacchae2 it applies to a moderate conservative like ,sophocles in the ,antigone2 or even to a regular ,tory and reactionary like ,aristophanes in the ,frogs4 ,sometimes it would seem that the ,greeks believed above all things in reverence1 only they had nobody to revere4 ,but the point of the puzzle is this3 that all this vagueness and variation arise from the fact that the whole thing began in fancy and in dreaming2 and that there are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds4 ,this is the mighty and branching tree called mythology which ramifies round the whole world1 whose remote branches under separate skies bear like coloured birds the costly idols of ,asia and the half-baked fetishes of ,africa and the fairy kings and princesses of the folk-tales of the forests1 and buried amid vines and olives the ,lares of the ,latins1 and carried on the clouds of ,olympus the buoyant supremacy of the gods of ,greece4 ,these are the myths3 and he who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with men4 ,but he who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise that they are not and never were a religion1 in the sense that ,christianity or even ,islam is a religion4 ,they satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion2 and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates2 the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality4 ,but though they provide a man with a calendar1 they do not provide him with a creed4 ,a man did not stand up and say #8,i believe in ,jupiter and ,juno and ,neptune1' etc41 as he stands up and says #8,i believe in ,god the ,father ,almighty' and the rest of the ,apostles' ,creed4 ,many believed in some and not in others1 or more in some and less in others1 or only in a very vague poetical sense in any4 ,there was no moment when they were all collected into an orthodox order which men would fight and be tortured to keep intact4 ,still less did anybody ever say in that fashion3 #8,i believe in ,odin and ,thor and ,freya1' for outside ,olympus even the ,olympian order grows cloudy and chaotic4 ,it seems clear to me that ,thor was not a god at all but a hero4 ,nothing resembling a religion would picture anybody resembling a god as groping like a pigmy in a great cavern1 that turned out to be the glove of a giant4 ,that is the glorious ignorance called adventure4 ,thor may have been a great adventurer2 but to call him a god is like trying to compare ,jehovah with ,jack and the ,beanstalk4 ,odin seems to have been a real barbarian chief1 possibly of the ,dark ,ages after ,christianity4 ,polytheism fades away at its fringes into fairy-tales or barbaric memories2 it is not a thing like monotheism as held by serious monotheists4 ,again it does satisfy the need to cry out on some uplifted name or some noble memory in moments that are themselves noble and uplifted2 such as the birth of a child or the saving of a city4 ,but the name was so used by many to whom it was only a name4 ,finally it did satisfy1 or rather it partially satisfied1 a thing very deep in humanity indeed2 the idea of surrendering something as the portion of the unknown powers2 of pouring out wine upon the ground1 of throwing a ring into the sea2 in a word1 of sacrifice4 ,it is the wise and worthy idea of not taking our advantage to the full2 of putting something in the other balance to ballast our dubious pride1 of paying tithes to nature for our land4 ,this deep truth of the danger of insolence1 or being too big for our boots1 runs through all the great ,greek tragedies and makes them great4 ,but it runs side by side with an almost cryptic agnosticism about the real nature of the gods to be propitiated4 ,where that gesture of surrender is most magnificent1 as among the great ,greeks1 there is really much more idea that the man will be the better for losing the ox than that the god will be the better for getting it4 ,it is said that in its grosser forms there are often actions grotesquely suggestive of the god really eating the sacrifice4 ,but this fact is falsified by the error that ,i put first in this note on mythology4 ,it is misunderstanding the psychology of day-dreams4 ,a child pretending there is a goblin in a hollow tree will do a crude and material thing1 like leaving a piece of cake for him4 ,a poet might do a more dignified and elegant thing1 like bringing to the god fruits as well as flowers4 ,but the degree of seriousness in both acts may be the same or it may vary in almost any degree4 ,the crude fancy is no more a creed than the ideal fancy is a creed4 ,certainly the pagan does not disbelieve like an atheist1 any more than he believes like a ,christian4 ,he feels the presence of powers about which he guesses and invents4 ,st4 ,paul said that the ,greeks had one altar to an unknown god4 ,but in truth all their gods were unknown gods4 ,and the real break in history did come when ,st4 ,paul declared to them whom they had ignorantly worshipped4 ,the substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus4 ,it is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone2 in its own field reason does not restrain it at all4 ,it is vital to the view of all history that reason is something separate from religion even in the most rational of these civilisations4 ,it is only as an afterthought1 when such cults are decadent or on the defensive1 that a few ,neo-,platonists or a few ,brahmins are found trying to rationalise them1 and even then only by trying to allegorise them4 ,but in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of ,christendom4 ,simple secularists still talk as if the ,church had introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion4 ,the truth is that the ,church was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion4 ,there had never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers4 ,mythology1 then1 sought ,god through the imagination2 or sought truth by means of beauty1 in the sense in which beauty includes much of the most grotesque ugliness4 ,but the imagination has its own laws and therefore its own triumphs1 which neither logicians nor men of science can understand4 ,it remained true to that imaginative instinct through a thousand extravagances1 through every crude cosmic pantomime of a pig eating the moon or the world being cut out of a cow1 through all the dizzy convolutions and mystic malformations of ,asiatic art1 through all the stark and staring rigidity of ,egyptian and ,assyrian portraiture1 through every kind of cracked mirror of mad art that seemed to deform the world and displace the sky1 it remained true to something about which there can be no argument2 something that makes it possible for some artist of some school to stand suddenly still before that particular deformity and say1 #8,my dream has come true4' ,therefore do we all in fact feel that pagan or primitive myths are infinitely suggestive1 so long as we are wise enough not to inquire what they suggest4 ,therefore we all feel what is meant by ,prometheus stealing fire from heaven1 until some prig of a pessimist or progressive person explains what it means4 ,therefore we all know the meaning of ,jack and the ,beanstalk1 until we are told4 ,in this sense it is true that it is the ignorant who accept myths1 but only because it is the ignorant who appreciate poems4 ,imagination has its own laws and triumphs2 and a tremendous power began to clothe its images1 whether images in the mind or in the mud1 whether in the bamboo of the ,south ,sea ,islands or the marble of the mountains of ,hellas4 ,but there was always a trouble in the triumph1 which in these pages ,i have tried to analyse in vain2 but perhaps ,i might in conclusion state it thus4 ,the crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship2 even natural to worship unnatural things4 ,the posture of the idol might be stiff and strange2 but the gesture of the worshipper was generous and beautiful4 ,he not only felt freer when he bent2 he actually felt taller when he bowed4 ,henceforth anything that took away the gesture of worship would stunt and even maim him for ever4 ,henceforth being merely secular would be a servitude and an inhibition4 ,if man cannot pray he is gagged2 if he cannot kneel he is in irons4 ,we therefore feel throughout the whole of paganism a curious double feeling of trust and distrust4 ,when the man makes the gesture of salutation and of sacrifice1 when he pours out the libation or lifts up the sword1 he knows he is doing a worthy and a virile thing4 ,he knows he is doing one of the things for which a man was made4 ,his imaginative experiment is therefore justified4 ,but precisely because it began with imagination1 there is to the end something of mockery in it1 and especially in the object of it4 ,this mockery1 in the more intense moments of the intellect1 becomes the almost intolerable irony of ,greek tragedy4 ,there seems a disproportion between the priest and the altar or between the altar and the god4 ,the priest seems more solemn and almost more sacred than the god4 ,all the order of the temple is solid and sane and satisfactory to certain parts of our nature2 except the very centre of it1 which seems strangely mutable and dubious1 like a dancing flame4 ,it is the first thought round which the whole has been built2 and the first thought is still a fancy and almost a frivolity4 ,in that strange place of meeting1 the man seems more statuesque than the statue4 ,he himself can stand for ever in the noble and natural attitude of the statue of the ,praying ,boy4 ,but whatever name be written on the pedestal1 whether ,zeus or ,ammon or ,apollo1 the god whom he worships is ,proteus4 ,the ,praying ,boy may be said to express a need rather than to satisfy a need4 ,it is by a normal and necessary action that his hands are lifted2 but it is no less a parable that his hands are empty4 ,about the nature of that need there will be more to say2 but at this point it may be said that perhaps after all this true instinct1 that prayer and sacrifice are a liberty and an enlargement1 refers back to that vast and half-forgotten conception of universal fatherhood1 which we have already seen everywhere fading from the morning sky4 ,this is true2 and yet it is not all the truth4 ,there remains an indestructible instinct1 in the poet as represented by the pagan1 that he is not entirely wrong in localising his god4 ,it is something in the soul of poetry if not of piety4 ,and the greatest of poets1 when he defined the poet1 did not say that he gave us the universe or the absolute or the infinite2 but1 in his own larger language1 a local habitation and a name4 ,no poet is merely a pantheist2 those who are counted most pantheistic1 like ,shelley1 start with some local and particular image as the pagans did4 ,after all1 ,shelley wrote of the skylark because it was a skylark4 ,you could not issue an imperial or international translation of it for use in ,south ,africa1 in which it was changed to an ostrich4 ,so the mythological imagination moves as it were in circles1 hovering either to find a place or to return to it4 ,in a word1 mythology is a search2 it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt1 mixing a most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep and mysterious levity about all the places found4 ,so far could the lonely imagination lead1 and we must turn later to the lonely reason4 ,nowhere along this road did the two ever travel together4 ,that is where all these things differed from religion in the reality in which these different dimensions met or a sort of solid4 ,they differed from the reality not in what they looked like but in what they were4 ,a picture may look like a landscape2 it may look in every detail exactly like a landscape4 ,the only detail in which it differs is that it is not a landscape4 ,the difference is only that which divides a portrait of ,queen ,elizabeth from ,queen ,elizabeth4 ,only in this mythical and mystical world the portrait could exist before the person2 and the portrait was therefore more vague and doubtful4 ,but anybody who has felt and fed on the atmosphere of these myths will know what ,i mean when ,i say that in one sense they did not really profess to be realities4 ,the pagans had dreams about realities2 and they would have been the first to admit1 in their own words1 that some came through the gate of ivory and others through the gate of horn4 ,the dreams do indeed tend to be very vivid dreams when they touch on those tender or tragic things1 which can really make a sleeper awaken with the sense that his heart has been broken in his sleep4 ,they tend continually to hover over certain passionate themes of meeting and parting1 of a life that ends in death or a death that is the beginning of life4 ,demeter wanders over a stricken world looking for a stolen child2 ,isis stretches out her arms over the earth in vain to gather the limbs of ,osiris2 and there is lamentation upon the hills for ,atys and through the woods for ,adonis4 ,there mingles with all such mourning the mystical and profound sense that death can be a deliverer and an appeasement2 that such death gives us a divine blood for a renovating river and that all good is found in gathering the broken body of the god4 ,we may truly call these foreshadowings2 so long as we remember that foreshadowings are shadows4 ,and the metaphor of a shadow happens to hit very exactly the truth that is very vital here4 ,for a shadow is a shape2 a thing which reproduces shape but not texture4 ,these things were something like the real thing2 and to say that they were like is to say that they were different4 ,saying something is like a dog is another way of saying it is not a dog2 and it is in this sense of identity that a myth is not a man4 ,nobody really thought of ,isis as a human being2 nobody really thought of ,demeter as a historical character2 nobody thought of ,adonis as the founder of a ,church4 ,there was no idea that any one of them had changed the world2 but rather that their recurrent death and life bore the sad and beautiful burden of the changelessness of the world4 ,not one of them was a revolution1 save in the sense of the revolution of the sun and moon4 ,their whole meaning is missed if we do not see that they mean the shadows that we are and the shadows that we pursue4 ,in certain sacrificial and communal aspects they naturally suggest what sort of a god might satisfy men2 but they do not profess to be satisfied4 ,any one who says they do is a bad judge of poetry4 ,those who talk about ,pagan ,christs have less sympathy with ,paganism than with ,christianity4 ,those who call these cults #8religions1' and #8compare' them with the certitude and challenge of the ,church have much less appreciation than we have of what made heathenism human1 or of why classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song4 ,it is no very human tenderness for the hungry to prove that hunger is the same as food4 ,it is no very genial understanding of youth to argue that hope destroys the need for happiness4 ,and it is utterly unreal to argue that these images in the mind1 admired entirely in the abstract1 were even in the same world with a living man and a living polity that were worshipped because they were concrete4 ,we might as well say that a boy playing at robbers is the same as a man in his first day in the trenches2 or that a boy's first fancies about #8the not impossible she' are the same as the sacrament of marriage4 ,they are fundamentally different exactly where they are superficially similar2 we might almost say they are not the same even when they are the same4 ,they are only different because one is real and the other is not4 ,i do not mean merely that ,i myself believe that one is true and the other is not4 ,i mean that one was never meant to be true in the same sense as the other4 ,the sense in which it was meant to be true ,i have tried to suggest vaguely here1 but it is undoubtedly very subtle and almost indescribable4 ,it is so subtle that the students who profess to put it up as a rival to our religion miss the whole meaning and purport of their own study4 ,we know better than the scholars1 even those of us who are no scholars1 what was in that hollow cry that went forth over the dead ,adonis and why the ,great ,mother had a daughter wedded to death4 ,we have entered more deeply than they into the ,eleusinian ,mysteries and have passed a higher grade1 where gate within gate guarded the wisdom of ,orpheus4 ,we know the meaning of all the myths4 ,we know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate4 ,and it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying1 #8,these things are4' ,it is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying1 #8,why cannot these things be8' ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,demons ,,and ,,the ,,philosophers ,i have dwelt at some little length on this imaginative sort of paganism1 which has crowded the world with temples and is everywhere the parent of popular festivity4 ,for the central history of civilisation1 as ,i see it1 consists of two further stages before the final stage of ,christendom4 ,the first was the struggle between this paganism and something less worthy than itself1 and the second the process by which it grew in itself less worthy4 ,in this very varied and often very vague polytheism there was a weakness of original sin4 ,pagan gods were depicted as tossing men like dice2 and indeed they are loaded dice4 ,about sex especially men are born unbalanced2 we might almost say men are born mad4 ,they scarcely reach sanity till they reach sanctity4 ,this disproportion dragged down the winged fancies2 and filled the end of paganism with a mere filth and litter of spawning gods4 ,but the first point to realise is that this sort of paganism had an early collision with another sort of paganism2 and that the issue of that essentially spiritual struggle really determined the history of the world4 ,in order to understand it we must pass to a review of the other kind of paganism4 ,it can be considered much more briefly2 indeed1 there is a very real sense in which the less that is said about it the better4 ,if we have called the first sort of mythology the day-dream1 we might very well call the second sort of mythology the nightmare4 ,superstition recurs in all ages1 and especially in rationalistic ages4 ,i remember defending the religious tradition against a whole luncheon-table of distinguished agnostics2 and before the end of our conversation every one of them had procured from his pocket1 or exhibited on his watch-chain1 some charm or talisman from which he admitted that he was never separated4 ,i was the only person present who had neglected to provide himself with a fetish4 ,superstition recurs in a rationalist age because it rests on something which1 if not identical with rationalism1 is not unconnected with scepticism4 ,it is at least very closely connected with agnosticism4 ,it rests on something that is really a very human and intelligible sentiment1 like the local invocations of the numen in popular paganism4 ,but it is an agnostic sentiment1 for it rests on two feelings3 first that we do not really know the laws of the universe2 and second that they may be very different from all that we call reason4 ,such men realise the real truth that enormous things do often turn upon tiny things4 ,when a whisper comes1 from tradition or what not1 that one particular tiny thing is the key or clue1 something deep and not altogether senseless in human nature tells them that it is not unlikely4 ,this feeling exists in both the forms of paganism here under consideration4 ,but when we come to the second form of it1 we find it transformed and filled with another and more terrible spirit4 ,in dealing with the lighter thing called mythology1 ,i have said little about the most disputable aspect of it2 the extent to which such invocation of the spirits of the sea or the elements can indeed call spirits from the vasty deep2 or rather 7as the ,shakespearean scoffer put it7 whether the spirits come when they are called4 ,i believe that ,i am right in thinking that this problem1 practical as it sounds1 did not play a dominant part in the poetical business of mythology4 ,but ,i think it even more obvious1 on the evidence1 that things of that sort have sometimes appeared1 even if they were only appearances4 ,but when we come to the world of superstition1 in a more subtle sense1 there is a shade of difference2 a deepening and a darkening shade4 ,doubtless most popular superstition is as frivolous as any popular mythology4 ,men do not believe as a dogma that ,god would throw a thunderbolt at them for walking under a ladder2 more often they amuse themselves with the not very laborious exercise of walking round it4 ,there is no more in it than what ,i have already adumbrated2 a sort of airy agnosticism about the possibilities of so strange a world4 ,but there is another sort of superstition that does definitely look for results2 what might be called a realistic superstition4 ,and with that the question of whether spirits do answer or do appear becomes much more serious4 ,as ,i have said1 it seems to me pretty certain that they sometimes do2 but about that there is a distinction that has been the beginning of much evil in the world4 ,whether it be because the ,fall has really brought men nearer to less desirable neighbours in the spiritual world1 or whether it is merely that the mood of men eager or greedy finds it easier to imagine evil1 ,i believe that the black magic of witchcraft has been much more practical and much less poetical than the white magic of mythology4 ,i fancy the garden of the witch has been kept much more carefully than the woodland of the nymph4 ,i fancy the evil field has even been more fruitful than the good4 ,to start with1 some impulse1 perhaps a sort of desperate impulse1 drove men to the darker powers when dealing with practical problems4 ,there was a sort of secret and perverse feeling that the darker powers would really do things2 that they had no nonsense about them4 ,and indeed that popular phrase exactly expresses the point4 ,the gods of mere mythology had a great deal of nonsense about them4 ,they had a great deal of good nonsense about them2 in the happy and hilarious sense in which we talk of the nonsense of ,jabberwocky or the ,land where the ,jumblies live4 ,but the man consulting a demon felt as many a man has felt in consulting a detective1 especially a private detective3 that it was dirty work but the work would really be done4 ,a man did not exactly go into the wood to meet a nymph2 he rather went with the hope of meeting a nymph4 ,it was an adventure rather than an assignation4 ,but the devil really kept his appointments and even in one sense kept his promises2 even if a man sometimes wished afterwards1 like ,macbeth1 that he had broken them4 ,in the accounts given us of many rude or savage races we gather that the cult of demons often came after the cult of deities1 and even after the cult of one single and supreme deity4 ,it may be suspected that in almost all such places the higher deity is felt to be too far off for appeal in certain petty matters1 and men invoke the spirits because they are in a more literal sense familiar spirits4 ,but with the idea of employing the demons who get things done1 a new idea appears more worthy of the demons4 ,it may indeed be truly described as the idea of being worthy of the demons2 of making oneself fit for their fastidious and exacting society4 ,superstition of the lighter sort toys with the idea that some trifle1 some small gesture such as throwing the salt1 may touch the hidden spring that works the mysterious machinery of the world4 ,and there is after all something in the idea of such an ,open ,sesame4 ,but with the appeal to lower spirits comes the horrible notion that the gesture must not only be very small but very low2 that it must be a monkey trick of an utterly ugly and unworthy sort4 ,sooner or later a man deliberately sets himself to do the most disgusting thing he can think of4 ,it is felt that the extreme of evil will extort a sort of attention or answer from the evil powers under the surface of the world4 ,this is the meaning of most of the cannibalism in the world4 ,for most cannibalism is not a primitive or even a bestial habit4 ,it is artificial and even artistic2 a sort of art for art's sake4 ,men do not do it because they do not think it horrible2 but1 on the contrary1 because they do think it horrible4 ,they wish1 in the most literal sense1 to sup on horrors4 ,that is why it is often found that rude races like the ,australian natives are not cannibals2 while much more refined and intelligent races1 like the ,new ,zealand ,maories1 occasionally are4 ,they are refined and intelligent enough to indulge sometimes in a self-conscious diabolism4 ,but if we could understand their minds1 or even really understand their language1 we should probably find that they were not acting as ignorant1 that is as innocent cannibals4 ,they are not doing it because they do not think it wrong1 but precisely because they do think it wrong4 ,they are acting like a ,parisian decadent at a ,black ,mass4 ,but the ,black ,mass has to hide underground from the presence of the real ,mass4 ,in other words1 the demons have really been in hiding since the coming of ,christ on earth4 ,the cannibalism of the higher barbarians is in hiding from the civilisation of the white man4 ,but before ,christendom1 and especially outside ,europe1 this was not always so4 ,in the ancient world the demons often wandered abroad like dragons4 ,they could be positively and publicly enthroned as gods4 ,their enormous images could be set up in public temples in the centre of populous cities4 ,and all over the world the traces can be found of this striking and solid fact1 so curiously overlooked by the moderns who speak of all such evil as primitive and early in evolution1 that as a matter of fact some of the very highest civilisations of the world were the very places where the horns of ,satan were exalted1 not only to the stars but in the face of the sun4 ,take for example the ,aztecs and ,american ,indians of the ancient empires of ,mexico and ,peru4 ,they were at least as elaborate as ,egypt or ,china and only less lively than that central civilisation which is our own4 ,but those who criticise that central civilisation 7which is always their own civilisation7 have a curious habit of not merely doing their legitimate duty in condemning its crimes1 but of going out of their way to idealise its victims4 ,they always assume that before the advent of ,europe there was nothing anywhere but ,eden4 ,and ,swinburne1 in that spirited chorus of the nations in #8,songs before ,sunrise1' used an expression about ,spain in her ,south ,american conquests which always struck me as very strange4 ,he said something about #8her sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed1' and how they #8made accursed the name of man and thrice accursed the name of ,god4' ,it may be reasonable enough that he should say the ,spaniards were sinful1 but why in the world should he say that the ,south ,americans were sinless8 ,why should he have supposed that continent to be exclusively populated by archangels or saints perfect in heaven8 ,it would be a strong thing to say of the most respectable neighbourhood2 but when we come to think of what we really do know of that society the remark is rather funny4 ,we know that the sinless priests of this sinless people worshipped sinless gods1 who accepted as the nectar and ambrosia of their sunny paradise nothing but incessant human sacrifice accompanied by horrible torments4 ,we may note also in the mythology of this ,american civilisation that element of reversal or violence against instinct of which ,dante wrote2 which runs backwards everywhere through the unnatural religion of the demons4 ,it is notable not only in ethics but in aesthetics4 ,a ,south ,american idol was made as ugly as possible1 as a ,greek image was made as beautiful as possible4 ,they were seeking the secret of power1 by working backwards against their own nature and the nature of things4 ,there was always a sort of yearning to carve at last1 in gold or granite or the dark red timber of the forests1 a face at which the sky itself would break like a cracked mirror4 ,in any case it is clear enough that the painted and gilded civilisation of tropical ,america systematically indulged in human sacrifice4 ,it is by no means clear1 so far as ,i know1 that the ,eskimos ever indulged in human sacrifice4 ,they were not civilised enough4 ,they were too closely imprisoned by the white winter and the endless dark4 ,chill penury repressed their noble rage and froze the genial current of the soul4 ,it was in brighter days and broader daylight that the noble rage is found unmistakably raging4 ,it was in richer and more instructed lands that the genial current flowed on the altars1 to be drunk by great gods wearing goggling and grinning masks and called on in terror or torment by long cacophonous names that sound like laughter in hell4 ,a warmer climate and a more scientific cultivation were needed to bring forth these blooms2 to draw up towards the sun the large leaves and flamboyant blossoms that gave their gold and crimson and purple to that garden1 which ,swinburne compares to the ,hesperides4 ,there was at least no doubt about the dragon4 ,i do not raise in this connection the special controversy about ,spain and ,mexico2 but ,i may remark in passing that it resembles exactly the question that must in some sense be raised afterwards about ,rome and ,carthage4 ,in both cases there has been a queer habit among the ,english of always siding against the ,europeans1 and representing the rival civilisation1 in ,swinburne's phrase1 as sinless2 when its sins were obviously crying or rather screaming to heaven4 ,for ,carthage also was a high civilisation1 indeed a much more highly civilised civilisation4 ,and ,carthage also founded that civilisation on a religion of fear1 sending up everywhere the smoke of human sacrifice4 ,now it is very right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards and ideals4 ,but it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and ideals4 ,there is a very real sense in which the ,christian is worse than the heathen1 the ,spaniard worse than the ,red ,indian1 or even the ,roman potentially worse than the ,carthaginian4 ,but there is only one sense in which he is worse2 and that is not in being positively worse4 ,the ,christian is only worse because it is his business to be better4 ,this inverted imagination produces things of which it is better not to speak4 ,some of them indeed might almost be named without being known2 for they are of that extreme evil which seems innocent to the innocent4 ,they are too inhuman even to be indecent4 ,but without dwelling much longer in these dark corners1 it may be noted as not irrelevant here that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of black magic4 ,there may be suspected as running through it everywhere1 for instance1 a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood4 ,people would understand better the popular fury against the witches1 if they remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them was preventing the birth of children4 ,the ,hebrew prophets were perpetually protesting against the ,hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that involved such a war upon children2 and it is probable enough that this abominable apostasy from the ,god of ,israel has occasionally appeared in ,israel since1 in the form of what is called ritual murder2 not of course by any representative of the religion of ,judaism1 but by individual and irresponsible diabolists who did happen to be ,jews4 ,this sense that the forces of evil especially threaten childhood is found again in the enormous popularity of the ,child ,martyr of the ,middle ,ages4 ,chaucer did but give another version of a very national ,english legend1 when he conceived the wickedest of all possible witches as the dark alien woman watching behind her high lattice and hearing1 like the babble of a brook down the stony street1 the singing of little ,st4 ,hugh4 ,anyhow the part of such speculations that concerns this story centred especially round that eastern end of the ,mediterranean where the nomads had turned gradually into traders and had begun to trade with the whole world4 ,indeed in the sense of trade and travel and colonial extension1 it already had something like an empire of the whole world4 ,its purple dye1 the emblem of its rich pomp and luxury1 had steeped the wares which were sold far away amid the last crags of ,cornwall and the sails that entered the silence of tropic seas amid all the mystery of ,africa4 ,it might be said truly to have painted the map purple4 ,it was already a world-wide success1 when the princes of ,tyre would hardly have troubled to notice that one of their princesses had condescended to marry the chief of some tribe called ,judah2 when the merchants of its ,african outpost would only have curled their bearded and ,semitic lips with a slight smile at the mention of a village called ,rome4 ,and indeed no two things could have seemed more distant from each other1 not only in space but in spirit1 than the monotheism of the ,palestinian tribe and the very virtues of the small ,italian republic4 ,there was but one thing between them2 and the thing which divided them has united them4 ,very various and incompatible were the things that could be loved by the consuls of ,rome and the prophets of ,israel2 but they were at one in what they hated4 ,it is very easy in both cases to represent that hatred as something merely hateful4 ,it is easy enough to make a merely harsh and inhuman figure either of ,elijah raving above the slaughter of ,carmel or ,cato thundering against the amnesty of ,africa4 ,these men had their limitations and their local passions2 but this criticism of them is unimaginative and therefore unreal4 ,it leaves out something1 something immense and intermediate1 facing east and west and calling up this passion in its eastern and western enemies2 and that something is the first subject of this chapter4 ,the civilisation that centred in ,tyre and ,sidon was above all things practical4 ,it has left little in the way of art and nothing in the way of poetry4 ,but it prided itself upon being very efficient2 and it followed in its philosophy and religion that strange and sometimes secret train of thought which we have already noted in those who look for immediate effects4 ,there is always in such a mentality an idea that there is a short cut to the secret of all success2 something that would shock the world by this sort of shameless thoroughness4 ,they believed1 in the appropriate modern phrase1 in people who delivered the goods4 ,in their dealings with their god ,moloch1 they themselves were always careful to deliver the goods4 ,it was an interesting transaction1 upon which we shall have to touch more than once in the rest of the narrative2 it is enough to say here that it involved the theory ,i have suggested about a certain attitude towards children4 ,this was what called up against it in simultaneous fury the servant of one ,god in ,palestine and the guardians of all the household gods in ,rome4 ,this is what challenged two things naturally so much divided by every sort of distance and disunion1 whose union was to save the world4 ,i have called the fourth and final division of the spiritual elements into which ,i should divide heathen humanity by the name of ,the ,philosophers4 ,i confess that it covers in my mind much that would generally be classified otherwise2 and that what are here called philosophies are very often called religions4 ,i believe however that my own description will be found to be much the more realistic and not the less respectful4 ,but we must first take philosophy in its purest and clearest form that we may trace its normal outline2 and that is to be found in the world of the purest and clearest outlines1 that culture of the ,mediterranean of which we have been considering the mythologies and idolatries in the last two chapters4 ,polytheism1 or that aspect of paganism1 was never to the pagan what ,catholicism is to the ,catholic4 ,it was never a view of the universe satisfying all sides of life2 a complete and complex truth with something to say about everything4 ,it was only a satisfaction of one side of the soul of man1 even if we call it the religious side2 and ,i think it is truer to call it the imaginative side4 ,but this it did satisfy2 in the end it satisfied it to satiety4 ,all that world was a tissue of interwoven tales and cults1 and there ran in and out of it1 as we have already seen1 that black thread among its more blameless colours3 the darker paganism that was really diabolism4 ,but we all know that this did not mean that all pagan men thought of nothing but pagan gods4 ,precisely because mythology only satisfied one mood1 they turned in other moods to something totally different4 ,but it is very important to realise that it was totally different4 ,it was too different to be inconsistent4 ,it was so alien that it did not clash4 ,while a mob of people were pouring on a public holiday to the feast of ,adonis or the games in honour of ,apollo1 this or that man would prefer to stop at home and think out a little theory about the nature of things4 ,sometimes his hobby would even take the form of thinking about the nature of ,god2 or even in that sense about the nature of the gods4 ,but he very seldom thought of pitting his nature of the gods against the gods of nature4 ,it is necessary to insist on this abstraction in the first student of abstractions4 ,he was not so much antagonistic as absent-minded4 ,his hobby might be the universe2 but at first the hobby was as private as if it had been numismatics or playing draughts4 ,and even when his wisdom came to be a public possession1 and almost a political institution1 it was very seldom on the same plane as the popular and religious institutions4 ,aristotle1 with his colossal common sense1 was perhaps the greatest of all philosophers2 certainly the most practical of all philosophers4 ,but ,aristotle would no more have set up the ,absolute side by side with the ,apollo of ,delphi1 as a similar or rival religion1 than ,archimedes would have thought of setting up the ,lever as a sort of idol or fetish to be substituted for the ,palladium of the city4 ,or we might as well imagine ,euclid building an altar to an isosceles triangle1 or offering sacrifices to the square on the hypotenuse4 ,the one man meditated on metaphysics as the other man did on mathematics2 for the love of truth or for curiosity or for the fun of the thing4 ,but that sort of fun never seems to have interfered very much with the other sort of fun2 the fun of dancing or singing to celebrate some rascally romance about ,zeus becoming a bull or a swan4 ,it is perhaps the proof of a certain superficiality and even insincerity about the popular polytheism1 that men could be philosophers and even sceptics without disturbing it4 ,these thinkers could move the foundations of the world without altering even the outline of that coloured cloud that hung above it in the air4 ,for the thinkers did move the foundations of the world2 even when a curious compromise seemed to prevent them from moving the foundations of the city4 ,the two great philosophers of antiquity do indeed appear to us as defenders of sane and even of sacred ideas2 their maxims often read like the answers to sceptical questions too completely answered to be always recorded4 ,aristotle annihilated a hundred anarchists and nature-worshipping cranks by the fundamental statement that man is a political animal4 ,plato in some sense anticipated the ,catholic realism1 as attacked by the heretical nominalism1 by insisting on the equally fundamental fact that ideas are realities2 that ideas exist just as men exist4 ,plato however seemed sometimes almost to fancy that ideas exist as men do not exist2 or that the men need hardly be considered where they conflict with the ideas4 ,he had something of the social sentiment that we call ,fabian in his ideal of fitting the citizen to the city1 like an imaginary head to an ideal hat2 and great and glorious as he remains1 he has been the father of all faddists4 ,aristotle anticipated more fully the sacramental sanity that was to combine the body and the soul of things2 for he considered the nature of men as well as the nature of morals1 and looked to the eyes as well as to the light4 ,but though these great men were in that sense constructive and conservative1 they belonged to a world where thought was free to the point of being fanciful4 ,many other great intellects did indeed follow them1 some exalting an abstract vision of virtue1 others following more rationalistically the necessity of the human pursuit of happiness4 ,the former had the name of ,stoics2 and their name has passed into a proverb for what is indeed one of the main moral ideals of mankind3 that of strengthening the mind itself until it is of a texture to resist calamity or even pain4 ,but it is admitted that a great number of the philosophers degenerated into what we still call sophists4 ,they became a sort of professional sceptics who went about asking uncomfortable questions1 and were handsomely paid for making themselves a nuisance to normal people4 ,it was perhaps an accidental resemblance to such questioning quacks that was responsible for the unpopularity of the great ,socrates2 whose death might seem to contradict the suggestion of the permanent truce between the philosophers and the gods4 ,but ,socrates did not die as a monotheist who denounced polytheism2 certainly not as a prophet who denounced idols4 ,it is clear to any one reading between the lines that there was some notion1 right or wrong1 of a purely personal influence affecting morals and perhaps politics4 ,the general compromise remained2 whether it was that the ,greeks thought their myths a joke or that they thought their theories a joke4 ,there was never any collision in which one really destroyed the other1 and there was never any combination in which one was really reconciled with the other4 ,they certainly did not work together2 if anything the philosopher was a rival of the priest4 ,but both seemed to have accepted a sort of separation of functions and remained parts of the same social system4 ,another important tradition descends from ,pythagoras2 who is significant because he stands nearest to the ,oriental mystics who must be considered in their turn4 ,he taught a sort of mysticism of mathematics1 that number is the ultimate reality2 but he also seems to have taught the transmigration of souls like the ,brahmins2 and to have left to his followers certain traditional tricks of vegetarianism and water-drinking very common among the eastern sages1 especially those who figure in fashionable drawing-rooms1 like those of the later ,roman ,empire4 ,but in passing to eastern sages1 and the somewhat different atmosphere of the ,east1 we may approach a rather important truth by another path4 ,one of the great philosophers said that it would be well if philosophers were kings1 or kings were philosophers4 ,he spoke as of something too good to be true2 but1 as a matter of fact1 it not unfrequently was true4 ,a certain type1 perhaps too little noticed in history1 may really be called the royal philosopher4 ,to begin with1 apart from actual royalty1 it did occasionally become possible for the sage1 though he was not what we call a religious founder1 to be something like a political founder4 ,and the great example of this1 one of the very greatest in the world1 will with the very thought of it carry us thousands of miles across the vast spaces of ,asia to that very wonderful and in some ways that very wise world of ideas and institutions1 which we dismiss somewhat cheaply when we talk of ,china4 ,men have served many very strange gods2 and trusted themselves loyally to many ideals and even idols4 ,china is a society that has really chosen to believe in intellect4 ,it has taken intellect seriously2 and it may be that it stands alone in the world4 ,from a very early age it faced the dilemma of the king and the philosopher by actually appointing a philosopher to advise the king4 ,it made a public institution out of a private individual1 who had nothing in the world to do but to be intellectual4 ,it had and has1 of course1 many other things on the same pattern4 ,it creates all ranks and privileges by public examination2 it has nothing that we call an aristocracy2 it is a democracy dominated by an intelligentsia4 ,but the point here is that it had philosophers to advise kings2 and one of those philosophers must have been a great philosopher and a great statesman4 ,confucius was not a religious founder or even a religious teacher2 possibly not even a religious man4 ,he was not an atheist2 he was apparently what we call an agnostic4 ,but the really vital point is that it is utterly irrelevant to talk about his religion at all4 ,it is like talking of theology as the first thing in the story of how ,rowland ,hill established the postal system or ,baden ,powell organised the ,boy ,scouts4 ,confucius was not there to bring a message from heaven to humanity1 but to organise ,china2 and he must have organised it exceedingly well4 ,it follows that he dealt much with morals2 but he bound them up strictly with manners4 ,the peculiarity of his scheme1 and of his country1 in which it contrasts with its great pendant the system of ,christendom1 is that he insisted on perpetuating an external life with all its forms1 that outward continuity might preserve internal peace4 ,any one who knows how much habit has to do with health1 of mind as well as body1 will see the truth in his idea4 ,but he will also see that the ancestor-worship and the reverence for the ,sacred ,emperor were habits and not creeds4 ,it is unfair to the great ,confucius to say he was a religious founder4 ,it is even unfair to him to say he was not a religious founder4 ,it is as unfair as going out of one's way to say that ,jeremy ,bentham was not a ,christian martyr4 ,but there is a class of most interesting cases in which philosophers were kings1 and not merely the friends of kings4 ,the combination is not accidental4 ,it has a great deal to do with this rather elusive question of the function of the philosopher4 ,it contains in it some hint of why philosophy and mythology seldom came to an open rupture4 ,it was not only because there was something a little frivolous about the mythology4 ,it was also because there was something a little supercilious about the philosopher4 ,he despised the myths1 but he also despised the mob2 and thought they suited each other4 ,the pagan philosopher was seldom a man of the people1 at any rate in spirit2 he was seldom a democrat and often a bitter critic of democracy4 ,he had about him an air of aristocratic and humane leisure2 and his part was most easily played by men who happened to be in such a position4 ,it was very easy and natural for a prince or a prominent person to play at being as philosophical as ,hamlet1 or ,theseus in the ,midsummer ,night's ,dream4 ,and from very early ages we find ourselves in the presence of these princely intellectuals4 ,in fact1 we find one of them in the very first recorded ages of the world2 sitting on that primeval throne that looked over ancient ,egypt4 ,the most intense interest of the incident of ,akhenaten1 commonly called the ,heretic ,pharaoh1 lies in the fact that he was the one example1 at any rate before ,christian times1 of one of these royal philosophers who set himself to fight popular mythology in the name of private philosophy4 ,most of them assumed the attitude of ,marcus ,aurelius1 who is in many ways the model of this sort of monarch and sage4 ,marcus ,aurelius has been blamed for tolerating the pagan amphitheatre or the ,christian martyrdoms4 ,but it was characteristic2 for this sort of man really thought of popular religion just as he thought of popular circuses4 ,of him ,professor ,phillimore has profoundly said #8a great and good man--and he knew it4' ,the ,heretic ,pharaoh had a philosophy more earnest and perhaps more humble4 ,for there is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight4 ,it is that the humble have to do most of the fighting4 ,anyhow1 the ,egyptian prince was simple enough to take his own philosophy seriously1 and alone among such intellectual princes he affected a sort of coup d'tat2 hurling down the high gods of ,egypt with one imperial gesture and lifting up for all men1 like a blazing mirror of monotheistic truth1 the disc of the universal sun4 ,he had other interesting ideas often to be found in such idealists4 ,in the sense in which we speak of a ,little ,englander he was a ,little ,egypter4 ,in art he was a realist because he was an idealist2 for realism is more impossible than any other ideal4 ,but after all there falls on him something of the shadow of ,marcus ,aurelius2 stalked by the shadow of ,professor ,phillimore4 ,what is the matter with this noble sort of prince is that he has nowhere quite escaped being something of a prig4 ,priggishness is so pungent a smell that it clings amid the faded spices even to an ,egyptian mummy4 ,what was the matter with the ,heretic ,pharaoh1 as with a good many other heretics1 was that he probably never paused to ask himself whether there was anything in the popular beliefs and tales of people less educated than himself4 ,and1 as already suggested1 there was something in them4 ,there was a real human hunger in all that element of feature and locality1 that procession of deities like enormous pet animals1 in that unwearied watching at certain haunted spots1 in all the mazy wandering of mythology4 ,nature may not have the name of ,isis2 ,isis may not be really looking for ,osiris4 ,but it is true that ,nature is really looking for something4 ,nature is always looking for the supernatural4 ,something much more definite was to satisfy that need2 but a dignified monarch with a disc of the sun did not satisfy it4 ,the royal experiment failed amid a roaring reaction of popular superstitions1 in which the priests rose on the shoulders of the people and ascended the throne of the kings4 ,the next great example ,i shall take of the princely sage is ,gautama1 the great ,lord ,buddha4 ,i know he is not generally classed merely with the philosophers2 but ,i am more and more convinced1 from all information that reaches me1 that this is the real interpretation of his immense importance4 ,he was by far the greatest and the best of these intellectuals born in the purple4 ,his reaction was perhaps the noblest and most sincere of all the resultant actions of that combination of thinkers and of thrones4 ,for his reaction was renunciation4 ,marcus ,aurelius was content to say1 with a refined irony1 that even in a palace life could be lived well4 ,the fierier ,egyptian king concluded that it could be lived even better after a palace revolution4 ,but the great ,gautama was the only one of them who proved he could really do without his palace4 ,one fell back on toleration and the other on revolution4 ,but after all there is something more absolute about abdication4 ,abdication is perhaps the one really absolute action of an absolute monarch4 ,the ,indian prince1 reared in ,oriental luxury and pomp1 deliberately went out and lived the life of a beggar4 ,that is magnificent1 but it is not war2 that is1 it is not necessarily a ,crusade in the ,christian sense4 ,it does not decide the question of whether the life of a beggar was the life of a saint or the life of a philosopher4 ,it does not decide whether this great man is really to go into the tub of ,diogenes or the cave of ,st4 ,jerome4 ,now those who seem to be nearest to the study of ,buddha1 and certainly those who write most clearly and intelligently about him1 convince me for one that he was simply a philosopher who founded a successful school of philosophy1 and was turned into a sort of divus or sacred being merely by the more mysterious and unscientific atmosphere of all such traditions in ,asia4 ,so that it is necessary to say at this point a word about that invisible yet vivid border-line that we cross in passing from the ,mediterranean into the mystery of the ,east4 ,perhaps there are no things out of which we get so little of the truth as the truisms2 especially when they are really true4 ,we are all in the habit of saying certain things about ,asia1 which are true enough but which hardly help us because we do not understand their truth2 as that ,asia is old or looks to the past or is not progressive4 ,now it is true that ,christendom is more progressive1 in a sense that has very little to do with the rather provincial notion of an endless fuss of political improvement4 ,christendom does believe1 for ,christianity does believe1 that man can eventually get somewhere1 here or hereafter1 or in various ways according to various doctrines4 ,the world's desire can somehow be satisfied as desires are satisfied1 whether by a new life or an old love or some form of positive possession and fulfilment4 ,for the rest1 we all know there is a rhythm and not a mere progress in things1 that things rise and fall2 only with us the rhythm is a fairly free and incalculable rhythm4 ,for most of ,asia the rhythm has hardened into a recurrence4 ,it is no longer merely a rather topsy-turvy sort of world2 it is a wheel4 ,what has happened to all those highly intelligent and highly civilised peoples is that they have been caught up in a sort of cosmic rotation1 of which the hollow hub is really nothing4 ,in that sense the worst part of existence is that it may just as well go on like that for ever4 ,that is what we really mean when we say that ,asia is old or unprogressive or looking backwards4 ,that is why we see even her curved swords as arcs broken from that blinding wheel2 why we see her serpentine ornament as returning everywhere1 like a snake that is never slain4 ,it has very little to do with the political varnish of progress2 all ,asiatics might have tophats on their heads1 but if they had this spirit still in their hearts they would only think the hats would vanish and come round again like the planets2 not that running after a hat could lead them to heaven or even to home4 ,now when the genius of ,buddha arose to deal with the matter1 this sort of cosmic sentiment was already common to almost everything in the ,east4 ,there was indeed the jungle of an extraordinarily extravagant and almost asphyxiating mythology4 ,nevertheless it is possible to have more sympathy with this popular fruitfulness in folk-lore than with some of the higher pessimism that might have withered it4 ,it must always be remembered1 however1 when all fair allowances are made1 that a great deal of spontaneous eastern imagery really is idolatry2 the local and literal worship of an idol4 ,this is probably not true of the ancient ,brahminical system1 at least as seen by ,brahmins4 ,but that phrase alone will remind us of a reality of much greater moment4 ,this great reality is the ,caste ,system of ancient ,india4 ,it may have had some of the practical advantages of the ,guild ,system of ,medieval ,europe4 ,but it contrasts not only with that ,christian democracy1 but with every extreme type of ,christian aristocracy1 in the fact that it does really conceive the social superiority as a spiritual superiority4 ,this not only divides it fundamentally from the fraternity of ,christendom1 but leaves it standing like a mighty and terraced mountain of pride between the relatively egalitarian levels both of ,islam and of ,china4 ,but the fixity of this formation through thousands of years is another illustration of that spirit of repetition that has marked time from time immemorial4 ,now we may also presume the prevalence of another idea which we associate with the ,buddhists as interpreted by the ,theosophists4 ,as a fact1 some of the strictest ,buddhists repudiate the idea and still more scornfully repudiate the ,theosophists4 ,but whether the idea is in ,buddhism1 or only in the birthplace of ,buddhism1 or only in a tradition or a travesty of ,buddhism1 it is an idea entirely proper to this principle of recurrence4 ,i mean of course the idea of ,reincarnation4 ,but ,reincarnation is not really a mystical idea4 ,it is not really a transcendental idea1 or in that sense a religious idea4 ,mysticism conceives something transcending experience2 religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil than experience can give4 ,reincarnation need only extend experiences in the sense of repeating them4 ,it is no more transcendental for a man to remember what he did in ,babylon before he was born than to remember what he did in ,brixton before he had a knock on the head4 ,his successive lives need not be any more than human lives1 under whatever limitations burden human life4 ,it has nothing to do with seeing ,god or even conjuring up the devil4 ,in other words1 reincarnation as such does not necessarily escape from the wheel of destiny2 in some sense it is the wheel of destiny4 ,and whether it was something that ,buddha founded1 or something that ,buddha found1 or something that ,buddha entirely renounced when he found1 it is certainly something having the general character of that ,asiatic atmosphere in which he had to play his part4 ,and the part he played was that of an intellectual philosopher1 with a particular theory about the right intellectual attitude towards it4 ,i can understand that ,buddhists might resent the view that ,buddhism is merely a philosophy1 if we understand by a philosophy merely an intellectual game such as ,greek sophists played1 tossing up worlds and catching them like balls4 ,perhaps a more exact statement would be that ,buddha was a man who made a metaphysical discipline2 which might even be called a psychological discipline4 ,he proposed a way of escaping from all this recurrent sorrow2 and that was simply by getting rid of the delusion that is called desire4 ,it was emphatically not that we should get what we want better by restraining our impatience for part of it1 or that we should get it in a better way or in a better world4 ,it was emphatically that we should leave off wanting it4 ,if once a man realised that there is really no reality1 that everything1 including his soul1 is in dissolution at every instant1 he would anticipate disappointment and be intangible to change1 existing 7in so far as he could be said to exist7 in a sort of ecstasy of indifference4 ,the ,buddhists call this beatitude1 and we will not stop our story to argue the point2 certainly to us it is indistinguishable from despair4 ,i do not see1 for instance1 why the disappointment of desire should not apply as much to the most benevolent desires as to the most selfish ones4 ,indeed the ,lord of ,compassion seems to pity people for living rather than for dying4 ,for the rest1 an intelligent ,buddhist wrote1 #8,the explanation of popular ,chinese and ,japanese ,buddhism is that it is not ,buddhism4' ,that has doubtless ceased to be a mere philosophy1 but only by becoming a mere mythology4 ,one thing is certain3 it has never become anything remotely resembling what we call a ,church4 ,it will appear only a jest to say that all religious history has really been a pattern of noughts and crosses4 ,but ,i do not by noughts mean nothings1 but only things that are negative compared with the positive shape or pattern of the other4 ,and though the symbol is of course only a coincidence1 it is a coincidence that really does coincide4 ,the mind of ,asia can really be represented by a round ,o1 if not in the sense of a cypher at least of a circle4 ,the great ,asiatic symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth is really a very perfect image of a certain idea of unity and recurrence that does indeed belong to the ,eastern philosophies and religions4 ,it really is a curve that in one sense includes everything1 and in another sense comes to nothing4 ,in that sense it does confess1 or rather boast1 that all argument is an argument in a circle4 ,and though the figure is but a symbol1 we can see how sound is the symbolic sense that produces it1 the parallel symbol of the ,wheel of ,buddha generally called the ,swastika4 ,the cross is a thing at right angles pointing boldly in opposite directions2 but the ,swastika is the same thing in the very act of returning to the recurrent curve4 ,that crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel4 ,before we dismiss even these symbols as if they were arbitrary symbols1 we must remember how intense was the imaginative instinct that produced them or selected them both in the ,east and the ,west4 ,the cross has become something more than a historical memory2 it does convey1 almost as by a mathematical diagram1 the truth about the real point at issue2 the idea of a conflict stretching outwards into eternity4 ,it is true1 and even tautological1 to say that the cross is the crux of the whole matter4 ,in other words1 the cross1 in fact as well as figure1 does really stand for the idea of breaking out of the circle that is everything and nothing4 ,it does escape from the circular argument by which everything begins and ends in the mind4 ,since we are still dealing in symbols1 it might be put in a parable in the form of that story about ,st4 ,francis1 which says that the birds departing with his benediction could wing their way into the infinities of the four winds of heaven1 their tracks making a vast cross upon the sky2 for compared with the freedom of that flight of birds1 the very shape of the ,swastika is like a kitten chasing its tail4 ,in a more popular allegory1 we might say that when ,st4 ,george thrust his spear into the monster's jaws1 he broke in upon the solitude of the self-devouring serpent and gave it something to bite besides its own tail4 ,but while many fancies might be used as figures of the truth1 the truth itself is abstract and absolute2 though it is not very easy to sum up except by such figures4 ,christianity does appeal to a solid truth outside itself2 to something which is in that sense external as well as eternal4 ,it does declare that things are really there2 or in other words that things are really things4 ,in this ,christianity is at one with common sense2 but all religious history shows that this common sense perishes except where there is ,christianity to preserve it4 ,it cannot otherwise exist1 or at least endure1 because mere thought does not remain sane4 ,in a sense it becomes too simple to be sane4 ,the temptation of the philosophers is simplicity rather than subtlety4 ,they are always attracted by insane simplifications1 as men poised above abysses are fascinated by death and nothingness and the empty air4 ,it needed another kind of philosopher to stand poised upon the pinnacle of the ,temple and keep his balance without casting himself down4 ,one of these obvious1 these too obvious explanations is that everything is a dream and a delusion and there is nothing outside the ego4 ,another is that all things recur2 another1 which is said to be ,buddhist and is certainly ,oriental1 is the idea that what is the matter with us is our creation1 in the sense of our coloured differentiation and personality1 and that nothing will be well till we are again melted into one unity4 ,by this theory1 in short1 the ,creation was the ,fall4 ,it is important historically because it was stored up in the dark heart of ,asia and went forth at various times in various forms over the dim borders of ,europe4 ,here we can place the mysterious figure of ,manes or ,manichaeus1 the mystic of inversion1 whom we should call a pessimist1 parent of many sects and heresies2 here1 in a higher place1 the figure of ,zoroaster4 ,he has been popularly identified with another of these too simple explanations3 the equality of evil and good1 balanced and battling in every atom4 ,he also is of the school of sages that may be called mystics2 and from the same mysterious ,persian garden came upon ponderous wings ,mithras1 the unknown god1 to trouble the last twilight of ,rome4 ,that circle or disc of the sun set up in the morning of the world by the remote ,egyptian has been a mirror and a model for all the philosophers4 ,they have made many things out of it1 and sometimes gone mad about it1 especially when as in these eastern sages the circle became a wheel going round and round in their heads4 ,but the point about them is that they all think that existence can be represented by a diagram instead of a drawing2 and the rude drawings of the childish myth-makers are a sort of crude and spirited protest against that view4 ,they cannot believe that religion is really not a pattern but a picture4 ,still less can they believe that it is a picture of something that really exists outside our minds4 ,sometimes the philosopher paints the disc all black and calls himself a pessimist2 sometimes he paints it all white and calls himself an optimist2 sometimes he divides it exactly into halves of black and white and calls himself a dualist1 like those ,persian mystics to whom ,i wish there were space to do justice4 ,none of them could understand a thing that began to draw the proportions just as if they were real proportions1 disposed in the living fashion which the mathematical draughtsman would call disproportionate4 ,like the first artist in the cave1 it revealed to incredulous eyes the suggestion of a new purpose in what looked like a wildly crooked pattern2 he seemed only to be distorting his diagram1 when he began for the first time in all the ages to trace the lines of a form--and of a ,face4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,war ,,of ,,the ,,gods ,,and ,,demons ,the materialist theory of history1 that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics1 is a very simple fallacy indeed4 ,it consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life1 that are quite a different thing4 ,it is like saying that because a man can only walk about on two legs1 therefore he never walks about except to buy shoes and stockings4 ,man cannot live without the two props of food and drink1 which support him like two legs2 but to suggest that they have been the motives of all his movements in history is like saying that the goal of all his military marches or religious pilgrimages must have been the ,golden ,leg of ,miss ,kilmansegg or the ideal and perfect leg of ,sir ,willoughby ,patterne4 ,but it is such movements that make up the story of mankind1 and without them there would practically be no story at all4 ,cows may be purely economic1 in the sense that we cannot see that they do much beyond grazing and seeking better grazing-grounds2 and that is why a history of cows in twelve volumes would not be very lively reading4 ,sheep and goats may be pure economists in their external action at least2 but that is why the sheep has hardly been a hero of epic wars and empires thought worthy of detailed narration2 and even the more active quadruped has not inspired a book for boys called ,golden ,deeds of ,gallant ,goats or any similar title4 ,but so far from the movements that make up the story of man being economic1 we may say that the story only begins where the motive of the cows and sheep leaves off4 ,it will be hard to maintain that the ,crusaders went from their homes into a howling wilderness because cows go from a wilderness to a more comfortable grazing-ground4 ,it will be hard to maintain that the ,arctic explorers went north with the same material motive that made the swallows go south4 ,and if you leave things like all the religious wars and all the merely adventurous explorations out of the human story1 it will not only cease to be human at all but cease to be a story at all4 ,the outline of history is made of these decisive curves and angles determined by the will of man4 ,economic history would not even be history4 ,but there is a deeper fallacy besides this obvious fact2 that men need not live for food merely because they cannot live without food4 ,the truth is that the thing most present to the mind of man is not the economic machinery necessary to his existence1 but rather that existence itself2 the world which he sees when he wakes every morning and the nature of his general position in it4 ,there is something that is nearer to him than livelihood1 and that is life4 ,for once that he remembers exactly what work produces his wages and exactly what wages produce his meals1 he reflects ten times that it is a fine day or it is a queer world1 or wonders whether life is worth living1 or wonders whether marriage is a failure1 or is pleased and puzzled with his own children1 or remembers his own youth1 or in any such fashion vaguely reviews the mysterious lot of man4 ,this is true of the majority even of the wage-slaves of our morbid modern industrialism1 which by its hideousness and inhumanity has really forced the economic issue to the front4 ,it is immeasurably more true of the multitude of peasants or hunters or fishers who make up the real mass of mankind4 ,even those dry pedants who think that ethics depend on economics must admit that economics depend on existence4 ,and any number of normal doubts and day-dreams are about existence2 not about how we can live1 but about why we do4 ,and the proof of it is simple2 as simple as suicide4 ,turn the universe upside down in the mind and you turn all the political economists upside down with it4 ,suppose that a man wishes to die1 and the professor of political economy becomes rather a bore with his elaborate explanations of how he is to live4 ,and all the departures and decisions that make our human past into a story have this character of diverting the direct course of pure economics4 ,as the economist may be excused from calculating the future salary of a suicide1 so he may be excused from providing an old-age pension for a martyr4 ,as he need not provide for the future of a martyr1 so he need not provide for the family of a monk4 ,his plan is modified in lesser and varying degrees by a man being a soldier and dying for his own country1 by a man being a peasant and specially loving his own land1 by a man being more or less affected by any religion that forbids or allows him to do this or that4 ,but all these come back not to an economic calculation about livelihood but to an elemental outlook upon life4 ,they all come back to what a man fundamentally feels1 when he looks forth from those strange windows which we call the eyes1 upon that strange vision that we call the world4 ,no wise man will wish to bring more long words into the world4 ,but it may be allowable to say that we need a new thing2 which may be called psychological history4 ,i mean the consideration of what things meant in the mind of a man1 especially an ordinary man2 as distinct from what is defined or deduced merely from official forms or political pronouncements4 ,i have already touched on it in such a case as the totem or indeed any other popular myth4 ,it is not enough to be told that a tom-cat was called a totem2 especially when it was not called a totem4 ,we want to know what it felt like4 ,was it like ,whittington's cat or like a witch's cat8 ,was its real name ,pasht or ,puss-,in-,boots8 ,that is the sort of thing we need touching the nature of political and social relations4 ,we want to know the real sentiment that was the social bond of many common men1 as sane and as selfish as we are4 ,what did soldiers feel when they saw splendid in the sky that strange totem that we call the ,golden ,eagle of the ,legions8 ,what did vassals feel about those other totems1 the lions or the leopards upon the shield of their lord8 ,so long as we neglect this subjective side of history1 which may more simply be called the inside of history1 there will always be a certain limitation on that science which can be better transcended by art4 ,so long as the historian cannot do that1 fiction will be truer than fact4 ,there will be more reality in a novel2 yes1 even in a historical novel4 ,in nothing is this new history needed so much as in the psychology of war4 ,our history is stiff with official documents1 public or private1 which tell us nothing of the thing itself4 ,at the worst we only have the official posters1 which could not have been spontaneous precisely because they were official4 ,at the best we have only the secret diplomacy1 which could not have been popular precisely because it was secret4 ,upon one or other of these is based the historical judgment about the real reasons that sustained the struggle4 ,governments fight for colonies or commercial rights2 governments fight about harbours or high tariffs2 governments fight for a gold mine or a pearl fishery4 ,it seems sufficient to answer that governments do not fight at all4 ,why do the fighters fight8 ,what is the psychology that sustains the terrible and wonderful thing called a war8 ,nobody who knows anything of soldiers believes the silly notion of the dons1 that millions of men can be ruled by force4 ,if they were all to slack1 it would be impossible to punish all the slackers4 ,and the least little touch of slacking would lose a whole campaign in half a day4 ,what did men really feel about the policy8 ,if it be said that they accepted the policy from the politician1 what did they feel about the politician8 ,if the vassals warred blindly for their prince1 what did those blind men see in their prince8 ,there is something we all know which can only be rendered1 in an appropriate language1 as realpolitik4 ,as a matter of fact1 it is an almost insanely unreal politik4 ,it is always stubbornly and stupidly repeating that men fight for material ends1 without reflecting for a moment that the material ends are hardly ever material to the men who fight4 ,in any case1 no man will die for practical politics1 just as no man will die for pay4 ,nero could not hire a hundred ,christians to be eaten by lions at a shilling an hour2 for men will not be martyred for money4 ,but the vision called up by real politik1 or realistic politics1 is beyond example crazy and incredible4 ,does anybody in the world believe that a soldier says1 #8,my leg is nearly dropping off1 but ,i shall go on till it drops2 for after all ,i shall enjoy all the advantages of my government obtaining a warm-water port in the ,gulf of ,finland4' ,can anybody suppose that a clerk turned conscript says1 #8,if ,i am gassed ,i shall probably die in torments2 but it is a comfort to reflect that should ,i ever decide to become a pearl-diver in the ,south ,seas1 that career is now open to me and my countrymen4' ,materialist history is the most madly incredible of all histories1 or even of all romances4 ,whatever starts wars1 the thing that sustains wars is something in the soul2 that is something akin to religion4 ,it is what men feel about life and about death4 ,a man near to death is dealing directly with an absolute2 it is nonsense to say he is concerned only with relative and remote complications that death in any case will end4 ,if he is sustained by certain loyalties1 they must be loyalties as simple as death4 ,they are generally two ideas1 which are only two sides of one idea4 ,the first is the love of something said to be threatened1 if it be only vaguely known as home2 the second is dislike and defiance of some strange thing that threatens it4 ,the first is far more philosophical than it sounds1 though we need not discuss it here4 ,a man does not want his national home destroyed or even changed1 because he cannot even remember all the good things that go with it2 just as he does not want his house burnt down1 because he can hardly count all the things he would miss4 ,therefore he fights for what sounds like a hazy abstraction1 but is really a house4 ,but the negative side of it is quite as noble as well as quite as strong4 ,men fight hardest when they feel that the foe is at once an old enemy and an eternal stranger1 that his atmosphere is alien and antagonistic2 as the ,french feel about the ,prussian or the ,eastern ,christians about the ,turk4 ,if we say it is a difference of religion1 people will drift into dreary bickerings about sects and dogmas4 ,we will pity them and say it is a difference about death and daylight2 a difference that does really come like a dark shadow between our eyes and the day4 ,men can think of this difference even at the point of death2 for it is a difference about the meaning of life4 ,men are moved in these things by something far higher and holier than policy3 by hatred4 ,when men hung on in the darkest days of the ,great ,war1 suffering either in their bodies or in their souls for those they loved1 they were long past caring about details of diplomatic objects as motives for their refusal to surrender4 ,of myself and those ,i knew best ,i can answer for the vision that made surrender impossible4 ,it was the vision of the ,german ,emperor's face as he rode into ,paris4 ,this is not the sentiment which some of my idealistic friends describe as ,love4 ,i am quite content to call it hatred2 the hatred of hell and all its works1 and to agree that as they do not believe in hell they need not believe in hatred4 ,but in the face of this prevalent prejudice1 this long introduction has been unfortunately necessary1 to ensure an understanding of what is meant by a religious war4 ,there is a religious war when two worlds meet2 that is1 when two visions of the world meet2 or in more modern language1 when two moral atmospheres meet4 ,what is the one man's breath is the other man's poison2 and it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the sun4 ,and this is what we must understand1 even at the expense of digression1 if we would see what really happened in the ,mediterranean2 when right athwart the rising of the ,republic on the ,tiber1 a thing overtopping and disdaining it1 dark with all the riddles of ,asia and trailing all the tribes and dependencies of imperialism1 came ,carthage riding on the sea4 ,the ancient religion of ,italy was on the whole that mixture which we have considered under the head of mythology2 save that where the ,greeks had a natural turn for the mythology1 the ,latins seem to have had a real turn for religion4 ,both multiplied gods1 yet they sometimes seem to have multiplied them for almost opposite reasons4 ,it would seem sometimes as if the ,greek polytheism branched and blossomed upwards like the boughs of a tree1 while the ,italian polytheism ramified downward like the roots4 ,perhaps it would be truer to say that the former branches lifted themselves lightly1 bearing flowers2 while the latter hung down1 being heavy with fruit4 ,i mean that the ,latins seem to multiply gods to bring them nearer to men1 while the ,greek gods rose and radiated outwards into the morning sky4 ,what strikes us in the ,italian cults is their local and especially their domestic character4 ,we gain the impression of divinities swarming about the house like flies2 of deities clustering and clinging like bats about the pillars or building like birds under the eaves4 ,we have a vision of a god of roofs and a god of gateposts1 of a god of doors and even a god of drains4 ,it has been suggested that all mythology was a sort of fairy-tale2 but this was a particular sort of fairy-tale which may truly be called a fireside tale1 or a nursery-tale2 because it was a tale of the interior of the home2 like those which make chairs and tables talk like elves4 ,the old household gods of the ,italian peasants seem to have been great1 clumsy1 wooden images1 more featureless than the figure-head which ,quilp battered with the poker4 ,this religion of the home was very homely4 ,of course there were other less human elements in the tangle of ,italian mythology4 ,there were ,greek deities superimposed on the ,roman2 there were here and there uglier things underneath1 experiments in the cruel kind of paganism1 like the ,arician rite of the priest slaying the slayer4 ,but these things were always potential in paganism2 they are certainly not the peculiar character of ,latin paganism4 ,the peculiarity of that may be roughly covered by saying that if mythology personified the forces of nature1 this mythology personified nature as transformed by the forces of man4 ,it was the god of the corn and not of the grass1 of the cattle and not the wild things of the forest2 in short1 the cult was literally a culture2 as when we speak of it as agriculture4 ,with this there was a paradox which is still for many the puzzle or riddle of the ,latins4 ,with religion running through every domestic detail like a climbing plant1 there went what seems to many the very opposite spirit3 the spirit of revolt4 ,imperialists and reactionaries often invoke ,rome as the very model of order and obedience2 but ,rome was the very reverse4 ,the real history of ancient ,rome is much more like the history of modern ,paris4 ,it might be called in modern language a city built out of barricades4 ,it is said that the gate of ,janus was never closed because there was an eternal war without2 it is almost as true that there was an eternal revolution within4 ,from the first ,plebeian riots to the last ,servile ,wars1 the state that imposed peace on the world was never really at peace4 ,the rulers were themselves rebels4 ,there is a real relation between this religion in private and this revolution in public life4 ,stories none the less heroic for being hackneyed remind us that the ,republic was founded on a tyrannicide that avenged an insult to a wife2 that the ,tribunes of the people were re-established after another which avenged an insult to a daughter4 ,the truth is that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticise the state4 ,they alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city2 the gods of the hearth4 ,that is why men are mystified in seeing that the same nations that are thought rigid in domesticity are also thought restless in politics2 for instance1 the ,irish and the ,french4 ,it is worth while to dwell on this domestic point because it is an exact example of what is meant here by the inside of history1 like the inside of houses4 ,merely political histories of ,rome may be right enough in saying that this or that was a cynical or cruel act of the ,roman politicians2 but the spirit that lifted ,rome from beneath was the spirit of all the ,romans2 and it is not a cant to call it the ideal of ,cincinnatus passing from the senate to the plough4 ,men of that sort had strengthened their village on every side1 had extended its victories already over ,italians and even over ,greeks1 when they found themselves confronted with a war that changed the world4 ,i have called it here the war of the gods and demons4 ,there was established on the opposite coast of the inland sea a city that bore the name of the ,new ,town4 ,it was already much older1 more powerful1 and more prosperous than the ,italian town2 but there still remained about it an atmosphere that made the name not inappropriate4 ,it had been called new because it was a colony like ,new ,york or ,new ,zealand4 ,it was an outpost or settlement of the energy and expansion of the great commercial cities of ,tyre and ,sidon4 ,there was a note of the new countries and colonies about it2 a confident and commercial outlook4 ,it was fond of saying things that rang with a certain metallic assurance2 as that nobody could wash his hands in the sea without the leave of the ,new ,town4 ,for it depended almost entirely on the greatness of its ships1 as did the two great ports and markets from which its people came4 ,it brought from ,tyre and ,sidon a prodigious talent for trade and considerable experience of travel4 ,it brought other things as well4 ,in a previous chapter ,i have hinted at something of the psychology that lies behind a certain type of religion4 ,there was a tendency in those hungry for practical results1 apart from poetical results1 to call upon spirits of terror and compulsion2 to move ,acheron in despair of bending the gods4 ,there is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers will really do things1 with no nonsense about it4 ,in the interior psychology of the ,punic peoples this strange sort of pessimistic practicality had grown to great proportions4 ,in the ,new ,town1 which the ,romans called ,carthage1 as in the parent cities of ,phoenicia1 the god who got things done bore the name of ,moloch1 who was perhaps identical with the other deity whom we know as ,baal1 the ,lord4 ,the ,romans did not at first quite know what to call him or what to make of him2 they had to go back to the grossest myth of ,greek or ,roman origins and compare him to ,saturn devouring his children4 ,but the worshippers of ,moloch were not gross or primitive4 ,they were members of a mature and polished civilisation1 abounding in refinements and luxuries2 they were probably far more civilised than the ,romans4 ,and ,moloch was not a myth2 or at any rate his meal was not a myth4 ,these highly civilised people really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace4 ,we can only realise the combination by imagining a number of ,manchester merchants with chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop whiskers1 going to church every ,sunday at eleven o'clock to see a baby roasted4 ,the first stages of the political or commercial quarrel can be followed in far too much detail1 precisely because it is merely political or commercial4 ,the ,punic ,wars looked at one time as if they would never end2 and it is not easy to say when they ever began4 ,the ,greeks and the ,sicilians had already been fighting vaguely on the ,european side against the ,african city4 ,carthage had defeated ,greece and conquered ,sicily4 ,carthage had also planted herself firmly in ,spain2 and between ,spain and ,sicily the ,latin city was contained and would have been crushed2 if the ,romans had been of the sort to be easily crushed4 ,yet the interest of the story really consists in the fact that ,rome was crushed4 ,if there had not been certain moral elements as well as the material elements1 the story would have ended where ,carthage certainly thought it had ended4 ,it is common enough to blame ,rome for not making peace4 ,but it was a true popular instinct that there could be no peace with that sort of people4 ,it is common enough to blame the ,roman for his ,delenda est ,carthago2 ,carthage must be destroyed4 ,it is commoner to forget that1 to all appearance1 ,rome itself was destroyed4 ,the sacred savour that hung round ,rome for ever1 it is too often forgotten1 clung to her partly because she had risen suddenly from the dead4 ,carthage was an aristocracy1 as are most of such mercantile states4 ,the pressure of the rich on the poor was impersonal as well as irresistible4 ,for such aristocracies never permit personal government1 which is perhaps why this one was jealous of personal talent4 ,but genius can turn up anywhere1 even in a governing class4 ,as if to make the world's supreme test as terrible as possible1 it was ordained that one of the great houses of ,carthage should produce a man who came out of those gilded palaces with all the energy and originality of ,napoleon coming from nowhere4 ,at the worst crisis of the war1 ,rome learned that ,italy itself1 by a military miracle1 was invaded from the north4 ,hannibal1 the ,grace of ,baal as his name ran in his own tongue1 had dragged a ponderous chain of armaments over the starry solitudes of the ,alps2 and pointed southward to the city which he had been pledged by all his dreadful gods to destroy4 ,hannibal marched down the road to ,rome1 and the ,romans who rushed to war with him felt as if they were fighting with a magician4 ,two great armies sank to right and left of him into the swamps of the ,trebia2 more and more were sucked into the horrible whirlpool of ,cannae2 more and more went forth only to fall in ruin at his touch4 ,the supreme sign of all disasters1 which is treason1 turned tribe after tribe against the falling cause of ,rome1 and still the unconquerable enemy rolled nearer and nearer to the city2 and following their great leader the swelling cosmopolitan army of ,carthage passed like a pageant of the whole world2 the elephants shaking the earth like marching mountains and the gigantic ,gauls with their barbaric panoply and the dark ,spaniards girt in gold and the brown ,numidians on their unbridled desert horses wheeling and darting like hawks1 and whole mobs of deserters and mercenaries and miscellaneous peoples2 and the ,grace of ,baal went before them4 ,the ,roman augurs and scribes who said in that hour that it brought forth unearthly prodigies1 that a child was born with the head of an elephant or that stars fell down like hailstones1 had a far more philosophical grasp of what had really happened than the modern historian who can see nothing in it but a success of strategy concluding a rivalry in commerce4 ,something far different was felt at the time and on the spot1 as it is always felt by those who experience a foreign atmosphere entering their own like a fog or a foul savour4 ,it was no mere military defeat1 it was certainly no mere mercantile rivalry1 that filled the ,roman imagination with such hideous omens of nature herself becoming unnatural4 ,it was ,moloch upon the mountain of the ,latins1 looking with his appalling face across the plain2 it was ,baal who trampled the vineyards with his feet of stone2 it was the voice of ,tanit the invisible1 behind her trailing veils1 whispering of the love that is more horrible than hate4 ,the burning of the ,italian cornfields1 the ruin of the ,italian vines1 were something more than actual2 they were allegorical4 ,they were the destruction of domestic and fruitful things1 the withering of what was human before that inhumanity that is far beyond the human thing called cruelty4 ,the household gods bowed low in darkness under their lowly roofs2 and above them went the demons upon a wind from beyond all walls1 blowing the trumpet of the ,tramontane4 ,the door of the ,alps was broken down2 and in no vulgar but a very solemn sense1 it was ,hell let loose4 ,the war of the gods and demons seemed already to have ended2 and the gods were dead4 ,the eagles were lost1 the legions were broken2 and in ,rome nothing remained but honour and the cold courage of despair4 ,in the whole world one thing still threatened ,carthage1 and that was ,carthage4 ,there still remained the inner working of an element strong in all successful commercial states1 and the presence of a spirit that we know4 ,there was still the solid sense and shrewdness of the men who manage big enterprises2 there was still the advice of the best financial experts2 there was still business government2 there was still the broad and sane outlook of practical men of affairs2 and in these things could the ,romans hope4 ,as the war trailed on to what seemed its tragic end1 there grew gradually a faint and strange possibility that even now they might not hope in vain4 ,the plain business men of ,carthage1 thinking as such men do in terms of living and dying races1 saw clearly that ,rome was not only dying but dead4 ,the war was over2 it was obviously hopeless for the ,italian city to resist any longer1 and inconceivable that anybody should resist when it was hopeless4 ,under these circumstances1 another set of broad1 sound business principles remained to be considered4 ,wars were waged with money1 and consequently cost money2 perhaps they felt in their hearts1 as do so many of their kind1 that after all war must be a little wicked because it costs money4 ,the time had now come for peace2 and still more for economy4 ,the messages sent by ,hannibal from time to time asking for reinforcements were a ridiculous anachronism2 there were much more important things to attend to now4 ,it might be true that some consul or other had made a last dash to the ,metaurus1 had killed ,hannibal's brother and flung his head1 with ,latin fury1 into ,hannibal's camp2 and mad actions of that sort showed how utterly hopeless the ,latins felt about their cause4 ,but even excitable ,latins could not be so mad as to cling to a lost cause for ever4 ,so argued the best financial experts2 and tossed aside more and more letters1 full of rather queer alarmist reports4 ,so argued and acted the great ,carthaginian ,empire4 ,that meaningless prejudice1 the curse of commercial states1 that stupidity is in some way practical and that genius is in some way futile1 led them to starve and abandon that great artist in the school of arms1 whom the gods had given them in vain4 ,why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous2 that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality1 or that it does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean8 ,why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness8 ,they do it because they are1 like all men1 primarily inspired by religion4 ,for them1 as for all men1 the first fact is their notion of the nature of things2 their idea about what world they are living in4 ,and it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil4 ,they believe that death is stronger than life1 and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things2 whether those dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of nature4 ,it may sound fanciful to say that men we meet at tea-tables or talk to at garden-parties are secretly worshippers of ,baal or ,moloch4 ,but this sort of commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the vision of ,carthage4 ,it has in it the brutal blunder that was the ruin of ,carthage4 ,the ,punic power fell1 because there is in this materialism a mad indifference to real thought4 ,by disbelieving in the soul1 it comes to disbelieving in the mind4 ,being too practical to be moral1 it denies what every practical soldier calls the moral of an army4 ,it fancies that money will fight when men will no longer fight4 ,so it was with the ,punic merchant princes4 ,their religion was a religion of despair1 even when their practical fortunes were hopeful4 ,how could they understand that the ,romans could hope even when their fortunes were hopeless8 ,their religion was a religion of force and fear2 how could they understand that men can still despise fear even when they submit to force8 ,their philosophy of the world had weariness in its very heart2 above all they were weary of warfare2 how should they understand those who still wage war even when they are weary of it8 ,in a word1 how should they understand the mind of ,man1 who had so long bowed down before mindless things1 money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts8 ,they awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had disdained too much even to tread out were again breaking everywhere into flame2 that ,hasdrubal was defeated1 that ,hannibal was outnumbered1 that ,scipio had carried the war into ,spain2 that he had carried it into ,africa4 ,before the very gates of the golden city ,hannibal fought his last fight for it and lost2 and ,carthage fell as nothing has fallen since ,satan4 ,the name of the ,new ,city remains only as a name4 ,there is no stone of it left upon the sand4 ,another war was indeed waged before the final destruction3 but the destruction was final4 ,only men digging in its deep foundations centuries after found a heap of hundreds of little skeletons1 the holy relics of that religion4 ,for ,carthage fell because she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own vision of the universe4 ,moloch had eaten his children4 ,the gods had risen again1 and the demons had been defeated after all4 ,but they had been defeated by the defeated1 and almost defeated by the dead4 ,nobody understands the romance of ,rome1 and why she rose afterwards to a representative leadership that seemed almost fated and fundamentally natural1 who does not keep in mind the agony of horror and humiliation through which she had continued to testify to the sanity that is the soul of ,europe4 ,she came to stand alone in the midst of an empire because she had once stood alone in the midst of a ruin and a waste4 ,after that all men knew in their hearts that she had been representative of mankind1 even when she was rejected of men4 ,and there fell on her the shadow from a shining and as yet invisible light and the burden of things to be4 ,it is not for us to guess in what manner or moment the mercy of ,god might in any case have rescued the world2 but it is certain that the struggle which established ,christendom would have been very different if there had been an empire of ,carthage instead of an empire of ,rome4 ,we have to thank the patience of the ,punic wars if1 in after ages1 divine things descended at least upon human things and not inhuman4 ,europe evolved into its own vices and its own impotence1 as will be suggested on another page2 but the worst into which it evolved was not like what it had escaped4 ,can any man in his senses compare the great wooden doll1 whom the children expected to eat a little bit of the dinner1 with the great idol who would have been expected to eat the children8 ,that is the measure of how far the world went astray1 compared with how far it might have gone astray4 ,if the ,romans were ruthless1 it was in a true sense to an enemy1 and certainly not merely a rival4 ,they remembered not trade routes and regulations1 but the faces of sneering men2 and hated the hateful soul of ,carthage4 ,and we owe them something if we never needed to cut down the groves of ,venus exactly as men cut down the groves of ,baal4 ,we owe it partly to their harshness that our thoughts of our human past are not wholly harsh4 ,if the passage from heathenry to ,christianity was a bridge as well as a breach1 we owe it to those who kept that heathenry human4 ,if1 after all these ages1 we are in some sense at peace with paganism1 and can think more kindly of our fathers1 it is well to remember the things that were and the things that might have been4 ,for this reason alone we can take lightly the load of antiquity and need not shudder at a nymph on a fountain or a cupid on a valentine4 ,laughter and sadness link us with things long past away and remembered without dishonour2 and we can see not altogether without tenderness the twilight sinking around the ,sabine farm and hear the household gods rejoice when ,catullus comes home to ,sirmio4 ,deleta est ,carthago4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,end ,,of ,,the ,,world ,i was once sitting on a summer day in a meadow in ,kent under the shadow of a little village church1 with a rather curious companion with whom ,i had just been walking through the woods4 ,he was one of a group of eccentrics ,i had come across in my wanderings who had a new religion called ,higher ,thought2 in which ,i had been so far initiated as to realise a general atmosphere of loftiness or height1 and was hoping at some later and more esoteric stage to discover the beginnings of thought4 ,my companion was the most amusing of them1 for however he may have stood towards thought1 he was at least very much their superior in experience1 having travelled beyond the tropics while they were meditating in the suburbs2 though he had been charged with excess in telling travellers' tales4 ,in spite of anything said against him1 ,i preferred him to his companions and willingly went with him through the wood2 where ,i could not but feel that his sunburnt face and fierce tufted eyebrows and pointed beard gave him something of the look of ,pan4 ,then we sat down in the meadow and gazed idly at the tree-tops and the spire of the village church2 while the warm afternoon began to mellow into early evening and the song of a speck of a bird was faint far up in the sky and no more than a whisper of breeze soothed rather than stirred the ancient orchards of the garden of ,england4 ,then my companion said to me3 #8,do you know why the spire of that church goes up like that8' ,i expressed a respectable agnosticism1 and he answered in an off-hand way1 #8,oh1 the same as the obelisks2 the phallic worship of antiquity4' ,then ,i looked across at him suddenly as he lay there leering above his goatlike beard2 and for the moment ,i thought he was not ,pan but the ,devil4 ,no mortal words can express the immense1 the insane incongruity and unnatural perversion of thought involved in saying such a thing at such a moment and in such a place4 ,for one moment ,i was in the mood in which men burned witches2 and then a sense of absurdity equally enormous seemed to open about me like a dawn4 #8,why1 of course1' ,i said after a moment's reflection1 #8if it hadn't been for phallic worship1 they would have built the spire pointing downwards and standing on its own apex4' ,i could have sat in that field and laughed for an hour4 ,my friend did not seem offended1 for indeed he was never thin-skinned about his scientific discoveries4 ,i had only met him by chance and ,i never met him again1 and ,i believe he is now dead2 but though it has nothing to do with the argument1 it may be worth while to mention the name of this adherent of ,higher ,thought and interpreter of primitive religious origins2 or at any rate the name by which he was known4 ,it was ,louis de ,rougemont4 ,that insane image of the ,kentish church standing on the point of its spire1 as in some old rustic topsy-turvy tale1 always comes back into my imagination when ,i hear these things said about pagan origins2 and calls to my aid the laughter of the giants4 ,then ,i feel as genially and charitably to all other scientific investigators1 higher critics1 and authorities on ancient and modern religion1 as ,i do to poor ,louis de ,rougemont4 ,but the memory of that immense absurdity remains as a sort of measure and check by which to keep sane1 not only on the subject of ,christian churches1 but also on the subject of heathen temples4 ,now a great many people have talked about heathen origins as the distinguished traveller talked about ,christian origins4 ,indeed a great many modern heathens have been very hard on heathenism4 ,a great many modern humanitarians have been very hard on the real religion of humanity4 ,they have represented it as being everywhere and from the first rooted only in these repulsive arcana2 and carrying the character of something utterly shameless and anarchical4 ,now ,i do not believe this for a moment4 ,i should never dream of thinking about the whole worship of ,apollo what ,de ,rougemont could think about the worship of ,christ4 ,i would never admit that there was such an atmosphere in a ,greek city as that madman was able to smell in a ,kentish village4 ,on the contrary1 it is the whole point1 even of this final chapter upon the final decay of paganism1 to insist once more that the worst sort of paganism had already been defeated by the best sort4 ,it was the best sort of paganism that conquered the gold of ,carthage4 ,it was the best sort of paganism that wore the laurels of ,rome4 ,it was the best thing the world had yet seen1 all things considered and on any large scale1 that ruled from the wall of the ,grampians to the garden of the ,euphrates4 ,it was the best that conquered2 it was the best that ruled2 and it was the best that began to decay4 ,unless this broad truth be grasped1 the whole story is seen askew4 ,pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good4 ,despair does not lie in being weary of suffering1 but in being weary of joy4 ,it is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline2 when its food does not feed1 when its cures do not cure1 when its blessings refuse to bless4 ,we might almost say that in a society without such good things we should hardly have any test by which to register a decline2 that is why some of the static commercial oligarchies like ,carthage have rather an air in history of standing and staring like mummies1 so dried up and swathed and embalmed that no man knows when they are new or old4 ,but ,carthage at any rate was dead1 and the worst assault ever made by the demons on mortal society had been defeated4 ,but how much would it matter that the worst was dead if the best was dying8 ,to begin with1 it must be noted that the relation of ,rome to ,carthage was partially repeated and extended in her relation to nations more normal and more nearly akin to her than ,carthage4 ,i am not here concerned to controvert the merely political view that ,roman statesmen acted unscrupulously towards ,corinth or the ,greek cities4 ,but ,i am concerned to contradict the notion that there was nothing but a hypocritical excuse in the ordinary ,roman dislike of ,greek vices4 ,i am not presenting these pagans as paladins of chivalry1 with a sentiment about nationalism never known until ,christian times4 ,but ,i am presenting them as men with the feelings of men2 and those feelings were not a pretence4 ,the truth is that one of the weaknesses in nature-worship and mere mythology had already produced a perversion among the ,greeks1 due to the worst sophistry2 the sophistry of simplicity4 ,just as they became unnatural by worshipping nature1 so they actually became unmanly by worshipping man4 ,if ,greece led her conqueror1 she might have misled her conqueror2 but these were things he did originally wish to conquer--even in himself4 ,it is true that in one sense there was less inhumanity even in ,sodom and ,gomorrah than in ,tyre and ,sidon4 ,when we consider the war of the demons on the children1 we cannot compare even ,greek decadence to ,punic devil-worship4 ,but it is not true that the sincere revulsion from either need be merely pharisaical4 ,it is not true to human nature or to common sense4 ,let any lad who has had the luck to grow up sane and simple in his day-dreams of love hear for the first time of the cult of ,ganymede2 he will not be merely shocked but sickened4 ,and that first impression1 as has been said here so often about first impressions1 will be right4 ,our cynical indifference is an illusion2 it is the greatest of all illusions3 the illusion of familiarity4 ,it is right to conceive the more or less rustic virtues of the ruck of the original ,romans as reacting against the very rumour of it1 with complete spontaneity and sincerity4 ,it is right to regard them as reacting1 if in a lesser degree1 exactly as they did against the cruelty of ,carthage4 ,because it was in a less degree they did not destroy ,corinth as they destroyed ,carthage4 ,but if their attitude and action was rather destructive1 in neither case need their indignation have been mere self-righteousness covering mere selfishness4 ,and if anybody insists that nothing could have operated in either case but reasons of state and commercial conspiracies1 we can only tell him that there is something which he does not understand2 something which possibly he will never understand2 something which1 until he does understand1 he will never understand the ,latins4 ,that something is called democracy4 ,he has probably heard the word a good many times and even used it himself2 but he has no notion of what it means4 ,all through the revolutionary history of ,rome there was an incessant drive towards democracy2 the state and the statesman could do nothing without a considerable backing of democracy2 the sort of democracy that never has anything to do with diplomacy4 ,it is precisely because of the presence of ,roman democracy that we hear so much about ,roman oligarchy4 ,for instance1 recent historians have tried to explain the valour and victory of ,rome in terms of that detestable and detested usury which was practised by some of the ,patricians2 as if ,curius had conquered the men of the ,macedonian phalanx by lending them money2 or the ,consul ,nero had negotiated the victory of ,metaurus at five per cent4 ,but we realise the usury of the ,patricians because of the perpetual revolt of the ,plebeians4 ,the rule of the ,punic merchant princes had the very soul of usury4 ,but there was never a ,punic mob that dared to call them usurers4 ,burdened like all mortal things with all mortal sin and weakness1 the rise of ,rome had really been the rise of normal and especially of popular things2 and in nothing more than in the thoroughly normal and profoundly popular hatred of perversion4 ,now among the ,greeks a perversion had become a convention4 ,it is true that it had become so much of a convention1 especially a literary convention1 that it was sometimes conventionally copied by ,roman literary men4 ,but this is one of those complications that always arise out of conventions4 ,it must not obscure our sense of the difference of tone in the two societies as a whole4 ,it is true that ,virgil would once in a way take over a theme of ,theocritus2 but nobody can get the impression that ,virgil was particularly fond of that theme4 ,the themes of ,virgil were specially and notably the normal themes1 and nowhere more than in morals2 piety and patriotism and the honour of the countryside4 ,and we may well pause upon the name of the poet as we pass into the autumn of antiquity3 upon his name who was in so supreme a sense the very voice of autumn1 of its maturity and its melancholy2 of its fruits of fulfilment and its prospect of decay4 ,nobody who reads even a few lines of ,virgil can doubt that he understood what moral sanity means to mankind4 ,nobody can doubt his feelings when the demons were driven in flight before the household gods4 ,but there are two particular points about him and his work which are particularly important to the main thesis here4 ,the first is that the whole of his great patriotic epic is in a very peculiar sense founded upon the fall of ,troy2 that is1 upon an avowed pride in ,troy although she had fallen4 ,in tracing to ,trojans the foundation of his beloved race and republic1 he began what may be called the great ,trojan tradition which runs through medieval and modern history4 ,we have already seen the first hint of it in the pathos of ,homer about ,hector4 ,but ,virgil turned it not merely into a literature but into a legend4 ,and it was a legend of the almost divine dignity that belongs to the defeated4 ,this was one of the traditions that did truly prepare the world for the coming of ,christianity and especially of ,christian chivalry4 ,this is what did help to sustain civilisation through the incessant defeats of the ,dark ,ages and the barbarian wars2 out of which what we call chivalry was born4 ,it is the moral attitude of the man with his back to the wall2 and it was the wall of ,troy4 ,all through medieval and modern times this version of the virtues in the ,homeric conflict can be traced in a hundred ways co-operating with all that was akin to it in ,christian sentiment4 ,our own countrymen1 and the men of other countries1 loved to claim like ,virgil that their own nation was descended from the heroic ,trojans4 ,all sorts of people thought it the most superb sort of heraldry to claim to be descended from ,hector4 ,nobody seems to have wanted to be descended from ,achilles4 ,the very fact that the ,trojan name has become a ,christian name1 and been scattered to the last limits of ,christendom1 to ,ireland or the ,gaelic ,highlands1 while the ,greek name has remained relatively rare and pedantic1 is a tribute to the same truth4 ,indeed it involves a curiosity of language almost in the nature of a joke4 ,the name has been turned into a verb2 and the very phrase about hectoring1 in the sense of swaggering1 suggests the myriads of soldiers who have taken the fallen ,trojan for a model4 ,as a matter of fact1 nobody in antiquity was less given to hectoring than ,hector4 ,but even the bully pretending to be a conqueror took his title from the conquered4 ,that is why the popularisation of the ,trojan origin by ,virgil has a vital relation to all those elements that have made men say that ,virgil was almost a ,christian4 ,it is almost as if two great tools or toys of the same timber1 the divine and the human1 had been in the hands of ,providence2 and the only thing comparable to the ,wooden ,cross of ,calvary was the ,wooden ,horse of ,troy4 ,so1 in some wild allegory1 pious in purpose if almost profane in form1 the ,holy ,child might have fought the ,dragon with a wooden sword and a wooden horse4 ,the other element in ,virgil which is essential to the argument is the particular nature of his relation to mythology2 or what may here in a special sense be called folklore1 the faiths and fancies of the populace4 ,everybody knows that his poetry at its most perfect is less concerned with the pomposity of ,olympus than with the numina of natural and agricultural life4 ,every one knows where ,virgil looked for the causes of things4 ,he speaks of finding them not so much in cosmic allegories of ,uranus and ,chronos2 but rather in ,pan and the sisterhood of the nymphs and the shaggy old man of the forest4 ,he is perhaps most himself in some passages of the ,eclogues1 in which he has perpetuated for ever the great legend of ,arcadia and the shepherds4 ,here again it is easy enough to miss the point with petty criticism about all the things that happen to separate his literary convention from ours4 ,there is nothing more artificial than the cry of artificiality1 as directed against the old pastoral poetry4 ,we have entirely missed all that our fathers meant by looking at the externals of what they wrote4 ,people have been so much amused with the mere fact that the china shepherdess was made of china that they have not even asked why she was made at all4 ,they have been so content to consider the ,merry ,peasant as a figure in an opera that they have not asked even how he came to go to the opera1 or how he strayed on to the stage4 ,in short1 we have only to ask why there is a china shepherdess and not a china shopkeeper4 ,why were not mantelpieces adorned with figures of city merchants in elegant attitudes2 of ironmasters wrought in iron1 or gold speculators in gold8 ,why did the opera exhibit a ,merry ,peasant and not a ,merry ,politician8 ,why was there not a ballet of bankers1 pirouetting upon pointed toes8 ,because the ancient instinct and humour of humanity have always told them1 under whatever conventions1 that the conventions of complex cities were less really healthy and happy than the customs of the countryside4 ,so it is with the eternity of the ,eclogues4 ,a modern poet did indeed write things called ,fleet ,street ,eclogues1 in which poets took the place of the shepherds4 ,but nobody has yet written anything called ,wall ,street ,eclogues1 in which millionaires should take the place of the poets4 ,and the reason is that there is a real if only a recurrent yearning for that sort of simplicity2 and there is never that sort of yearning for that sort of complexity4 ,the key to the mystery of the ,merry ,peasant is that the peasant often is merry4 ,those who do not believe it are simply those who do not know anything about him1 and therefore do not know which are his times for merriment4 ,those who do not believe in the shepherd's feast or song are merely ignorant of the shepherd's calendar4 ,the real shepherd is indeed very different from the ideal shepherd1 but that is no reason for forgetting the reality at the root of the ideal4 ,it needs a truth to make a tradition4 ,it needs a tradition to make a convention4 ,pastoral poetry is certainly often a convention1 especially in a social decline4 ,it was in a social decline that ,watteau shepherds and shepherdesses lounged about the gardens of ,versailles4 ,it was also in a social decline that shepherds and shepherdesses continued to pipe and dance through the most faded imitations of ,virgil4 ,but that is no reason for dismissing the dying paganism without ever understanding its life4 ,it is no reason for forgetting that the very word ,pagan is the same as the word ,peasant4 ,we may say that this art is only artificiality2 but it is not a love of the artificial4 ,on the contrary1 it is in its very nature only the failure of nature-worship1 or the love of the natural4 ,for the shepherds were dying because their gods were dying4 ,paganism lived upon poetry2 that poetry already considered under the name of mythology4 ,but everywhere1 and especially in ,italy1 it had been a mythology and a poetry rooted in the countryside2 and that rustic religion had been largely responsible for the rustic happiness4 ,only as the whole society grew in age and experience1 there began to appear that weakness in all mythology already noted in the chapter under that name4 ,this religion was not quite a religion4 ,in other words1 this religion was not quite a reality4 ,it was the young world's riot with images and ideas like a young man's riot with wine or love-making2 it was not so much immoral as irresponsible2 it had no foresight of the final test of time4 ,because it was creative to any extent it was credulous to any extent4 ,it belonged to the artistic side of man1 yet even considered artistically it had long become overloaded and entangled4 ,the family trees sprung from the seed of ,jupiter were a jungle rather than a forest2 the claims of the gods and demigods seemed like things to be settled rather by a lawyer or a professional herald than by a poet4 ,but it is needless to say that it was not only in the artistic sense that these things had grown more anarchic4 ,there had appeared in more and more flagrant fashion that flower of evil that is really implicit in the very seed of nature-worship1 however natural it may seem4 ,i have said that ,i do not believe that natural worship necessarily begins with this particular passion2 ,i am not of the ,de ,rougemont school of scientific folklore4 ,i do not believe that mythology must begin in eroticism4 ,but ,i do believe that mythology must end in it4 ,i am quite certain that mythology did end in it4 ,moreover1 not only did the poetry grow more immoral1 but the immorality grew more indefensible4 ,greek vices1 oriental vices1 hints of the old horrors of the ,semitic demons1 began to fill the fancies of decaying ,rome1 swarming like flies on a dung-heap4 ,the psychology of it is really human enough1 to any one who will try that experiment of seeing history from the inside4 ,there comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of #8pretending'2 when he is weary of being a robber or a ,red ,indian4 ,it is then that he torments the cat4 ,there comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilisation when the man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man4 ,the effect of this staleness is the same everywhere2 it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose4 ,men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense4 ,they seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason4 ,they try to stab their nerves to life1 if it were with the knives of the priests of ,baal4 ,they are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares4 ,at that stage even of paganism therefore the peasant songs and dances sound fainter and fainter in the forest4 ,for one thing1 the peasant civilisation was fading1 or had already faded1 from the whole countryside4 ,the ,empire at the end was organised more and more on that servile system which generally goes with the boast of organisation2 indeed it was almost as servile as the modern schemes for the organisation of industry4 ,it is proverbial that what would once have been a peasantry became a mere populace of the town dependent for bread and circuses2 which may again suggest to some a mob dependent upon doles and cinemas4 ,in this as in many other respects1 the modern return to heathenism has been a return not even to the heathen youth but rather to the heathen old age4 ,but the causes of it were spiritual in both cases2 and especially the spirit of paganism had departed with its familiar spirits4 ,the heart had gone out of it with its household gods1 who went along with the gods of the garden and the field and the forest4 ,the ,old ,man of the ,forest was too old2 he was already dying4 ,it is said truly in a sense that ,pan died because ,christ was born4 ,it is almost as true in another sense that men knew that ,christ was born because ,pan was already dead4 ,a void was made by the vanishing of the whole mythology of mankind1 which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology4 ,but the point for the moment is that the mythology could not have lasted like a theology in any case4 ,theology is thought1 whether we agree with it or not4 ,mythology was never thought1 and nobody could really agree with it or disagree with it4 ,it was a mere mood of glamour1 and when the mood went it could not be recovered4 ,men not only ceased to believe in the gods1 but they realised that they had never believed in them4 ,they had sung their praises2 they had danced round their altars4 ,they had played the flute2 they had played the fool4 ,so came the twilight upon ,arcady1 and the last notes of the pipe sound sadly from the beechen grove4 ,in the great ,virgilian poems there is already something of the sadness2 but the loves and the household gods linger in lovely lines like that which ,mr4 ,belloc took for a test of understanding2 incipe1 parve puer1 risu cognoscere matrem4 ,but with them as with us1 the human family itself began to break down under servile organisation and the herding of the towns4 ,the urban mob became enlightened2 that is1 it lost the mental energy that could create myths4 ,all round the circle of the ,mediterranean cities the people mourned for the loss of gods and were consoled with gladiators4 ,and meanwhile something similar was happening to that intellectual aristocracy of antiquity that had been walking about and talking at large ever since ,socrates and ,pythagoras4 ,they began to betray to the world the fact that they were walking in a circle and saying the same thing over and over again4 ,philosophy began to be a joke2 it also began to be a bore4 ,that unnatural simplification of everything into one system or another1 which we have noted as the fault of the philosopher1 revealed at once its finality and its futility4 ,everything was virtue or everything was happiness or everything was fate or everything was good or everything was bad2 anyhow1 everything was everything and there was no more to be said2 so they said it4 ,everywhere the sages had degenerated into sophists2 that is1 into hired rhetoricians or askers of riddles4 ,it is one of the symptoms of this that the sage begins to turn not only into a sophist but into a magician4 ,a touch of oriental occultism is very much appreciated in the best houses4 ,as the philosopher is already a society entertainer1 he may as well also be a conjurer4 ,many moderns have insisted on the smallness of that ,mediterranean world2 and the wider horizons that might have awaited it with the discovery of the other continents4 ,but this is an illusion2 one of the many illusions of materialism4 ,the limits that paganism had reached in ,europe were the limits of human existence2 at its best it had only reached the same limits anywhere else4 ,the ,roman stoics did not need any ,chinamen to teach them stoicism4 ,the ,pythagoreans did not need any ,hindus to teach them about recurrence or the simple life or the beauty of being a vegetarian4 ,in so far as they could get these things from the ,east1 they had already got rather too much of them from the ,east4 ,the ,syncretists were as convinced as ,theosophists that all religions are really the same4 ,and how else could they have extended philosophy merely by extending geography8 ,it can hardly be proposed that they should learn a purer religion from the ,aztecs or sit at the feet of the ,incas of ,peru4 ,all the rest of the world was a welter of barbarism4 ,it is essential to recognise that the ,roman ,empire was recognised as the highest achievement of the human race2 and also as the broadest4 ,a dreadful secret seemed to be written as in obscure hieroglyphics across those mighty works of marble and stone1 those colossal amphitheatres and aqueducts4 ,man could do no more4 ,for it was not the message blazed on the ,babylonian wall1 that one king was found wanting or his one kingdom given to a stranger4 ,it was no such good news as the news of invasion and conquest4 ,there was nothing left that could conquer ,rome2 but there was also nothing left that could improve it4 ,it was the strongest thing that was growing weak4 ,it was the best thing that was going to the bad4 ,it is necessary to insist again and again that many civilisations had met in one civilisation of the ,mediterranean sea2 that it was already universal with a stale and sterile universality4 ,the peoples had pooled their resources and still there was not enough4 ,the empires had gone into partnership and they were still bankrupt4 ,no philosopher who was really philosophical could think anything except that1 in that central sea1 the wave of the world had risen to its highest1 seeming to touch the stars4 ,but the wave was already stooping2 for it was only the wave of the world4 ,that mythology and that philosophy into which paganism has already been analysed had thus both of them been drained most literally to the dregs4 ,if with the multiplication of magic the third department1 which we have called the demons1 was even increasingly active1 it was never anything but destructive4 ,there remains only the fourth element1 or rather the first2 that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the first4 ,i mean the primary and overpowering yet impalpable impression that the universe after all has one origin and one aim2 and because it has an aim must have an author4 ,what became of this great truth in the background of men's minds1 at this time1 it is perhaps more difficult to determine4 ,some of the ,stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away2 and great men among them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the moral unity of the world4 ,the ,jews still held their secret certainty of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness2 yet it is intensely characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable figures1 especially fashionable ladies1 actually embraced ,judaism4 ,but in the case of many others ,i fancy there entered at this point a new negation4 ,atheism became really possible in that abnormal time2 for atheism is abnormality4 ,it is not merely the denial of a dogma4 ,it is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul2 the sense that there is a meaning and a direction in the world it sees4 ,lucretius1 the first evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute ,evolution for ,god1 had already dangled before men's eyes his dance of glittering atoms1 by which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos4 ,but it was not his strong poetry or his sad philosophy1 as ,i fancy1 that made it possible for men to entertain such a vision4 ,it was something in the sense of impotence and despair with which men shook their fists vainly at the stars1 as they saw all the best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp4 ,they could easily believe that even creation itself was not a creation but a perpetual fall1 when they saw that the weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight4 ,they could fancy that all the stars were falling stars2 and that the very pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual ,deluge4 ,to men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some sense reasonable4 ,mythology might fade and philosophy might stiffen2 but if behind these things there was a reality1 surely that reality might have sustained things as they sank4 ,there was no ,god2 if there had been a ,god1 surely this was the very moment when ,he would have moved and saved the world4 ,the life of the great civilisation went on with dreary industry and even with dreary festivity4 ,it was the end of the world1 and the worst of it was that it need never end4 ,a convenient compromise had been made between all the multitudinous myths and religions of the ,empire2 that each group should worship freely and merely give a sort of official flourish of thanks to the tolerant ,emperor1 by tossing a little incense to him under his official title of ,divus4 ,naturally there was no difficulty about that2 or rather it was a long time before the world realised that there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere4 ,the members of some eastern sect or secret society or other seemed to have made a scene somewhere2 nobody could imagine why4 ,the incident occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance4 ,it was not exactly what these provincials said2 though of course it sounded queer enough4 ,they seemed to be saying that ,god was dead and that they themselves had seen him die4 ,this might be one of the many manias produced by the despair of the age2 only they did not seem particularly despairing4 ,they seem quite unnaturally joyful about it1 and gave the reason that the death of ,god had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood4 ,according to other accounts ,god was not exactly dead after all2 there trailed through the bewildered imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral of ,god1 at which the sun turned black1 but which ended with the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun4 ,but it was not the strange story to which anybody paid any particular attention2 people in that world had seen queer religions enough to fill a madhouse4 ,it was something in the tone of the madmen and their type of formation4 ,they were a scratch company of barbarians and slaves and poor and unimportant people2 but their formation was military2 they moved together and were very absolute about who and what was really a part of their little system2 and about what they said1 however mildly1 there was a ring like iron4 ,men used to many mythologies and moralities could make no analysis of the mystery1 except the curious conjecture that they meant what they said4 ,all attempts to make them see reason in the perfectly simple matter of the ,emperor's statue seemed to be spoken to deaf men4 ,it was as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the earth2 it was a difference of substance to the touch4 ,those who touched their foundation fancied they had struck a rock4 ,with a strange rapidity1 like the changes of a dream1 the proportions of things seemed to change in their presence4 ,before most men knew what had happened1 these few men were palpably present4 ,they were important enough to be ignored4 ,people became suddenly silent about them and walked stiffly past them4 ,we see a new scene1 in which the world has drawn its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in the centre of a great space like lepers4 ,the scene changes again and the great space where they stand is overhung on every side with a cloud of witnesses1 interminable terraces full of faces looking down towards them intently2 for strange things are happening to them4 ,new tortures have been invented for the madmen who have brought good news4 ,that sad and weary society seems almost to find a new energy in establishing its first religious persecution4 ,nobody yet knows very clearly why that level world has thus lost its balance about the people in its midst2 but they stand unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to revolve round them4 ,and there shone on them in that dark hour a light that has never been darkened2 a white fire clinging to that group like an unearthly phosphorescence1 blazing its track through the twilights of history and confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of mythology and theory2 that shaft of light or lightning by which the world itself has struck and isolated and crowned it2 by which its own enemies have made it more illustrious and its own critics have made it more inexplicable2 the halo of hatred around the ,church of ,god4 ,,part ,,ii ,,on ,,the ,,man ,,called ,,christ ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,god ,,in ,,the ,,cave ,this sketch of the human story began in a cave2 the cave which popular science associates with the cave-man and in which practical discovery has really found archaic drawings of animals4 ,the second half of human history1 which was like a new creation of the world1 also begins in a cave4 ,there is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present2 for it was a cave used as a stable by the mountaineers of the uplands about ,bethlehem2 who still drive their cattle into such holes and caverns at night4 ,it was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces2 and it was here beneath the very feet of the passersby1 in a cellar under the very floor of the world1 that ,jesus ,christ was born4 ,but in that second creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd4 ,god also was a ,cave-,man1 and had also traced strange shapes of creatures1 curiously coloured1 upon the wall of the world2 but the pictures that he made had come to life4 ,a mass of legend and literature1 which increases and will never end1 has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox2 that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle4 ,upon this paradox1 we might almost say upon this jest1 all the literature of our faith is founded4 ,it is at least like a jest in this1 that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see4 ,he laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerated2 and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible2 as something that would be much too good to be true1 except that it is true4 ,when that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated1 reiterated1 underlined1 emphasised1 exulted in1 sung1 shouted1 roared1 not to say howled1 in a hundred thousand hymns1 carols1 rhymes1 rituals1 pictures1 poems1 and popular sermons1 it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it2 especially one of the sort that seems to take a long time to see a joke1 even his own joke4 ,but about this contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said here1 because it is relevant to the whole thesis of this book4 ,the sort of modern critic of whom ,i speak is generally much impressed with the importance of education in life and the importance of psychology in education4 ,that sort of man is never tired of telling us that first impressions fix character by the law of causation2 and he will become quite nervous if a child's visual sense is poisoned by the wrong colours on a golliwog or his nervous system prematurely shaken by a cacophonous rattle4 ,yet he will think us very narrow-minded if we say that this is exactly why there really is a difference between being brought up as a ,christian and being brought up as a ,jew or a ,moslem or an atheist4 ,the difference is that every ,catholic child has learned from pictures1 and even every ,protestant child from stories1 this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind4 ,it is not merely a theological difference4 ,it is a psychological difference which can outlast any theologies4 ,it really is1 as that sort of scientist loves to say about anything1 incurable4 ,any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real ,christmas has ever afterwards1 whether he likes it or not1 an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other2 the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars4 ,his instincts and imagination can still connect them1 when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection2 for him there will always be some savour of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby2 some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of ,god4 ,but the two ideas are not naturally or necessarily combined4 ,they would not be necessarily combined for an ancient ,greek or a ,chinaman1 even for ,aristotle or ,confucius4 ,it is no more inevitable to connect ,god with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten4 ,it has been created in our minds by ,christmas because we are ,christians2 because we are psychological ,christians even when we are not theological ones4 ,in other words1 this combination of ideas has emphatically1 in the much disputed phrase1 altered human nature4 ,there is really a difference between the man who knows it and the man who does not4 ,it may not be a difference of moral worth1 for the ,moslem or the ,jew might be worthier according to his lights2 but it is a plain fact about the crossing of two particular lights1 the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope4 ,omnipotence and impotence1 or divinity and infancy1 do definitely make a sort of epigram which a million repetitions cannot turn into a platitude4 ,it is not unreasonable to call it unique4 ,bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet4 ,here begins1 it is needless to say1 another mighty influence for the humanisation of ,christendom4 ,if the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of ,christianity1 it would probably select ,christmas4 ,yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect 7,i could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why72 the respect paid to the ,blessed ,virgin4 ,when ,i was a boy a more ,puritan generation objected to a statue upon a parish church representing the ,virgin and ,child4 ,after much controversy1 they compromised by taking away the ,child4 ,one would think that this was even more corrupted with ,mariolatry1 unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon4 ,but the practical difficulty is also a parable4 ,you cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a new-born child4 ,you cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air2 indeed you cannot really have a statue of a new-born child at all4 ,similarly1 you cannot suspend the idea of a new-born child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother4 ,you cannot visit the child without visiting the mother2 you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother4 ,if we are to think of ,christ in this aspect at all1 the other idea follows as it is followed in history4 ,we must either leave ,christ out of ,christmas1 or ,christmas out of ,christ1 or we must admit1 if only as we admit it in an old picture1 that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross4 ,it might be suggested1 in a somewhat violent image1 that nothing had happened in that fold or crack in the great grey hills except that the whole universe had been turned inside out4 ,i mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now turned inward to the smallest4 ,the very image will suggest all that multitudinous marvel of converging eyes that makes so much of the coloured ,catholic imagery like a peacock's tail4 ,but it is true in a sense that ,god who had been only a circumference was seen as a centre2 and a centre is infinitely small4 ,it is true that the spiritual spiral henceforward works inwards instead of outwards1 and in that sense is centripetal and not centrifugal4 ,the faith becomes1 in more ways than one1 a religion of little things4 ,but its traditions in art and literature and popular fable have quite sufficiently attested1 as has been said1 this particular paradox of the divine being in the cradle4 ,perhaps they have not so clearly emphasised the significance of the divine being in the cave4 ,curiously enough1 indeed1 tradition has not very clearly emphasised the cave4 ,it is a familiar fact that the ,bethlehem scene has been represented in every possible setting of time and country1 of landscape and architecture2 and it is a wholly happy and admirable fact that men have conceived it as quite different according to their different individual traditions and tastes4 ,but while all have realised that it was a stable1 not so many have realised that it was a cave4 ,some critics have even been so silly as to suppose that there was some contradiction between the stable and the cave2 in which case they cannot know much about caves or stables in ,palestine4 ,as they see differences that are not there1 it is needless to add that they do not see differences that are there4 ,when a well-known critic says1 for instance1 that ,christ being born in a rocky cavern is like ,mithras having sprung alive out of a rock1 it sounds like a parody upon comparative religion4 ,there is such a thing as the point of a story1 even if it is a story in the sense of a lie4 ,and the notion of a hero appearing1 like ,pallas from the brain of ,zeus1 mature and without a mother1 is obviously the very opposite of the idea of a god being born like an ordinary baby and entirely dependent on a mother4 ,whichever ideal we might prefer1 we should surely see that they are contrary ideals4 ,it is as stupid to connect them because they both contain a substance called stone as to identify the punishment of the ,deluge with the baptism in the ,jordan because they both contain a substance called water4 ,whether as a myth or a mystery1 ,christ was obviously conceived as born in a hole in the rocks primarily because it marked the position of one outcast and homeless4 ,nevertheless it is true1 as ,i have said1 that the cave has not been so commonly or so clearly used as a symbol as the other realities that surrounded the first ,christmas4 ,and the reason for this also refers to the very nature of that new world4 ,it was in a sense the difficulty of a new dimension4 ,christ was not only born on the level of the world1 but even lower than the world4 ,the first act of the divine drama was enacted1 not only on no stage set up above the sightseer1 but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of sight2 and that is an idea very difficult to express in most modes of artistic expression4 ,it is the idea of simultaneous happenings on different levels of life4 ,something like it might have been attempted in the more archaic and decorative medieval art4 ,but the more the artists learned of realism and perspective1 the less they could depict at once the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on the hills1 and the glory in the darkness that was under the hills4 ,perhaps it could have been best conveyed by the characteristic expedient of some of the medieval guilds1 when they wheeled about the streets a theatre with three stages one above the other1 with heaven above the earth and hell under the earth4 ,but in the riddle of ,bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth4 ,there is in that alone the touch of a revolution1 as of the world turned upside down4 ,it would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate1 or anything new1 about the change which this conception of a deity born like an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties to the poor and outcast4 ,it is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves4 ,there could be and were people bearing that legal title until the ,church was strong enough to weed them out1 but there could be no more of the pagan repose in the mere advantage to the state of keeping it a servile state4 ,individuals became important1 in a sense in which no instruments can be important4 ,a man could not be a means to an end1 at any rate to any other man's end4 ,all this popular and fraternal element in the story has been rightly attached by tradition to the episode of the ,shepherds2 the hinds who found themselves talking face to face with the princes of heaven4 ,but there is another aspect of the popular element as represented by the shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed2 and which is more directly relevant here4 ,men of the people1 like the shepherds1 men of the popular tradition1 had everywhere been the makers of the mythologies4 ,it was they who had felt most directly1 with least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt cults of civilisation1 the need we have already considered2 the images that were adventures of the imagination2 the mythology that was a sort of search2 the tempting and tantalising hints of something half-human in nature2 the dumb significance of seasons and special places4 ,they had best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story and the soul of a story is a personality4 ,but rationalism had already begun to rot away these really irrational though imaginative treasures of the peasant2 even as systematic slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home4 ,upon all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk and twilight of disappointment1 in the hour when these few men discovered what they sought4 ,everywhere else ,arcadia was fading from the forest4 ,pan was dead and the shepherds were scattered like sheep4 ,and though no man knew it1 the hour was near which was to end and to fulfil all things2 and though no man heard it1 there was one far-off cry in an unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains4 ,the shepherds had found their ,shepherd4 ,and the thing they found was of a kind with the things they sought4 ,the populace had been wrong in many things2 but they had not been wrong in believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits of time and space4 ,and the barbarian who conceived the crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a box1 or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his enemy deceived with a stone1 was nearer to the secret of the cave and knew more about the crisis of the world than all those in the circle of cities round the ,mediterranean who had become content with cold abstractions or cosmopolitan generalisations2 than all those who were spinning thinner and thinner threads of thought out of the transcendentalism of ,plato or the orientalism of ,pythagoras4 ,the place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic2 it was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained or explained away4 ,it was a place of dreams come true4 ,since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world4 ,mythology is a search4 ,we all know that the popular presentation of this popular story1 in so many miracle plays and carols1 has given to the shepherds the costume1 the language1 and the landscape of the separate ,english and ,european countrysides4 ,we all know that one shepherd will talk in a ,somerset dialect or another talk of driving his sheep from ,conway towards the ,clyde4 ,most of us know by this time how true is that error1 how wise1 how artistic1 how intensely ,christian and ,catholic is that anachronism4 ,but some who have seen it in these scenes of medieval rusticity have perhaps not seen it in another sort of poetry1 which it is sometimes the fashion to call artificial rather than artistic4 ,i fear that many modern critics will see only a faded classicism in the fact that men like ,crashaw and ,herrick conceived the shepherds of ,bethlehem under the form of the shepherds of ,virgil4 ,yet they were profoundly right2 and in turning their ,bethlehem play into a ,latin ,eclogue they took up one of the most important links in human history4 ,virgil1 as we have already seen1 does stand for all that saner heathenism that had overthrown the insane heathenism of human sacrifice2 but the very fact that even the ,virgilian virtues and the sane heathenism were in incurable decay is the whole problem to which the revelation to the shepherds is the solution4 ,if the world had ever had the chance to grow weary of being demoniac1 it might have been healed merely by becoming sane4 ,but if it had grown weary even of being sane1 what was to happen except what did happen8 ,nor is it false to conceive the ,arcadian shepherd of the ,eclogues as rejoicing in what did happen4 ,one of the ,eclogues has even been claimed as a prophecy of what did happen4 ,but it is quite as much in the tone and incidental diction of the great poet that we feel the potential sympathy with the great event2 and even in their own human phrases the voices of the ,virgilian shepherds might more than once have broken upon more than the tenderness of ,italy4444 ,incipe1 parve puer1 risu cognoscere matrem4444 ,they might have found in that strange place all that was best in the last traditions of the ,latins2 and something better than a wooden idol standing up for ever for the pillar of the human family2 a ,household ,god4 ,but they and all the other mythologists would be justified in rejoicing that the event had fulfilled not merely the mysticism but the materialism of mythology4 ,mythology had many sins2 but it had not been wrong in being as carnal as the ,incarnation4 ,with something of the ancient voice that was supposed to have rung through the groves1 it could cry again1 #8,we have seen1 he hath seen us1 a visible god4' ,so the ancient shepherds might have danced1 and their feet have been beautiful upon the mountains1 rejoicing over the philosophers4 ,but the philosophers had also heard4 ,it is still a strange story1 though an old one1 how they came out of orient lands1 crowned with the majesty of kings and clothed with something of the mystery of magicians4 ,that truth that is tradition has wisely remembered them almost as unknown quantities1 as mysterious as their mysterious and melodious names3 ,melchior1 ,caspar1 ,balthazar4 ,but there came with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the stars in ,chaldea and the sun in ,persia2 and we shall not be wrong if we see in them the same curiosity that moves all the sages4 ,they would stand for the same human ideal if their names had really been ,confucius or ,pythagoras or ,plato4 ,they were those who sought not tales but the truth of things2 and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst for ,god1 they also have had their reward4 ,but even in order to understand that reward1 we must understand that for philosophy as much as mythology1 that reward was the completion of the incomplete4 ,such learned men would doubtless have come1 as these learned men did come1 to find themselves confirmed in much that was true in their own traditions and right in their own reasoning4 ,confucius would have found a new foundation for the family in the very reversal of the ,holy ,family2 ,buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation1 of stars rather than jewels and divinity than royalty4 ,these learned men would still have the right to say1 or rather a new right to say1 that there was truth in their old teaching4 ,but1 after all1 these learned men would have come to learn4 ,they would have come to complete their conceptions with something they had not yet conceived2 even to balance their imperfect universe with something they might once have contradicted4 ,buddha would have come from his impersonal paradise to worship a person4 ,confucius would have come from his temples of ancestor-worship to worship a child4 ,we must grasp from the first this character in the new cosmos3 that it was larger than the old cosmos4 ,in that sense ,christendom is larger than creation2 as creation had been before ,christ4 ,it included things that had not been there2 it also included the things that had been there4 ,the point happens to be well illustrated in this example of ,chinese piety1 but it would be true of other pagan virtues or pagan beliefs4 ,nobody can doubt that a reasonable respect for parents is part of a gospel in which ,god himself was subject in childhood to earthly parents4 ,but the other sense in which the parents were subject to him does introduce an idea that is not ,confucian4 ,the infant ,christ is not like the infant ,confucius2 our mysticism conceives him in an immortal infancy4 ,i do not know what ,confucius would have done with the ,bambino1 had it come to life in his arms as it did in the arms of ,st4 ,francis4 ,but this is true in relation to all the other religions and philosophies2 it is the challenge of the ,church4 ,the ,church contains what the world does not contain4 ,life itself does not provide as she does for all sides of life4 ,that every other single system is narrow and insufficient compared to this one2 that is not a rhetorical boast2 it is a real fact and a real dilemma4 ,where is the ,holy ,child amid the ,stoics and the ancestor-worshippers8 ,where is ,our ,lady of the ,moslems1 a woman made for no man and set above all angels8 ,where is ,st4 ,michael of the monks of ,buddha1 rider and master of the trumpets1 guarding for every soldier the honour of the sword8 ,what could ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas do with the mythology of ,brahminism1 he who set forth all the science and rationality and even rationalism of ,christianity8 ,yet even if we compare ,aquinas with ,aristotle1 at the other extreme of reason1 we shall find the same sense of something added4 ,aquinas could understand the most logical parts of ,aristotle2 it is doubtful if ,aristotle could have understood the most mystical parts of ,aquinas4 ,even where we can hardly call the ,christian greater1 we are forced to call him larger4 ,but it is so to whatever philosophy or heresy or modern movement we may turn4 ,how would ,francis the ,troubadour have fared among the ,calvinists1 or for that matter among the ,utilitarians of the ,manchester ,school8 ,yet men like ,bossuet and ,pascal could be as stern and logical as any ,calvinist or ,utilitarian4 ,how would ,st4 ,joan of ,arc1 a woman waving on men to war with the sword1 have fared among the ,quakers or the ,doukhabors or the ,tolstoyan sect of pacifists8 ,yet any number of ,catholic saints have spent their lives in preaching peace and preventing wars4 ,it is the same with all the modern attempts at ,syncretism4 ,they are never able to make something larger than the ,creed without leaving something out4 ,i do not mean leaving out something divine but something human2 the flag or the inn or the boy's tale of battle or the hedge at the end of the field4 ,the ,theosophists build a pantheon2 but it is only a pantheon for pantheists4 ,they call a ,parliament of ,religions as a reunion of all the peoples2 but it is only a reunion of all the prigs4 ,yet exactly such a pantheon had been set up two thousand years before by the shores of the ,mediterranean2 and ,christians were invited to set up the image of ,jesus side by side with the image of ,jupiter1 of ,mithras1 of ,osiris1 of ,atys1 or of ,ammon4 ,it was the refusal of the ,christians that was the turning-point of history4 ,if the ,christians had accepted1 they and the whole world would have certainly1 in a grotesque but exact metaphor1 gone to pot4 ,they would all have been boiled down to one lukewarm liquid in that great pot of cosmopolitan corruption in which all the other myths and mysteries were already melting4 ,it was an awful and an appalling escape4 ,nobody understands the nature of the ,church1 or the ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity1 who does not realise that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions4 ,here it is the important point that the ,magi1 who stand for mysticism and philosophy1 are truly conceived as seeking something new and even as finding something unexpected4 ,that tense sense of crisis which still tingles in the ,christmas story1 and even in every ,christmas celebration1 accentuates the idea of a search and a discovery4 ,the discovery is1 in this case1 truly a scientific discovery4 ,for the other mystical figures in the miracle play1 for the angel and the mother1 the shepherds and the soldiers of ,herod1 there may be aspects both simpler and more supernatural1 more elemental or more emotional4 ,but the ,wise ,men must be seeking wisdom2 and for them there must be a light also in the intellect4 ,and this is the light3 that the ,catholic creed is catholic and that nothing else is catholic4 ,the philosophy of the ,church is universal4 ,the philosophy of the philosophers was not universal4 ,had ,plato and ,pythagoras and ,aristotle stood for an instant in the light that came out of that little cave1 they would have known that their own light was not universal4 ,it is far from certain1 indeed1 that they did not know it already4 ,philosophy also1 like mythology1 had very much the air of a search4 ,it is the realisation of this truth that gives its traditional majesty and mystery to the figures of the ,three ,kings2 the discovery that religion is broader than philosophy and that this is the broadest of religions1 contained within this narrow space4 ,the ,magicians were gazing at the strange pentacle with the human triangle reversed2 and they have never come to the end of their calculations about it4 ,for it is the paradox of that group in the cave1 that while our emotions about it are of childish simplicity1 our thoughts about it can branch with a never-ending complexity4 ,and we can never reach the end even of our own ideas about the child who was a father and the mother who was a child4 ,we might well be content to say that mythology had come with the shepherds and philosophy with the philosophers2 and that it only remained for them to combine in the recognisation of religion4 ,but there was a third element that must not be ignored and one which that religion for ever refuses to ignore1 in any revel or reconciliation4 ,there was present in the primary scenes of the drama that ,enemy that had rotted the legends with lust and frozen the theories into atheism1 but which answered the direct challenge with something of that more direct method which we have seen in the conscious cult of the demons4 ,in the description of that demon-worship1 of the devouring detestation of innocence shown in the works of its witchcraft and the most inhuman of its human sacrifice1 ,i have said less of its indirect and secret penetration of the saner paganism2 the soaking of mythological imagination with sex2 the rise of imperial pride into insanity4 ,but both the indirect and the direct influence make themselves felt in the drama of ,bethlehem4 ,a ruler under the ,roman suzerainty1 probably equipped and surrounded with the ,roman ornament and order though himself of eastern blood1 seems in that hour to have felt stirring within him the spirit of strange things4 ,we all know the story of how ,herod1 alarmed at some rumour of a mysterious rival1 remembered the wild gesture of the capricious despots of ,asia and ordered a massacre of suspects of the new generation of the populace4 ,every one knows the story2 but not every one has perhaps noted its place in the story of the strange religions of men4 ,not everybody has seen the significance even of its very contrast with the ,corinthian columns and ,roman pavement of that conquered and superficially civilised world4 ,only1 as the purpose in his dark spirit began to show and shine in the eyes of the ,idumean1 a seer might perhaps have seen something like a great grey ghost that looked over his shoulder2 have seen behind him1 filling the dome of night and hovering for the last time over history1 that vast and fearful face that was ,moloch of the ,carthaginians2 awaiting his last tribute from a ruler of the races of ,shem4 ,the demons also1 in that first festival of ,christmas1 feasted after their own fashion4 ,unless we understand the presence of that ,enemy1 we shall not only miss the point of ,christianity1 but even miss the point of ,christmas4 ,christmas for us in ,christendom has become one thing1 and in one sense even a simple thing4 ,but1 like all the truths of that tradition1 it is in another sense a very complex thing4 ,its unique note is the simultaneous striking of many notes2 of humility1 of gaiety1 of gratitude1 of mystical fear1 but also of vigilance and of drama4 ,it is not only an occasion for the peacemakers any more than for the merrymakers2 it is not only a ,hindu peace conference any more than it is only a ,scandinavian winter feast4 ,there is something defiant in it also2 something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns of a battle that has just been won4 ,all this indescribable thing that we call the ,christmas atmosphere only hangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapour from the exultant explosion of that one hour in the ,judean hills nearly two thousand years ago4 ,but the savour is still unmistakable1 and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace4 ,by the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den2 properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicings in a dug-out4 ,it is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies2 and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky4 ,it is not only that the very horse-hoofs of ,herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of ,christ4 ,it is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost1 of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory4 ,there is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world2 of shaking the towers and palaces from below2 even as ,herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace4 ,that is perhaps the mightiest of the mysteries of the cave4 ,it is already apparent that though men are said to have looked for hell under the earth1 in this case it is rather heaven that is under the earth4 ,and there follows in this strange story the idea of an upheaval of heaven4 ,that is the paradox of the whole position2 that henceforth the highest thing can only work from below4 ,royalty can only return to its own by a sort of rebellion4 ,indeed the ,church from its beginnings1 and perhaps especially in its beginnings1 was not so much a principality as a revolution against the prince of the world4 ,this sense that the world had been conquered by the great usurper1 and was in his possession1 has been much deplored or derided by those optimists who identify enlightenment with ease4 ,but it was responsible for all that thrill of defiance and a beautiful danger that made the good news seem to be really both good and new4 ,it was in truth against a huge unconscious usurpation that it raised a revolt1 and originally so obscure a revolt4 ,olympus still occupied the sky like a motionless cloud moulded into many mighty forms2 philosophy still sat in the high places and even on the thrones of the kings1 when ,christ was born in the cave and ,christianity in the catacombs4 ,in both cases we may remark the same paradox of revolution2 the sense of something despised and of something feared4 ,the cave in one aspect is only a hole or corner into which the outcasts are swept like rubbish2 yet in the other aspect it is a hiding-place of something valuable which the tyrants are seeking like treasure4 ,in one sense they are there because the innkeeper would not even remember them1 and in another because the king can never forget them4 ,we have already noted that this paradox appeared also in the treatment of the early ,church4 ,it was important while it was still insignificant1 and certainly while it was still impotent4 ,it was important solely because it was intolerable2 and in that sense it is true to say that it was intolerable because it was intolerant4 ,it was resented1 because1 in its own still and almost secret way1 it had declared war4 ,it had risen out of the ground to wreck the heaven and earth of heathenism4 ,it did not try to destroy all that creation of gold and marble2 but it contemplated a world without it4 ,it dared to look right through it as though the gold and marble had been glass4 ,those who charged the ,christians with burning down ,rome with firebrands were slanderers2 but they were at least far nearer to the nature of ,christianity than those among the moderns who tell us that the ,christians were a sort of ethical society1 being martyred in a languid fashion for telling men they had a duty to their neighbours1 and only mildly disliked because they were meek and mild4 ,herod had his place1 therefore1 in the miracle play of ,bethlehem because he is the menace to the ,church ,militant and shows it from the first as under persecution and fighting for its life4 ,for those who think this a discord1 it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the ,christmas bells4 ,for those who think the idea of the ,crusade is one that spoils the idea of the ,cross1 we can only say that for them the idea of the ,cross is spoiled2 the idea of the ,cross is spoiled quite literally in the ,cradle4 ,it is not here to the purpose to argue with them on the abstract ethics of fighting2 the purpose in this place is merely to sum up the combination of ideas that make up the ,christian and ,catholic idea1 and to note that all of them are already crystallised in the first ,christmas story4 ,they are three distinct and commonly contrasted things which are nevertheless one thing2 but this is the only thing which can make them one4 ,the first is the human instinct for a heaven that shall be as literal and almost as local as a home4 ,it is the idea pursued by all poets and pagans making myths2 that a particular place must be the shrine of the god or the abode of the blest2 that fairyland is a land2 or that the return of the ghost must be the resurrection of the body4 ,i do not here reason about the refusal of rationalism to satisfy this need4 ,i only say that if the rationalists refuse to satisfy it1 the pagans will not be satisfied4 ,this is present in the story of ,bethlehem and ,jerusalem as it is present in the story of ,delos and ,delphi2 and as it is not present in the whole universe of ,lucretius or the whole universe of ,herbert ,spencer4 ,the second element is a philosophy larger than other philosophies2 larger than that of ,lucretius and infinitely larger than that of ,herbert ,spencer4 ,it looks at the world through a hundred windows where the ancient stoic or the modern agnostic only looks through one4 ,it sees life with thousands of eyes belonging to thousands of different sorts of people1 where the other is only the individual standpoint of a stoic or an agnostic4 ,it has something for all moods of man1 it finds work for all kinds of men1 it understands secrets of psychology1 it is aware of depths of evil1 it is able to distinguish between real and unreal marvels and miraculous exceptions1 it trains itself in tact about hard cases1 all with a multiplicity and subtlety and imagination about the varieties of life which is far beyond the bald or breezy platitudes of most ancient or modern moral philosophy4 ,in a word1 there is more in it2 it finds more in existence to think about2 it gets more out of life4 ,masses of this material about our many-sided life have been added since the time of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas4 ,but ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas alone would have found himself limited in the world of ,confucius or of ,comte4 ,and the third point is this3 that while it is local enough for poetry and larger than any other philosophy1 it is also a challenge and a fight4 ,while it is deliberately broadened to embrace every aspect of truth1 it is still stiffly embattled against every mode of error4 ,it gets every kind of man to fight for it1 it gets every kind of weapon to fight with1 it widens its knowledge of the things that are fought for and against with every art of curiosity or sympathy2 but it never forgets that it is fighting4 ,it proclaims peace on earth and never forgets why there was war in heaven4 ,this is the trinity of truths symbolised here by the three types in the old ,christmas story3 the shepherds and the kings and that other king who warred upon the children4 ,it is simply not true to say that other religions and philosophies are in this respect its rivals4 ,it is not true to say that any one of them combines these characters2 it is not true to say that any one of them pretends to combine them4 ,buddhism may profess to be equally mystical2 it does not even profess to be equally military4 ,islam may profess to be equally military2 it does not even profess to be equally metaphysical and subtle4 ,confucianism may profess to satisfy the need of the philosophers for order and reason2 it does not even profess to satisfy the need of the mystics for miracle and sacrament and the consecration of concrete things4 ,there are many evidences of this presence of a spirit at once universal and unique4 ,one will serve here which is the symbol of the subject of this chapter2 that no other story1 no pagan legend or philosophical anecdote or historical event1 does in fact affect any of us with that peculiar and even poignant impression produced on us by the word ,bethlehem4 ,no other birth of a god or childhood of a sage seems to us to be ,christmas or anything like ,christmas4 ,it is either too cold or too frivolous1 or too formal and classical1 or too simple and savage1 or too occult and complicated4 ,not one of us1 whatever his opinions1 would ever go to such a scene with the sense that he was going home4 ,he might admire it because it was poetical1 or because it was philosophical1 or any number of other things in separation2 but not because it was itself4 ,the truth is that there is a quite peculiar and individual character about the hold of this story on human nature2 it is not in its psychological substance at all like a mere legend or the life of a great man4 ,it does not exactly in the ordinary sense turn our minds to greatness2 to those extensions and exaggerations of humanity which are turned into gods and heroes1 even by the healthiest sort of hero-worship4 ,it does not exactly work outwards1 adventurously1 to the wonders to be found at the ends of the earth4 ,it is rather something that surprises us from behind1 from the hidden and personal part of our being2 like that which can sometimes take us off our guard in the pathos of small objects or the blind pieties of the poor4 ,it is rather as if a man had found an inner room in the very heart of his own house which he had never suspected2 and seen a light from within4 ,it is as if he found something at the back of his own heart that betrayed him into good4 ,it is not made of what the world would call strong materials2 or rather it is made of materials whose strength is in that winged levity with which they brush us and pass4 ,it is all that is in us but a brief tenderness that is there made eternal2 all that means no more than a momentary softening that is in some strange fashion become a strengthening and a repose2 it is the broken speech and the lost word that are made positive and suspended unbroken2 as the strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds2 and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,riddles ,,of ,,the ,,gospel ,to understand the nature of this chapter1 it is necessary to recur to the nature of this book4 ,the argument which is meant to be the backbone of the book is of the kind called the reductio ad absurdum4 ,it suggests that the results of assuming the rationalist thesis are more irrational than ours2 but to prove it we must assume that thesis4 ,thus in the first section ,i often treated man as merely an animal1 to show that the effect was more impossible than if he were treated as an angel4 ,in the sense in which it was necessary to treat man merely as an animal1 it is necessary to treat ,christ merely as a man4 ,i have to suspend my own beliefs1 which are much more positive2 and assume this limitation even in order to remove it4 ,i must try to imagine what would happen to a man who did really read the story of ,christ as the story of a man2 and even of a man of whom he had never heard before4 ,and ,i wish to point out that a really impartial reading of that kind would lead1 if not immediately to belief1 at least to a bewilderment of which there is really no solution except in belief4 ,in this chapter1 for this reason1 ,i shall bring in nothing of the spirit of my own creed2 ,i shall exclude the very style of diction1 and even of lettering1 which ,i should think fitting in speaking in my own person4 ,i am speaking as an imaginary heathen human being1 honestly staring at the ,gospel story for the first time4 ,now it is not at all easy to regard the ,new ,testament as a ,new ,testament4 ,it is not at all easy to realise the good news as new4 ,both for good and evil familiarity fills us with assumptions and associations2 and no man of our civilisation1 whatever he thinks of our religion1 can really read the thing as if he had never heard of it before4 ,of course it is in any case utterly unhistorical to talk as if the ,new ,testament were a neatly bound book that had fallen from heaven4 ,it is simply the selection made by the authority of the ,church from a mass of early ,christian literature4 ,but apart from any such question1 there is a psychological difficulty in feeling the ,new ,testament as new4 ,there is a psychological difficulty in seeing those well-known words simply as they stand and without going beyond what they intrinsically stand for4 ,and this difficulty must indeed be very great2 for the result of it is very curious4 ,the result of it is that most modern critics and most current criticism1 even popular criticism1 makes a comment that is the exact reverse of the truth4 ,it is so completely the reverse of the truth that one could almost suspect that they had never read the ,new ,testament at all4 ,we have all heard people say a hundred times over1 for they seem never to tire of saying it1 that the ,jesus of the ,new ,testament is indeed a most merciful and humane lover of humanity1 but that the ,church has hidden this human character in repellent dogmas and stiffened it with ecclesiastical terrors till it has taken on an inhuman character4 ,this is1 ,i venture to repeat1 very nearly the reverse of the truth4 ,the truth is that it is the image of ,christ in the churches that is almost entirely mild and merciful4 ,it is the image of ,christ in the ,gospels that is a good many other things as well4 ,the figure in the ,gospels does indeed utter in words of almost heart-breaking beauty his pity for our broken hearts4 ,but they are very far from being the only sort of words that he utters4 ,nevertheless they are almost the only kind of words that the ,church in its popular imagery ever represents him as uttering4 ,that popular imagery is inspired by a perfectly sound popular instinct4 ,the mass of the poor are broken1 and the mass of the people are poor1 and for the mass of mankind the main thing is to carry the conviction of the incredible compassion of ,god4 ,but nobody with his eyes open can doubt that it is chiefly this idea of compassion that the popular machinery of the ,church does seek to carry4 ,the popular imagery carries a great deal to excess the sentiment of #8,gentle ,jesus1 meek and mild4' ,it is the first thing that the outsider feels and criticises in a ,piet or a shrine of the ,sacred ,heart4 ,as ,i say1 while the art may be insufficient1 ,i am not sure that the instinct is unsound4 ,in any case there is something appalling1 something that makes the blood run cold1 in the idea of having a statue of ,christ in wrath4 ,there is something insupportable even to the imagination in the idea of turning the corner of a street or coming out into the spaces of a market-place to meet the petrifying petrifaction of that figure as it turned upon a generation of vipers1 or that face as it looked at the face of a hypocrite4 ,the ,church can reasonably be justified therefore if she turns the most merciful face or aspect towards men2 but it is certainly the most merciful aspect that she does turn4 ,and the point is here that it is very much more specially and exclusively merciful than any impression that could be formed by a man merely reading the ,new ,testament for the first time4 ,a man simply taking the words of the story as they stand would form quite another impression2 an impression full of mystery and possibly of inconsistency2 but certainly not merely an impression of mildness4 ,it would be intensely interesting2 but part of the interest would consist in its leaving a good deal to be guessed at or explained4 ,it is full of sudden gestures evidently significant except that we hardly know what they signify2 of enigmatic silences2 of ironical replies4 ,the outbreaks of wrath1 like storms above our atmosphere1 do not seem to break out exactly where we should expect them1 but to follow some higher weather-chart of their own4 ,the ,peter whom popular ,church teaching presents is very rightly the ,peter to whom ,christ said in forgiveness1 #8,feed my lambs4' ,he is not the ,peter upon whom ,christ turned as if he were the devil1 crying in that obscure wrath1 #8,get thee behind me1 ,satan4' ,christ lamented with nothing but love and pity over ,jerusalem which was to murder him4 ,we do not know what strange spiritual atmosphere or spiritual insight led him to sink ,bethsaida lower in the pit than ,sodom4 ,i am putting aside for the moment all questions of doctrinal inferences or expositions1 orthodox or otherwise2 ,i am simply imagining the effect on a man's mind if he did really do what these critics are always talking about doing2 if he did really read the ,new ,testament without reference to orthodoxy and even without reference to doctrine4 ,he would find a number of things which fit in far less with the current unorthodoxy than they do with the current orthodoxy4 ,he would find1 for instance1 that if there are any descriptions that deserved to be called realistic1 they are precisely the descriptions of the supernatural4 ,if there is one aspect of the ,new ,testament ,jesus in which he may be said to present himself eminently as a practical person1 it is in the aspect of an exorcist4 ,there is nothing meek and mild1 there is nothing even in the ordinary sense mystical1 about the tone of the voice that says #8,hold thy peace and come out of him4' ,it is much more like the tone of a very business-like lion-tamer or a strong-minded doctor dealing with a homicidal maniac4 ,but this is only a side issue for the sake of illustration2 ,i am not now raising these controversies2 but considering the case of the imaginary man from the moon to whom the ,new ,testament is new4 ,now the first thing to note is that if we take it merely as a human story1 it is in some ways a very strange story4 ,i do not refer here to its tremendous and tragic culmination or to any implications involving triumph in that tragedy4 ,i do not refer to what is commonly called the miraculous element2 for on that point philosophies vary and modern philosophies very decidedly waver4 ,indeed the educated ,englishman of to-day may be said to have passed from an old fashion1 in which he would not believe in any miracles unless they were ancient1 and adopted a new fashion in which he will not believe in any miracles unless they are modern4 ,he used to hold that miraculous cures stopped with the first ,christians and is now inclined to suspect that they began with the first ,christian ,scientists4 ,but ,i refer here rather specially to unmiraculous and even to unnoticed and inconspicuous parts of the story4 ,there are a great many things about it which nobody would have invented1 for they are things that nobody has ever made any particular use of2 things which if they were remarked at all have remained rather as puzzles4 ,for instance1 there is that long stretch of silence in the life of ,christ up to the age of thirty4 ,it is of all silences the most immense and imaginatively impressive4 ,but it is not the sort of thing that anybody is particularly likely to invent in order to prove something2 and nobody so far as ,i know has ever tried to prove anything in particular from it4 ,it is impressive1 but it is only impressive as a fact2 there is nothing particularly popular or obvious about it as a fable4 ,the ordinary trend of hero-worship and myth-making is much more likely to say the precise opposite4 ,it is much more likely to say 7as ,i believe some of the gospels rejected by the ,church do say7 that ,jesus displayed a divine precocity and began his mission at a miraculously early age4 ,and there is indeed something strange in the thought that he who of all humanity needed least preparation seems to have had most4 ,whether it was some mode of the divine humility1 or some truth of which we see the shadow in the longer domestic tutelage of the higher creatures of the earth1 ,i do not propose to speculate2 ,i mention it simply as an example of the sort of thing that does in any case give rise to speculations1 quite apart from recognised religious speculations4 ,now the whole story is full of these things4 ,it is not by any means1 as baldly presented in print1 a story that it is easy to get to the bottom of4 ,it is anything but what these people talk of as a simple ,gospel4 ,relatively speaking1 it is the ,gospel that has the mysticism and the ,church that has the rationalism4 ,as ,i should put it1 of course1 it is the ,gospel that is the riddle and the ,church that is the answer4 ,but whatever be the answer1 the ,gospel as it stands is almost a book of riddles4 ,first1 a man reading the ,gospel sayings would not find platitudes4 ,if he had read even in the most respectful spirit the majority of ancient philosophers and of modern moralists1 he would appreciate the unique importance of saying that he did not find platitudes4 ,it is more than can be said even of ,plato4 ,it is much more than can be said of ,epictetus or ,seneca or ,marcus ,aurelius or ,apollonius of ,tyana4 ,and it is immeasurably more than can be said of most of the agnostic moralists and the preachers of the ethical societies2 with their songs of service and their religion of brotherhood4 ,the morality of most moralists1 ancient and modern1 has been one solid and polished cataract of platitudes flowing for ever and ever4 ,that would certainly not be the impression of the imaginary independent outsider studying the ,new ,testament4 ,he would be conscious of nothing so commonplace and in a sense of nothing so continuous as that stream4 ,he would find a number of strange claims that might sound like the claim to be the brother of the sun and moon2 a number of very startling pieces of advice2 a number of stunning rebukes2 a number of strangely beautiful stories4 ,he would see some very gigantesque figures of speech about the impossibility of threading a needle with a camel or the possibility of throwing a mountain into the sea4 ,he would see a number of very daring simplifications of the difficulties of life2 like the advice to shine upon everybody indifferently as does the sunshine or not to worry about the future any more than the birds4 ,he would find on the other hand some passages of almost impenetrable darkness1 so far as he is concerned1 such as the moral of the parable of the ,unjust ,steward4 ,some of these things might strike him as fables and some as truths2 but none as truisms4 ,for instance1 he would not find the ordinary platitudes in favour of peace4 ,he would find several paradoxes in favour of peace4 ,he would find several ideals of non-resistance1 which taken as they stand would be rather too pacific for any pacifist4 ,he would be told in one passage to treat a robber not with passive resistance1 but rather with positive and enthusiastic encouragement1 if the terms be taken literally2 heaping up gifts upon the man who had stolen goods4 ,but he would not find a word of all that obvious rhetoric against war which has filled countless books and odes and orations2 not a word about the wickedness of war1 the wastefulness of war1 the appalling scale of the slaughter in war and all the rest of the familiar frenzy2 indeed not a word about war at all4 ,there is nothing that throws any particular light on ,christ's attitude towards organised warfare1 except that he seems to have been rather fond of ,roman soldiers4 ,indeed it is another perplexity1 speaking from the same external and human standpoint1 that he seems to have got on much better with ,romans than he did with ,jews4 ,but the question here is a certain tone to be appreciated by merely reading a certain text2 and we might give any number of instances of it4 ,the statement that the meek shall inherit the earth is very far from being a meek statement4 ,i mean it is not meek in the ordinary sense of mild and moderate and inoffensive4 ,to justify it1 it would be necessary to go very deep into history and anticipate things undreamed of then and by many unrealised even now2 such as the way in which the mystical monks reclaimed the lands which the practical kings had lost4 ,if it was a truth at all1 it was because it was a prophecy4 ,but certainly it was not a truth in the sense of a truism4 ,the blessing upon the meek would seem to be a very violent statement2 in the sense of doing violence to reason and probability4 ,and with this we come to another important stage in the speculation4 ,as a prophecy it really was fulfilled2 but it was only fulfilled long afterwards4 ,the monasteries were the most practical and prosperous estates and experiments in reconstruction after the barbaric deluge2 the meek did really inherit the earth4 ,but nobody could have known anything of the sort at the time--unless indeed there was one who knew4 ,something of the same thing may be said about the incident of ,martha and ,mary2 which has been interpreted in retrospect and from the inside by the mystics of the ,christian contemplative life4 ,but it was not at all an obvious view of it2 and most moralists1 ancient and modern1 could be trusted to make a rush for the obvious4 ,what torrents of effortless eloquence would have flowed from them to swell any slight superiority on the part of ,martha2 what splendid sermons about the ,joy of ,service and the ,gospel of ,work and the ,world ,left ,better ,than ,we ,found ,it1 and generally all the ten thousand platitudes that can be uttered in favour of taking trouble--by people who need take no trouble to utter them4 ,if in ,mary the mystic and child of love ,christ was guarding the seed of something more subtle1 who was likely to understand it at the time8 ,nobody else could have seen ,clare and ,catherine and ,teresa shining above the little roof at ,bethany4 ,it is so in another way with that magnificent menace about bringing into the world a sword to sunder and divide4 ,nobody could have guessed then either how it could be fulfilled or how it could be justified4 ,indeed some freethinkers are still so simple as to fall into the trap and be shocked at a phrase so deliberately defiant4 ,they actually complain of the paradox for not being a platitude4 ,but the point here is that if we could read the ,gospel reports as things as new as newspaper reports1 they would puzzle us and perhaps terrify us much more than the same things as developed by historical ,christianity4 ,for instance2 ,christ after a clear allusion to the eunuchs of eastern courts1 said there would be eunuchs of the kingdom of heaven4 ,if this does not mean the voluntary enthusiasm of virginity1 it could only be made to mean something much more unnatural or uncouth4 ,it is the historical religion that humanises it for us by experience of ,franciscans or of ,sisters of ,mercy4 ,the mere statement standing by itself might very well suggest a rather dehumanised atmosphere2 the sinister and inhuman silence of the ,asiatic harem and divan4 ,this is but one instance out of scores2 but the moral is that the ,christ of the ,gospel might actually seem more strange and terrible than the ,christ of the ,church4 ,i am dwelling on the dark or dazzling or defiant or mysterious side of the ,gospel words1 not because they had not obviously a more obvious and popular side1 but because this is the answer to a common criticism on a vital point4 ,the freethinker frequently says that ,jesus of ,nazareth was a man of his time1 even if he was in advance of his time2 and that we cannot accept his ethics as final for humanity4 ,the freethinker then goes on to criticise his ethics1 saying plausibly enough that men cannot turn the other cheek1 or that they must take thought for the morrow1 or that the self-denial is too ascetic or the monogamy too severe4 ,but the ,zealots and the ,legionaries did not turn the other cheek any more than we do1 if so much4 ,the ,jewish traders and ,roman tax-gatherers took thought for the morrow as much as we1 if not more4 ,we cannot pretend to be abandoning the morality of the past for one more suited to the present4 ,it is certainly not the morality of another age1 but it might be of another world4 ,in short1 we can say that these ideals are impossible in themselves4 ,exactly what we cannot say is that they are impossible for us4 ,they are rather notably marked by a mysticism which1 if it be a sort of madness1 would always have struck the same sort of people as mad4 ,take1 for instance1 the case of marriage and the relations of the sexes4 ,it might very well have been true that a ,galilean teacher taught things natural to a ,galilean environment2 but it is not4 ,it might rationally be expected that a man in the time of ,tiberius would have advanced a view conditioned by the time of ,tiberius2 but he did not4 ,what he advanced was something quite different2 something very difficult2 but something no more difficult now than it was then4 ,when1 for instance1 ,mahomet made his polygamous compromise we may reasonably say that it was conditioned by a polygamous society4 ,when he allowed a man four wives he was really doing something suited to the circumstances1 which might have been less suited to other circumstances4 ,nobody will pretend that the four wives were like the four winds1 something seemingly a part of the order of nature2 nobody will say that the figure four was written for ever in stars upon the sky4 ,but neither will any one say that the figure four is an inconceivable ideal2 that it is beyond the power of the mind of man to count up to four2 or to count the number of his wives and see whether it amounts to four4 ,it is a practical compromise carrying with it the character of a particular society4 ,if ,mahomet had been born in ,acton in the nineteenth century1 we may well doubt whether he would instantly have filled that suburb with harems of four wives apiece4 ,as he was born in ,arabia in the sixth century1 he did in his conjugal arrangements suggest the conditions of ,arabia in the sixth century4 ,but ,christ in his view of marriage does not in the least suggest the conditions of ,palestine in the first century4 ,he does not suggest anything at all1 except the sacramental view of marriage as developed long afterwards by the ,catholic ,church4 ,it was quite as difficult for people then as for people now4 ,it was much more puzzling to people then than to people now4 ,jews and ,romans and ,greeks did not believe1 and did not even understand enough to disbelieve1 the mystical idea that the man and the woman had become one sacramental substance4 ,we may think it an incredible or impossible ideal2 but we cannot think it any more incredible or impossible than they would have thought it4 ,in other words1 whatever else is true1 it is not true that the controversy has been altered by time4 ,whatever else is true1 it is emphatically not true that the ideas of ,jesus of ,nazareth were suitable to his time1 but are no longer suitable to our time4 ,exactly how suitable they were to his time is perhaps suggested in the end of his story4 ,the same truth might be stated in another way by saying that if the story be regarded as merely human and historical1 it is extraordinary how very little there is in the recorded words of ,christ that ties him at all to his own time4 ,i do not mean the details of a period1 which even a man of the period knows to be passing4 ,i mean the fundamentals which even the wisest man often vaguely assumes to be eternal4 ,for instance1 ,aristotle was perhaps the wisest and most wide-minded man who ever lived4 ,he founded himself entirely upon fundamentals1 which have been generally found to remain rational and solid through all social and historical changes4 ,still1 he lived in a world in which it was thought as natural to have slaves as to have children4 ,and therefore he did permit himself a serious recognition of a difference between slaves and free men4 ,christ as much as ,aristotle lived in a world that took slavery for granted4 ,he did not particularly denounce slavery4 ,he started a movement that could exist in a world with slavery4 ,but he started a movement that could exist in a world without slavery4 ,he never used a phrase that made his philosophy depend even upon the very existence of the social order in which he lived4 ,he spoke as one conscious that everything was ephemeral1 including the things that ,aristotle thought eternal4 ,by that time the ,roman ,empire had come to be merely the orbis terrarum1 another name for the world4 ,but he never made his morality dependent on the existence of the ,roman ,empire or even on the existence of the world4 #8,heaven and earth shall pass away2 but my words shall not pass away4' ,the truth is that when critics have spoken of the local limitations of the ,galilean1 it has always been a case of the local limitations of the critics4 ,he did undoubtedly believe in certain things that one particular modern sect of materialists do not believe4 ,but they were not things particularly peculiar to his time4 ,it would be nearer the truth to say that the denial of them is quite peculiar to our time4 ,doubtless it would be nearer still to the truth to say merely that a certain solemn social importance1 in the minority disbelieving them1 is peculiar to our time4 ,he believed1 for instance1 in evil spirits or in the psychic healing of bodily ills2 but not because he was a ,galilean born under ,augustus4 ,it is absurd to say that a man believed things because he was a ,galilean under ,augustus when he might have believed the same things if he had been an ,egyptian under ,tuten-kamen or an ,indian under ,gengis ,khan4 ,but with this general question of the philosophy of diabolism or of divine miracles ,i deal elsewhere4 ,it is enough to say that the materialists have to prove the impossibility of miracles against the testimony of all mankind1 not against the prejudices of provincials in ,north ,palestine under the first ,roman ,emperors4 ,what they have to prove1 for the present argument1 is the presence in the ,gospels of those particular prejudices of those particular provincials4 ,and1 humanly speaking1 it is astonishing how little they can produce even to make a beginning of proving it4 ,so it is in this case of the sacrament of marriage4 ,we may not believe in sacraments1 as we may not believe in spirits1 but it is quite clear that ,christ believed in this sacrament in his own way and not in any current or contemporary way4 ,he certainly did not get his argument against divorce from the ,mosaic law or the ,roman law or the habits of the ,palestinian people4 ,it would appear to his critics then exactly what it appears to his critics now2 an arbitrary and transcendental dogma coming from nowhere save in the sense that it came from him4 ,i am not at all concerned here to defend that dogma2 the point here is that it is just as easy to defend it now as it was to defend it then4 ,it is an ideal altogether outside time2 difficult at any period2 impossible at no period4 ,in other words1 if any one says it is what might be expected of a man walking about in that place at that period1 we can quite fairly answer that it is much more like what might be the mysterious utterance of a being beyond man1 if he walked alive among men4 ,i maintain therefore that a man reading the ,new ,testament frankly and freshly would not get the impression of what is now often meant by a human ,christ4 ,the merely human ,christ is a made-up figure1 a piece of artificial selection1 like the merely evolutionary man4 ,moreover there have been too many of these human ,christs found in the same story1 just as there have been too many keys to mythology found in the same stories4 ,three or four separate schools of rationalism have worked over the ground and produced three or four equally rational explanations of his life4 ,the first rational explanation of his life was that he never lived4 ,and this in turn gave an opportunity for three or four different explanations2 as that he was a sun-myth or a corn-myth1 or any other kind of myth that is also a monomania4 ,then the idea that he was a divine being who did not exist gave place to the idea that he was a human being who did exist4 ,in my youth it was the fashion to say that he was merely an ethical teacher in the manner of the ,essenes1 who had apparently nothing very much to say that ,hillel or a hundred other ,jews might not have said2 as that it is a kindly thing to be kind and an assistance to purification to be pure4 ,then somebody said he was a madman with a ,messianic delusion4 ,then others said he was indeed an original teacher because he cared about nothing but ,socialism2 or 7as others said7 about nothing but ,pacifism4 ,then a more grimly scientific character appeared who said that ,jesus would never have been heard of at all except for his prophecies of the end of the world4 ,he was important merely as a ,millennarian like ,dr4 ,cumming2 and created a provincial scare by announcing the exact date of the crack of doom4 ,among other variants on the same theme was the theory that he was a spiritual healer and nothing else2 a view implied by ,christian ,science1 which has really to expound a ,christianity without the ,crucifixion in order to explain the curing of ,peter's wife's mother or the daughter of a centurion4 ,there is another theory that concentrates entirely on the business of diabolism and what it would call the contemporary superstition about demoniacs2 as if ,christ1 like a young deacon taking his first orders1 had got as far as exorcism and never got any further4 ,now each of these explanations in itself seems to me singularly inadequate2 but taken together they do suggest something of the very mystery which they miss4 ,there must surely have been something not only mysterious but many-sided about ,christ if so many smaller ,christs can be carved out of him4 ,if the ,christian ,scientist is satisfied with him as a spiritual healer and the ,christian ,socialist is satisfied with him as a social reformer1 so satisfied that they do not even expect him to be anything else1 it looks as if he really covered rather more ground than they could be expected to expect4 ,and it does seem to suggest that there might be more than they fancy in these other mysterious attributes of casting out devils or prophesying doom4 ,above all1 would not such a new reader of the ,new ,testament stumble over something that would startle him much more than it startles us8 ,i have here more than once attempted the rather impossible task of reversing time and the historic method2 and in fancy looking forward to the facts1 instead of backward through the memories4 ,so ,i have imagined the monster that man might have seemed at first to the mere nature around him4 ,we should have a worse shock if we really imagined the nature of ,christ named for the first time4 ,what should we feel at the first whisper of a certain suggestion about a certain man8 ,certainly it is not for us to blame anybody who should find that first wild whisper merely impious and insane4 ,on the contrary1 stumbling on that rock of scandal is the first step4 ,stark staring incredulity is a far more loyal tribute to that truth than a modernist metaphysic that would make it out merely a matter of degree4 ,it were better to rend our robes with a great cry against blasphemy1 like ,caiaphas in the judgment1 or to lay hold of the man as a maniac possessed of devils like the kinsmen and the crowd1 rather than to stand stupidly debating fine shades of pantheism in the presence of so catastrophic a claim4 ,there is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple person1 full of the sensitiveness of simplicity1 who should expect the grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the air1 when a strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly1 like one looking over his shoulder3 #8,before ,abraham was1 ,i am4' ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,strangest ,,story ,,in ,,the ,,world ,in the last chapter ,i have deliberately stressed what seems to be nowadays a neglected side of the ,new ,testament story1 but nobody will suppose1 ,i imagine1 that it is meant to obscure that side that may truly be called human4 ,that ,christ was and is the most merciful of judges and the most sympathetic of friends is a fact of considerably more importance in our own private lives than in anybody's historical speculations4 ,but the purpose of this book is to point out that something unique has been swamped in cheap generalisations2 and for that purpose it is relevant to insist that even what was most universal was also most original4 ,for instance1 we might take a topic which really is sympathetic to the modern mood1 as the ascetic vocations recently referred to are not4 ,the exaltation of childhood is something which we do really understand2 but it was by no means a thing that was then in that sense understood4 ,if we wanted an example of the originality of the ,gospel1 we could hardly take a stronger or more startling one4 ,nearly two thousand years afterwards we happen to find ourselves in a mood that does really feel the mystical charm of the child2 we express it in romances and regrets about childhood1 in ,peter ,pan or ,the ,child's ,garden of ,verses4 ,and we can say of the words of ,christ with so angry an anti-,christian as ,swinburne3-- #8,no sign that ever was given ,to faithful or faithless eyes ,showed ever beyond clouds riven ,so clear a paradise4 ,earth's creeds may be seventy times seven ,and blood have defiled each creed1 ,but if such be the kingdom of heaven ,it must be heaven indeed4' ,but that paradise was not clear until ,christianity had gradually cleared it4 ,the pagan world1 as such1 would not have understood any such thing as a serious suggestion that a child is higher or holier than a man4 ,it would have seemed like the suggestion that a tadpole is higher or holier than a frog4 ,to the merely rationalistic mind1 it would sound like saying that a bud must be more beautiful than a flower or that an unripe apple must be better than a ripe one4 ,in other words1 this modern feeling is an entirely mystical feeling4 ,it is quite as mystical as the cult of virginity2 in fact it is the cult of virginity4 ,but pagan antiquity had much more idea of the holiness of the virgin than of the holiness of the child4 ,for various reasons we have come nowadays to venerate children2 perhaps partly because we envy children for still doing what men used to do2 such as play simple games and enjoy fairy-tales4 ,over and above this1 however1 there is a great deal of real and subtle psychology in our appreciation of childhood2 but if we turn it into a modern discovery1 we must once more admit that the historical ,jesus of ,nazareth had already discovered it two thousand years too soon4 ,there was certainly nothing in the world around him to help him to the discovery4 ,here ,christ was indeed human2 but more human than a human being was then likely to be4 ,peter ,pan does not belong to the world of ,pan but the world of ,peter4 ,even in the matter of mere literary style1 if we suppose ourselves thus sufficiently detached to look at it in that light1 there is a curious quality to which no critic seems to have done justice4 ,it had among other things a singular air of piling tower upon tower by the use of the a fortiori2 making a pagoda of degrees like the seven heavens4 ,i have already noted that almost inverted imaginative vision which pictured the impossible penance of the ,cities of the ,plain4 ,there is perhaps nothing so perfect in all language or literature as the use of these three degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field2 in which he seems first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and even its impotence2 then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colours into all the palaces and pavilions full of a great name in national legend and national glory2 and then1 by yet a third overturn1 shrivels it to nothing once more with a gesture as if flinging it away '444 and if ,god so clothes the grass that to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven--how much more4444' ,it is like the building of a good ,babel tower by white magic in a moment and in the movement of a hand2 a tower heaved suddenly up to heaven on the top of which can be seen afar off1 higher than we had fancied possible1 the figure of man2 lifted by three infinities above all other things1 on a starry ladder of light logic and swift imagination4 ,merely in a literary sense it would be more of a masterpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries2 yet it seems to have been uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower4 ,but merely in a literary sense also1 this use of the comparative in several degrees has about it a quality which seems to me to hint of much higher things than the modern suggestion of the simple teaching of pastoral or communal ethics4 ,there is nothing that really indicates a subtle and in the true sense a superior mind so much as this power of comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that higher with a higher still2 of thinking on three planes at once4 ,there is nothing that wants the rarest sort of wisdom so much as to see1 let us say1 that the citizen is higher than the slave and yet that the soul is infinitely higher than the citizen or the city4 ,it is not by any means a faculty that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the ,gospel2 those who insist on what they call a simple morality and others call a sentimental morality4 ,it is not at all covered by those who are content to tell everybody to remain at peace4 ,on the contrary1 there is a very striking example of it in the apparent inconsistency between ,christ's sayings about peace and about a sword4 ,it is precisely this power which perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war1 even a good war is better than a bad peace4 ,these far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the ,gospels2 and to me they suggest something very vast4 ,so a thing solitary and solid1 with the added dimension of depth or height1 might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane4 ,this quality of something that can only be called subtle and superior1 something that is capable of long views and even of double meanings1 is not noted here merely as a counterblast to the commonplace exaggerations of amiability and mild idealism4 ,it is also to be noted in connection with the more tremendous truth touched upon at the end of the last chapter4 ,for this is the very last character that commonly goes with mere megalomania2 especially such steep and staggering megalomania as might be involved in that claim4 ,this quality that can only be called intellectual distinction is not1 of course1 an evidence of divinity4 ,but it is an evidence of a probable distaste for vulgar and vainglorious claims to divinity4 ,a man of that sort1 if he were only a man1 would be the last man in the world to suffer from that intoxication by one notion from nowhere in particular1 which is the mark of the self-deluding sensationalist in religion4 ,nor is it even avoided by denying that ,christ did make this claim4 ,of no such man as that1 of no other prophet or philosopher of the same intellectual order1 would it be even possible to pretend that he had made it4 ,even if the ,church had mistaken his meaning1 it would still be true that no other historical tradition except the ,church had ever even made the same mistake4 ,mahomedans did not misunderstand ,mahomet and suppose he was ,allah4 ,jews did not misinterpret ,moses and identify him with ,jehovah4 ,why was this claim alone exaggerated unless this alone was made8 ,even if ,christianity was one vast universal blunder1 it is still a blunder as solitary as the ,incarnation4 ,the purpose of these pages is to fix the falsity of certain vague and vulgar assumptions2 and we have here one of the most false4 ,there is a sort of notion in the air everywhere that all the religions are equal because all the religious founders were rivals2 that they are all fighting for the same starry crown4 ,it is quite false4 ,the claim to that crown1 or anything like that crown1 is really so rare as to be unique4 ,mahomet did not make it any more than ,micah or ,malachi4 ,confucius did not make it any more than ,plato or ,marcus ,aurelius4 ,buddha never said he was ,bramah4 ,zoroaster no more claimed to be ,ormuz than to be ,ahriman4 ,the truth is that1 in the common run of cases1 it is just as we should expect it to be1 in common sense and certainly in ,christian philosophy4 ,it is exactly the other way4 ,normally speaking1 the greater a man is1 the less likely he is to make the very greatest claim4 ,outside the unique case we are considering1 the only kind of man who ever does make that kind of claim is a very small man2 a secretive or self-centred monomaniac4 ,nobody can imagine ,aristotle claiming to be the father of gods and men1 come down from the sky2 though we might imagine some insane ,roman ,emperor like ,caligula claiming it for him1 or more probably for himself4 ,nobody can imagine ,shakespeare talking as if he were literally divine2 though we might imagine some crazy ,american crank finding it as a cryptogram in ,shakespeare's works1 or preferably in his own works4 ,it is possible to find here and there human beings who make this supremely superhuman claim4 ,it is possible to find them in lunatic asylums2 in padded cells2 possibly in strait waistcoats4 ,but what is much more important than their mere materialistic fate in our very materialistic society1 under very crude and clumsy laws about lunacy1 the type we know as tinged with this1 or tending towards it1 is a diseased and disproportionate type2 narrow yet swollen and morbid to monstrosity4 ,it is by rather an unlucky metaphor that we talk of a madman as cracked2 for in a sense he is not cracked enough4 ,he is cramped rather than cracked2 there are not enough holes in his head to ventilate it4 ,this impossibility of letting in daylight on a delusion does sometimes cover and conceal a delusion of divinity4 ,it can be found1 not among prophets and sages and founders of religions1 but only among a low set of lunatics4 ,but this is exactly where the argument becomes intensely interesting2 because the argument proves too much4 ,for nobody supposes that ,jesus of ,nazareth was that sort of person4 ,no modern critic in his five wits thinks that the preacher of the ,sermon on the ,mount was a horrible half-witted imbecile that might be scrawling stars on the walls of a cell4 ,no atheist or blasphemer believes that the author of the ,parable of the ,prodigal ,son was a monster with one mad idea like a cyclops with one eye4 ,upon any possible historical criticism he must be put higher in the scale of human beings than that4 ,yet by all analogy we have really to put him there or else in the highest place of all4 ,in fact1 those who can really take it 7as ,i here hypothetically take it7 in a quite dry and detached spirit1 have here a most curious and interesting human problem4 ,it is so intensely interesting1 considered as a human problem1 that it is in a spirit quite disinterested1 so to speak1 that ,i wish some of them had turned that intricate human problem into something like an intelligible human portrait4 ,if ,christ was simply a human character1 he really was a highly complex and contradictory human character4 ,for he combined exactly the two things that lie at the two extremes of human variation4 ,he was exactly what the man with a delusion never is3 he was wise2 he was a good judge4 ,what he said was always unexpected2 but it was always unexpectedly magnanimous and often unexpectedly moderate4 ,take a thing like the point of the parable of the tares and the wheat4 ,it has the quality that unites sanity and subtlety4 ,it has not the simplicity of a madman4 ,it has not even the simplicity of a fanatic4 ,it might be uttered by a philosopher a hundred years old1 at the end of a century of ,utopias4 ,nothing could be less like this quality of seeing beyond and all round obvious things1 than the condition of the egomaniac with the one sensitive spot on his brain4 ,i really do not see how these two characters could be convincingly combined1 except in the astonishing way in which the creed combines them4 ,for until we reach the full acceptance of the fact as a fact1 however marvellous1 all mere approximations to it are actually further and further away from it4 ,divinity is great enough to be divine2 it is great enough to call itself divine4 ,but as humanity grows greater1 it grows less and less likely to do so4 ,god is ,god1 as the ,moslems say2 but a great man knows he is not ,god1 and the greater he is the better he knows it4 ,that is the paradox2 everything that is merely approaching to that point is merely receding from it4 ,socrates1 the wisest man1 knows that he knows nothing4 ,a lunatic may think he is omniscience1 and a fool may talk as if he were omniscient4 ,but ,christ is in another sense omniscient if he not only knows1 but knows that he knows4 ,even on the purely human and sympathetic side1 therefore1 the ,jesus of the ,new ,testament seems to me to have in a great many ways the note of something superhuman2 that is1 of something human and more than human4 ,but there is another quality running through all his teachings which seems to me neglected in most modern talk about them as teachings2 and that is the persistent suggestion that he has not really come to teach4 ,if there is one incident in the record which affects me personally as grandly and gloriously human1 it is the incident of giving wine for the wedding-feast4 ,that is really human in the sense in which a whole crowd of prigs1 having the appearance of human beings1 can hardly be described as human4 ,it rises superior to all superior persons4 ,it is as human as ,herrick and as democratic as ,dickens4 ,but even in that story there is something else that has that note of things not fully explained2 and in a way here very relevant4 ,i mean the first hesitation1 not on any ground touching the nature of the miracle1 but on that of the propriety of working any miracles at all1 at least at that stage2 #8,my time is not yet come4' ,what did that mean8 ,at least it certainly meant a general plan or purpose in the mind1 with which certain things did or did not fit in4 ,and if we leave out that solitary strategic plan1 we not only leave out the point of the story1 but the story4 ,we often hear of ,jesus of ,nazareth as a wandering teacher2 and there is a vital truth in that view in so far as it emphasises an attitude towards luxury and convention which most respectable people would still regard as that of a vagabond4 ,it is expressed in his own great saying about the holes of the foxes and the nests of the birds1 and1 like many of his great sayings1 it is felt as less powerful than it is1 through lack of appreciation of that great paradox by which he spoke of his own humanity as in some way collectively and representatively human2 calling himself simply the ,son of ,man2 that is1 in effect1 calling himself simply ,man4 ,it is fitting that the ,new ,man or the ,second ,adam should repeat in so ringing a voice and with so arresting a gesture the great fact which came first in the original story3 that man differs from the brutes by everything1 even by deficiency2 that he is in a sense less normal and even less native2 a stranger upon the earth4 ,it is well to speak of his wanderings in this sense and in the sense that he shared the drifting life of the most homeless and hopeless of the poor4 ,it is assuredly well to remember that he would quite certainly have been moved on by the police1 and almost certainly arrested by the police1 for having no visible means of subsistence4 ,for our law has in it a turn of humour or touch of fancy which ,nero and ,herod never happened to think of2 that of actually punishing homeless people for not sleeping at home4 ,but in another sense the word #8wandering' as applied to his life is a little misleading4 ,as a matter of fact1 a great many of the pagan sages and not a few of the pagan sophists might truly be described as wandering teachers4 ,in some of them their rambling journeys were not altogether without a parallel in their rambling remarks4 ,apollonius of ,tyana1 who figured in some fashionable cults as a sort of ideal philosopher1 is represented as rambling as far as the ,ganges and ,ethiopia1 more or less talking all the time4 ,there was actually a school of philosophers called the ,peripatetics2 and most even of the great philosophers give us a vague impression of having very little to do except to walk and talk4 ,the great conversations which give us our glimpses of the great minds of ,socrates or ,buddha or even ,confucius often seem to be parts of a never-ending picnic2 and especially1 which is the important point1 to have neither beginning nor end4 ,socrates did indeed find the conversation interrupted by the incident of his execution4 ,but it is the whole point1 and the whole particular merit1 of the position of ,socrates that death was only an interruption and an incident4 ,we miss the real moral importance of the great philosopher if we miss that point2 that he stares at the executioner with an innocent surprise1 and almost an innocent annoyance1 at finding any one so unreasonable as to cut short a little conversation for the elucidation of truth4 ,he is looking for truth and not looking for death4 ,death is but a stone in the road which can trip him up4 ,his work in life is to wander on the roads of the world and talk about truth for ever4 ,buddha1 on the other hand1 did arrest attention by one gesture2 it was the gesture of renunciation1 and therefore in a sense of denial4 ,but by one dramatic negation he passed into a world of negation that was not dramatic2 which he would have been the first to insist was not dramatic4 ,here again we miss the particular moral importance of the great mystic if we do not see the distinction2 that it was his whole point that he had done with drama1 which consists of desire and struggle and generally of defeat and disappointment4 ,he passes into peace and lives to instruct others how to pass into it4 ,henceforth his life is that of the ideal philosopher2 certainly a far more really ideal philosopher than ,apollonius of ,tyana2 but still a philosopher in the sense that it is not his business to do anything but rather to explain everything2 in his case1 we might almost say1 mildly and softly to explode everything4 ,for the messages are basically different4 ,christ said #8,seek first the kingdom1 and all these things shall be added unto you4' ,buddha said #8,seek first the kingdom1 and then you will need none of these things4' ,now1 compared to these wanderers the life of ,jesus went as swift and straight as a thunderbolt4 ,it was above all things dramatic2 it did above all things consist in doing something that had to be done4 ,it emphatically would not have been done if ,jesus had walked about the world for ever doing nothing except tell the truth4 ,and even the external movement of it must not be described as a wandering in the sense of forgetting that it was a journey4 ,this is where it was a fulfilment of the myths rather than of the philosophies2 it is a journey with a goal and an object1 like ,jason going to find the ,golden ,fleece1 or ,hercules the golden apples of the ,hesperides4 ,the gold that he was seeking was death4 ,the primary thing that he was going to do was to die4 ,he was going to do other things equally definite and objective2 we might almost say equally external and material4 ,but from first to last the most definite fact is that he is going to die4 ,no two things could possibly be more different than the death of ,socrates and the death of ,christ4 ,we are meant to feel that the death of ,socrates was1 from the point of view of his friends at least1 a stupid muddle and miscarriage of justice interfering with the flow of a humane and lucid1 ,i had almost said a light philosophy4 ,we are meant to feel that ,death was the bride of ,christ as ,poverty was the bride of ,st4 ,francis4 ,we are meant to feel that his life was in that sense a sort of love-affair with death1 a romance of the pursuit of the ultimate sacrifice4 ,from the moment when the star goes up like a birthday rocket to the moment when the sun is extinguished like a funeral torch1 the whole story moves on wings with the speed and direction of a drama1 ending in an act beyond words4 ,therefore the story of ,christ is the story of a journey1 almost in the manner of a military march2 certainly in the manner of the quest of a hero moving to his achievement or his doom4 ,it is a story that begins in the paradise of ,galilee1 a pastoral and peaceful land having really some hint of ,eden1 and gradually climbs the rising country into the mountains that are nearer to the storm-clouds and the stars1 as to a ,mountain of ,purgatory4 ,he may be met as if straying in strange places1 or stopped on the way for discussion or dispute2 but his face is set towards the mountain city4 ,that is the meaning of that great culmination when he crested the ridge and stood at the turning of the road and suddenly cried aloud1 lamenting over ,jerusalem4 ,some light touch of that lament is in every patriotic poem2 or if it is absent1 the patriotism stinks with vulgarity4 ,that is the meaning of the stirring and startling incident at the gates of the ,temple1 when the tables were hurled like lumber down the steps1 and the rich merchants driven forth with bodily blows2 the incident that must be at least as much of a puzzle to the pacifists as any paradox about non-resistance can be to any of the militarists4 ,i have compared the quest to the journey of ,jason1 but we must never forget that in a deeper sense it is rather to be compared to the journey of ,ulysses4 ,it was not only a romance of travel but a romance of return2 and of the end of a usurpation4 ,no healthy boy reading the story regards the rout of the ,ithacan suitors as anything but a happy ending4 ,but there are doubtless some who regard the rout of the ,jewish merchants and moneychangers with that refined repugnance which never fails to move them in the presence of violence1 and especially of violence against the well-to-do4 ,the point here1 however1 is that all these incidents have in them a character of mounting crisis4 ,in other words1 these incidents are not incidental4 ,when ,apollonius the ideal philosopher is brought before the judgment-seat of ,domitian and vanishes by magic1 the miracle is entirely incidental4 ,it might have occurred at any time in the wandering life of the ,tyanean2 indeed1 ,i believe it is doubtful in date as well as in substance4 ,the ideal philosopher merely vanished1 and resumed his ideal existence somewhere else for an indefinite period4 ,it is characteristic of the contrast perhaps that ,apollonius was supposed to have lived to an almost miraculous old age4 ,jesus of ,nazareth was less prudent in his miracles4 ,when ,jesus was brought before the judgment-seat of ,pontius ,pilate1 he did not vanish4 ,it was the crisis and the goal2 it was the hour and the power of darkness4 ,it was the supremely supernatural act1 of all his miraculous life1 that he did not vanish4 ,every attempt to amplify that story has diminished it4 ,the task has been attempted by many men of real genius and eloquence as well as by only too many vulgar sentimentalists and self-conscious rhetoricians4 ,the tale has been retold with patronising pathos by elegant sceptics and with fluent enthusiasm by boisterous best-sellers4 ,it will not be retold here4 ,the grinding power of the plain words of the ,gospel story is like the power of mill-stones2 and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them4 ,criticism is only words about words2 and of what use are words about such words as these8 ,what is the use of word-painting about the dark garden filled suddenly with torchlight and furious faces8 #8,are you come out with swords and staves as against a robber8 ,all day ,i sat in your temple teaching1 and you took me not4' ,can anything be added to the massive and gathered restraint of that irony2 like a great wave lifted to the sky and refusing to fall8 #8,daughters of ,jerusalem1 weep not for me1 but weep for yourselves and for your children4' ,as the ,high ,priest asked what further need he had of witnesses1 we might well ask what further need we have of words4 ,peter in a panic repudiated him3 #8and immediately the cock crew2 and ,jesus looked upon ,peter1 and ,peter went out and wept bitterly4' ,has any one any further remarks to offer8 ,just before the murder he prayed for all the murderous race of men1 saying1 #8,they know not what they do'2 is there anything to say to that1 except that we know as little what we say8 ,is there any need to repeat and spin out the story of how the tragedy trailed up the ,via ,dolorosa and how they threw him in haphazard with two thieves in one of the ordinary batches of execution2 and how in all that horror and howling wilderness of desertion one voice spoke in homage1 a startling voice from the very last place where it was looked for1 the gibbet of the criminal2 and he said to that nameless ruffian1 #8,this night shalt thou be with me in ,paradise'8 ,is there anything to put after that but a full-stop8 ,or is any one prepared to answer adequately that farewell gesture to all flesh which created for his ,mother a new ,son8 ,it is more within my powers1 and here more immediately to my purpose1 to point out that in that scene were symbolically gathered all the human forces that have been vaguely sketched in this story4 ,as kings and philosophers and the popular element had been symbolically present at his birth1 so they were more practically concerned in his death2 and with that we come face to face with the essential fact to be realised4 ,all the great groups that stood about the ,cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time2 that the world could not save itself4 ,man could do no more4 ,rome and ,jerusalem and ,athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract4 ,externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest2 it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins4 ,but in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once3 that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak4 ,it was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness1 and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly4 ,in this story of ,good ,friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst4 ,that is what really shows us the world at its worst4 ,it was1 for instance1 the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation4 ,rome1 the legend1 founded upon fallen ,troy and triumphant over fallen ,carthage1 had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry4 ,rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of ,africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of ,greece4 ,but in the lightning flash of this incident1 we see great ,rome1 the imperial republic1 going downward under her ,lucretian doom4 ,scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world4 ,he who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask1 #8,what is truth8' ,so in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity1 one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true rle4 ,rome was almost another name for responsibility4 ,yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible4 ,man could do no more4 ,even the practical had become the impracticable4 ,standing between the pillars of his own judgment-seat1 a ,roman had washed his hands of the world4 ,there too were the priests of that pure and original truth that was behind all the mythologies like the sky behind the clouds4 ,it was the most important truth in the world2 and even that could not save the world4 ,perhaps there is something overpowering in pure personal theism2 like seeing the sun and moon and sky come together to form one staring face4 ,perhaps the truth is too tremendous when not broken by some intermediaries1 divine or human2 perhaps it is merely too pure and far away4 ,anyhow it could not save the world2 it could not even convert the world4 ,there were philosophers who held it in its highest and noblest form2 but they not only could not convert the world1 but they never tried4 ,you could no more fight the jungle of popular mythology with a private opinion than you could clear away a forest with a pocket-knife4 ,the ,jewish priests had guarded it jealously in the good and the bad sense4 ,they had kept it as a gigantic secret4 ,as savage heroes might have kept the sun in a box1 they kept the ,everlasting in the tabernacle4 ,they were proud that they alone could look upon the blinding sun of a single deity2 and they did not know that they had themselves gone blind4 ,since that day their representatives have been like blind men in broad daylight1 striking to right and left with their staffs1 and cursing the darkness4 ,but there has been that in their monumental monotheism that it has at least remained like a monument1 the last thing of its kind1 and in a sense motionless in the more restless world which it cannot satisfy4 ,for it is certain that for some reason it cannot satisfy4 ,since that day it has never been quite enough to say that ,god is in his heaven and all is right with the world2 since the rumour that ,god had left his heavens to set it right4 ,and as it was with these powers that were good1 or at least had once been good1 so it was with the element which was perhaps the best1 or which ,christ himself seems certainly to have felt as the best4 ,the poor to whom he preached the good news1 the common people who heard him gladly1 the populace that had made so many popular heroes and demigods in the old pagan world1 showed also the weaknesses that were dissolving the world4 ,they suffered the evils often seen in the mob of the city1 and especially the mob of the capital1 during the decline of a society4 ,the same thing that makes the rural population live on tradition makes the urban population live on rumour4 ,just as its myths at the best had been irrational1 so its likes and dislikes are easily changed by baseless assertion that is arbitrary without being authoritative4 ,some brigand or other was artificially turned into a picturesque and popular figure and run as a kind of candidate against ,christ4 ,in all this we recognise the urban population that we know1 with its newspaper scares and scoops4 ,but there was present in this ancient population an evil more peculiar to the ancient world4 ,we have noted it already as the neglect of the individual1 even of the individual voting the condemnation and still more of the individual condemned4 ,it was the soul of the hive2 a heathen thing4 ,the cry of this spirit also was heard in that hour1 #8,it is well that one man die for the people4' ,yet this spirit in antiquity of devotion to the city and to the state had also been in itself and in its time a noble spirit4 ,it had its poets and its martyrs2 men still to be honoured for ever4 ,it was failing through its weakness in not seeing the separate soul of a man1 the shrine of all mysticism2 but it was only failing as everything else was failing4 ,the mob went along with the ,sadducees and the ,pharisees1 the philosophers and the moralists4 ,it went along with the imperial magistrates and the sacred priests1 the scribes and the soldiers1 that the one universal human spirit might suffer a universal condemnation2 that there might be one deep1 unanimous chorus of approval and harmony when ,man was rejected of men4 ,there were solitudes beyond where none shall follow4 ,there were secrets in the inmost and invisible part of that drama that have no symbol in speech2 or in any severance of a man from men4 ,nor is it easy for any words less stark and single-minded than those of the naked narrative even to hint at the horror of exaltation that lifted itself above the hill4 ,endless expositions have not come to the end of it1 or even to the beginning4 ,and if there be any sound that can produce a silence1 we may surely be silent about the end and the extremity2 when a cry was driven out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible1 which man shall never understand in all the eternity they have purchased for him2 and for one annihilating instant an abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the unity of the absolute2 and ,god had been forsaken of ,god4 ,they took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first ,christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden2 the ,romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body4 ,there was once more a natural symbolism in these natural proceedings2 it was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture and guarded by the authority of the ,caesars4 ,for in that second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over2 and in that place it was buried4 ,it was the end of a very great thing called human history2 the history that was merely human4 ,the mythologies and the philosophies were buried there1 the gods and the heroes and the sages4 ,in the great ,roman phrase1 they had lived4 ,but as they could only live1 so they could only die2 and they were dead4 ,on the third day the friends of ,christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away4 ,in varying ways they realised the new wonder2 but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night4 ,what they were looking at was the first day of a new creation1 with a new heaven and a new earth2 and in a semblance of the gardener ,god walked again in the garden1 in the cool not of the evening but the dawn4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,witness ,,of ,,the ,,heretics ,christ founded the ,church with two great figures of speech2 in the final words to the ,apostles who received authority to found it4 ,the first was the phrase about founding it on ,peter as on a rock2 the second was the symbol of the keys4 ,about the meaning of the former there is naturally no doubt in my own case2 but it does not directly affect the argument here save in two more secondary aspects4 ,it is yet another example of a thing that could only fully expand and explain itself afterwards1 and even long afterwards4 ,and it is yet another example of something the very reverse of simple and self-evident even in the language1 in so far as it described a man as a rock when he had much more the appearance of a reed4 ,but the other image of the keys has an exactitude that has hardly been exactly noticed4 ,the keys have been conspicuous enough in the art and heraldry of ,christendom2 but not every one has noted the peculiar aptness of the allegory4 ,we have now reached the point in history where something must be said of the first appearance and activities of the ,church in the ,roman ,empire2 and for that brief description nothing could be more perfect than that ancient metaphor4 ,the ,early ,christian was very precisely a person carrying about a key1 or what he said was a key4 ,the whole ,christian movement consisted in claiming to possess that key4 ,it was not merely a vague forward movement1 which might be better represented by a battering-ram4 ,it was not something that swept along with it similar and dissimilar things1 as does a modern social movement4 ,as we shall see in a moment1 it rather definitely refused to do so4 ,it definitely asserted that there was a key and that it possessed that key and that no other key was like it2 in that sense it was as narrow as you please4 ,only it happened to be the key that could unlock the prison of the whole world2 and let in the white daylight of escape4 ,the creed was like a key in three respects2 which can be most conveniently summed up under this symbol4 ,first1 a key is above all things a thing with a shape4 ,it is a thing that depends entirely upon keeping its shape4 ,the ,christian creed is above all things the philosophy of shapes and the enemy of shapelessness4 ,that is where it differs from all that formless infinity1 ,manichean or ,buddhist1 which makes a sort of pool of night in the dark heart of ,asia2 the ideal of uncreating all the creatures4 ,that is where it differs also from the analogous vagueness of mere evolutionism2 the idea of creatures constantly losing their shape4 ,a man told that his solitary latchkey had been melted down with a million others into a ,buddhistic unity would be annoyed4 ,but a man told that his key was gradually growing and sprouting in his pocket1 and branching into new wards or complications1 would not be more gratified4 ,second1 the shape of a key is in itself a rather fantastic shape4 ,a savage who did not know it was a key would have the greatest difficulty in guessing what it could possibly be4 ,and it is fantastic because it is in a sense arbitrary4 ,a key is not a matter of abstractions2 in that sense a key is not a matter of argument4 ,it either fits the lock or it does not4 ,it is useless for men to stand disputing over it1 considered by itself2 or reconstructing it on pure principles of geometry or decorative art4 ,it is senseless for a man to say he would like a simpler key2 it would be far more sensible to do his best with a crowbar4 ,and thirdly1 as the key is necessarily a thing with a pattern1 so this was one having in some ways a rather elaborate pattern4 ,when people complain of the religion being so early complicated with theology and things of the kind1 they forget that the world had not only got into a hole1 but had got into a whole maze of holes and corners4 ,the problem itself was a complicated problem2 it did not in the ordinary sense merely involve anything so simple as sin4 ,it was also full of secrets1 of unexplored and unfathomable fallacies1 of unconscious mental diseases1 of dangers in all directions4 ,if the faith had faced the world only with the platitudes about peace and simplicity some moralists would confine it to1 it would not have had the faintest effect on that luxurious and labyrinthine lunatic asylum4 ,what it did do we must now roughly describe2 it is enough to say here that there was undoubtedly much about the key that seemed complex2 indeed there was only one thing about it that was simple4 ,it opened the door4 ,there are certain recognised and accepted statements in this matter which may for brevity and convenience be described as lies4 ,we have all heard people say that ,christianity arose in an age of barbarism4 ,they might just as well say that ,christian ,science arose in an age of barbarism4 ,they may think ,christianity was a symptom of social decay1 as ,i think ,christian ,science a symptom of mental decay4 ,they may think ,christianity a superstition that ultimately destroyed a civilisation1 as ,i think ,christian ,science a superstition capable 7if taken seriously7 of destroying any number of civilisations4 ,but to say that a ,christian of the fourth or fifth centuries was a barbarian living in a barbarous time is exactly like saying that ,mrs4 ,eddy was a ,red ,indian4 ,and if ,i allowed my constitutional impatience with ,mrs4 ,eddy to impel me to call her a ,red ,indian1 ,i should incidentally be telling a lie4 ,we may like or dislike the imperial civilisation of ,rome in the fourth century2 we may like or dislike the industrial civilisation of ,america in the nineteenth century2 but that they both were what we commonly mean by a civilisation no person of common sense could deny if he wanted to4 ,this is a very obvious fact1 but it is also a very fundamental one2 and we must make it the foundation of any further description of constructive ,christianity in the past4 ,for good or evil1 it was pre-eminently the product of a civilised age1 perhaps of an over-civilised age4 ,this is the first fact apart from all praise or blame2 indeed ,i am so unfortunate as not to feel that ,i praise a thing when ,i compare it to ,christian ,science4 ,but it is at least desirable to know something of the savour of a society in which we are condemning or praising anything2 and the science that connects ,mrs4 ,eddy with tomahawks or the ,mater ,dolorosa with totems may for our general convenience be eliminated4 ,the dominant fact1 not merely about the ,christian religion1 but about the whole pagan civilisation1 was that which has been more than once repeated in these pages4 ,the ,mediterranean was a lake in the real sense of a pool2 in which a number of different cults or cultures were1 as the phrase goes1 pooled4 ,those cities facing each other round the circle of the lake became more and more one cosmopolitan culture4 ,on its legal and military side it was the ,roman ,empire2 but it was very many-sided4 ,it might be called superstitious in the sense that it contained a great number of varied superstitions2 but by no possibility can any part of it be called barbarous4 ,in this level of cosmopolitan culture arose the ,christian religion and the ,catholic ,church2 and everything in the story suggests that it was felt to be something new and strange4 ,those who have tried to suggest that it evolved out of something much milder or more ordinary have found that in this case their evolutionary method is very difficult to apply4 ,they may suggest that ,essenes or ,ebionites or such things were the seed2 but the seed is invisible2 the tree appears very rapidly full-grown2 and the tree is something totally different4 ,it is certainly a ,christmas tree in the sense that it keeps the kindliness and moral beauty of the story of ,bethlehem2 but it was as ritualistic as the seven-branched candlestick1 and the candles it carried were considerably more than were probably permitted by the first prayer-book of ,edward the ,sixth4 ,it might well be asked1 indeed1 why any one accepting the ,bethlehem tradition should object to golden or gilded ornament since the ,magi themselves brought gold2 why he should dislike incense in the church since incense was brought even to the stable4 ,but these are controversies that do not concern me here4 ,i am concerned only with the historical fact1 more and more admitted by historians1 that very early in its history this thing became visible to the civilisation of antiquity2 and that already the ,church appeared as a ,church2 with everything that is implied in a ,church and much that is disliked in a ,church4 ,we will discuss in a moment how far it was like other ritualistic or magical or ascetical mysteries in its own time4 ,it was certainly not in the least like merely ethical and idealistic movements in our time4 ,it had a doctrine2 it had a discipline2 it had sacraments2 it had degrees of initiation2 it admitted people and expelled people2 it affirmed one dogma with authority and repudiated another with anathemas4 ,if all these things be the marks of ,antichrist1 the reign of ,antichrist followed very rapidly upon ,christ4 ,those who maintain that ,christianity was not a ,church but a moral movement of idealists have been forced to push the period of its perversion or disappearance further and further back4 ,a bishop of ,rome writes claiming authority in the very lifetime of ,st4 ,john the ,evangelist2 and it is described as the first papal aggression4 ,a friend of the ,apostles writes of them as men he knew1 and says they taught him the doctrine of the ,sacrament2 and ,mr4 ,wells can only murmur that the reaction towards barbaric blood-rites may have happened rather earlier than might be expected4 ,the date of the ,fourth ,gospel1 which at one time was steadily growing later and later1 is now steadily growing earlier and earlier2 until critics are staggered at the dawning and dreadful possibility that it might be something like what it professes to be4 ,the last limit of an early date for the extinction of true ,christianity has probably been found by the latest ,german professor whose authority is invoked by ,dean ,inge4 ,this learned scholar says that ,pentecost was the occasion for the first founding of an ecclesiastical1 dogmatic and despotic ,church utterly alien to the simple ideals of ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,this may be called1 in a popular as well as a learned sense1 the limit4 ,what do professors of this kind imagine that men are made of8 ,suppose it were a matter of any merely human movement1 let us say that of the ,conscientious ,objectors4 ,some say the early ,christians were ,pacifists2 ,i do not believe it for a moment2 but ,i am quite ready to accept the parallel for the sake of the argument4 ,tolstoy or some great preacher of peace among peasants has been shot as a mutineer for defying conscription2 and a month or so after his few followers meet together in an upper room in remembrance of him4 ,they never had any reason for coming together except that common memory2 they are men of many kinds with nothing to bind them1 except that the greatest event in all their lives was this tragedy of the teacher of universal peace4 ,they are always repeating his words1 revolving his problems1 trying to imitate his character4 ,the ,pacifists meet at their ,pentecost and are possessed of a sudden ecstasy of enthusiasm and wild rush of the whirlwind of inspiration1 in the course of which they proceed to establish universal ,conscription1 to increase the ,navy ,estimates1 to insist on everybody going about armed to the teeth and on all the frontiers bristling with artillery2 the proceedings concluding with the singing of #8,boys of the ,bulldog ,breed' and #8,don't let them scrap the ,british ,navy4' ,that is something like a fair parallel to the theory of these critics2 that the transition from their idea of ,jesus to their idea of ,catholicism could have been made in the little upper room at ,pentecost4 ,surely anybody's common sense would tell him that enthusiasts1 who only met through their common enthusiasm for a leader whom they loved1 would not instantly rush away to establish everything that he hated4 ,no1 if the #8ecclesiastical and dogmatic system' is as old as ,pentecost it is as old as ,christmas4 ,if we trace it back to such very early ,christians we must trace it back to ,christ4 ,we may begin then with these two negations4 ,it is nonsense to say that the ,christian faith appeared in a simple age2 in the sense of an unlettered and gullible age4 ,it is equally nonsense to say that the ,christian faith was a simple thing2 in the sense of a vague or childish or merely instinctive thing4 ,perhaps the only point in which we could possibly say that the ,church fitted into the pagan world is the fact that they were both not only highly civilised but rather complicated4 ,they were both emphatically many-sided2 but antiquity was then a many-sided hole1 like a hexagonal hole waiting for an equally hexagonal stopper4 ,in that sense only the ,church was many-sided enough to fit the world4 ,the six sides of the ,mediterranean world faced each other across the sea and waited for something that should look all ways at once4 ,the ,church had to be both ,roman and ,greek and ,jewish and ,african and ,asiatic4 ,in the very words of the ,apostle of the ,gentiles1 it was indeed all things to all men4 ,christianity then was not merely crude and simple1 and was the very reverse of the growth of a barbaric time4 ,but when we come to the contrary charge1 we come to a much more plausible charge4 ,it is very much more tenable that the ,faith was but the final phase of the decay of civilisation1 in the sense of the excess of civilisation2 that this superstition was a sign that ,rome was dying1 and dying of being much too civilised4 ,that is an argument much better worth considering2 and we will proceed to consider it4 ,at the beginning of this book ,i ventured on a general summary of it1 in a parallel between the rise of humanity out of nature and the rise of ,christianity out of history4 ,i pointed out that in both cases what had gone before might imply something coming after2 but did not in the least imply what did come after4 ,if a detached mind had seen certain apes it might have deduced more anthropoids2 it would not have deduced man or anything within a thousand miles of what man has done4 ,in short1 it might have seen ,pithacanthropus or the ,missing ,link looming in the future1 if possible almost as dimly and doubtfully as we see him looming in the past4 ,but if it foresaw him appearing it would also foresee him disappearing1 and leaving a few faint traces just as he has left a few faint traces2 if they are traces4 ,to foresee that ,missing ,link would not be to foresee ,man1 or anything like ,man4 ,now this earlier explanation must be kept in mind2 because it is an exact parallel to the true view of the ,church2 and the suggestion of it having evolved naturally out of the ,empire in decay4 ,the truth is that in one sense a man might very well have predicted that the imperial decadence would produce something like ,christianity4 ,that is1 something a little like and gigantically different4 ,a man might very well have said1 for instance1 #8,pleasure has been pursued so extravagantly that there will be a reaction into pessimism4 ,perhaps it will take the form of asceticism2 men will mutilate themselves instead of merely hanging themselves4' ,or a man might very reasonably have said1 #8,if we weary of our ,greek and ,latin gods we shall be hankering after some eastern mystery or other2 there will be a fashion in ,persians or ,hindoos4' ,or a man of the world might well have been shrewd enough to say1 #8,powerful people are picking up these fads2 some day the court will adopt one of them and it may become official4' ,or yet another and gloomier prophet might be pardoned for saying1 #8,the world is going down-hill2 dark and barbarous superstitions will return1 it does not matter much which4 ,they will all be formless and fugitive like dreams of the night4' ,now it is the intense interest of the case that all these prophecies were really fulfilled2 but it was not the ,church that fulfilled them4 ,it was the ,church that escaped from them1 confounded them1 and rose above them in triumph4 ,in so far as it was probable that the mere nature of hedonism would produce a mere reaction of asceticism1 it did produce a mere reaction of asceticism4 ,it was the movement called ,manichean1 and the ,church was its mortal enemy4 ,in so far as it would have naturally appeared at that point of history1 it did appear2 it did also disappear1 which was equally natural4 ,the mere pessimist reaction did come with the ,manichees and did go with the ,manichees4 ,but the ,church did not come with them or go with them2 and she had much more to do with their going than with their coming4 ,or again1 in so far as it was probable that even the growth of scepticism would bring in a fashion of eastern religion1 it did bring it in2 ,mithras came from far beyond ,palestine out of the heart of ,persia1 bringing strange mysteries of the blood of bulls4 ,certainly there was everything to show that some such fashion would have come in any case4 ,but certainly there is nothing in the world to show that it would not have passed away in any case4 ,certainly an ,oriental fad was something eminently fitted to the fourth or fifth century2 but that hardly explains it having remained to the twentieth century1 and still going strong4 ,in short1 in so far as things of the kind might have been expected then1 things like ,mithraism were experienced then2 but it scarcely explains our more recent experiences4 ,and if we were still ,mithraists merely because ,mithraic head-dresses and other ,persian apparatuses might be expected to be all the rage in the days of ,domitian1 it would almost seem by this time that we must be a little dowdy4 ,it is the same1 as will be suggested in a moment1 with the idea of official favouritism4 ,in so far as such favouritism shown towards a fad was something that might have been looked for during the decline and fall of the ,roman ,empire1 it was something that did exist in that ,empire and did decline and fall with it4 ,it throws no sort of light on the thing that resolutely refused to decline and fall2 that grew steadily while the other was declining and falling2 and which even at this moment is going forward with fearless energy1 when another aeon has completed its cycle and another civilisation seems almost ready to fall or to decline4 ,now the curious fact is this2 that the very heresies which the ,early ,church is blamed for crushing testify to the unfairness for which she is blamed4 ,in so far as something deserved the blame1 it was precisely the things that she is blamed for blaming4 ,in so far as something was merely a superstition1 she herself condemned that superstition4 ,in so far as something was a mere reaction into barbarism1 she herself resisted it because it was a reaction into barbarism4 ,in so far as something was a fad of the fading empire1 that died and deserved to die1 it was the ,church alone that killed it4 ,the ,church is reproached for being exactly what the heresy was repressed for being4 ,the explanations of the evolutionary historians and higher critics do really explain why ,arianism and ,gnosticism and ,nestorianism were born--and also why they died4 ,they do not explain why the ,church was born or why she has refused to die4 ,above all1 they do not explain why she should have made war on the very evils she is supposed to share4 ,let us take a few practical examples of the principle2 the principle that if there was anything that was really a superstition of the dying empire1 it did really die with the dying empire2 and certainly was not the same as the very thing that destroyed it4 ,for this purpose we will take in order two or three of the most ordinary explanations of ,christian origins among the modern critics of ,christianity4 ,nothing is more common1 for instance1 than to find such a modern critic writing something like this3 #8,christianity was above all a movement of ascetics1 a rush into the desert1 a refuge in the cloister1 a renunciation of all life and happiness2 and this was a part of a gloomy and inhuman reaction against nature itself1 a hatred of the body1 a horror of the material universe1 a sort of universal suicide of the senses and even of the self4 ,it came from an eastern fanaticism like that of the fakirs and was ultimately founded on an eastern pessimism1 which seems to feel existence itself as an evil4' ,now the most extraordinary thing about this is that it is all quite true2 it is true in every detail except that it happens to be attributed entirely to the wrong person4 ,it is not true of the ,church2 but it is true of the heretics condemned by the ,church4 ,it is as if one were to write a most detailed analysis of the mistakes and misgovernment of the ministers of ,george the ,third1 merely with the small inaccuracy that the whole story was told about ,george ,washington2 or as if somebody made a list of the crimes of the ,bolshevists with no variation except that they were all attributed to the ,czar4 ,the early ,church was indeed very ascetic1 in connection with a totally different philosophy2 but the philosophy of a war on life and nature as such really did exist in the world1 if the critics only knew where to look for it4 ,what really happened was this4 ,when the ,faith first emerged into the world1 the very first thing that happened to it was that it was caught in a sort of swarm of mystical and metaphysical sects1 mostly out of the ,east2 like one lonely golden bee caught in a swarm of wasps4 ,to the ordinary onlooker1 there did not seem to be much difference1 or anything beyond a general buzz2 indeed in a sense there was not much difference1 so far as stinging and being stung were concerned4 ,the difference was that only one golden dot in all that whirring gold-dust had the power of going forth to make hives for all humanity2 to give the world honey and wax or 7as was so finely said in a context too easily forgotten7 #8the two noblest things1 which are sweetness and light4' ,the wasps all died that winter2 and half the difficulty is that hardly any one knows anything about them and most people do not know that they ever existed2 so that the whole story of that first phase of our religion is lost4 ,or1 to vary the metaphor1 when this movement or some other movement pierced the dyke between the east and west and brought more mystical ideas into ,europe1 it brought with it a whole flood of other mystical ideas besides its own1 most of them ascetical and nearly all of them pessimistic4 ,they very nearly flooded and overwhelmed the purely ,christian element4 ,they came mostly from that region that was a sort of dim borderland between the eastern philosophies and the eastern mythologies1 and which shared with the wilder philosophers that curious craze for making fantastic patterns of the cosmos in the shape of maps and genealogical trees4 ,those that are supposed to derive from the mysterious ,manes are called ,manichean2 kindred cults are more generally known as ,gnostic2 they are mostly of a labyrinthine complexity1 but the point to insist on is the pessimism2 the fact that nearly all in one form or another regarded the creation of the world as the work of an evil spirit4 ,some of them had that ,asiatic atmosphere that surrounds ,buddhism2 the suggestion that life is a corruption of the purity of being4 ,some of them suggested a purely spiritual order which had been betrayed by the coarse and clumsy trick of making such toys as the sun and moon and stars4 ,anyhow all this dark tide out of the metaphysical sea in the midst of ,asia poured through the dykes simultaneously with the creed of ,christ2 but it is the whole point of the story that the two were not the same2 that they flowed like oil and water4 ,that creed remained in the shape of a miracle2 a river still flowing through the sea4 ,and the proof of the miracle was practical once more2 it was merely that while all that sea was salt and bitter with the savour of death1 of this one stream in the midst of it a man could drink4 ,now that purity was preserved by dogmatic definitions and exclusions4 ,it could not possibly have been preserved by anything else4 ,if the ,church had not renounced the ,manicheans it might have become merely ,manichean4 ,if it had not renounced the ,gnostics it might have become ,gnostic4 ,but by the very fact that it did renounce them it proved that it was not either ,gnostic or ,manichean4 ,at any rate it proved that something was not either ,gnostic or ,manichean2 and what could it be that condemned them1 if it was not the original good news of the runners from ,bethlehem and the trumpet of the ,resurrection8 ,the early ,church was ascetic1 but she proved that she was not pessimistic1 simply by condemning the pessimists4 ,the creed declared that man was sinful1 but it did not declare that life was evil1 and it proved it by damning those who did4 ,the condemnation of the early heretics is itself condemned as something crabbed and narrow2 but it was in truth the very proof that the ,church meant to be brotherly and broad4 ,it proved that the primitive ,catholics were specially eager to explain that they did not think man utterly vile2 that they did not think life incurably miserable2 that they did not think marriage a sin or procreation a tragedy4 ,they were ascetic because asceticism was the only possible purge of the sins of the world2 but in the very thunder of their anathemas they affirmed for ever that their asceticism was not to be anti-human or anti-natural2 that they did wish to purge the world and not destroy it4 ,and nothing else except those anathemas could possibly have made it clear1 amid a confusion which still confuses them with their mortal enemies4 ,nothing else but dogma could have resisted the riot of imaginative invention with which the pessimists were waging their war against nature2 with their ,aeons and their ,demiurge1 their strange ,logos and their sinister ,sophia4 ,if the ,church had not insisted on theology1 it would have melted into a mad mythology of the mystics1 yet further removed from reason or even from rationalism2 and1 above all1 yet further removed from life and from the love of life4 ,remember that it would have been an inverted mythology1 one contradicting everything natural in paganism2 a mythology in which ,pluto would be above ,jupiter and ,hades hang higher than ,olympus2 in which ,brahma and all that has the breath of life would be subject to ,siva1 shining with the eye of death4 ,that the early ,church was itself full of an ecstatic enthusiasm for renunciation and virginity makes this distinction much more striking and not less so4 ,it makes all the more important the place where the dogma drew the line4 ,a man might crawl about on all fours like a beast because he was an ascetic4 ,he might stand night and day on the top of a pillar and be adored for being an ascetic4 ,but he could not say that the world was a mistake or the marriage state a sin without being a heretic4 ,what was it that thus deliberately disengaged itself from eastern asceticism by sharp definition and fierce refusal1 if it was not something with an individuality of its own2 and one that was quite different8 ,if the ,catholics are to be confused with the ,gnostics1 we can only say it was not their fault if they are4 ,and it is rather hard that the ,catholics should be blamed by the same critics for persecuting the heretics and also for sympathising with the heresy4 ,the ,church was not a ,manichean movement1 if only because it was not a movement at all4 ,it was not even merely an ascetical movement1 because it was not a movement at all4 ,it would be nearer the truth to call it the tamer of asceticism than the mere leader or loosener of it4 ,it was a thing having its own theory of asceticism1 its own type of asceticism1 but most conspicuous at the moment as the moderator of other theories and types4 ,this is the only sense that can be made1 for instance1 of the story of ,st4 ,augustine4 ,as long as he was a mere man of the world1 a mere man drifting with his time1 he actually was a ,manichean4 ,it really was quite modern and fashionable to be a ,manichean4 ,but when he became a ,catholic1 the people he instantly turned on and rent in pieces were the ,manicheans4 ,the ,catholic way of putting it is that he left off being a pessimist to become an ascetic4 ,but as the pessimists interpreted asceticism1 it might be said that he left off being an ascetic to become a saint4 ,the war upon life1 the denial of nature1 were exactly the things he had already found in the heathen world outside the ,church1 and had to renounce when he entered the ,church4 ,the very fact that ,st4 ,augustine remains a somewhat sterner or sadder figure than ,st4 ,francis or ,st4 ,teresa only accentuates the dilemma4 ,face to face with the gravest or even grimmest of ,catholics1 we can still ask1 #8,why did ,catholicism make war on ,manichees1 if ,catholicism was ,manichean8' ,take another rationalistic explanation of the rise of ,christendom4 ,it is common enough to find another critic saying1 #8,christianity did not really rise at all2 that is1 it did not merely rise from below2 it was imposed from above4 ,it is an example of the power of the executive1 especially in despotic states4 ,the ,empire was really an ,empire2 that is1 it was really ruled by the ,emperor4 ,one of the ,emperors happened to become a ,christian4 ,he might just as well have become a ,mithraist or a ,jew or a ,fire-,worshipper2 it was common in the decline of the ,empire for eminent and educated people to adopt these eccentric eastern cults4 ,but when he adopted it1 it became the official religion of the ,roman ,empire2 and when it became the official religion of the ,roman ,empire1 it became as strong1 as universal1 and as invincible as the ,roman ,empire4 ,it has only remained in the world as a relic of that ,empire2 or1 as many have put it1 it is but the ghost of ,caesar still hovering over ,rome4' ,this also is a very ordinary line taken in the criticism of orthodoxy1 to say that it was only officialism that ever made it orthodoxy4 ,and here again we can call on the heretics to refute it4 ,the whole great history of the ,arian heresy might have been invented to explode this idea4 ,it is a very interesting history often repeated in this connection2 and the upshot of it is in that in so far as there ever was a merely official religion1 it actually died because it was a merely official religion2 and what destroyed it was the real religion4 ,arius advanced a version of ,christianity which moved1 more or less vaguely1 in the direction of what we should call ,unitarianism2 though it was not the same1 for it gave to ,christ a curious intermediary position between the divine and human4 ,the point is that it seemed to many more reasonable and less fanatical2 and among these were many of the educated class in a sort of reaction against the first romance of conversion4 ,arians were a sort of moderates and a sort of modernists4 ,and it was felt that after the first squabbles this was the final form of rationalised religion into which civilisation might well settle down4 ,it was accepted by ,divus ,caesar himself and became the official orthodoxy2 the generals and military princes drawn from the new barbarian powers of the north1 full of the future1 supported it strongly4 ,but the sequel is still more important4 ,exactly as a modern man might pass through ,unitarianism to complete agnosticism1 so the greatest of the ,arian emperors ultimately shed the last and thinnest pretence of ,christianity2 he abandoned even ,arius and returned to ,apollo4 ,he was a ,caesar of the ,caesars2 a soldier1 a scholar1 a man of large ambitions and ideals2 another of the philosopher kings4 ,it seemed to him as if at his signal the sun rose again4 ,the oracles began to speak like birds beginning to sing at dawn2 paganism was itself again2 the gods returned4 ,it seemed the end of that strange interlude of an alien superstition4 ,and indeed it was the end of it1 so far as there was a mere interlude of mere superstition4 ,it was the end of it1 in so far as it was the fad of an emperor or the fashion of a generation4 ,if there really was something that began with ,constantine1 then it ended with ,julian4 ,but there was something that did not end4 ,there had arisen in that hour of history1 defiant above the democratic tumult of the ,councils of the ,church1 ,athanasius against the world4 ,we may pause upon the point at issue2 because it is relevant to the whole of this religious history1 and the modern world seems to miss the whole point of it4 ,we might put it this way4 ,if there is one question which the enlightened and liberal have the habit of deriding and holding up as a dreadful example of barren dogma and senseless sectarian strife1 it is this ,athanasian question of the ,co-,eternity of the ,divine ,son4 ,on the other hand1 if there is one thing that the same liberals always offer us as a piece of pure and simple ,christianity1 untroubled by doctrinal disputes1 it is the single sentence1 #8,god is ,love4' ,yet the two statements are almost identical2 at least one is very nearly nonsense without the other4 ,the barren dogma is only the logical way of stating the beautiful sentiment4 ,for if there be a being without beginning1 existing before all things1 was ,he loving when there was nothing to be loved8 ,if through that unthinkable eternity ,he is lonely1 what is the meaning of saying ,he is love8 ,the only justification of such a mystery is the mystical conception that in ,his own nature there was something analogous to self-expression2 something of what begets and beholds what it has begotten4 ,without some such idea1 it is really illogical to complicate the ultimate essence of deity with an idea like love4 ,if the moderns really want a simple religion of love1 they must look for it in the ,athanasian ,creed4 ,the truth is that the trumpet of true ,christianity1 the challenge of the charities and simplicities of ,bethlehem or ,christmas ,day1 never rang out more arrestingly and unmistakably than in the defiance of ,athanasius to the cold compromise of the ,arians4 ,it was emphatically he who really was fighting for a ,god of ,love against a ,god of colourless and remote cosmic control2 the ,god of the stoics and the agnostics4 ,it was emphatically he who was fighting for the ,holy ,child against the grey deity of the ,pharisees and the ,sadducees4 ,he was fighting for that very balance of beautiful interdependence and intimacy1 in the very ,trinity of the ,divine ,nature1 that draws our hearts to the ,trinity of the ,holy ,family4 ,his dogma1 if the phrase be not misunderstood1 turns even ,god into a ,holy ,family4 ,that this purely ,christian dogma actually for a second time rebelled against the ,empire1 and actually for a second time refounded the ,church in spite of the ,empire1 is itself a proof that there was something positive and personal working in the world1 other than whatever official faith the ,empire chose to adopt4 ,this power utterly destroyed the official faith that the ,empire did adopt4 ,it went on its own way as it is going on its own way still4 ,there are any number of other examples in which is repeated precisely the same process we have reviewed in the case of the ,manichean and the ,arian4 ,a few centuries afterwards1 for instance1 the ,church had to maintain the same ,trinity1 which is simply the logical side of love1 against another appearance of the isolated and simplified deity in the religion of ,islam4 ,yet there are some who cannot see what the ,crusaders were fighting for2 and some even who talk as if ,christianity had never been anything but a form of what they call ,hebraism coming in with the decay of ,hellenism4 ,those people must certainly be very much puzzled by the war between the ,crescent and the ,cross4 ,if ,christianity had never been anything but a simpler morality sweeping away polytheism1 there is no reason why ,christendom should not have been swept into ,islam4 ,the truth is that ,islam itself was a barbaric reaction against that very humane complexity that is really a ,christian character2 that idea of balance in the deity1 as of balance in the family1 that makes that creed a sort of sanity1 and that sanity the soul of civilisation4 ,and that is why the ,church is from the first a thing holding its own position and point of view1 quite apart from the accidents and anarchies of its age4 ,that is why it deals blows impartially right and left1 at the pessimism of the ,manichean or the optimism of the ,pelagian4 ,it was not a ,manichean movement because it was not a movement at all4 ,it was not an official fashion because it was not a fashion at all4 ,it was something that could coincide with movements and fashions1 could control them and could survive them4 ,so might rise from their graves the great heresiarchs to confound their comrades of to-day4 ,there is nothing that the critics now affirm that we cannot call on these great witnesses to deny4 ,the modern critic will say lightly enough that ,christianity was but a reaction into asceticism and anti-natural spirituality1 a dance of fakirs furious against life and love4 ,but ,manes the great mystic will answer them from his secret throne and cry1 #8,these ,christians have no right to be called spiritual2 these ,christians have no title to be called ascetics2 they who compromised with the curse of life and all the filth of the family4 ,through them the earth is still foul with fruit and harvest and polluted with population4 ,theirs was no movement against nature1 or my children would have carried it to triumph2 but these fools renewed the world when ,i would have ended it with a gesture4' ,and another critic will write that the ,church was but the shadow of the ,empire1 the fad of a chance ,emperor1 and that it remains in ,europe only as the ghost of the power of ,rome4 ,and ,arius the deacon will answer out of the darkness of oblivion3 #8,no1 indeed1 or the world would have followed my more reasonable religion4 ,for mine went down before demagogues and men defying ,caesar2 and around my champion was the purple cloak and mine was the glory of the eagles4 ,it was not for lack of these things that ,i failed4' ,and yet a third modern will maintain that the creed spread only as a sort of panic of hell-fire2 men everywhere attempting impossible things in fleeing from incredible vengeance2 a nightmare of imaginary remorse2 and such an explanation will satisfy many who see something dreadful in the doctrine of orthodoxy4 ,and then there will go up against it the terrible voice of ,tertullian1 saying1 #8,and why then was ,i cast out2 and why did soft hearts and heads decide against me when ,i proclaimed the perdition of all sinners2 and what was this power that thwarted me when ,i threatened all backsliders with hell8 ,for none ever went up that hard road so far as ,i2 and mine was the ,credo ,quia ,impossibile4' ,then there is the fourth suggestion that there was something of the ,semitic secret society in the whole matter2 that it was a new invasion of the nomad spirit shaking a kindlier and more comfortable paganism1 its cities and its household gods2 whereby the jealous monotheistic races could after all establish their jealous ,god4 ,and ,mahomet shall answer out of the whirlwind1 the red whirlwind of the desert1 #8,who ever served the jealousy of ,god as ,i did or left him more lonely in the sky8 ,who ever paid more honour to ,moses and ,abraham or won more victories over idols and the images of paganism8 ,and what was this thing that thrust me back with the energy of a thing alive2 whose fanaticism could drive me from ,sicily and tear up my deep roots out of the rock of ,spain8 ,what faith was theirs who thronged in thousands of every class and country crying out that my ruin was the will of ,god2 and what hurled great ,godfrey as from a catapult over the wall of ,jerusalem2 and what brought great ,sobieski like a thunderbolt to the gates of ,vienna8 ,i think there was more than you fancy in the religion that has so matched itself with mine4' ,those who would suggest that the faith was a fanaticism are doomed to an eternal perplexity4 ,in their account it is bound to appear as fanatical for nothing1 and fanatical against everything4 ,it is ascetical and at war with ascetics1 ,roman and in revolt against ,rome1 monotheistic and fighting furiously against monotheism2 harsh in its condemnation of harshness2 a riddle not to be explained even as unreason4 ,and what sort of unreason is it that seems reasonable to millions of educated ,europeans through all the revolutions of some sixteen hundred years8 ,people are not amused with a puzzle or a paradox or a mere muddle in the mind for all that time4 ,i know of no explanation except that such a thing is not unreason but reason2 that if it is fanatical it is fanatical for reason and fanatical against all the unreasonable things4 ,that is the only explanation ,i can find of a thing from the first so detached and so confident1 condemning things that looked so like itself1 refusing help from powers that seemed so essential to its existence1 sharing on its human side all the passions of the age1 yet always at the supreme moment suddenly rising superior to them1 never saying exactly what it was expected to say and never needing to unsay what it had said2 ,i can find no explanation except that1 like ,pallas from the brain of ,jove1 it had indeed come forth out of the mind of ,god1 mature and mighty and armed for judgment and for war4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,escape ,,from ,,paganism ,the modern missionary1 with his palm-leaf hat and his umbrella1 has become rather a figure of fun4 ,he is chaffed among men of the world for the ease with which he can be eaten by cannibals and the narrow bigotry which makes him regard the cannibal culture as lower than his own4 ,perhaps the best part of the joke is that the men of the world do not see that the joke is against themselves4 ,it is rather ridiculous to ask a man just about to be boiled in a pot and eaten1 at a purely religious feast1 why he does not regard all religions as equally friendly and fraternal4 ,but there is a more subtle criticism uttered against the more old-fashioned missionary2 to the effect that he generalises too broadly about the heathen and pays too little attention to the difference between ,mahomet and ,mumbo-,jumbo4 ,there was probably truth in this complaint1 especially in the past2 but it is my main contention here that the exaggeration is all the other way at present4 ,it is the temptation of the professors to treat mythologies too much as theologies2 as things thoroughly thought out and seriously held4 ,it is the temptation of the intellectuals to take much too seriously the fine shades of various schools in the rather irresponsible metaphysics of ,asia4 ,above all1 it is their temptation to miss the real truth implied in the idea of ,aquinas contra ,gentiles or ,athanasius contra mundum4 ,if the missionary says1 in fact1 that he is exceptional in being a ,christian1 and that the rest of the races and religions can be collectively classified as heathen1 he is perfectly right4 ,he may say it in quite the wrong spirit1 in which case he is spiritually wrong4 ,but in the cold light of philosophy and history1 he is intellectually right4 ,he may not be right-minded1 but he is right4 ,he may not even have a right to be right1 but he is right4 ,the outer world to which he brings his creed really is something subject to certain generalisations covering all its varieties1 and is not merely a variety of similar creeds4 ,perhaps it is in any case too much of a temptation to pride or hypocrisy to call it heathenry4 ,perhaps it would be better simply to call it humanity4 ,but there are certain broad characteristics of what we call humanity while it remains in what we call heathenry4 ,they are not necessarily bad characteristics2 some of them are worthy of the respect of ,christendom2 some of them have been absorbed and transfigured in the substance of ,christendom4 ,but they existed before ,christendom and they still exist outside ,christendom1 as certainly as the sea existed before a boat and all round a boat2 and they have as strong and as universal and as unmistakable a savour as the sea4 ,for instance1 all real scholars who have studied the ,greek and ,roman culture say one thing about it4 ,they agree that in the ancient world religion was one thing and philosophy quite another4 ,there was very little effort to rationalise and at the same time to realise a real belief in the gods4 ,there was very little pretence of any such real belief among the philosophers4 ,but neither had the passion or perhaps the power to persecute the other1 save in particular and peculiar cases2 and neither the philosopher in his school nor the priest in his temple seems ever to have seriously contemplated his own concept as covering the world4 ,a priest sacrificing to ,artemis in ,calydon did not seem to think that people would some day sacrifice to her instead of to ,isis beyond the sea2 a sage following the vegetarian rule of the ,neo-,pythagoreans did not seem to think it would universally prevail and exclude the methods of ,epictetus or ,epicurus4 ,we may call this liberality if we like2 ,i am not dealing with an argument but describing an atmosphere4 ,all this1 ,i say1 is admitted by all scholars2 but what neither the learned nor the unlearned have fully realised1 perhaps1 is that this description is really an exact description of all non-,christian civilisation to-day2 and especially of the great civilisations of the ,east4 ,eastern paganism really is much more all of a piece1 just as ancient paganism was much more all of a piece1 than the modern critics admit4 ,it is a many-coloured ,persian carpet as the others was a varied and tessellated ,roman pavement2 but the one real crack right across that pavement came from the earthquake of the ,crucifixion4 ,the modern ,european seeking his religion in ,asia is reading his religion into ,asia4 ,religion there is something different2 it is both more and less4 ,he is like a man mapping out the sea as land2 marking waves as mountains2 not understanding the nature of its peculiar permanence4 ,it is perfectly true that ,asia has its own dignity and poetry and high civilisation4 ,but it is not in the least true that ,asia has its own definite dominions of moral government1 where all loyalty is conceived in terms of morality2 as when we say that ,ireland is ,catholic or that ,new ,england was ,puritan4 ,the map is not marked out in religions1 in our sense of churches4 ,the state of mind is far more subtle1 more relative1 more secretive1 more varied and changing1 like the colours of the snake4 ,the ,moslem is the nearest approach to a militant ,christian2 and that is precisely because he is a much nearer approach to an envoy from western civilisation4 ,the ,moslem in the heart of ,asia almost stands for the soul of ,europe4 ,and as he stands between them and ,europe in the matter of space1 so he stands between them and ,christianity in the matter of time4 ,in that sense the ,moslems in ,asia are merely like the ,nestorians in ,asia4 ,islam1 historically speaking1 is the greatest of the eastern heresies4 ,it owed something to the quite isolated and unique individuality of ,israel2 but it owed more to ,byzantium and the theological enthusiasm of ,christendom4 ,it owed something even to the ,crusades4 ,it owed nothing whatever to ,asia4 ,it owed nothing to the atmosphere of the ancient and traditional world of ,asia1 with its immemorial etiquette and its bottomless or bewildering philosophies4 ,all that ancient and actual ,asia felt the entrance of ,islam as something foreign and western and warlike1 piercing it like a spear4 ,even where we might trace in dotted lines the domains of ,asiatic religions1 we should probably be reading into them something dogmatic and ethical belonging to our own religion4 ,it is as if a ,european ignorant of the ,american atmosphere were to suppose that each #8state' was a separate sovereign state as patriotic as ,france or ,poland2 or that when a ,yankee referred fondly to his #8home town' he meant he had no other nation1 like a citizen of ancient ,athens or ,rome4 ,as he would be reading a particular sort of loyalty into ,america1 so we are reading a particular sort of loyalty into ,asia4 ,there are loyalties of other kinds2 but not what men on the ,west mean by being a believer1 by trying to be a ,christian1 by being a good ,protestant or a practising ,catholic4 ,in the intellectual world it means something far more vague and varied by doubts and speculations4 ,in the moral world it means something far more loose and drifting4 ,a professor of ,persian at one of our great universities1 so passionate a partisan of the ,east as practically to profess a contempt for the ,west1 said to a friend of mine3 #8,you will never understand oriental religions1 because you always conceive religion as connected with ethics4 ,this kind has really nothing to do with ethics4' ,we have most of us known some ,masters of the ,higher ,wisdom1 some ,pilgrims upon the ,path to ,power1 some eastern esoteric saints and seers1 who had really nothing to do with ethics4 ,something different1 something detached and irresponsible1 tinges the moral atmosphere of ,asia and touches even that of ,islam4 ,it was very realistically caught in the atmosphere of ,hassan2 and a very horrible atmosphere too4 ,it is even more vivid in such glimpses as we get of the genuine and ancient cults of ,asia4 ,deeper than the depths of metaphysics1 far down in the abysses of mystical meditations1 under all that solemn universe of spiritual things1 is a secret1 an intangible and a terrible levity4 ,it does not really very much matter what one does4 ,either because they do not believe in a devil1 or because they do believe in a destiny1 or because experience here is everything and eternal life something totally different1 but for some reason they are totally different4 ,i have read somewhere that there were three great friends famous in medieval ,persia for their unity of mind4 ,one became the responsible and respected ,vizier of the ,great ,king2 the second was the poet ,omar1 pessimist and epicurean1 drinking wine in mockery of ,mahomet2 the third was the ,old ,man of the ,mountain who maddened his people with hashish that they might murder other people with daggers4 ,it does not really much matter what one does4 ,the ,sultan in ,hassan would have understood all those three men2 indeed he was all those three men4 ,but this sort of universalist cannot have what we call a character2 it is what we call a chaos4 ,he cannot choose2 he cannot fight2 he cannot repent2 he cannot hope4 ,he is not in the same sense creating something2 for creation means rejection4 ,he is not1 in our religious phrase1 making his soul4 ,for our doctrine of salvation does really mean a labour like that of a man trying to make a statue beautiful2 a victory with wings4 ,for that there must be a final choice2 for a man cannot make statues without rejecting stone4 ,and there really is this ultimate unmorality behind the metaphysics of ,asia4 ,and the reason is that there has been nothing through all those unthinkable ages to bring the human mind sharply to the point2 to tell it that the time has come to choose4 ,the mind has lived too much in eternity4 ,the soul has been too immortal2 in the special sense that it ignores the idea of mortal sin4 ,it has had too much of eternity1 in the sense that it has not had enough of the hour of death and the day of judgment4 ,it is not crucial enough2 in the literal sense that it has not had enough of the cross4 ,that is what we mean when we say that ,asia is very old4 ,but strictly speaking ,europe is quite as old as ,asia2 indeed in a sense any place is as old as any other place4 ,what we mean is that ,europe has not merely gone on growing older4 ,it has been born again4 ,asia is all humanity2 as it has worked out its human doom4 ,asia1 in its vast territory1 in its varied populations1 in its heights of past achievement and its depths of dark speculation1 is itself a world2 and represents something of what we mean when we speak of the world4 ,it is a cosmos rather than a continent4 ,it is the world as man has made it2 and contains many of the most wonderful things that man has made4 ,therefore ,asia stands as the one representative of paganism and the one rival to ,christendom4 ,but everywhere else where we get glimpses of that mortal destiny1 they suggest stages in the same story4 ,where ,asia trails away into the southern archipelagoes of the savages1 or where a darkness full of nameless shapes dwells in the heart of ,africa1 or where the last survivors of lost races linger in the cold volcano of prehistoric ,america1 it is all the same story2 sometimes perhaps later chapters of the same story4 ,it is men entangled in the forest of their own mythology2 it is men drowned in the sea of their own metaphysics4 ,polytheists have grown weary of the wildest of fictions4 ,monotheists have grown weary of the most wonderful of truths4 ,diabolists here and there have such a hatred of heaven and earth that they have tried to take refuge in hell4 ,it is the ,fall of ,man2 and it is exactly that fall that was being felt by our own fathers at the first moment of the ,roman decline4 ,we also were going down that wide road2 down that easy slope2 following the magnificent procession of the high civilisations of the world4 ,if the ,church had not entered the world then1 it seems probable that ,europe would be now very much what ,asia is now4 ,something may be allowed for a real difference of race and environment1 visible in the ancient as in the modern world4 ,but after all we talk about the changeless ,east very largely because it has not suffered the great change4 ,paganism in its last phase showed considerable signs of becoming equally changeless4 ,this would not mean that new schools or sects of philosophy would not arise2 as new schools did arise in ,antiquity and do arise in ,asia4 ,it does not mean that there would be no real mystics or visionaries2 as there were mystics in ,antiquity and are mystics in ,asia4 ,it does not mean that there would be no social codes1 as there were codes in ,antiquity and are codes in ,asia4 ,it does not mean that there could not be good men or happy lives1 for ,god has given all men a conscience and conscience can give all men a kind of peace4 ,but it does mean that the tone and proportion of all these things1 and especially the proportion of good and evil things1 would be in the unchanged ,west what they are in the changeless ,east4 ,and nobody who looks at that changeless ,east honestly1 and with a real sympathy1 can believe that there is anything there remotely resembling the challenge and revolution of the ,faith4 ,in short1 if classic paganism had lingered until now1 a number of things might well have lingered with it2 and they would look very like what we call the religions of the ,east4 ,there would still be ,pythagoreans teaching reincarnation1 as there are still ,hindus teaching reincarnation4 ,there would still be ,stoics making a religion out of reason and virtue1 as there are still ,confucians making a religion out of reason and virtue4 ,there would still be ,neo-,platonists studying transcendental truths1 the meaning of which was mysterious to other people and disputed even amongst themselves2 as the ,buddhists still study a transcendentalism mysterious to others and disputed among themselves4 ,there would still be intelligent ,apollonians apparently worshipping the sun-god but explaining that they were worshipping the divine principle2 just as there are still intelligent ,parsees apparently worshipping the sun but explaining that they are worshipping the deity4 ,there would still be wild ,dionysians dancing on the mountain as there are still wild ,dervishes dancing in the desert4 ,there would still be crowds of people attending the popular feasts of the gods1 in pagan ,europe as in pagan ,asia4 ,there would still be crowds of gods1 local and other1 for them to worship4 ,and there would still be a great many more people who worshipped them than people who believed in them4 ,finally there would still be a very large number of people who did worship gods and did believe in gods2 and who believed in gods and worshipped gods simply because they were demons4 ,there would still be ,levantines secretly sacrificing to ,moloch as there are still ,thugs secretly sacrificing to ,kalee4 ,there would still be a great deal of magic2 and a great deal of it would be black magic4 ,there would still be a considerable admiration of ,seneca and a considerable imitation of ,nero2 just as the exalted epigrams of ,confucius could coexist with the tortures of ,china4 ,and over all that tangled forest of traditions growing wild or withering would brood the broad silence of a singular and even nameless mood2 but the nearest name of it is nothing4 ,all these things1 good and bad1 would have an indescribable air of being too old to die4 ,none of these things occupying ,europe in the absence of ,christendom would bear the least likeness to ,christendom4 ,since the ,pythagorean ,metempsychosis would still be there1 we might call it the ,pythagorean religion as we talk about the ,buddhist religion4 ,as the noble maxims of ,socrates would still be there1 we might call it the ,socratic religion as we talk about the ,confucian religion4 ,as the popular holiday was still marked by a mythological hymn to ,adonis1 we might call it the religion of ,adonis as we talk about the religion of ,juggernaut4 ,as literature would still be based on the ,greek mythology1 we might call that mythology a religion1 as we call the ,hindu mythology a religion4 ,we might say that there were so many thousands or millions of people belonging to that religion1 in the sense of frequenting such temples or merely living in a land full of such temples4 ,but if we called the last tradition of ,pythagoras or the lingering legend of ,adonis by the name of a religion1 then we must find some other name for the ,church of ,christ4 ,if anybody says that philosophic maxims preserved through many ages1 or mythological temples frequented by many people1 are things of the same class and category as the ,church1 it is enough to answer quite simply that they are not4 ,nobody thinks they are the same when he sees them in the old civilisation of ,greece and ,rome2 nobody would think they were the same if that civilisation had lasted two thousand years longer and existed at the present day2 nobody can in reason think they are the same in the parallel pagan civilisation in the ,east1 as it is at the present day4 ,none of these philosophies or mythologies are anything like a ,church2 certainly nothing like a ,church ,militant4 ,and1 as ,i have shown elsewhere1 even if this rule were not already proved1 the exception would prove the rule4 ,the rule is that pre-,christian or pagan history does not produce a ,church ,militant2 and the exception1 or what some would call the exception1 is that ,islam is at least militant if it is not ,church4 ,and that is precisely because ,islam is the one religious rival that is not pre-,christian and therefore not in that sense pagan4 ,islam was a product of ,christianity2 even if it was a by-product2 even if it was a bad product4 ,it was a heresy or parody emulating and therefore imitating the ,church4 ,it is no more surprising that ,mahomedanism had something of her fighting spirit than that ,quakerism had something of her peaceful spirit4 ,after ,christianity there are any number of such emulations or extensions4 ,before it there are none4 ,the ,church ,militant is thus unique because it is an army marching to effect a universal deliverance4 ,the bondage from which the world is thus to be delivered is something that is very well symbolised by the state of ,asia as by the state of pagan ,europe4 ,i do not mean merely their moral or immoral state4 ,the missionary1 as a matter of fact1 has much more to say for himself than the enlightened imagine1 even when he says that the heathen are idolatrous and immoral4 ,a touch or two of realistic experience about ,eastern religion1 even about ,moslem religion1 will reveal some startling insensibilities in ethics2 such as the practical indifference to the line between passion and perversion4 ,it is not prejudice but practical experience which says that ,asia is full of demons as well as gods4 ,but the evil ,i mean is in the mind4 ,and it is in the mind wherever the mind has worked for a long time alone4 ,it is what happens when all dreaming and thinking have come to an end in an emptiness that is at once negation and necessity4 ,it sounds like an anarchy1 but it is also a slavery4 ,it is what has been called already the wheel of ,asia2 all those recurrent arguments about cause and effect or things beginning and ending in the mind1 which make it impossible for the soul really to strike out and go anywhere or do anything4 ,and the point is that it is not necessarily peculiar to ,asiatics2 it would have been true in the end of ,europeans--if something had not happened4 ,if the ,church ,militant had not been a thing marching1 all men would have been marking time4 ,if the ,church ,militant had not endured a discipline1 all men would have endured a slavery4 ,what that universal yet fighting faith brought into the world was hope4 ,perhaps the one thing common to mythology and philosophy was that both were really sad2 in the sense that they had not this hope even if they had touches of faith or charity4 ,we may call ,buddhism a faith2 though to us it seems more like a doubt4 ,we may call the ,lord of ,compassion a ,lord of ,charity2 though it seems to us a very pessimist sort of pity4 ,but those who insist most on the antiquity and size of such cults must agree that in all their ages they have not covered all their areas with that sort of practical and pugnacious hope4 ,in ,christendom hope has never been absent2 rather it has been errant1 extravagant1 excessively fixed upon fugitive chances4 ,its perpetual revolution and reconstruction has at least been an evidence of people being in better spirits4 ,europe did very truly renew its youth like the eagles2 just as the eagles of ,rome rose again over the legions of ,napoleon1 or we have seen soaring but yesterday the silver eagle of ,poland4 ,but in the ,polish case even revolution always went with religion4 ,napoleon himself sought a reconciliation with religion4 ,religion could never be finally separated even from the most hostile of the hopes2 simply because it was the real source of the hopefulness4 ,and the cause of this is to be found simply in the religion itself4 ,those who quarrel about it seldom even consider it in itself4 ,there is neither space nor place for such a full consideration here2 but a word may be said to explain a reconciliation that always recurs and still seems to require explanation4 ,there will be no end to the weary debates about liberalising theology1 until people face the fact that the only liberal part of it is really the dogmatic part4 ,if dogma is incredible1 it is because it is incredibly liberal4 ,if it is irrational1 it can only be in giving us more assurance of freedom than is justified by reason4 ,the obvious example is that essential form of freedom which we call free-will4 ,it is absurd to say that a man shows his liberality in denying his liberty4 ,but it is tenable that he has to affirm a transcendental doctrine in order to affirm his liberty4 ,there is a sense in which we might reasonably say that if man has a primary power of choice1 he has in that fact a supernatural power of creation1 as if he could raise the dead or give birth to the unbegotten4 ,possibly in that case a man must be a miracle2 and certainly in that case he must be a miracle in order to be a man2 and most certainly in order to be a free man4 ,but it is absurd to forbid him to be a free man and do it in the name of a more free religion4 ,but it is true in twenty other matters4 ,anybody who believes at all in ,god must believe in the absolute supremacy of ,god4 ,but in so far as that supremacy does allow of any degrees that can be called liberal or illiberal1 it is self-evident that the illiberal power is the deity of the rationalists and the liberal power is the deity of the dogmatists4 ,exactly in proportion as you turn monotheism into monism you turn it into despotism4 ,it is precisely the unknown ,god of the scientist1 with his impenetrable purpose and his inevitable and unalterable law1 that reminds us of a ,prussian autocrat making rigid plans in a remote tent and moving mankind like machinery4 ,it is precisely the ,god of miracles and of answered prayers who reminds us of a liberal and popular prince1 receiving petitions1 listening to parliaments and considering the cases of a whole people4 ,i am not now arguing the rationality of this conception in other respects2 as a matter of fact it is not1 as some suppose1 irrational2 for there is nothing irrational in the wisest and most well-informed king acting differently according to the action of those he wishes to save4 ,but ,i am here only noting the general nature of liberality1 or of free or enlarged atmosphere of action4 ,and in this respect it is certain that the king can only be what we call magnanimous if he is what some call capricious4 ,it is the ,catholic1 who has the feeling that his prayers do make a difference when offered for the living and the dead1 who also has the feeling of living like a free citizen in something almost like a constitutional commonwealth4 ,it is the monist who lives under a single iron law who must have the feeling of living like a slave under a sultan4 ,indeed ,i believe that the original use of the word suffragium1 which we now use in politics for a vote1 was that employed in theology about a prayer4 ,the dead in ,purgatory were said to have the suffrages of the living4 ,and in this sense1 of a sort of right of petition to the supreme ruler1 we may truly say that the whole of the ,communion of ,saints1 as well as the whole of the ,church ,militant1 is founded on universal suffrage4 ,but above all1 it is true of the most tremendous issue2 of that tragedy which has created the divine comedy of our creed4 ,nothing short of the extreme and strong and startling doctrine of the divinity of ,christ will give that particular effect that can truly stir the popular sense like a trumpet2 the idea of the king himself serving in the ranks like a common soldier4 ,by making that figure merely human we make that story much less human4 ,we take away the point of the story which actually pierces humanity2 the point of the story which was quite literally the point of a spear4 ,it does not especially humanise the universe to say that good and wise men can die for their opinions2 any more than it would be any sort of uproariously popular news in an army that good soldiers may easily get killed4 ,it is no news that ,king ,leonidas is dead any more than that ,queen ,anne is dead2 and men did not wait for ,christianity to be men1 in the full sense of being heroes4 ,but if we are describing1 for the moment1 the atmosphere of what is generous and popular and even picturesque1 any knowledge of human nature will tell us that no sufferings of the sons of men1 or even of the servants of ,god1 strike the same note as the notion of the master suffering instead of his servants4 ,and this is given by the theological and emphatically not by the scientific deity4 ,no mysterious monarch1 hidden in his starry pavilion at the base of the cosmic campaign1 is in the least like that celestial chivalry of the ,captain who carries his five wounds in the front of battle4 ,what the denouncer of dogma really means is not that dogma is bad2 but rather that dogma is too good to be true4 ,that is1 he means that dogma is too liberal to be likely4 ,dogma gives man too much freedom when it permits him to fall4 ,dogma gives even ,god too much freedom when it permits him to die4 ,that is what the intelligent sceptics ought to say2 and it is not in the least my intention to deny that there is something to be said for it4 ,they mean that the universe is itself a universal prison2 that existence itself is a limitation and a control2 and it is not for nothing that they call causation a chain4 ,in a word1 they mean quite simply that they cannot believe these things2 not in the least that they are unworthy of belief4 ,we say1 not lightly but very literally1 that the truth has made us free4 ,they say that it makes us so free that it cannot be the truth4 ,to them it is like believing in fairyland to believe in such freedom as we enjoy4 ,it is like believing in men with wings to entertain the fancy of men with wills4 ,it is like accepting a fable about a squirrel in conversation with a mountain to believe in a man who is free to ask or a ,god who is free to answer4 ,this is a manly and a rational negation1 for which ,i for one shall always show respect4 ,but ,i decline to show any respect for those who first of all clip the bird and cage the squirrel1 rivet the chains and refuse the freedom1 close all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with a clang of eternal iron1 tell us that our emancipation is a dream and our dungeon a necessity2 and then calmly turn round and tell us they have a freer thought and a more liberal theology4 ,the moral of all this is an old one2 that religion is revelation4 ,in other words1 it is a vision1 and a vision received by faith2 but it is a vision of reality4 ,the faith consists in a conviction of its reality4 ,that1 for example1 is the difference between a vision and a day-dream4 ,and that is the difference between religion and mythology4 ,that is the difference between faith and all that fancy-work1 quite human and more or less healthy1 which we considered under the head of mythology4 ,there is something in the reasonable use of the very word vision that implies two things about it2 first that it comes very rarely1 possibly that it comes only once2 and secondly that it probably comes once and for all4 ,a day-dream may come every day4 ,a day-dream may be different every day4 ,it is something more than the difference between telling ghost-stories and meeting a ghost4 ,but if it is not a mythology neither is it a philosophy4 ,it is not a philosophy because1 being a vision1 it is not a pattern but a picture4 ,it is not one of those simplifications which resolve everything into an abstract explanation2 as that everything is recurrent2 or everything is relative2 or everything is inevitable2 or everything is illusive4 ,it is not a process but a story4 ,it has proportions1 of the sort seen in a picture or a story2 it has not the regular repetitions of a pattern or a process2 but it replaces them by being convincing as a picture or a story is convincing4 ,in other words1 it is exactly1 as the phrase goes1 like life4 ,for indeed it is life4 ,an example of what is meant here might well be found in the treatment of the problem of evil4 ,it is easy enough to make a plan of life of which the background is black1 as the pessimists do2 and then admit a speck or two of star-dust more or less accidental1 or at least in the literal sense insignificant4 ,and it is easy enough to make another plan on white paper1 as the ,christian ,scientists do1 and explain or explain away somehow such dots or smudges as may be difficult to deny4 ,lastly it is easiest of all1 perhaps1 to say as the dualists do1 that life is like a chess-board in which the two are equal2 and can as truly be said to consist of white squares on a black board or of black squares on a white board4 ,but every man feels in his heart that none of these three paper plans is like life2 that none of these worlds is one in which he can live4 ,something tells him that the ultimate idea of a world is not bad or even neutral2 staring at the sky or the grass or the truths of mathematics or even a new-laid egg1 he has a vague feeling like the shadow of that saying of the great ,christian philosopher1 ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 #8,every existence1 as such1 is good4' ,on the other hand1 something else tells him that it is unmanly and debased and even diseased to minimise evil to a dot or even a blot4 ,he realises that optimism is morbid4 ,it is if possible even more morbid than pessimism4 ,these vague but healthy feelings1 if he followed them out1 would result in the idea that evil is in some way an exception but an enormous exception2 and ultimately that evil is an invasion or yet more truly a rebellion4 ,he does not think that everything is right or that everything is wrong1 or that everything is equally right and wrong4 ,but he does think that right has a right to be right and therefore a right to be there2 and wrong has no right to be wrong and therefore no right to be there4 ,it is the prince of the world2 but it is also a usurper4 ,so he will apprehend vaguely what the vision will give to him vividly2 no less than all that strange story of treason in heaven and the great desertion by which evil damaged and tried to destroy a cosmos that it could not create4 ,it is a very strange story and its proportions and its lines and colours are as arbitrary and absolute as the artistic composition of a picture4 ,it is a vision which we do in fact symbolise in pictures by titanic limbs and passionate tints of plumage2 all that abysmal vision of falling stars and the peacock panoplies of the night4 ,but that strange story has one small advantage over the diagrams4 ,it is like life4 ,another example might be found1 not in the problem of evil1 but in what is called the problem of progress4 ,one of the ablest agnostics of the age once asked me whether ,i thought mankind grew better or grew worse or remained the same4 ,he was confident that the alternative covered all possibilities4 ,he did not see that it only covered patterns and not pictures2 processes and not stories4 ,i asked him whether he thought that ,mr4 ,smith of ,golder's ,green got better or worse or remained exactly the same between the age of thirty and forty4 ,it then seemed to dawn on him that it would rather depend on ,mr4 ,smith2 and how he chose to go on4 ,it had never occurred to him that it might depend on how mankind chose to go on2 and that its course was not a straight line or an upward or downward curve1 but a track like that of a man across a valley1 going where he liked and stopping where he chose1 going into a church or falling drunk in a ditch4 ,the life of man is a story2 an adventure story2 and in our vision the same is true even of the story of ,god4 ,the ,catholic faith is the reconciliation because it is the realisation both of mythology and philosophy4 ,it is a story and in that sense one of a hundred stories2 only it is a true story4 ,it is a philosophy and in that sense one of a hundred philosophies2 only it is a philosophy that is like life4 ,but above all1 it is a reconciliation because it is something that can only be called the philosophy of stories4 ,that normal narrative instinct which produced all the fairy-tales is something that is neglected by all the philosophies--except one4 ,the ,faith is the justification of that popular instinct2 the finding of a philosophy for it or the analysis of the philosophy in it4 ,exactly as a man in an adventure story has to pass various tests to save his life1 so the man in this philosophy has to pass several tests and save his soul4 ,in both there is an idea of free will operating under conditions of design2 in other words1 there is an aim and it is the business of a man to aim at it2 we therefore watch to see whether he will hit it4 ,now this deep and democratic and dramatic instinct is derided and dismissed in all the other philosophies4 ,for all the other philosophies avowedly end where they begin2 and it is the definition of a story that it ends differently2 that it begins in one place and ends in another4 ,from ,buddha and his wheel to ,akhen-,aten and his disc1 from ,pythagoras with his abstraction of number to ,confucius with his religion of routine1 there is not one of them that does not in some way sin against the soul of a story4 ,there is none of them that really grasps this human notion of the tale1 the test1 the adventure2 the ordeal of the free man4 ,each of them starves the story-telling instinct1 so to speak1 and does something to spoil human life considered as a romance2 either by fatalism 7pessimist or optimist7 and that destiny that is the death of adventure2 or by indifference and that detachment that is the death of drama2 or by a fundamental scepticism that dissolves the actors into atoms2 or by a materialistic limitation blocking the vista of moral consequences2 or a mechanical recurrence making even moral tests monotonous2 or a bottomless relativity making even practical tests insecure4 ,there is such a thing as a human story2 and there is such a thing as the divine story which is also a human story4 ,but there is no such thing as a ,hegelian story or a ,monist story or a relativist story or a determinist story4 ,for every story1 yes1 even a penny dreadful or a cheap novelette1 has something in it that belongs to our universe and not theirs4 ,every short story does truly begin with creation and end with a last judgment4 ,and that is the reason why the myths and the philosophers were at war until ,christ came4 ,that is why the ,athenian democracy killed ,socrates out of respect for the gods2 and why every strolling sophist gave himself the airs of a ,socrates whenever he could talk in a superior fashion of the gods2 and why the heretic ,pharaoh wrecked his huge idols and temples for an abstraction and why the priests could return in triumph and trample his dynasty under foot2 and why ,buddhism had to divide itself from ,brahminism1 and why in every age and country outside ,christendom there has been a feud for ever between the philosopher and the priest4 ,it is easy enough to say that the philosopher is generally the more rational2 it is easier still to forget that the priest is always the more popular4 ,for the priest told the people stories2 and the philosopher did not understand the philosophy of stories4 ,it came into the world with the story of ,christ4 ,and this is why it had to be a revelation or vision given from above4 ,any one who will think of the theory of stories or pictures will easily see the point4 ,the true story of the world must be told by somebody to somebody else4 ,by the very nature of a story it cannot be left to occur to anybody4 ,a story has proportions1 variations1 surprises1 particular dispositions1 which cannot be worked out by rule in the abstract1 like a sum4 ,we could not deduce whether or no ,achilles would give back the body of ,hector from a ,pythagorean theory of number or recurrence2 and we could not infer for ourselves in what way the world would get back the body of ,christ1 merely from being told that all things go round and round upon the wheel of ,buddha4 ,a man might perhaps work out a proposition of ,euclid without having heard of ,euclid2 but he would not work out the precise legend of ,eurydice without having heard of ,eurydice4 ,at any rate he would not be certain how the story would end and whether ,orpheus was ultimately defeated4 ,still less could he guess the end of our story2 or the legend of our ,orpheus rising1 not defeated1 from the dead4 ,to sum up2 the sanity of the world was restored and the soul of man offered salvation by something which did indeed satisfy the two warring tendencies of the past2 which had never been satisfied in full and most certainly never satisfied together4 ,it met the mythological search for romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being a true story4 ,that is why the ideal figure had to be a historical character1 as nobody had ever felt ,adonis or ,pan to be a historical character4 ,but that is also why the historical character had to be the ideal figure2 and even fulfil many of the functions given to these other ideal figures2 why he was at once the sacrifice and the feast1 why he could be shown under the emblems of the growing vine or the rising sun4 ,the more deeply we think of the matter the more we shall conclude that1 if there be indeed a ,god1 his creation could hardly have reached any other culmination than this granting of a real romance to the world4 ,otherwise the two sides of the human mind could never have touched at all2 and the brain of man would have remained cloven and double2 one lobe of it dreaming impossible dreams and the other repeating invariable calculations4 ,the picture-makers would have remained for ever painting the portrait of nobody4 ,the sages would have remained for ever adding up numerals that came to nothing4 ,it was that abyss that nothing but an incarnation could cover2 a divine embodiment of our dreams2 and he stands above that chasm whose name is more than priest and older even than ,christendom2 ,pontifex ,maximus1 the mightiest maker of a bridge4 ,but even with that we return to the more specially ,christian symbol in the same tradition2 the perfect pattern of the keys4 ,this is a historical and not a theological outline1 and it is not my duty here to defend in detail that theology1 but merely to point out that it could not even be justified in design without being justified in detail--like a key4 ,beyond the broad suggestion of this chapter ,i attempt no apologetic about why the creed should be accepted4 ,but in answer to the historical query of why it was accepted1 and is accepted1 ,i answer for millions of others in my reply2 because it fits the lock2 because it is like life4 ,it is one among many stories2 only it happens to be a true story4 ,it is one among many philosophies2 only it happens to be the truth4 ,we accept it2 and the ground is solid under our feet and the road is open before us4 ,it does not imprison us in a dream of destiny or a consciousness of the universal delusion4 ,it opens to us not only incredible heavens1 but what seems to some an equally incredible earth1 and makes it credible4 ,this is the sort of truth that is hard to explain because it is a fact2 but it is a fact to which we can call witnesses4 ,we are ,christians and ,catholics not because we worship a key1 but because we have passed a door2 and felt the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land of the living4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,five ,,deaths ,,of ,,the ,,faith ,it is not the purpose of this book to trace the subsequent history of ,christianity1 especially the later history of ,christianity2 which involves controversies of which ,i hope to write more fully elsewhere4 ,it is devoted only to the suggestion that ,christianity1 appearing amid heathen humanity1 had all the character of a unique thing and even of a supernatural thing4 ,it was not like any of the other things2 and the more we study it the less it looks like any of them4 ,but there is a certain rather peculiar character which marked it henceforward even down to the present moment1 with a note on which this book may well conclude4 ,i have said that ,asia and the ancient world had an air of being too old to die4 ,christendom has had the very opposite fate4 ,christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them ,christianity has died4 ,christianity has died many times and risen again2 for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave4 ,but the first extraordinary fact which marks this history is this3 that ,europe has been turned upside down over and over again2 and that at the end of each of these revolutions the same religion has again been found on top4 ,the ,faith is always converting the age1 not as an old religion but as a new religion4 ,this truth is hidden from many by a convention that is too little noticed4 ,curiously enough1 it is a convention of the sort which those who ignore it claim especially to detect and denounce4 ,they are always telling us that priests and ceremonies are not religion and that religious organisation can be a hollow sham2 but they hardly realise how true it is4 ,it is so true that three or four times at least in the history of ,christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of ,christianity2 and almost every man in his heart expected its end4 ,this fact is only masked in medieval and other times by that very official religion which such critics pride themselves on seeing through4 ,christianity remained the official religion of a ,renaissance prince or the official religion of an eighteenth-century bishop1 just as an ancient mythology remained the official religion of ,julius ,caesar or the ,arian creed long remained the official religion of ,julian the ,apostate4 ,but there was a difference between the cases of ,julius and of ,julian2 because the ,church had begun its strange career4 ,there was no reason why men like ,julius should not worship gods like ,jupiter for ever in public and laugh at them for ever in private4 ,but when ,julian treated ,christianity as dead1 he found it had come to life again4 ,he also found1 incidentally1 that there was not the faintest sign of ,jupiter ever coming to life again4 ,this case of ,julian and the episode of ,arianism is but the first of a series of examples that can only be roughly indicated here4 ,arianism1 as has been said1 had every human appearance of being the natural way in which that particular superstition of ,constantine might be expected to peter out4 ,all the ordinary stages had been passed through2 the creed had become a respectable thing1 had become a ritual thing1 had then been modified into a rational thing2 and the rationalists were ready to dissipate the last remains of it1 just as they do to-day4 ,when ,christianity rose again suddenly and threw them1 it was almost as unexpected as ,christ rising from the dead4 ,but there are many other examples of the same thing1 even about the same time4 ,the rush of missionaries from ,ireland1 for instance1 has all the air of an unexpected onslaught of young men on an old world1 and even on a ,church that showed signs of growing old4 ,some of them were martyred on the coast of ,cornwall2 and the chief authority on ,cornish antiquities told me that he did not believe for a moment that they were martyred by heathens but 7as he expressed it with some humour7 #8by rather slack ,christians4' ,now if we were to dip below the surface of history1 as it is not in the scope of this argument to do1 ,i suspect that we should find several occasions when ,christendom was thus to all appearance hollowed out from within by doubt and indifference1 so that only the old ,christian shell stood as the ,pagan shell had stood so long4 ,but the difference is that in every such case1 the sons were fanatical for the faith where the fathers had been slack about it4 ,this is obvious in the case of the transition from the ,renaissance to the ,counter-,reformation4 ,it is obvious in the case of a transition from the eighteenth century to the many ,catholic revivals of our own time4 ,but ,i suspect many other examples which would be worthy of separate studies4 ,the ,faith is not a survival4 ,it is not as if the ,druids had managed somehow to survive somewhere for two thousand years4 ,that is what might have happened in ,asia or ancient ,europe1 in that indifference or tolerance in which mythologies and philosophies could live for ever side by side4 ,it has not survived2 it has returned again and again in this western world of rapid change and institutions perpetually perishing4 ,europe1 in the tradition of ,rome1 was always trying revolution and reconstruction2 rebuilding a universal republic4 ,and it always began by rejecting this old stone and ended by making it the head of the corner2 by bringing it back from the rubbish-heap to make it the crown of the capitol4 ,some stones of ,stonehenge are standing and some are fallen2 and as the stone falleth so shall it lie4 ,there has not been a ,druidic renaissance every century or two1 with the young ,druids crowned with fresh mistletoe1 dancing in the sun on ,salisbury ,plain4 ,stonehenge has not been rebuilt in every style of architecture from the rude round ,norman to the last rococo of the ,baroque4 ,the sacred place of the ,druids is safe from the vandalism of restoration4 ,but the ,church in the ,west was not in a world where things were too old to die2 but in one in which they were always young enough to get killed4 ,the consequence was that superficially and externally it often did get killed2 nay1 it sometimes wore out even without getting killed4 ,and there follows a fact ,i find it somewhat difficult to describe1 yet which ,i believe to be very real and rather important4 ,as a ghost is the shadow of a man1 and in that sense the shadow of life1 so at intervals there passed across this endless life a sort of shadow of death4 ,it came at the moment when it would have perished had it been perishable4 ,it withered away everything that was perishable4 ,if such animal parallels were worthy of the occasion1 we might say that the snake shuddered and shed a skin and went on1 or even that the cat went into convulsions as it lost only one of its nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine lives4 ,it is truer to say1 in a more dignified image1 that a clock struck and nothing happened2 or that a bell tolled for an execution that was everlastingly postponed4 ,what was the meaning of all that dim but vast unrest of the twelfth century2 when1 as it has been so finely said1 ,julian stirred in his sleep8 ,why did there appear so strangely early1 in the twilight of dawn after the ,dark ,ages1 so deep a scepticism as that involved in urging nominalism against realism8 ,for realism against nominalism was really realism against rationalism1 or something more destructive than what we call rationalism4 ,the answer is that just as some might have thought the ,church simply a part of the ,roman ,empire1 so others later might have thought the ,church only a part of the ,dark ,ages4 ,the ,dark ,ages ended as the ,empire had ended2 and the ,church should have departed with them1 if she had been also one of the shades of night4 ,it was another of those spectral deaths or simulations of death4 ,i mean that if nominalism had succeeded1 it would have been as if ,arianism had succeeded2 it would have been the beginning of a confession that ,christianity had failed4 ,for nominalism is a far more fundamental scepticism than mere atheism4 ,such was the question that was openly asked as the ,dark ,ages broadened into that daylight that we call the modern world4 ,but what was the answer8 ,the answer was ,aquinas in the chair of ,aristotle1 taking all knowledge for his province2 and tens of thousands of lads1 down to the lowest ranks of peasant and serf1 living in rags and on crusts about the great colleges1 to listen to the scholastic philosophy4 ,what was the meaning of all that whisper of fear that ran round the ,west under the shadow of ,islam1 and fills every old romance with incongruous images of ,saracen knights swaggering in ,norway or the ,hebrides8 ,why were men in the extreme ,west1 such as ,king ,john if ,i remember rightly1 accused of being secretly ,moslems1 as men are accused of being secretly atheists8 ,why was there that fierce alarm among some of the authorities about the rationalistic ,arab version or ,aristotle8 ,authorities are seldom alarmed like that except when it is too late4 ,the answer is that hundreds of people probably believed in their hearts that ,islam would conquer ,christendom2 that ,averroes was more rational than ,anselm2 that the ,saracen culture was really1 as it was superficially1 a superior culture4 ,here again we should probably find a whole generation1 the older generation1 very doubtful and depressed and weary4 ,the coming of ,islam would only have been the coming of ,unitarianism a thousand years before its time4 ,to many it may have seemed quite reasonable and quite probable and quite likely to happen4 ,if so1 they would have been surprised at what did happen4 ,what did happen was a roar like thunder from thousands and thousands of young men1 throwing all their youth into one exultant counter-charge2 the ,crusades4 ,it was the sons of ,st4 ,francis1 the ,jugglers of ,god1 wandering singing over all the roads of the world2 it was the ,gothic going up like a flight of arrows2 it was the waking of the world4 ,in considering the war of the ,albigensians1 we come to the breach in the heart of ,europe and the landslide of a new philosophy that nearly ended ,christendom for ever4 ,in that case the new philosophy was also a very new philosophy2 it was pessimism4 ,it was none the less like modern ideas because it was as old as ,asia2 most modern ideas are4 ,it was the ,gnostics returning2 but why did the ,gnostics return8 ,because it was the end of an epoch1 like the end of the ,empire2 and should have been the end of the ,church4 ,it was ,schopenhauer hovering over the future2 but it was also ,manichaeus rising from the dead2 that men might have death and that they might have it more abundantly4 ,it is rather more obvious in the case of the ,renaissance1 simply because the period is so much nearer to us and people know so much more about it4 ,but there is more even in that example than most people know4 ,apart from the particular controversies which ,i wish to reserve for a separate study1 the period was far more chaotic than those controversies commonly imply4 ,when ,protestants call ,latimer a martyr to ,protestantism1 and ,catholics reply that ,campion was a martyr to ,catholicism1 it is often forgotten that many perished in such persecutions who could only be described as martyrs to atheism or anarchism or even diabolism4 ,that world was almost as wild as our own2 the men wandering about in it included the sort of man who says there is no ,god1 the sort of man who says he is himself ,god1 the sort of man who says something that nobody can make head or tail of4 ,if we could have the conversation of the age following the ,renaissance1 we should probably be shocked by its shameless negations4 ,the remarks attributed to ,marlowe are probably pretty typical of the talk in many intellectual taverns4 ,the transition from ,pre-,reformation to ,post-,reformation ,europe was through a void of very yawning questions2 yet again in the long run the answer was the same4 ,it was one of those moments when1 as ,christ walked on the water1 so was ,christianity walking in the air4 ,but all these cases are remote in date and could only be proved in detail4 ,we can see the fact much more clearly in the case when the paganism of the ,renaissance ended ,christianity and ,christianity unaccountably began all over again4 ,but we can see it most clearly of all in the case which is close to us and full of manifest and minute evidence2 the case of the great decline of religion that began about the time of ,voltaire4 ,for indeed it is our own case2 and we ourselves have seen the decline of that decline4 ,the two hundred years since ,voltaire do not flash past us at a glance like the fourth and fifth centuries or the twelfth and thirteenth centuries4 ,in our own case we can see this oft-repeated process close at hand2 we know how completely a society can lose its fundamental religion without abolishing its official religion2 we know how men can all become agnostics long before they abolish bishops4 ,and we know that also in this last ending1 which really did look to us like the final ending1 the incredible thing has happened again2 the ,faith has a better following among the young men than among the old4 ,when ,ibsen spoke of the new generation knocking at the door1 he certainly never expected that it would be the church-door4 ,at least five times1 therefore1 with the ,arian and the ,albigensian1 with the ,humanist sceptic1 after ,voltaire and after ,darwin1 the ,faith has to all appearance gone to the dogs4 ,in each of these five cases it was the dog that died4 ,how complete was the collapse and how strange the reversal1 we can only see in detail in the case nearest to our own time4 ,a thousand things have been said about the ,oxford ,movement and the parallel ,french ,catholic revival2 but few have made us feel the simplest fact about it2 that it was a surprise4 ,it was a puzzle as well as a surprise2 because it seemed to most people like a river turning backwards from the sea and trying to climb back into the mountains4 ,to have read the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is to know that nearly everybody had come to take it for granted that religion was a thing that would continually broaden like a river1 till it reached an infinite sea4 ,some of them expected it to go down in a cataract of catastrophe1 most of them expected it to widen into an estuary of equality and moderation2 but all of them thought its returning on itself a prodigy as incredible as witchcraft4 ,in other words1 most moderate people thought that faith like freedom would be slowly broadened down2 and some advanced people thought that it would be very rapidly broadened down1 not to say flattened out4 ,all that world of ,guizot and ,macaulay and the commercial and scientific liberality was perhaps more certain than any men before or since about the direction in which the world is going4 ,people were so certain about the direction that they only differed about the pace4 ,many anticipated with alarm1 and a few with sympathy1 a ,jacobin revolt that should guillotine the ,archbishop of ,canterbury or a ,chartist riot that should hang the parsons on the lamp-posts4 ,but it seemed like a convulsion in nature that the ,archbishop instead of losing his head should be looking for his mitre2 and that instead of diminishing the respect due to parsons we should strengthen it to the respect due to priests4 ,it revolutionised their very vision of revolution2 and turned their very topsyturvydom topsy-turvy4 ,in short1 the whole world being divided about whether the stream was going slower or faster1 became conscious of something vague but vast that was going against the stream4 ,both in fact and figure there is something deeply disturbing about this1 and that for an essential reason4 ,a dead thing can go with the stream1 but only a living thing can go against it4 ,a dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water with all the swiftness of a leaping hound2 but only a live dog can swim backwards4 ,a paper boat can ride the rising deluge with all the airy arrogance of a fairy ship2 but if the fairy ship sails upstream it is really rowed by the fairies4 ,and among the things that merely went with the tide of apparent progress and enlargement1 there was many a demagogue or sophist whose wild gestures were in truth as lifeless as the movement of a dead dog's limbs wavering in the eddying water2 and many a philosophy uncommonly like a paper boat1 of the sort that it is not difficult to knock into a cocked hat4 ,but even the truly living and even life-giving things that went with that stream did not thereby prove that they were living or life-giving4 ,it was this other force that was unquestionably and unaccountably alive2 the mysterious and unmeasured energy that was thrusting back the river4 ,that was felt to be like the movement of some great monster2 and it was none the less clearly a living monster because most people thought it a prehistoric monster4 ,it was none the less an unnatural1 an incongruous1 and to some a comic upheaval2 as if the ,great ,sea ,serpent had suddenly risen out of the ,round ,pond--unless we consider the ,sea ,serpent as more likely to live in the ,serpentine4 ,this flippant element in the fantasy must not be missed1 for it was one of the clearest testimonies to the unexpected nature of the reversal4 ,that age did really feel that a preposterous quality in prehistoric animals belonged also to historic rituals2 that mitres and tiaras were like the horns or crests of antediluvian creatures2 and that appealing to a ,primitive ,church was like dressing up as a ,primitive ,man4 ,the world is still puzzled by that movement2 but most of all because it still moves4 ,i have said something elsewhere of the rather random sort of reproaches that are still directed against it and its much greater consequences2 it is enough to say here that the more such critics reproach it the less they explain it4 ,in a sense it is my concern here1 if not to explain it1 at least to suggest the direction of the explanation2 but above all1 it is my concern to point out one particular thing about it4 ,and that is that it had all happened before2 and even many times before4 ,to sum up1 in so far as it is true that recent centuries have seen an attenuation of ,christian doctrine1 recent centuries have only seen what the most remote centuries have seen4 ,and even the modern example has only ended as the medieval and pre-medieval examples ended4 ,it is already clear1 and grows clearer every day1 that it is not going to end in the disappearance of the diminished creed2 but rather in the return of those parts of it that had really disappeared4 ,it is going to end as the ,arian compromise ended1 as the attempts at a compromise with ,nominalism and even with ,albigensianism ended4 ,but the point to seize in the modern case1 as in all the other cases1 is that what returns is not in that sense a simplified theology2 not according to that view a purified theology2 it is simply theology4 ,it is that enthusiasm for theological studies that marked the most doctrinal ages2 it is the divine science4 ,an old ,don with ,d4,d4 after his name may have become the typical figure of a bore2 but that was because he was himself bored with his theology1 not because he was excited about it4 ,it was precisely because he was admittedly more interested in the ,latin of ,plautus than in the ,latin of ,augustine1 in the ,greek of ,xenophon than in the ,greek of ,chrysostom4 ,it was precisely because he was more interested in a dead tradition than in a decidedly living tradition4 ,in short1 it was precisely because he was himself a type of the time in which ,christian faith was weak4 ,it was not because men would not hail1 if they could1 the wonderful and almost wild vision of a ,doctor of ,divinity4 ,there are people who say they wish ,christianity to remain as a spirit4 ,they mean1 very literally1 that they wish it to remain as a ghost4 ,but it is not going to remain as a ghost4 ,what follows this process of apparent death is not the lingering of the shade2 it is the resurrection of the body4 ,these people are quite prepared to shed pious and reverential tears over the ,sepulchre of the ,son of ,man2 what they are not prepared for is the ,son of ,god walking once more upon the hills of morning4 ,these people1 and indeed most people1 were indeed by this time quite accustomed to the idea that the old ,christian candle-light would fade into the light of common day4 ,to many of them it did quite honestly appear like that pale yellow flame of a candle when it is left burning in daylight4 ,it was all the more unexpected1 and therefore all the more unmistakable1 that the seven-branched candle-stick suddenly towered to heaven like a miraculous tree and flamed until the sun turned pale4 ,but other ages have seen the day conquer the candle-light and then the candle-light conquer the day4 ,again and again1 before our time1 men have grown content with a diluted doctrine4 ,and again and again there has followed on that dilution1 coming as out of the darkness in a crimson cataract1 the strength of the red original wine4 ,and we only say once more to-day as has been said many times by our fathers3 #8,long years and centuries ago our fathers or the founders of our people drank1 as they dreamed1 of the blood of ,god4 ,long years and centuries have passed since the strength of that giant vintage has been anything but a legend of the age of giants4 ,centuries ago already is the dark time of the second fermentation1 when the wine of ,catholicism turned into the vinegar of ,calvinism4 ,long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted2 rinsed out and washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the world4 ,never did we think to taste again even that bitter tang of sincerity and the spirit1 still less the richer and the sweeter strength of the purple vineyards in our dreams of the age of gold4 ,day by day and year by year we have lowered our hopes and lessened our convictions2 we have grown more and more used to seeing those vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last savour and suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of purple upon a sea of grey4 ,we have grown used to dilution1 to dissolution1 to a watering down that went on for ever4 ,but ,thou hast kept the good wine until now4' ,this is the final fact1 and it is the most extraordinary of all4 ,the faith has not only often died but it has often died of old age4 ,it has not only been often killed but it has often died a natural death2 in the sense of coming to a natural and necessary end4 ,it is obvious that it has survived the most savage and the most universal persecutions from the shock of the ,diocletian fury to the shock of the ,french ,revolution4 ,but it has a more strange and even a more weird tenacity2 it has survived not only war but peace4 ,it has not only died often but degenerated often and decayed often2 it has survived its own weakness and even its own surrender4 ,we need not repeat what is so obvious about the beauty of the end of ,christ in its wedding of youth and death4 ,but this is almost as if ,christ had lived to the last possible span1 had been a white-haired sage of a hundred and died of natural decay1 and then had risen again rejuvenated1 with trumpets and the rending of the sky4 ,it was said truly enough that human ,christianity in its recurrent weakness was sometimes too much wedded to the powers of the world2 but if it was wedded it has very often been widowed4 ,it is a strangely immortal sort of widow4 ,an enemy may have said at one moment that it was but an aspect of the power of the ,caesars2 and it sounds as strange to-day as to call it an aspect of the ,pharaohs4 ,an enemy might say that it was the official faith of feudalism2 and it sounds as convincing now as to say that it was bound to perish with the ancient ,roman villa4 ,all these things did indeed run their course to its normal end2 and there seemed no course for the religion but to end with them4 ,it ended and it began again4 #8,heaven and earth shall pass away1 but my words shall not pass away4' ,the civilisation of antiquity was the whole world3 and men no more dreamed of its ending than of the ending of daylight4 ,they could not imagine another order unless it were in another world4 ,the civilisation of the world has passed away and those words have not passed away4 ,in the long night of the ,dark ,ages feudalism was so familiar a thing that no man could imagine himself without a lord3 and religion was so woven into that network that no man would have believed they could be torn asunder4 ,feudalism itself was torn to rags and rotted away in the popular life of the true ,middle ,ages2 and the first and freshest power in that new freedom was the old religion4 ,feudalism had passed away1 and the words did not pass away4 ,the whole medieval order1 in many ways so complete and almost cosmic a home for man1 wore out gradually in its turn3 and here at least it was thought that the words would die4 ,they went forth across the radiant abyss of the ,renaissance and in fifty years were using all its light and learning for new religious foundations1 new apologetics1 new saints4 ,it was supposed to have been withered up at last in the dry light of the ,age of ,reason2 it was supposed to have disappeared ultimately in the earthquake of the ,age of ,revolution4 ,science explained it away2 and it was still there4 ,history disinterred it in the past2 and it appeared suddenly in the future4 ,to-day it stands once more in our path2 and even as we watch it1 it grows4 ,if our social relations and records retain their continuity1 if men really learn to apply reason to the accumulating facts of so crushing a story1 it would seem that sooner or later even its enemies will learn from their incessant and interminable disappointments not to look for anything so simple as its death4 ,they may continue to war with it1 but it will be as they war with nature2 as they war with the landscape1 as they war with the skies4 #8,heaven and earth shall pass away1 but my words shall not pass away4' ,they will watch for it to stumble2 they will watch for it to err2 they will no longer watch for it to end4 ,insensibly1 even unconsciously1 they will in their own silent anticipations fulfil the relative terms of that astounding prophecy2 they will forget to watch for the mere extinction of what has so often been vainly extinguished2 and will learn instinctively to look first for the coming of the comet or the freezing of the star4 ,,conclusion ,,the ,,summary ,,of ,,this ,,book ,i have taken the liberty once or twice of borrowing the excellent phrase about an ,outline of ,history2 though this study of a special truth and a special error can of course claim no sort of comparison with the rich and many-sided encyclopedia of history1 for which that name was chosen4 ,and yet there is a certain reason in the reference2 and a sense in which the one thing touches and even cuts across the other4 ,for the story of the world as told by ,mr4 ,wells could here only be criticised as an outline4 ,and1 strangely enough1 it seems to me that it is only wrong as an outline4 ,it is admirable as an accumulation of history2 it is splendid as a storehouse or treasury of history2 it is a fascinating disquisition on history2 it is most attractive as an amplification of history2 but it is quite false as an outline of history4 ,the one thing that seems to me quite wrong about it is the outline2 the sort of outline that can really be a single line1 like that which makes all the difference between a caricature of the profile of ,mr4 ,winston ,churchill and of ,sir ,alfred ,mond4 ,in simple and homely language1 ,i mean the things that stick out2 the things that make the simplicity of a silhouette4 ,i think the proportions are wrong2 the proportions of what is certain as compared with what is uncertain1 of what played a great part as compared with what played a smaller part1 of what is ordinary and what is extraordinary1 of what really lies level with an average and what stands out as an exception4 ,i do not say it as a small criticism of a great writer1 and ,i have no reason to do so2 for in my own much smaller task ,i feel ,i have failed in very much the same way4 ,i am very doubtful whether ,i have conveyed to the reader the main point ,i meant about the proportions of history1 and why ,i have dwelt so much more on some things than others4 ,i doubt whether ,i have clearly fulfilled the plan that ,i set out in the introductory chapter2 and for that reason ,i add these lines as a sort of summary in a concluding chapter4 ,i do believe that the things on which ,i have insisted are more essential to an outline of history than the things which ,i have subordinated or dismissed4 ,i do not believe that the past is most truly pictured as a thing in which humanity merely fades away into nature1 or civilisation merely fades away into barbarism1 or religion fades away into mythology1 or our own religion fades away into the religions of the world4 ,in short ,i do not believe that the best way to produce an outline of history is to rub out the lines4 ,i believe that1 of the two1 it would be far nearer the truth to tell the tale very simply1 like a primitive myth about a man who made the sun and stars or a god who entered the body of a sacred monkey4 ,i will therefore sum up all that has gone before in what seems to me a realistic and reasonably proportioned statement2 the short story of mankind4 ,in the land lit by that neighbouring star1 whose blaze is the broad daylight1 there are many and very various things1 motionless and moving4 ,there moves among them a race that is in its relation to the others a race of gods4 ,the fact is not lessened but emphasised because it can behave like a race of demons4 ,its distinction is not an individual illusion1 like one bird pluming itself on its own plumes2 it is a solid and a many-sided thing4 ,it is demonstrated in the very speculations that have led to its being denied4 ,that men1 the gods of this lower world1 are linked with it in various ways is true2 but it is another aspect of the same truth4 ,that they grow as the grass grows and walk as the beasts walk is a secondary necessity that sharpens the primary distinction4 ,it is like saying that a magician must after all have the appearance of a man2 or that even the fairies could not dance without feet4 ,it has lately been the fashion to focus the mind entirely on these mild and subordinate resemblances and to forget the main fact altogether4 ,it is customary to insist that man resembles the other creatures4 ,yes2 and that very resemblance he alone can see4 ,the fish does not trace the fish-bone pattern in the fowls of the air2 or the elephant and the emu compare skeletons4 ,even in the sense in which man is at one with the universe it is an utterly lonely universality4 ,the very sense that he is united with all things is enough to sunder him from all4 ,looking around him by this unique light1 as lonely as the literal flame that he alone has kindled1 this demigod or demon of the visible world makes that world visible4 ,he sees around him a world of a certain style or type4 ,it seems to proceed by certain rules or at least repetitions4 ,he sees a green architecture that builds itself without visible hands2 but which builds itself into a very exact plan or pattern1 like a design already drawn in the air by an invisible finger4 ,it is not1 as is now vaguely suggested1 a vague thing4 ,it is not a growth or a groping of blind life4 ,each seeks an end2 a glorious and radiant end1 even for every daisy or dandelion we see in looking across the level of a common field4 ,in the very shape of things there is more than green growth2 there is the finality of the flower4 ,it is a world of crowns4 ,this impression1 whether or no it be an illusion1 has so profoundly influenced this race of thinkers and masters of the material world1 that the vast majority have been moved to take a certain view of that world4 ,they have concluded1 rightly or wrongly1 that the world had a plan as the tree seemed to have a plan2 and an end and crown like the flower4 ,but so long as the race of thinkers was able to think1 it was obvious that the admission of this idea of a plan brought with it another thought more thrilling and even terrible4 ,there was some one else1 some strange and unseen being1 who had designed these things1 if indeed they were designed4 ,there was a stranger who was also a friend2 a mysterious benefactor who had been before them and built up the woods and hills for their coming1 and had kindled the sunrise against their rising1 as a servant kindles a fire4 ,now this idea of a mind that gives a meaning to the universe has received more and more confirmation within the minds of men1 by meditations and experiences much more subtle and searching than any such argument about the external plan of the world4 ,but ,i am concerned here with keeping the story in its most simple and even concrete terms2 and it is enough to say here that most men1 including the wisest men1 have come to the conclusion that the world has such a final purpose and therefore such a first cause4 ,but most men in some sense separated themselves from the wisest men1 when it came to the treatment of that idea4 ,there came into existence two ways of treating that idea2 which between them make up most of the religious history of the world4 ,the majority1 like the minority1 had this strong sense of a second meaning in things2 of a strange master who knew the secret of the world4 ,but the majority1 the mob or mass of men1 naturally tended to treat it rather in the spirit of gossip4 ,the gossip1 like all gossip1 contained a great deal of truth and falsehood4 ,the world began to tell itself tales about the unknown being or his sons or servants or messengers4 ,some of the tales may truly be called old wives' tales2 as professing only to be very remote memories of the morning of the world2 myths about the baby moon or the half-baked mountains4 ,some of them might more truly be called travellers' tales2 as being curious but contemporary tales brought from certain borderlands of experience2 such as miraculous cures or those that bring whispers of what has happened to the dead4 ,many of them are probably true tales2 enough of them are probably true to keep a person of real common sense more or less conscious that there really is something rather marvellous behind the cosmic curtain4 ,but in a sense it is only going by appearances2 even if the appearances are called apparitions4 ,it is a matter of appearances--and disappearances4 ,at the most these gods are ghosts2 that is1 they are glimpses4 ,for most of us they are rather gossip about glimpses4 ,and for the rest1 the whole world is full of rumours1 most of which are almost avowedly romances4 ,the great majority of the tales about gods and ghosts and the invisible king are told1 if not for the sake of the tale1 at least for the sake of the topic4 ,they are evidence of the eternal interest of the theme2 they are not evidence of anything else1 and they are not meant to be4 ,they are mythology1 or the poetry that is not bound in books--or bound in any other way4 ,meanwhile the minority1 the sages or thinkers1 had withdrawn apart and had taken up an equally congenial trade4 ,they were drawing up plans of the world2 of the world which all believed to have a plan4 ,they were trying to set forth the plan seriously and to scale4 ,they were setting their minds directly to the mind that had made the mysterious world2 considering what sort of a mind it might be and what its ultimate purpose might be4 ,some of them made that mind much more impersonal than mankind has generally made it2 some simplified it almost to a blank2 a few1 a very few1 doubted it altogether4 ,one or two of the more morbid fancied that it might be evil and an enemy2 just one or two of the more degraded in the other class worshipped demons instead of gods4 ,but most of these theorists were theists3 and they not only saw a moral plan in nature1 but they generally laid down a moral plan for humanity4 ,most of them were good men who did good work3 and they were remembered and reverenced in various ways4 ,they were scribes2 and their scriptures became more or less holy scriptures4 ,they were law-givers2 and their tradition became not only legal but ceremonial4 ,we may say that they received divine honours1 in the sense in which kings and great captains in certain countries often received divine honours4 ,in a word1 wherever the other popular spirit1 the spirit of legend and gossip1 could come into play1 it surrounded them with the more mystical atmosphere of the myths4 ,popular poetry turned the sages into saints4 ,but that was all it did4 ,they remained themselves2 men never really forgot that they were men1 only made into gods in the sense that they were made into heroes4 ,divine ,plato1 like ,divus ,caesar1 was a title and not a dogma4 ,in ,asia1 where the atmosphere was more mythological1 the man was made to look more like a myth1 but he remained a man4 ,he remained a man of a certain special class or school of men1 receiving and deserving great honour from mankind4 ,it is the order or school of the philosophers2 the men who have set themselves seriously to trace the order across any apparent chaos in the vision of life4 ,instead of living on imaginative rumours and remote traditions and the tail-end of exceptional experiences about the mind and meaning behind the world1 they have tried in a sense to project the primary purpose of that mind a priori4 ,they have tried to put on paper a possible plan of the world2 almost as if the world were not yet made4 ,right in the middle of all these things stands up an enormous exception4 ,it is quite unlike anything else4 ,it is a thing final like the trump of doom1 though it is also a piece of good news2 or news that seems too good to be true4 ,it is nothing less than the loud assertion that this mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in person4 ,it declares that really and even recently1 or right in the middle of historic times1 there did walk into the world this original invisible being2 about whom the thinkers make theories and the mythologists hand down myths2 the ,man ,who ,made the ,world4 ,that such a higher personality exists behind all things had indeed always been implied by all the best thinkers1 as well as by all the most beautiful legends4 ,but nothing of this sort had ever been implied in any of them4 ,it is simply false to say that the other sages and heroes had claimed to be that mysterious master and maker1 of whom the world had dreamed and disputed4 ,not one of them had ever claimed to be anything of the sort4 ,not one of their sects or schools had ever claimed that they had claimed to be anything of the sort4 ,the most that any religious prophet had said was that he was the true servant of such a being4 ,the most that any visionary had ever said was that men might catch glimpses of the glory of that spiritual being2 or much more often of lesser spiritual beings4 ,the most that any primitive myth had ever suggested was that the ,creator was present at the ,creation4 ,but that the ,creator was present at scenes a little subsequent to the supper-parties of ,horace1 and talked with tax-collectors and government officials in the detailed daily life of the ,roman ,empire1 and that this fact continued to be firmly asserted by the whole of that great civilisation for more than a thousand years--that is something utterly unlike anything else in nature4 ,it is the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his first articulate word1 instead of barking like a dog4 ,its unique character can be used as an argument against it as well as for it4 ,it would be easy to concentrate on it as a case of isolated insanity2 but it makes nothing but dust and nonsense of comparative religion4 ,it came on the world with a wind and rush of running messengers proclaiming that apocalyptic portent2 and it is not unduly fanciful to say they are running still4 ,what puzzles the world1 and its wise philosophers and fanciful pagan poets1 about the priests and people of the ,catholic ,church is that they still behave as if they were messengers4 ,a messenger does not dream about what his message might be1 or argue about what it probably would be2 he delivers it as it is4 ,it is not a theory or a fancy but a fact4 ,it is not relevant to this intentionally rudimentary outline to prove in detail that it is a fact2 but merely to point out that these messengers do deal with it as men deal with a fact4 ,all that is condemned in ,catholic tradition1 authority1 and dogmatism and the refusal to retract and modify1 are but the natural human attributes of a man with a message relating to a fact4 ,i desire to avoid in this last summary all the controversial complexities that may once more cloud the simple lines of that strange story2 which ,i have already called1 in words that are much too weak1 the strangest story in the world4 ,i desire merely to mark those main lines and specially to mark where the great line is really to be drawn4 ,the religion of the world1 in its right proportions1 is not divided into fine shades of mysticism or more or less rational forms of mythology4 ,it is divided by the line between the men who are bringing that message and the men who have not yet heard it1 or cannot yet believe it4 ,but when we translate the terms of that strange tale back into the more concrete and complicated terminology of our time1 we find it covered by names and memories of which the very familiarity is a falsification4 ,for instance1 when we say that a country contains so many ,moslems1 we really mean that it contains so many monotheists2 and we really mean1 by that1 that it contains so many men2 men with the old average assumption of men--that the invisible ruler remains invisible4 ,they hold it along with the customs of a certain culture and under the simpler laws of a certain law-giver2 but so they would if their law-giver were ,lycurgus or ,solon4 ,they testify to something which is a necessary and noble truth2 but was never a new truth4 ,their creed is not a new colour2 it is the neutral and normal tint that is the background of the many-coloured life of man4 ,mahomet did not1 like the ,magi1 find a new star2 he saw through his own particular window a glimpse of the great grey field of the ancient starlight4 ,so when we say that the country contains so many ,confucians or ,buddhists1 we mean that it contains so many ,pagans whose prophets have given them another and rather vaguer version of the invisible power2 making it not only invisible but almost impersonal4 ,when we say that they also have temples and idols and priests and periodical festivals1 we simply mean that this sort of heathen is enough of a human being to admit the popular element of pomp and pictures and feasts and fairy-tales4 ,we only mean that ,pagans have more sense than ,puritans4 ,but what the gods are supposed to be1 what the priests are commissioned to say1 is not a sensational secret like what those running messengers of the ,gospel had to say4 ,nobody else except those messengers has any ,gospel2 nobody else has any good news2 for the simple reason that nobody else has any news4 ,those runners gather impetus as they run4 ,ages afterwards they still speak as if something had just happened4 ,they have not lost the speed and momentum of messengers2 they have hardly lost1 as it were1 the wild eyes of witnesses4 ,in the ,catholic ,church1 which is the cohort of the message1 there are still those headlong acts of holiness that speak of something rapid and recent2 a self-sacrifice that startles the world like a suicide4 ,but it is not a suicide2 it is not pessimistic2 it is still as optimistic as ,st4 ,francis of the flowers and birds4 ,it is newer in spirit than the newest schools of thought2 and it is almost certainly on the eve of new triumphs4 ,for these men serve a mother who seems to grow more beautiful as new generations rise up and call her blessed4 ,we might sometimes fancy that the ,church grows younger as the world grows old4 ,for this is the last proof of the miracle2 that something so supernatural should have become so natural4 ,i mean that anything so unique when seen from the outside should only seem universal when seen from the inside4 ,i have not minimised the scale of the miracle1 as some of our milder theologians think it wise to do4 ,rather have ,i deliberately dwelt on that incredible interruption1 as a blow that broke the very backbone of history4 ,i have great sympathy with the monotheists1 the ,moslems1 or the ,jews1 to whom it seems a blasphemy2 a blasphemy that might shake the world4 ,but it did not shake the world2 it steadied the world4 ,that fact1 the more we consider it1 will seem more solid and more strange4 ,i think it a piece of plain justice to all the unbelievers to insist upon the audacity of the act of faith that is demanded of them4 ,i willingly and warmly agree that it is1 in itself1 a suggestion at which we might expect even the brain of the believer to reel1 when he realised his own belief4 ,but the brain of the believer does not reel2 it is the brains of the unbelievers that reel4 ,we can see their brains reeling on every side and into every extravagance of ethics and psychology2 into pessimism and the denial of life2 into pragmatism and the denial of logic2 seeking their omens in nightmares and their canons in contradictions2 shrieking for fear at the far-off sight of things beyond good and evil1 or whispering of strange stars where two and two make five4 ,meanwhile this solitary thing that seems at first so outrageous in outline remains solid and sane in substance4 ,it remains the moderator of all these manias2 rescuing reason from the ,pragmatists exactly as it rescued laughter from the ,puritans4 ,i repeat that ,i have deliberately emphasised its intrinsically defiant and dogmatic character4 ,the mystery is how anything so startling should have remained defiant and dogmatic and yet become perfectly normal and natural4 ,i have admitted freely that1 considering the incident in itself1 a man who says he is ,god may be classed with a man who says he is glass4 ,but the man who says he is glass is not a glazier making windows for all the world4 ,he does not remain for after ages as a shining and crystalline figure1 in whose light everything is as clear as crystal4 ,but this madness has remained sane4 ,the madness has remained sane when everything else went mad4 ,the madhouse has been a house to which1 age after age1 men are continually coming back as to a home4 ,that is the riddle that remains2 that anything so abrupt and abnormal should still be found a habitable and hospitable thing4 ,i care not if the sceptic says it is a tall story2 ,i cannot see how so toppling a tower could stand so long without foundation4 ,still less can ,i see how it could become1 as it has become1 the home of man4 ,had it merely appeared and disappeared1 it might possibly have been remembered or explained as the last leap of the rage of illusion1 the ultimate myth of the ultimate mood1 in which the mind struck the sky and broke4 ,but the mind did not break4 ,it is the one mind that remains unbroken in the break-up of the world4 ,if it were an error1 it seems as if the error could hardly have lasted a day4 ,if it were a mere ecstasy1 it would seem that such an ecstasy could not endure for an hour4 ,it has endured for nearly two thousand years2 and the world within it has been more lucid1 more levelheaded1 more reasonable in its hopes1 more healthy in its instincts1 more humorous and cheerful in the face of fate and death1 than all the world outside4 ,for it was the soul of ,christendom that came forth from the incredible ,christ2 and the soul of it was common sense4 ,though we dared not look on ,his face we could look on ,his fruits2 and by ,his fruits we should know ,him4 ,the fruits are solid and the fruitfulness is much more than a metaphor2 and nowhere in this sad world are boys happier in apple-trees1 or men in more equal chorus singing as they tread the vine1 than under the fixed flash of this instant and intolerant enlightenment2 the lightning made eternal as the light4 ,,appendix ,i ,,on ,,prehistoric ,,man ,in a sense it would be better if history were more superficial4 ,what is wanted is a reminder of the things that are seen so quickly that they are forgotten almost as quickly4 ,the one moral of this book1 in a manner of speaking1 is that first thoughts are best4 ,so a flash might reveal a landscape2 with the ,eiffel ,tower or the ,matterhorn standing up in it as they would never stand up again in the light of common day4 ,i ended the book with an image of everlasting lightning2 in a very different sense1 alas1 this little flash has lasted only too long4 ,but the method has also certain practical disadvantages upon which ,i think it well to add these two notes4 ,it may seem to simplify too much and to ignore out of ignorance4 ,i feel this especially in the passage about the prehistoric pictures2 which is not concerned with all that the learned may learn from prehistoric pictures1 but with the single point of what anybody could learn from there being any prehistoric pictures at all4 ,i am conscious that this attempt to express it in terms of innocence may exaggerate even my own ignorance4 ,without any pretence of scientific research1 ,i should be sorry to have it thought that ,i knew no more than ,i had occasion to say in that passage of the stages into which primitive humanity has been divided4 ,i am aware1 of course1 that the story is elaborately stratified2 and that there were many such stages before the ,cro-,magnan or any peoples with whom we associate such pictures4 ,indeed recent studies about the ,neanderthal and other races rather tend to repeat the moral that is here most relevant4 ,the notion1 noted in these pages1 of something necessarily slow or late in the development of religion will gain little indeed from these later revelations about the precursors of the reindeer picture-maker4 ,the learned appear to hold that1 whether the reindeer picture could be religious or not1 the people that lived before it were religious already4 ,men were already burying their dead with the care that is the significant sign of mystery and hope4 ,this obviously brings us back to the same argument2 an argument that is not approached by any measurement of the earlier man's skull4 ,it is little use to compare the head of the man with the head of the monkey1 if it certainly has never come into the head of the monkey to bury another monkey with nuts in his grave to help him towards a heavenly monkey-house4 ,talking of skulls1 we all know the story of the finding of a ,cro-,magnan skull that is much larger and finer than a modern skull4 ,it is a very funny story2 because an eminent evolutionist1 awakening to a somewhat belated caution1 protested against anything being inferred from one specimen4 ,it is the duty of a solitary skull to prove that our fathers were our inferiors4 ,any solitary skull presuming to prove that they were superior is felt to be suffering from swelled head4 ,,appendix ,,ii ,,on ,,authority ,,and ,,accuracy ,in this book1 which is merely meant as a popular criticism of popular fallacies1 often indeed of very vulgar errors1 ,i feel that ,i have sometimes given an impression of scoffing at serious scientific work4 ,it was1 however1 the very reverse of my intention4 ,i am not arguing with the scientist who explains the elephant1 but only with the sophist who explains it away4 ,and as a matter of fact the sophist plays to the gallery1 as he did in ancient ,greece4 ,he appeals to the ignorant1 especially when he appeals to the learned4 ,but ,i never meant my own criticism to be an impertinence to the truly learned4 ,we all owe an infinite debt to the researches1 especially the recent researches1 of single-minded students in these matters2 and ,i have only professed to pick up things here and there from them4 ,i have not loaded my abstract argument with quotations and references1 which only make a man look more learned than he is2 but in some cases ,i find that my own loose fashion of allusion is rather misleading about my own meaning4 ,the passage about ,chaucer and the ,child ,martyr is badly expressed2 ,i only mean that the ,english poet probably had in mind the ,english saint2 of whose story he gives a sort of foreign version4 ,in the same way two statements in the chapter on ,mythology follow each other in such a way that it may seem to be suggested that the second story about ,monotheism refers to the ,southern ,seas4 ,i may explain that ,atahocan belongs not to ,australasian but to ,american savages4 ,so in the chapter called #8,the ,antiquity of ,civilisation1' which ,i feel to be the most unsatisfactory1 ,i have given my own impression of the meaning of the development of ,egyptian monarchy too much1 perhaps1 as if it were identical with the facts on which it was founded1 as given in works like those of ,professor ,j4 ,l4 ,myres4 ,but the confusion was not intentional2 still less was there any intention to imply1 in the remainder of the chapter1 that the anthropological speculations about races are less valuable than they undoubtedly are4 ,my criticism is strictly relative2 ,i may say that the ,pyramids are plainer than the tracks of the desert1 without denying that wiser men than ,i may see tracks in what is to me the trackless sand4 ,transcriber's ,note3 ,two possible typos do match the printed editions3 ,a lunatic may think he is omniscience1 and a fool may talk as if he were omniscient4 ,but ,christ is in another sense omniscient if he not only knows1 but knows that he knows4 - omniscience seems awkward1 but does make sense4 ,but we may venture to say1 in ,mr4 ,mantalini's phrase1 that this evolutionary history has no outline or is a demd outline4 - ,it is unclear what demd should be4