,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,objects ,,to 8,,the ,,outline ,,of ,,history0 ,illustration3 ,hilaire ,belloc ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,objects ,,to 8,,the ,,outline ,,of ,,history0 ,,by ,h4 ,g4 ,,wells ,with ,portraits ,,new ,illustration ,,york ,,george ,h4 ,,doran ,,company ,,copyright1 #aibf1 ,,by ,,george ,h4 ,,doran ,,company ,illustration ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,objects ,,to 8,,the ,,outline ,,of ,,history0 --,b-- ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,foreword ,in the autumn of #aibe and the spring and summer of #aibf there was published a revised and illustrated version of the ,outline of ,history1 by ,mr4 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,there followed a series of articles by ,mr4 ,belloc attacking this ,outline and ,mr4 ,wells4 ,these articles were published in the ,catholic ,universe1 in the ,southern ,cross of ,cape ,colony1 in the ,american ,catholic ,bulletin1 and possibly elsewhere4 ,every fortnight1 keeping pace with the issue of the ,outline1 these attacks appeared2 in all1 twenty-four voluminous articles4 ,they were grossly personal and provocative in tone1 and no doubt a great joy and comfort to the faithful4 ,mr4 ,wells prepared a series of articles in reply2 and as no one outside the public of these ,catholic journals seemed to have heard of ,mr4 ,belloc's attacks1 he offered them to the editors concerned1 proposing1 if necessary1 to give the use of this interesting matter to them without payment4 ,six articles he asked to have published--in reply to twenty-four4 ,this offering was declined very earnestly by these editors4 ,to the editor of the ,catholic ,universe ,mr4 ,wells protested in the terms of the following letter3-- ,,my ,,dear ,,sir1 ,i am sorry to receive your letter of ,may #aith4 ,may ,i point out to you that ,mr4 ,belloc has been attacking my reputation as a thinker1 a writer1 an impartial historian1 and an educated person for four-and-twenty fortnights in the ,universe8 ,he has misquoted2 he has misstated4 ,will your ,catholic public tolerate no reply8 ,under the stimulus of this remonstrance1 the editor of the ,universe1 after a month's delay and various consultations with ,mr4 ,belloc and the directors of his paper1 offered ,mr4 ,wells the 8opportunity of correcting definite points of fact upon which he might have been misrepresented10 but declined to allow him to defend his views or examine ,mr4 ,belloc's logic and imputations in his columns4 ,mr4 ,wells was disinclined for a series of wrangles upon what might or might not be a 8point of fact40 ,he then offered his articles to various non-,catholic papers1 but1 with one accord1 they expressed their lack of interest in either ,mr4 ,belloc himself or in his exposition of ,catholic ideas about natural selection1 the origin of man1 and the general course of history4 ,yet it seems to ,mr4 ,wells that1 regarded as a mental sample1 ,mr4 ,belloc is not without significance1 and that the examination of the contemporary ,catholic attitude towards the fundamental facts of history is a matter of interest beyond ,catholic circles4 ,accordingly he has decided to issue these articles in the form of a book1 and he has urged the publishers to advertise them1 as freely as may be permitted1 in the ,catholic press4 ,he has retained the 8cross-heads0 customary in journalistic writing4 ,,contents ,,page ,i ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,arts ,,of ,,controversy #ac ,,ii ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,natural ,,selection ,,stated #bi ,,iii ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,as ,a ,,specimen ,,critic ,,of ,,natural ,,selection #dd ,,iv ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,adventures ,,among ,,the ,,sub-,,men3 ,,manifest ,,terror ,,of ,,the ,,neanderthaler #fd ,v ,,fixity ,,or ,,progress #hj ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,objects ,,to 8,,the ,,outline ,,of ,,history0 ,i ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,arts ,,of ,,controversy ,i am the least controversial of men4 ,public disputations have rarely attracted me4 ,for years ,i have failed to respond to ,mr4 ,henry ,arthur ,jones1 who long ago invented a set of opinions for me and invited me to defend them with an enviable persistence and vigour4 ,occasionally ,i may have corrected some too gross public misstatement about me--too often ,i fear with the acerbity of the inexperienced4 ,but now1 in my sixtieth year1 ,i find myself drawn rather powerfully into a disputation with ,mr4 ,hilaire ,belloc4 ,i bring an unskilled pen to the task4 ,i am responsible for an ,outline of ,history which has had a certain vogue4 ,i will assume that it is known by name to the reader4 ,it is a careful summary of man's knowledge of past time4 ,it has recently been reissued with considerable additions in an illustrated form1 and ,mr4 ,belloc has made a great attack upon it4 ,he declares that ,i am violently antagonistic to the ,catholic ,church1 an accusation ,i deny very earnestly1 and he has produced a 8,companion0 to this ,outline of mine1 following up the periodical issue1 part by part1 in the ,universe of ,london1 in the ,catholic ,bulletin of ,st4 ,paul1 ,minnesota1 in the ,southern ,cross of ,cape ,colony1 and possibly elsewhere1 in which my alleged errors are exposed and confuted4 ,in the enthusiasm of advertisement before the 8,companion0 began to appear1 these newspapers announced a work that would put ,mr4 ,belloc among the great classical ,catholic apologists1 but ,i should imagine that this was before the completed manuscript of ,mr4 ,belloc's work had come to hand1 and ,i will not hold ,catholics at large responsible for all ,mr4 ,belloc says and does4 ,it is with this ,companion to the ,outline of ,history that ,i am to deal here4 ,it raises a great number of very interesting questions1 and there is no need to discuss the validity of the charge of ,heresy that is levelled against me personally4 ,i will merely note that ,i am conscious of no animus against ,catholicism1 and that in my ,outline ,i accept the gospels as historical documents of primary value1 defend ,christianity against various aspersions of ,gibbon's1 and insist very strongly upon the rle of the ,church in preserving learning in ,europe1 consolidating ,christendom1 and extending knowledge from a small privileged class to the whole community4 ,i do not profess to be a ,christian4 ,i am as little disposed to take sides between a ,roman ,catholic and a ,protestant4 ,mr4 ,belloc will protest against that 8,roman10 but he must forgive it2 ,i know no other way of distinguishing between his ,church and ,catholics not in communion with it1 as ,i am between a pterodactyl and a bird4 ,,disconcerting ,,pose ,,of ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,in this art of controversy it is evident that great importance attaches to pose4 ,this is plain from the very outset of ,mr4 ,belloc's apologia4 ,from the beginning ,i have to be put in my place1 and my relationship to ,mr4 ,belloc has to be defined4 ,accustomed as ,i am to see ,mr4 ,belloc dodging about in my ,london club1 and in ,soho and thereabouts1 and even occasionally appearing at a dinner-party1 compactly stout1 rather breathless and always insistently garrulous1 ,i am more than a little amazed at his opening4 ,he has suddenly become aloof from me4 ,a great gulf of manner yawns between us4 8,hullo1 ,belloc60 is frozen on my lips1 dies unuttered4 ,he advances upon me in his ,introduction with a gravity of utterance1 a dignity of gesture1 rare in sober1 ,god-fearing men4 ,there is a slow1 formal compliment or so4 ,i have1 ,i learn1 8a deservedly popular talent in fiction40 ,i am sincere1 an honest soul4 ,my intentions are worthy4 ,but the note changes2 he declares ,i am a 8,protestant writing for ,protestants10 and there is danger that my ,outline may fall into ,catholic hands4 ,some ,catholics may even be infected with doubt4 ,his style thickens with emotion at this thought1 and he declares3 8,one ,catholic disturbed in his faith is more important than twenty thousand or a hundred thousand or a million of the average reading public of ,england and ,america40 ,that is why he is giving me his attention1 syndicating these articles and swelling himself up so strongly against me4 ,that is why he now proposes to exhibit and explain and expose me in the sight of all mankind4 ,it is controversy1 and everyday manners are in abeyance4 ,the controversial pose reveals itself further4 ,the compliments and civilities thin out and vanish4 ,mr4 ,belloc becomes more magisterial1 relatively larger1 relatively graver1 with every paragraph4 ,he assumes more definitely the quality of a great scholar of ,european culture and ,european reputation1 a trained1 distinguished1 universally accepted historian4 ,with what is evidently the dexterity of an expert controversialist and with an impressiveness all his own1 he seems to look over and under and round the man he knows1 and sketches in the man he proposes to deal with1 his limitations1 his pitiful limitations1 the characteristics1 the disagreeable characteristics1 that disfigure him4 ,it is a new ,wells1 a most extraordinary person4 ,i learn with amazement the particulars with which it is necessary to instruct that ,catholic soul in danger before the matter of my book can be considered4 ,i see myself in the lurid illumination of ,catholic truth4 ,,remarkable ,,portrait ,,of ,,mr4 ,,wells ,to begin with1 ,i am 8an intense patriot40 ,this will surprise many readers4 ,i dread its effect on ,mr4 ,henry ,arthur ,jones1 whose favourite tune upon the megaphone for years has been that ,i am the friend of every country but my own4 ,will he intervene with a series of articles to 8,my dear ,belloc08 ,i hope not4 ,i might plead that almost any chapter of the ,outline of ,history could be quoted against this proposition4 ,but ,mr4 ,belloc is ruthless2 he offers no evidence for his statement1 no foothold for a counter-plea4 ,he just says it1 very clearly1 very emphatically several times over1 and he says it1 as ,i realise very soon1 because it is the necessary preliminary to his next still more damaging exposures4 ,they are that ,i am an ,englishman 8of the ,home ,counties and ,london ,suburbs0--,mr4 ,belloc1 it seems1 was born all over ,europe--that my culture is entirely ,english1 that ,i know nothing of any language or literature or history or science but that of ,england4 ,and from this his creative invention sweeps on to a description of this new ,wells he is evoking to meet his controversial needs4 ,my admiration grows4 ,i resist an impulse to go over at once to ,mr4 ,belloc's side4 ,this1 for example1 is splendid4 ,this new ,wells1 this suburban ,english ,protestant1 has written his ,outline of ,history because1 says ,mr4 ,belloc1 8he does not know that #8foreigners' 7as he would call them7 have general histories40 ,that 8as he would call them0 is the controversial ,mr4 ,belloc rising to his best4 ,mr4 ,belloc1 ,i may note in passing1 does not cite any of these general histories to which he refers4 ,it would surely make an interesting list and help the ,catholic soul in danger to better reading4 ,the ,american reader1 at whose prejudices this stuff about my patriotism is presumably aimed1 would surely welcome a competing ,outline by a 8foreigner40 ,mr4 ,belloc might do worse things than a little translation work4 ,then the ,royal ,college of ,science shrivels at his touch to a mechanics' institute1 and the new ,wells1 ,i learn1 8does really believe from the bottom of his heart all that he read in the text-books of his youth40 ,the picture of this new ,wells1 credulous1 uncritical devourer of the text-books supplied by his suburban institute1 inveterate ,protestant1 grows under the pen of this expert controversialist4 ,i have next to be presented as a low-class fellow with a peculiar bias against the 8,gentry of my own country10 and this is accordingly done4 8,gentlemen0 with whom ,i have quarrelled are hinted at darkly--a pretty touch of fantasy4 ,a profound and incurable illiteracy follows as a matter of course4 ,,gathering ,,courage ,,of ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,mr4 ,belloc's courage gathers with the elaboration of his sketch4 ,he is the type to acquiesce readily in his own statements1 and one can see him persuading himself as he goes along that this really is the ,wells he is up against4 ,if so1 what is there to be afraid of8 ,if there is a twinge of doubt1 he can always go back and read what he has written4 ,the phraseology loses its earlier discretion1 gets more pluckily abusive4 ,presently words like 8ignorance0 and 8blunders0 and 8limited instruction0 come spluttering from those ready nibs4 ,follows 8childish0 and 8pitiable0 and 8antiquated nonsense40 ,nothing to substantiate any of it--just saying it4 ,so ,mr4 ,belloc goes his way along the primrose path of controversy4 ,he takes a fresh sip or so from his all too complaisant imagination4 ,new inspirations come4 ,i have 8copied0 things from the 8wrong0 books4 ,that 8copied0 is good6 ,one can see that base malignant ,wells fellow1 in his stuffy room all hung with ,union ,jacks1 with the 8wrong10 the 8,protestant0 book flattened out before him1 copying1 copying2 his tongue following his laborious pen4 ,presently ,i read3 8,it is perhaps asking too much of our author to adopt a strictly scientific attitude40 ,this1 from an adept in that mixture of stale politics and gossip which passed for history in the days of ,mr4 ,belloc's reading1 to even the least of ,huxley's students1 is stupendous6 ,still he swells and swells with self-importance and self-induced contempt for his silent and invisible antagonist4 ,the pen runs on1 for does not the ,catholic press wait for its latest great apologist8 ,the thin film of oily politeness in the opening paragraphs is long since gone and done with1 and ,mr4 ,hilaire ,belloc is fully himself again and remains himself1 except for one or two returns to patronising praise and the oil squirt1 for the rest of these remarkable papers4 ,his are1 ,i suppose1 the accepted manners of controversy--and what wonderful manners they are6 ,i note them1 but ,i cannot emulate them4 ,there is1 however1 one reference to the unlettered suburbanism of this ideal ,wells too good to lose4 ,i had almost let it slip by4 ,it is an allusion to a certain publication in ,french4 8,there may be no translation10 ,mr4 ,belloc throws out superbly at the height of his form1 8but ,mr4 ,wells ought to have heard of0--the out-of-date monograph in question4 8,there may be no translation44406 ,how feeble sounds my protest that for all practical purposes ,i read ,french as well as ,i do ,english1 and that in all probability if it came to using a ,german1 ,spanish1 ,portuguese1 or ,italian scientific work ,i could give ,mr4 ,belloc points and a beating4 ,,reflections ,,upon ,,the ,,real ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,but ,i have said enough to justify incidentally my habitual avoidance of the arts of controversy4 ,i cannot inflate myself in this fashion4 ,i cannot do the counter to this attitude4 ,i was born and ,i shall die 8familiar40 ,what seems to make ,mr4 ,belloc feel brave and happy would make me feel sick4 ,on this he has presumed overmuch4 ,there are limits to my notorious gentleness and modesty1 and they have been reached by ,mr4 ,belloc in these articles4 ,his skill is undeniable2 no other writer could better his unpremeditated condescension1 his apparently inadvertent insults4 ,and yet the facts beneath all this insolent posturing are quite well known and easily verifiable4 ,i cannot imagine whom it is intended to deceive for any length of time4 ,mr4 ,belloc is a man four years my junior1 and his academic career was briefer and not more brilliant than mine4 ,since he came down from ,oxford to the world of ,london thirty years ago1 he has done no original historical work of any distinction4 ,he has been a popular writer as ,i have been a popular writer1 and he is no more if no less a scholar than ,i am4 ,there has been much incidental and inconsequent brightness in his discursive career--funny verses and stories1 an amusing rather than a serious period in ,parliament1 much pamphleteering1 lecturing and speaking2 he has been active and erratic2 now he would be urging on an anti-,semitic campaign2 now1 in association with ,horatio ,bottomley1 attempting to hound ,masterman1 his old friend and rival1 out of politics2 the war made him the most confident of military 8experts10 and he has done quite a number of clever revivifications of this or that historical event4 ,that is his record4 ,it gives him a respectable position in the republic of letters1 in which also my position is respectable4 ,no doubt he has every right and very considerable qualifications for the criticism of such a popular work as my ,outline4 ,but there is nothing in his career and nothing in his quality to justify this pose of erudition and insolent superiority he assumes towards me1 and which he has made an integral part of his attack4 ,he has assumed it entirely in relation to this controversy4 ,he has thrown ordinary courtesy and good manners to the winds because only in that way can he hope for a controversial advantage over me4 ,,the ,,clue ,,to ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,disconcerting ,,pose ,this disconcerting pose is part of his attack4 ,that is why ,i am obliged to discuss it here4 ,upon many points the attack is almost pure pose2 there is no tangible argument at all4 ,it is very important to note that and bear that in mind4 ,it has to be borne in mind when ,mr4 ,belloc is accused of inordinate vanity or of not knowing his place in the world4 ,i doubt even if he is really very vain4 ,i realised long ago that his apparent arrogance is largely the self-protection of a fundamentally fearful man4 ,he is a stout fellow in a funk4 ,he is the sort of man who talks loud and fast for fear of hearing the other side4 ,there is a frightened thing at the heart of all this burly insolence4 ,he has a faith to defend1 and he is not sure of his defence4 ,that mitigates much of his offence1 even if it mitigates little of his offensiveness4 ,let me say a word or so more of excuse and explanation for him4 ,these personalities of his are1 so to speak1 not a personal matter4 ,there is more in them than that4 ,mr4 ,belloc's attack upon my ,outline does not stand alone among his activities2 it is part of a larger controversy he wages against the modern1 the non-,catholic vision of the world4 ,he has carried on that controversy since his ,balliol days4 ,the exigencies that oblige him to pretend1 against his better knowledge and common civility1 that ,i am petty and provincial and patriotic and wilfully ignorant and pitifully out-of-date1 oblige him to pretend as much about most of those who stand for modern science and a modern interpretation of history4 ,he would pretend as hard about ,sir ,ray ,lankester1 for example1 or about ,professor ,gilbert ,murray or ,sir ,harry ,johnston or ,professor ,barker1 as he does about me4 ,it is a general system of pretence4 ,it is a necessary part of--,i will not say of the ,catholic attitude1 but of his ,catholic attitude towards modern knowledge4 ,the necessity for a pose involving this pretence is not very difficult to understand4 ,long before ,mr4 ,belloc embarked upon the present dispute he had become the slave of a tactical fiction1 which reiteration had made a reality for him4 ,he evoked the fiction as early1 ,i believe1 as his ,oxford days4 ,it may have been very effective at ,oxford--among the undergraduates4 ,then perhaps it was consciously a defensive bluff1 but certainly it is no longer that4 ,he has come at last to believe absolutely in this creature of his imagination4 ,he has come to believe this3 that there is a vast 8modern ,european0 culture of which the ,english-speaking world knows nothing1 of which the non-,catholic world knows nothing1 and with which he is familiar4 ,it is on his side4 ,it is always on his side4 ,it is simply and purely ,belloccian4 ,he certainly believes it is there4 ,it sustains his faith4 ,it assuages the gnawing attacks of self-criticism that must come to him in the night4 ,throughout these papers he is constantly referring to this imaginary stuff--without ever coming to precisions4 ,again and again and again and again--and again and again and again1 he alludes to this marvellous 8,european0 science and literature1 beyond our ken4 ,he does not quote it2 it does not exist for him to quote2 but he believes that it exists4 ,he waves his hand impressively in the direction in which it is supposed to be4 ,it is his stand-by1 his refuge1 his abiding fortress4 ,but1 in order to believe in it1 it is necessary for him to believe that no other ,english-speaking men can even read ,french1 and that their scepticism about it is based on some 8provincial0 prejudice or some hatred of ,catholics1 or southern people1 or 8,dagoes10 or 8foreigners10 or what you will4 ,that is why ,nature wilfully ignores the wonderful science of this 8,europe02 and why our ,royal ,society has no correspondence with it4 ,but he has to imagine it is there and make his readers imagine it is there1 and that there is this conspiracy of prejudice to ignore it1 before he can even begin to put up any appearance of a case against such a rsum of current knowledge as the ,outline of ,history4 ,,graceful ,,concessions ,,to ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,all this rough and apparently irrelevant stuff about his own great breadth and learning and my profound ignorance and provincialism1 to which he has devoted his two introductory papers1 is therefore the necessary prelude to putting over this delusion4 ,that stream of depreciation is not the wanton personal onslaught one might suppose it to be at the first blush4 ,if he has appeared to glorify himself and belittle me1 it is for greater controversial ends than a mere personal score4 ,we are dealing with a controversialist here and a great apologist1 and for all ,i know these may be quite legitimate methods in this1 to me1 unfamiliar field4 ,few people will be found to deny ,mr4 ,belloc a considerable amplitude of mind in his undertaking1 so soon as they get thus far in understanding him4 ,before he could even set about syndicating this ,companion to the ,outline of ,history he had to incite a partisan receptivity in the ,catholic readers to whom he appeals1 by declaring that a violent hatred for their ,church is the guiding motive of my life4 ,he had to ignore a considerable array of facts to do that1 and he has ignored them with great courage and steadfastness4 ,he had to arouse an indifferent ,catholic public to a sense of urgent danger by imposing this figure of a base1 inveterate1 and yet finally contemptible enemy upon it4 ,his is a greater task than mere dragon-slaying4 ,he had to create the dragon before he could become the champion4 ,and then1 with his syndication arrangements complete1 while abusing me industriously for ignorance1 backwardness1 and general intellectual backwoodism1 he had to write the whole of these articles without once really opening that ,humbert safe of knowledge which is his sole capital in this controversy4 ,time after time he refers to it4 ,never once does he quote it4 ,at most he may give us illusive peeps4444 ,now and then as we proceed ,i shall note these illusive peeps4 ,i can admire great effort even when it is ill-directed1 and to show how little ,i bear him a grudge for the unpleasant things he has induced himself to write about me1 and for the still more unpleasant things he tempts me--though ,i resist with a success that gratifies me--to write about him1 ,i contemplate a graceful compliment to ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,in spite of the incurable ignorance of ,french and that 8dirty ,dago0 attitude towards foreigners ,mr4 ,belloc has so agreeably put upon me1 it is my habit to spend a large part of the winter in a house ,i lease among the olive terraces of ,provence4 ,there is a placard in one corner of my study which could be rather amusingly covered with the backs of dummy books4 ,i propose to devote that to a collection of ,mr4 ,belloc's authorities4 ,there shall be one whole row at least of the ,bulletins of the ,madame ,humbert ,society1 and all the later researches of the ,belloc ,academy of ,anonymous ,europeans1 bound in bluff leather4 ,there will be ,finis ,darwinis by ,hilario ,belloccio1 and ,hist4 ,eccles4 by ,hilarius ,belloccius4 ,i may have occasion to refer to other leading authorities in the course of this controversy4 ,i shall add to it as we proceed4 ,and so1 having examined1 explained1 disposed of1 and in part apologised for1 ,mr4 ,belloc's personalities and the pervading inelegance of his manners1 ,i shall turn with some relief from this unavoidably personal retort to questions of a more general interest4 ,i propose as my first study of these modern ,catholic apologetics1 so valiantly produced by ,mr4 ,belloc and so magnificently published and displayed by the ,catholic press1 to follow our hero's courageous but unsteady progress through the mysteries of ,natural ,selection4 ,and after that we shall come to ,original ,sin and ,human ,origins in the light of ,mr4 ,belloc's science and the phantom science of those phantom naturalists and anthropologists he calls to his assistance4 ,,ii ,,the ,,theory ,,of ,,natural ,,selection ,,stated ,my first article upon ,mr4 ,belloc's ,companion to the ,outline of ,history dealt1 much against my inclination and as charitably and amiably as possible1 with the oddities of ,mr4 ,belloc's manner and method1 and those remarkable non-existent 8,european authorities0 to whom he appeals habitually in moments of argumentative stress4 ,i do not propose to go on thus girding at ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,he is a ,catholic apologist1 endorsed by ,catholic authorities1 and there is matter of very great importance for our consideration in what he has to say about the history of life and mankind4 ,after his second paper is finished his abuse of me becomes merely incidental or indirect4 ,he goes on to a staggering rush at ,natural ,selection4 ,let us see to where ,catholic thought has got--if ,mr4 ,belloc is to be trusted--in relation to this very fundamental matter4 ,it is ,mr4 ,belloc's brilliant careless way to begin most of his arguments somewhere about the middle and put the end first4 ,his opening peroration1 so to speak1 is a proclamation that this 8,natural ,selection0--whatever it is--is 8an old and done-for theory of ,darwin and ,wallace40 ,it is 8a laughing-stock for half a generation among competent men40 ,mr4 ,george ,bernard ,shaw does not believe in it6 ,g4 ,b4 ,s4 among the ,fathers6 ,that wonderful non-existent 8latest ,european work0 which plays so large a part in ,mr4 ,belloc's dialectic is summoned briefly1 its adverse testimony is noted1 and it is dismissed to the safe again4 ,and then there is a brief statement of how these two vile fellows1 ,darwin and ,wallace1 set out upon this reprehensible theorising4 ,what a ruthless expos it is of the true motives of scientific people6 8,the process of thought was as follows3 8#8,there is no ,mind at work in the universe2 therefore changes of this sort must come from blind chance or at least mechanically4 ,at all costs we must get rid of the idea of design3 of a desired end conceived in a ,creative ,mind4 ,here is a theory which will make the whole process entirely mechanical and dead1 and get rid of the necessity for a ,creator4'0 ,and so having invented and then as it were visited and spat upon the derided and neglected tomb of ,natural ,selection and assured us that ,god1 ,mr4 ,shaw1 8,european opinion10 and all good ,catholics are upon his side1 ,mr4 ,belloc plucks up courage and really begins to write about ,natural ,selection4 ,,natural ,,selection ,,is ,,pure ,,common-,,sense ,what is this ,natural ,selection which has been dead for half a century1 but which ,mr4 ,belloc still exerts himself industriously through four long papers to kill all over again8 ,it is the purest common-sense1 the most obvious deduction from obvious facts4 ,i have set out the idea as plainly as ,i could in the ,outline of ,history ,mr4 ,belloc is attacking4 ,it is put so plainly there that1 before he can begin to argue against it1 he has to misstate it2 he has to tell the story all over again in his own words and get it suitably askew4 ,it was quite open to him to quote from my account1 but he preferred to compile his own misstatement4 ,indeed1 in all this argument against ,natural ,selection he never once quotes my actual words4 ,he paraphrases throughout4 ,he has put some words between inverted commas in one place1 so as inadvertently to produce the impression that they are mine1 but they are not mine4 ,now the facts upon which the idea of ,natural ,selection rests are matters of universal knowledge4 8,every species of living thing is continually dying and being born again as a multitude of fresh individuals02 that is the primary fact4 ,no species seems to be perfectly adapted to its conditions1 and even the happiest species tends to multiply until it is in a state of need and pressure4 ,so far surely we are dealing with things beyond dispute4 ,and next comes the fact of individuality4 ,every living unit is individual with a difference of its own4 ,every individual has its own distinctive differences1 and each of these differences may or may not be an advantage or a disadvantage4 ,individuals with advantageous differences will generally get on better in life1 prosper and so be able to breed more freely1 than those with disadvantageous differences4 ,offspring have a tendency to repeat the distinctive differences of their parents4 ,therefore1 taking a species as a whole by the million or billion or million billion--for few species of animals or plants are represented by fewer individuals than a million--there will be in each successive generation a greater number of individuals with the differences that are advantageous relative to the number with disadvantages4 ,in other words1 the average of the species will have moved more or less in the direction of the advantageous differences1 whatever they may be1 and however numerous they may be4 ,if1 for example1 the species is chased and has to climb or run for it1 there will be rather more good climbers and sprinters in the new generation4 ,there may be other dangers and other needs2 they will not affect the premium set on quickness and the fate of the slow4 ,and if the circumstances of the species continue to press in the same direction1 the movement of the average will be in the same direction in this respect for so long as they continue to press4 ,over a few score or even a few hundred generations1 and under conditions not very strenuous1 a species may not change very much4 ,it may seem to be fixed in its general characteristics1 just as the continents seem to be fixed in their general outline4 ,but1 as the range of time extends and the pressure of necessity continues1 the change becomes more striking4 ,,natural ,,selection ,,has ,,nothing ,,to ,,do ,,with ,,the ,,origin ,,of ,,variations ,that is the process of ,natural ,selection1 the 8laughing-stock0 of ,mr4 ,belloc's mysterious conclave of 8,european0 savants4 ,natural ,selection has nothing to do with the reason for the differences between individuals4 ,it has no more to do with those than gravitation has to do with the differences in the heaviness of different substances4 ,but it is necessary to state as much here1 because in some queer muddled way ,mr4 ,belloc seems to be persuaded that it has4 ,these differences may arise by pure chance2 they may come about through the operation of complex laws1 they may come in shoals and have their seasons4 ,these things have nothing to do with ,natural ,selection4 ,now1 ,wallace and ,darwin were two excellent ,europeans who happened to be interested in natural history4 ,in spite of the sinister motives invented for them by ,mr4 ,belloc1 ,i doubt if any ,catholic sufficiently educated to have read their lives will agree that they had even a latent animus against ,catholic truth or even a subconscious desire to 8get rid of a ,creator0 in their minds4 ,they no more thought of 8getting rid of a ,creator0 when humbly and industriously they gathered their facts and put fact to fact than an honest bricklayer thinks of 8getting rid of a ,creator0 when he lays his bricks with care and builds a sound piece of wall4 ,they went about the world studying natural history4 ,they considered life with a patience and thoroughness and freedom from preconceptions beyond the imagination of a man of ,mr4 ,belloc's habits4 ,they found no such 8fixity of species0 as he is inspired to proclaim4 ,they found much evidence of a progressive change in species1 and they saw no reason to explain it by a resort to miracles or magic4 ,a ,catholic priest of the ,anglican communion named ,malthus had written a very interesting and suggestive book upon over-population and the consequent struggle for existence between individuals4 ,it turned the attention of both these diligent and gifted observers to just that process of ,natural ,selection ,i have stated4 ,independently both of them came to the conclusions that species changed age by age and without any necessary limits1 and mainly through the sieve of ,natural ,selection1 and that1 given a sufficient separation to reduce or prevent interbreeding and a sufficient difference in the selective conditions at work1 two parts of the same species might change in different directions1 so as at last to become distinct and separate species4 ,darwin's book upon the subject was called ,the ,origin of ,species4 ,it was a very modest and sufficient title4 ,he did not even go to the length of calling it the origin of genera or orders or classes4 ,he did not at first apply it to man4 ,this is the theory of the origin of species through ,natural ,selection4 ,it was not pretended by either of these pioneers that ,natural ,selection was the sole way through which the differences of species came about4 ,for example1 ,darwin devoted a considerable part of his working life to such collateral modes of differentiation as the hypothesis that ,sexual ,selection also had its share4 ,criticism has whittled down that share to practically negligible proportions1 but ,i note the hypothesis here because it absolutely disposes of the assertion which ,mr4 ,belloc hammers on the table1 that the ,theory of ,natural ,selection excludes any other modes of specific differentiation4 ,,testing ,,the ,,theory ,very rapidly this conception of ,natural ,selection was extended by naturalists until it came to be regarded as the general process of life4 ,they came to realise that all species1 all genera1 all classes of life1 whatever else may be happening to them1 are and always have been varying through the process of ,natural ,selection1 some rapidly1 some slowly2 some so slowly as hardly to change at all through vast ages4 ,i have stated the a priori case by which1 given birth and death and individuality and changing conditions and sufficient time1 it appears logically inevitable that the change and differentiation of species must occur1 and must be now going on4 ,if we had no material evidence at all it would still be possible to infer the evolution of species4 ,that a priori case has never been answered1 and it seems to me unanswerable4 ,but scientific men1 with their obstinate preference for observation and experiment over mere logical gymnastics1 rarely rest their convictions on a priori cases4 ,a sustaining scepticism is a matter of conscience with them4 ,to them an a priori case is merely a theory--that is to say1 a generalisation under trial4 ,for nearly three-quarters of a century1 therefore1 biologists have been examining whatever instances they could discover that seemed to contradict this assumption that the process of specific change under ,natural ,selection is the general condition of life4 ,to this day this view is still called the ,theory of ,natural ,selection1 though to a great number it has come to have the substantial quality of an embracing fact4 ,it would have been amusing if ,mr4 ,belloc had told us more of his ideas of the scientific world4 ,apparently he knows scarcely anything of museums or laboratories or the spirit and methods of research4 ,and manifestly he has not the faintest suspicion of the way in which the whole world of vital phenomena has been ransacked and scrutinised to test1 correct1 supplement1 amplify1 or alter this great generalisation about life4 ,he probably shares the delusion of most other men in the street1 that scientific theories are scientific finalities1 that they are supposed to be as ultimate as the dogmas of some infallible religion4 ,he imagines them put over chiefly by asseveration1 just as the assertions of a polemical journalist are put over4 ,he has still to learn that theories are trial material1 testing targets1 directives for research4 ,shooting at established theories is the normal occupation of the scientific investigator4 ,mr4 ,belloc's figure of the scientific investigator is probably a queer1 frowsty1 and often1 alas6 atheistical individual1 poking about almost aimlessly among facts in the hope of hitting upon some 8discovery0 or 8getting rid of a ,god40 ,he does not understand the tense relevance of the vast amount of work in progress4 ,but for three-quarters of a century the thought and work of myriads of people round and about the world have borne directly or almost directly upon the probing1 sounding1 testing1 of the theory of ,natural ,selection4 ,it stands clarified and1 it would seem1 impregnable to-day4 ,,some ,,irrelevant ,,questions ,among questions bearing upon it but not directly attacking it has been the discussion of the individual difference4 ,for example1 are differences due to individual experiences ever inherited8 ,or are only inherent differences transmissible8 ,what rle is played by what one might call 8normal10 relatively slight differences1 and what by the 8sports0 and abnormal births in specific change8 ,do species under stress1 and feeding on strange food or living in unaccustomed climates1 betray any exceptional tendency to produce abnormality8 ,have there been1 so to speak1 storms and riots of variation in some cases8 ,can differences establish themselves while outer necessity remains neutral8 ,can variations amounting to specific differences in colour and form arise as a sort of play of the germ plasm and be tolerated rather than selected by nature8 ,in what manner do normal differences arise8 ,what happens to differences in cases of hybridisation8 ,here are sample questions that have been the seeds of splendid work and great arguments4 ,some of them were already under discussion in ,darwin's time2 he was a pioneer in such explorations2 many ideas of his have stood the test of time1 and many suggestions he threw out have been disproved4 ,when some casual 8may be0 of ,darwin's is examined and set aside1 it is the custom of polemical journalists to rush about and proclaim to all who may be sufficiently ill-informed to listen that ,darwin is 8exploded40 ,such explosions of ,darwin are constantly recurring like gun-fire near a garrison town1 and still he remains4 ,none of these subsidiary questions affect the stability of this main generalisation of biology1 the ,theory of ,natural ,selection4 ,the actual attack and testing of the ,theory of ,natural ,selection have yielded negative results4 ,the statement of the theory may have been made finer and exacter1 that is all4 ,and yet the conditions of its survival have been very exacting4 ,if the theory is to stand1 the whole of plant and animal life in time and space must be arranged in a certain order4 ,it must be possible to replace classification by a genealogical tree4 ,every form must fall without difficulty into its proper place in that tree4 ,if it is true that birds are descended from reptiles or men from apes1 then there must be no birds before the reptiles appear1 and no men before apes4 ,the geological record is manifestly a mere fragmentary history1 still for the most part unread1 but1 however fragmentary it is1 it must be consistent4 ,one human skull in the coal measures blows the whole theory to atoms4 ,the passage from form to form must be explicable by intermediate types capable of maintaining themselves2 there may be gaps in the record1 but there must be no miraculous leaps in the story4 ,if an animal living in the air is to be considered as a lineal descendant of some animal living in the water1 then the structure of the former bit by bit and step by step must be shown to be adapted1 modified1 changed about from that of the latter2 it must have ears for water-hearing modified for air-hearing1 and its heart and breathing arrangements must be shown to be similarly changed over1 and so on for all its structure4 ,all these requirements will follow naturally from the necessities of a process of ,natural ,selection4 ,they follow logically upon no other hypothesis4 ,they are not demanded1 for example1 by the idea of a ,creator continually interfering with and rectifying some stately1 unaccountable process of 8,evolution10 which seems to be ,mr4 ,belloc's idea--so far as he ventures to display any idea of his own--in the matter4 ,such things as vestigial structures and a number of odd clumsinesses in living things--many still very imperfect adaptations to an erect position1 for example--become grotesque in relation to such a view4 ,a ,creator who put needless or inconvenient fish structures into the anatomy of a land animal and made the whole fauna and flora of the land a patch-up of aquatic forms of life must be not so much a ,divinity as a ,pedant4 ,but it is the burthen of the whole beautiful science of comparative anatomy that the structure of animals and plants1 and their succession in time1 fall exactly into the conditions defined by the ,theory of ,natural ,selection4 ,in the most lovely and intricate detail1 in a vast multitude of examples1 in plants and in animals alike1 this theme of the adaptation of pre-existing structure is worked out4 ,we should in accordance with the ,theory of ,natural ,selection expect to find traces of the ancestral form1 not only in the lay-out of the adult animal1 but in every phase of its life history1 and that1 in fact1 is just what we do find4 ,there is no more fascinating branch of comparative anatomy than embryology4 ,each life cycle we discuss tends to repeat the ancestral story1 and only under the stress of necessity does it undergo modification at any point4 ,there is little toleration in the life process for unnecessary divergencies4 ,economies are effected by short cuts and reductions1 and special ftal structures are granted reluctantly4 ,so that even in man we find peeping through the adaptations imposed upon the human type by its viviparous necessities1 and in spite of the advantage of every economy of force1 memories1 for example1 of the gill slits1 of the fish heart and kidney1 of the reptilian skull1 of the mammalian tail4 ,i mention this fact in the ,outline1 and upon it ,mr4 ,belloc comments in a manner that leaves one's doubts poised between his honesty and his intelligence4 ,he declares1 which is totally untrue1 that ,i 8repeat the old ,victorian tag0--,i doubt if there ever was such a tag--that the embryo 8climbs up the family tree40 ,he puts these words in inverted commas as though ,i have really adopted and used them1 and for the life of me it is only by straining my charity to the utmost that ,i can accept that this was an accident4 ,of course every text-book of embryology for the last forty years has made it perfectly plain1 as ,i have stated here1 that the life cycle can be and is modified at any point1 and that an embryo has much more serious work in hand than reciting its family history4 ,it betrays its ancestral origins to analysis2 but that is an altogether different matter4 ,mr4 ,belloc1 however1 is so densely ignorant himself upon these questions that he can imagine1 or think it worth while to pretend to imagine and attempt to persuade his readers by the expedient of these inverted commas1 that ,i entertain such a view4 ,and then follow this1 which ,i quote that the reader may the better understand a certain occasional acerbity in my allusions to ,mr4 ,belloc3-- 8,he doesn't know that ,vailleton of ,montpellier has knocked the last nail into the coffin of that facile and superficial ,victorian shortcut 7and blind alley74 ,he has probably never heard of ,vailleton1 and when he does he will suspect him for a foreigner4 ,that is what ,i mean by being provincial and not abreast of one's time40 ,it is perfectly true that ,i have never heard of any ,vailleton in biological science4 ,nor has anyone else4 ,there is 8no sich person40 ,perhaps ,mr4 ,belloc has not been able to read the manuscript of some adviser1 or his memory may have played a trick upon him4 ,possibly he has in mind that eminent ,victorian embryologist1 ,vialleton1 who1 so far from being the very newest thing in 8,european0 biology1 must now be getting on for seventy4 ,he is half-way back to ,haeckel1 the originator of the family-tree idea1 a ,german embryologist and not1 as a matter of fact1 the ,victorian ,english ,protestant ,mr4 ,belloc supposes him to be4 ,possibly years and years ago some ,french student may have run away with the idea that embryos conscientiously repeat their phylogeny1 and ,professor ,vialleton may have thought it well to discuss this idea in one of his books4 ,it is not an idea ,i have ever entertained1 much less stated1 and its only interest here is that it gives ,mr4 ,belloc a chance of showing how rudely he can set out his inaccuracies and his misconceptions4 ,but this is an incidental comment4 ,i will reserve for my next section a consideration of the remarkable arguments--8crushing arguments0 the enthusiastic cross-heads of his editor declare them to be--that ,mr4 ,belloc produces against this view of life as being in a state of change under the action of ,natural ,selection1 that ,i have put here before the reader4 ,,iii ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,as ,a ,,specimen ,,critic ,,of ,,natural ,,selection ,the chief arguments against the ,theory of ,natural ,selection with which ,mr4 ,belloc has favoured us are neatly set out by him in two triads4 ,his passion for orderly arrangement is greater than his logic1 and we shall find that the second and third arguments of his second triad are substantially the same4 ,he is rather exceptionally ignorant of modern scientific literature1 and his arguments do not cover all the countervailing considerations upon which systematic observation and research work have been based--the speculations of ,dr4 ,fairfield ,osborn would have been a godsend for him--but the things he has to say are conveniently simple2 they embody some prevalent misconceptions1 and they will be useful in accentuating the more salient points in my account of the theory given in my second paper4 ,he produces first certain remarkable a priori arguments--his 8three a prior arguments40 ,the first is beautifully absurd4 ,it is difficult to believe it is advanced in anything but a spirit of burlesque4 ,he says that an advantage is not an advantage4 ,he says that an advantage does not give an advantage unless it is combined with other advantages4 ,you will think ,i am misrepresenting him4 ,then please read this3-- 87#a7 ,the advantageous differences making for survival are not of one kind in any particular case1 but of an indefinitely large number 7e4g41 climate getting colder needs not only warmer coat1 but power to digest new food1 protective colouring so as not to show dark against snow1 etc41 an indefinitely large number of qualities74 ,now the chance of all being combined 7and co-ordinated7 in a single individual1 without design1 accidentally1 let alone of their thus appearing in many individuals accidentally and without design1 approximates to zero40 ,this is1 so to speak1 the short uncompleted form of the first argument4 ,it is expanded later to a copiousness too great to admit of quotation4 ,this expansion carries the statement right to its conclusion1 that only an individual possessing all the possible differences that are advantageous at any particular time can survive4 ,otherwise its differences have no 8survival value40 ,they may be advantages1 but not sufficient advantages to score an advantage4 ,i know this sounds tipsy1 but there it is in black and white in ,mr4 ,belloc's wonderful ,article ,v for any one to consult4 ,it follows plainly that1 except for a miracle1 every species must be exterminated in every generation4 ,i can see no other way out of it4 ,no individual1 he declares1 can survive without the full set of advantageous differences1 and the chance of any individual having the full set of advantageous differences1 he declares after some abstruse verbal gestures1 is zero4 ,there is ,mr4 ,belloc with his unfailing logic1 his clear mathematical demonstration1 and all the rest of it4 ,there is the lucid ,latin mind shining above my ,nordic fog6 ,yet the previous generation got along without any of the set6 ,and species do survive4 ,did ,mr4 ,belloc imagine he was saying something else8 ,it is not for me to speculate4 ,helping out an antagonist in a controversy is apt to be resented4 ,he has1 ,i think1 simply got into a muddle here1 and he is not sufficiently self-critical to get out of it again4 ,so he tries to muddle through4 ,it is quite reasonable to say that when a species is under stress of changing conditions it is usual for the need for adaptation to be felt upon a number of points and not simply upon one1 and that1 since every advantage counts1 the individuals with the greatest combination of advantageous differences have the best chances4 ,but that does not alter the fact that even a single advantage is an advantage4 ,what happens in nature is not an extermination of all who are not completely in the fashion of the new differences4 ,that seems to be ,mr4 ,belloc's idea1 but it is a wrong idea4 ,what does happen is a diminution in each generation of the number of the disadvantaged in relation to the number of the advantaged4 ,that is quite another affair4 ,mr4 ,belloc has not grasped this4 ,his third a priori argument shows as much even more plainly than his first1 and to that ,i shall presently come4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,mental ,,indigestion ,i fancy this stuff he has written here is an outcome of an indigestion of ,samuel ,butler by ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,i should not have thought ,mr4 ,belloc had read ,samuel ,butler1 and ,i doubt if he has read him much4 ,but there is a decided echo of ,luck or ,cunning in the one indistinct paragraph in which1 without committing himself too deeply1 ,mr4 ,belloc seems to convey his own attitude towards the procedure of ,evolution4 8,design10 whatever that is1 is at work1 and ,natural ,selection is not4 8,there is an innate power possessed by the living thing to attempt its own adaptation40 ,it is quite a delusion apparently that rabbits that cannot run or sparrows that are not quick on the wing are killed off more frequently than the smarter fellows4 ,that never happens1 though to the atheistically minded it may seem to happen4 ,if it happens1 it would 8get rid of a ,god40 ,but there are rabbits which1 unlike ,mrs4 ,micawber1 do make an effort4 ,you must understand that all creation1 inspired by design1 is striving4 ,the good fungus says to itself1 8,redder and more spots will benefit me greatly10 and tries and tries1 and presently there are redder hues and more spots4 ,or a happily inspired fish says3 8,there is a lot of food on land and the life is more genteel there1 so let me get lungs40 ,and presently it gets lungs4 ,some day ,mr4 ,belloc must take a holiday in ,sussex and flap about a bit and get himself some wings and demonstrate all this4 ,but perhaps this is caricature1 and ,mr4 ,belloc when he talks about that 8innate disposition0 just means nothing very much--just an attempt or something4 ,i will not pretend to understand ,mr4 ,belloc fully upon this point4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,bird-,,lizard ,i will return to the essential misconception of the ,theory of ,natural ,selection betrayed in this first a priori when ,i consider ,mr4 ,belloc's third feat of logic4 ,but first let me glance at his second4 ,in this he says1 very correctly1 that every stage in the evolution of a living creature must be a type capable of maintaining itself and every change must be an advantageous change4 ,i have noted this very obvious point already in my second paper4 ,but then ,mr4 ,belloc instructs us that the chances of its being so are1 for no earthly reason1 zero--that fatal zero again6--and goes on to a passage so supremely characteristic that it must be read to be believed3-- 8,a bird has wings with which it can escape its enemies4 ,if it began as a reptile without wings--when1 presumably1 it had armour or some other aid to survival--what of the interval8 ,natural ,selection sets out to change a reptile's leg into a bird's wing and the scales of its armour into feathers4 ,it does so by making the leg less and less of a leg for countless ages1 and by infinite minute gradations1 gradually turning the scales into feathers4 8,by the very nature of the theory each stage in all these millions is an advantage over the last towards survival6 ,the thing has only to be stated for its absurdity to appear4 ,compare the #8get away' chances of a lizard at one end of the process or a sparrow at the other with some poor beast that had to try and scurry off on half-wings6 or to fly with half-legs6 8,postulate a design1 say1 #8,here was something in the making1' and the process is explicable1 especially if fairly rapid so as to bridge over the dangerously weak stage of imperfection4 ,postulate ,natural ,selection and it is manifestly impossible40 ,let us note a few things of which ,mr4 ,belloc shows himself to be unaware in this amusing display of perplexity4 ,in the first place he does not know that the ,mesozoic reptiles most closely resembling birds were creatures walking on their hind-legs1 with a bony structure of the loins and a backbone already suggestive of the avian anatomy4 ,nor is he aware that in the lowliest of living birds the fore-limbs are mere flappers1 that the feathers are simpler in structure than any other bird's feathers1 and that the general development of a bird's feather points plainly to the elongation of a scale4 ,he has never learnt that feathers came before wings1 and that at first they had to do1 not with flying1 but with protection against cold4 ,yet all this was under his nose in the ,outline of ,history in text and picture4 ,the transition from a quilled to a feathered dinosaur presents indeed no imaginative difficulties1 and the earliest birds ran and did not fly4 ,one of the earliest known extinct birds is ,hesperornis1 a wingless diving bird4 ,it is figured on page #cj1 and there is another bird on page #cd that ,mr4 ,belloc might ponder with advantage4 ,a whole great section of living birds1 like the ostrich and the emu1 have no trace in their structure of any ancestral flying phase2 their breast-bones are incapable of carrying the necessary muscular attachments4 ,illustration3 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells4 ,low ,but after the feather was fully developed it opened up great possibilities of a strong and light extension of the flapper1 helpful in running or useful in leaps from tree to tree4 ,archopteryx1 another early bird1 which is also figured in the ,outline1 has a sort of bat-wing fore-limb with feathers instead of membrane4 ,it was a woodland creature1 and flew as a flying fox or a flying lemur or even a bat flies4 ,all these facts are widely known1 and all that trouble about the half-leg1 half-wing1 dissolves before them4 ,but consider what a hash they make of ,mr4 ,belloc's argument1 and how pitifully it scurries off before them on its nondescript stumps of pretentious half-knowledge1 half-impudence6 ,so much for zero the second4 ,,troubles ,,of ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,as ,a ,,matrimonial ,,agent ,the final of this wonderful trinity of a prioris is a repetition of an argument advanced ages ago by ,queen ,victoria's ,lord ,salisbury1 when he was ,president of the ,british ,association4 ,even then it struck people that he had been poorly coached for the occasion4 ,assuming that one or two individuals have got all these 8survival value0 differences in the correct proportions--against which the chances are zero--how by any theory of ,natural ,selection are we to suppose they will meet1 breed1 and perpetuate them8 ,so this argument runs4 ,the chances are again declared to be zero1 the third zero1 and ,mr4 ,belloc1 ,i gather1 calls in ,design again here and makes his ,creative ,spirit1 which has already urged these two individuals1 lions1 or liver flukes or fleas or what not1 to make an effort and adapt themselves1 lead them now to their romantic and beneficial nuptials1 while the ,theory of ,natural ,selection grinds its teeth in the background and mutters 8,foiled again40 ,but this third argument reinforces the first1 in showing what is the matter with ,mr4 ,belloc's ideas in this group of questions4 ,he has got the whole business upside down4 ,i rather blame the early ,darwinians in this matter for using so inaccurate a phrase as the 8,survival of the ,fittest40 ,it is to that phrase that most of ,mr4 ,belloc's blunderings are due4 ,yet he ought not to have been misled4 ,he had a summary of modern views before him4 ,he criticises my ,outline of ,history1 he abuses it1 and yet he has an extraordinary trick of getting out of its way whenever it swings near his brain-case4 ,i warn the readers of that modest compendium expressly 7and as early as page #af7 that the juster phrase to use is not the ,survival of the ,fittest1 but the ,survival of the ,fitter4 ,i do what ,i can throughout to make them see this question not in terms of an individual1 but in terms of the species4 ,yet ,mr4 ,belloc insists upon writing of 8the ,fittest0 as a sort of conspicuously competitive prize boy1 a favourable 8sport10 who has to meet his female equivalent and breed a new variety4 ,that is all the world away from the manner in which a biologist thinks of the process of specific life4 ,he sees a species as a vast multitude of individuals in which those without individual advantages tend to fail and those with them tend to be left to continue the race4 ,the most important fact is the general relative failure of the disadvantaged4 ,the fact next in order of importance is the general relative survival of the advantaged4 ,the most important consequence is that the average of the species moves in the direction of advantageous differences1 moving faster or slower according to its rate of reproduction and the urgency of its circumstances--that is to say1 to the severity of its death-rate4 ,any one particular individual may have any sort of luck2 that does not affect the general result4 ,i do not know what ,mr4 ,belloc's mathematical attainments are1 or indeed whether he has ever learnt to count beyond zero4 ,there is no evidence on that matter to go upon in these papers4 ,but one may suppose him able to understand what an average is1 and he must face up to the fact that the characteristics of a species are determined by its average specimens4 ,this dickering about with fancy stories of abnormal nuptials has nothing to do with the ,theory of ,natural ,selection4 ,we are dealing here with large processes and great numbers1 secular changes and realities broadly viewed4 ,i must apologise for pressing these points home4 ,but ,i think it is worth while to take this opportunity of clearing up a system of foggy misconceptions about the ,theory itself that may not be confined altogether to ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,comes ,,to ,,his ,,evidence ,and now let us come to ,mr4 ,belloc's second triad of arguments--his arguments1 as he calls them1 8from ,evidence40 ,the sole witness on ,evidence called is his own sturdy self4 ,he calls himself into the box1 and ,i will admit he gives his testimony in a bluff1 straightforward manner--a good witness4 ,he says very properly that the theory of ,natural ,selection repudiates any absolute fixity of species4 ,but we have to remember that the rate of change in any species is dependent upon the balance between that species and its conditions1 and if this remains fairly stable the species may remain for as long without remarkable developments1 or indulge in variations not conditioned by external necessities4 ,the classical ,lingula of the geological text-books1 a warm-water shell-fish1 has remained much the same creature throughout the entire record1 for hundreds of millions of years it may be4 ,it was suited to its submarine life1 and hardly any variation was possible that was not a disadvantage4 ,it swayed about within narrow limits4 ,this admission of a practical stability annoys ,mr4 ,belloc2 it seems to be a mean trick on the part of the ,theory of ,natural ,selection4 ,he rather spoils his case by saying that 8according to ,natural ,selection0 the swallow ought to go on flying 8faster and faster with the process of time40 ,until it bursts into flames like a meteor and vanishes from our world8 ,and the ,lingula ought to become more and more quiescent until it becomes a pebble8 ,yet plainly there is nothing in the ,theory of ,natural ,selection to make the swallow fly any faster than its needs require4 ,excess of swiftness in a swallow may be as disadvantageous as jumping to conclusions can be to a controversialist4 ,but here is a statement that is spirited and yet tolerably fair3-- 8,if ,natural ,selection be true1 then what we call a ,pig is but a fleeting vision2 all the past he has been becoming a ,pig1 and all the future he will spend evolving out of ,pigdom1 and ,pig is but a moment's phase in the eternal flux40 ,this overlooks the melancholy possibility of an extinction of ,pigs1 but it may be accepted on the whole as true4 ,and against this ,mr4 ,belloc gives us his word1 for that upon examination is what his 8,evidence0 amounts to--that ,types are ,fixed4 ,he jerks in capitals here in a rather convincing way4 ,it is restrained of him1 considering how great a part typography plays in his rhetoric1 that he has not put it up in block capitals or had the paper perforated with the words3 ,fixed ,types4 8,we have the evidence of our senses that we are surrounded by fixed types40 ,for weeks and months it would seem ,mr4 ,belloc has walked about ,sussex accumulating first-hand material for these disputations1 and all this time the ,pigs have remained ,pigs4 ,when he prodded them they squealed4 ,they remained pedestrian in spite of his investigatory pursuit4 ,not one did he find 8scuttling away0 with a fore-limb1 8half-leg1 half-wing40 ,he has the evidence of his senses also1 ,i may remind him1 that the world is flat4 ,and yet when we take a longer view we find the world is round1 and ,pigs are changing1 and ,sus ,scrofa is not the beast it was two thousand years ago4 ,mr4 ,belloc is conscious of historical training1 and ,i would suggest to him that it might be an improving exercise to study the ,pig throughout history and to compare the ,pigs of the past with the ,pigs of a contemporary agricultural show4 ,he might inform himself upon the bulk1 longevity1 appetites1 kindliness1 and general disposition of the ,pig to-day4 ,he might realise then that the ,pig to-day1 viewed not as the conservative occupant of a ,sussex sty1 but as a species1 was something just a little different as a whole1 but different1 definably different1 from the ,pig of two thousand or five thousand years ago4 ,he might retort that the ,pig has been the victim of selective breeding and is not therefore a good instance of ,natural ,selection1 but it was he who brought ,pigs into this discussion4 ,dogs again have been greatly moulded by man in a relatively short time1 and1 again1 horses4 ,almost all species of animals and plants that have come into contact with man in the last few thousand years have been greatly modified by his exertions1 and we have no records of any detailed observations of structure or habits of creatures outside man's range of interest before the last three or four centuries4 ,even man himself1 though he changes with relative slowness because of the slowness with which he comes to sexual maturity1 has changed very perceptibly in the last five thousand years4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,a ,,fixed ,,type ,mr4 ,belloc says he has not 78,argument from ,evidence074 ,he says it very emphatically 78,crushing ,argument from ,evidence0--to adopt the phraseology of his cross-heads74 ,let me refer him to a recent lecture by ,sir ,arthur ,keith 7,royal ,society of ,medicine1 ,nov4 #af1 #aibe7 for a first gleam of enlightenment4 ,he will realise a certain rashness in his statement4 ,i will not fill these pages with an attempt to cover all the changes in the average man that have gone on in the last two or three thousand years4 ,for example1 in the face and skull1 types with an edge-to-edge bite of the teeth are giving place to those with an overlapping bite2 the palate is undergoing contraction1 the physiognomy changes4 ,and so on throughout all man's structure4 ,no doubt one can find plentiful instances to-day of people almost exactly like the people of five thousand years ago in their general physique4 ,but that is not the point4 ,the proportions and so forth that were exceptional then are becoming prevalent now2 the proportions that were prevalent then1 now become rare4 ,the average type is changing4 ,considering that man only gets through about four generations in a century1 it is a very impressive endorsement of the theory of ,natural ,selection that he has undergone these palpable modifications in the course of a brief score of centuries4 ,mr4 ,belloc's delusion that no such modification has occurred may be due to his presumption that any modification would have to show equally in each and every individual4 ,i think it is4 ,he seems quite capable of presuming that4 ,,triumphant ,,demand ,,of ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,mr4 ,belloc's next ,argument from ,evidence is a demand from the geologist for a continuous 8series of changing forms passing one into the other40 ,he does not want merely 8intermediate forms10 he says2 he wants the whole series--grandfather1 father1 and son4 ,he does not say whether he insists upon a pedigree with the bones and proper certificates of birth1 but ,i suppose it comes to that4 ,this argument1 ,i am afraid1 wins1 hands down4 ,mr4 ,belloc may score the point4 ,the reprehensible negligence displayed by the lower animals in the burial of their dead1 or even the proper dating of their own remains1 leaves the apologist for the ,theory of ,natural ,selection helpless before this simple requisition4 ,it is true that we now have1 in the case of the camels1 the horses1 and the elephants1 an extraordinary display of fossil types1 exhibiting step by step the development and differentiation of species and genera4 ,but this1 ,i take it1 rather concerns his ,third than his ,second ,argument from ,evidence4 ,a ,,magnificent ,,generalisation ,the third argument is essentially a display of ,mr4 ,belloc's inability to understand the nature of the record of the rocks4 ,i will assume that he knows what 8strata0 are1 but it is clear that he does not understand that any uniform stratum indicates the maintenance of uniform conditions while it was deposited and an absence of selective stresses1 and that when it gives place to another different stratum1 that signifies a change in conditions1 not only in the conditions of the place where the stratum is found1 but in the supply of material4 ,an estuary sinks and gives place to marine sands1 or fresh water brings down river gravels which cover over an accumulation of shingle4 ,now if he will think what would happen to-day under such circumstances1 he will realise that the fauna and flora of the stratum first considered will drift away and that another fauna and flora will come in with the new conditions4 ,fresh things will come to feed and wade and drown in the waters1 and old types will no longer frequent them4 ,the fossil remains of one stratum are very rarely directly successive to those below it or directly ancestral to those above it4 ,a succession of forms is much more difficult and elusive to follow up1 therefore1 than ,mr4 ,belloc imagines4 ,and then if he will consider what happens to the rabbits and rats and mice on his ,sussex estate1 and how they die and what happens to their bodies1 he may begin to realise just what proportion of the remains of these creatures is ever likely to find its way to fossilisation4 ,perhaps years pass without the bones of a single rabbit from the whole of ,england finding their way to a resting-place where they may become fossil4 ,nevertheless the rabbit is a very common animal4 ,and then if ,mr4 ,belloc will think of palontologists1 millions of years after this time1 working at the strata that we are forming to-day1 working at a gravel or sand-pit here or a chance exposure there1 and prevented from any general excavation1 and if he will ask himself what proportion of the rare few rabbits actually fossilised are likely to come to light1 ,i think he will begin to realise for the first time in his life the tremendous 8gappiness0 of the geological record and how very childish and absurd is his demand for an unbroken series of forms4 ,the geological record is not like an array of hundreds of volumes containing a complete history of the past4 ,it is much more like a few score crumpled pages from such an array1 the rest of the volumes having either never been printed1 or having been destroyed or being inaccessible4 ,in his ,third ,argument from ,evidence ,mr4 ,belloc obliges us with a summary of this record of the rocks1 about which he knows so little4 ,i need scarcely note here that the only evidence adduced is his own inspired conviction4 ,no 8,european0 palontologist or biologist is brought out of the ,humbert safe and quoted4 ,here was a chance to puzzle me dreadfully with something 8in ,french10 and it is scandalously thrown away4 ,mr4 ,belloc tells us1 just out of his head1 that instead of there being that succession of forms in the geological record the ,theory of ,natural ,selection requires1 there are 8enormously long periods of stable type0 and 87presumably7 rapid periods of transition40 ,that 8presumably0 is splendid2 scientific caution and all the rest of it--rapid periods when ,i suppose the ,creative ,spirit got busy and types woke up and said1 8,turn over2 let's change a bit40 ,there is really nothing to be said about this magnificent generalisation except that it is pure ,bellocking4 ,wherever there is a group of strata1 sufficiently thick and sufficiently alike to witness to a long-sustained period of slight alterations in conditions1 there we find the successive species approximating4 ,this is not a statement la ,belloc4 ,in spite of the chances against such a thing occurring1 and in defiance of ,mr4 ,belloc's assertion that it does not occur1 there are several series of forms in time1 giving a practically direct succession of species4 ,mr4 ,belloc may read about it and at the same time exercise this abnormal linguistic gift which sits upon him so gracefully1 his knowledge of the ,french language1 in ,deperet's ,transformations du ,monde ,animal1 where all these questions are conveniently summarised4 ,there he will get the results of ,waagen with a succession of ,ammonites and also of ,neumayr with ,paludina1 and there also he will get information about the sequence of the species of ,mastodon throughout the ,tertiary age and read about the orderly progress of a pig group1 the ,brachyodus of the ,eocene and ,oligocene4 ,there is a touch of irony in the fact that his own special protg1 the ,pig1 should thus turn upon him and rend his ,third ,argument from ,evidence4 ,more recondite for ,mr4 ,belloc is the work of ,hilgendorf upon ,planorbis1 because it is in ,german2 but the drift of it is visible in the ,palontology wing of the ,london ,natural ,history ,museum1 ,room ,,viii4 ,a species of these gasteropods was1 during the slow processes of secular change1 caught in a big lake1 fed by hot springs4 ,it underwent progressive modification into a series of successive new species as conditions changed through the ages4 ,dr4 ,klhms' specimens show this beautifully4 ,rowe's account of the evolutionary series in the genus ,micraster 7,q4,j4,m4,s41 #ahii7 is also accessible to ,mr4 ,belloc1 and he will find other matter to ponder in ,goodrich's ,living ,organisms1 #aibd4 ,the finest series of all1 longer in range and completer in its links1 is that of the ,horse4 ,there is an excellent little pamphlet by ,matthew and ,chubb1 well illustrated1 ,the ,evolution of the ,horse1 published by the ,american ,museum of ,natural ,history1 ,new ,york1 so plain1 so simple1 so entirely and humiliatingly destructive of ,mr4 ,belloc's nonsensical assertions1 that ,i pray him to get it and read it for the good of his really very unkempt and neglected soul4 ,thus we observe that ,mr4 ,belloc does not know the facts in this case of ,natural ,selection1 and that he argues very badly from such facts as he misconceives4 ,it is for the reader to decide which at the end is more suitable as a laughing-stock--the ,theory of ,natural ,selection or ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,and having thus studied this great ,catholic apologist as an amateur biologist and arrived at the result1 we will next go on to consider what he has to say about the origins of mankind--and ,original ,sin4 ,,iv ,,mr4 ,,belloc',s ,,adventures ,,among ,,the ,,sub-,,men3 ,,manifest ,,terror ,,of ,,the ,,neanderthaler ,from ,mr4 ,belloc's feats with ,natural ,selection we come to his adventures among his ancestors and the fall of man4 ,these are1 if possible1 even more valiant than his beautiful exposure of the 8half-educated assurance0 of current biological knowledge4 ,he rushes about the arena1 darting from point to point1 talking of my ignorance of the 8main recent ,european work in ,anthropology10 and avoiding something with extraordinary skill and dexterity4 ,what it is he is avoiding ,i will presently explain4 ,no one who has read my previous articles need be told that not a single name1 not a single paper1 is cited from that galaxy of 8main recent ,european0 anthropology4 ,with one small exception4 ,there is a well-known savant1 ,m4 ,marcellin ,boule1 who wrote of the ,grottes de ,grimaldi in #aijf4 ,some facetious person seems to have written to ,mr4 ,belloc and told him that ,m4 ,boule in #aijf 8definitely proved the exact opposite0 of the conclusions given by ,mr4 ,wright in his ,quaternary ,ice ,age 7#aiad71 and quoted in my ,outline4 ,mr4 ,belloc writes this down1 elevates ,m4 ,boule to the magnificence of 8,boule0 simply and follows up with the habitual insults4 ,by counting from his one fixed mathematical point1 zero in some dimension unknown to me1 he concludes that ,i must be twenty years out of date1 though the difference between #aijf and #aiad1 by ordinary ways of reckoning1 is really not minus twenty but plus eight4 ,the same ungracious humorist seems to have stuffed up ,mr4 ,belloc with a story that for the last twenty years the climate of the earth has ceased to vary with the eccentricity of the earth's orbit1 and that any natural consequences of the precession of the equinoxes no longer occur2 that climate has1 in fact1 cut loose from astronomical considerations1 and that you can find out all about it in the ,encyclopdia ,britannica4 ,you cannot4 ,mr4 ,belloc should have tried4 ,some day he must find time to puzzle out ,m4 ,boule's curve of oscillation of the ,mediterranean and correlate it with ,penck's1 and go into the mystery of certain ,moustierian implements that ,m4 ,boule says are not ,moustierian2 and after that he had better read over the little discussion about changes of climate in the ,outline of ,history--it is really quite simply put--and see what it is ,i really said and what his leg-pulling friend has been up to with him in that matter4 ,it may be kinder to ,mr4 ,belloc to help him with a hint4 ,croll made an excellent book in which he pointed out a number of astronomical processes which must produce changes of climate4 ,he suggested that these processes were sufficient to account for the fluctuations of the glacial age4 ,they are not4 ,but they remain perfectly valid causes of climatic variation4 ,croll is no more done for than ,darwin is done for4 ,that is where ,mr4 ,belloc's friend let ,mr4 ,belloc down4 ,but ,mr4 ,belloc does not always work on the information of facetious friends1 and sometimes one is clearly in the presence of the unassisted expert controversialist4 ,when1 for example1 ,i say that the ,tasmanians are not racially ,neanderthalers1 but that they are ,neanderthaloid1 he can bring himself to alter the former word also to ,neanderthaloid in order to allege an inconsistency4 ,and confident that most of his ,catholic readers will not check him back by my book1 he can ascribe to me views about race for which there is no shadow of justification4 ,but it is disagreeable to me to follow up such issues1 they concern ,mr4 ,belloc much more than they do the living questions under discussion1 and ,i will not even catalogue what other such instances of unashamed controversy occur4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,as ,,iconoclast ,in the course of the darting to and fro amongst human and sub-human pre-history1 ,mr4 ,belloc criticises me severely for quoting ,sir ,arthur ,keith's opinion upon the ,piltdown remains4 ,i have followed ,english authorities4 ,all these remains are in ,england1 and so they have been studied at first hand mostly by ,english people4 ,no one can regret this insularity on the part of ,eoanthropus more than ,i do1 but it leaves ,mr4 ,belloc's 8,european opinion on the whole0 rejecting ,sir ,arthur ,keith as a rather more than usually absurd instance of ,mr4 ,belloc's distinctive method4 8,what ,european opinion80 you ask4 ,mr4 ,belloc does not say4 ,probably ,belloking of ,upsala and ,bellokopoulos of ,athens4 ,mr4 ,belloc--forgetting that in an earlier edition of the ,outline ,i give a full summary of the evidence in this case1 up-to-date--informs his ,catholic audience that ,i have apparently read nothing about the ,piltdown vestige but an 8,english work40 ,and then he proceeds to fall foul of the 8restoration0 of ,eoanthropus4 ,it is an imaginary picture of the creature1 and ,i myself think that the artist has erred on the human side4 ,mr4 ,belloc objects to all such restorations4 ,well1 we have at least a saucerful of skull fragments and a doubtful jawbone to go upon1 and the picture does not pretend to be1 and no reader can possibly suppose it to be1 anything but a tentative restoration4 ,but why a great ,catholic apologist of all people1 the champion of a ,church which has plastered the world with portraits of the ,virgin ,mary1 of the ,holy ,family1 and with pictures of saints and miracles in the utmost profusion1 without any warning to the simple-minded that these gracious and moving figures to which they give their hearts may be totally unlike the beings they profess to represent--why he should turn iconoclast and object to these modestly propounded restorations passes my comprehension4 ,at ,cava di ,tirrene near ,naples ,i have been privileged to see1 in all reverence1 a hair of the ,virgin1 small particles of ,st4 ,peter1 and other evidences of ,christianity2 and they did not seem to me to be so considerable in amount as even the ,eoanthropus fragments4 ,and again1 in this strange outbreak of iconoclastic rage1 he says3-- 8,again1 we have the coloured picture of a dance of ,american ,red ,indians round a fire solemnly presented as a #8reconstruction' of ,palolithic society40 ,he has not even observed that the chief figures in that picture are copied directly from the actual rock paintings of ,palolithic men although this is plainly stated4 ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,discovers ,a ,,mare',s-,,nest ,and yet he must have looked at the reproductions of these rock paintings given in the ,outline4 ,because in his ninth paper he comes out with the most wonderful of all the mare's-nests he has discovered in the ,outline of ,history1 and it concerns these very pictures4 ,you see there is an account of the ,reindeer men who lived in ,france and ,north ,spain1 and it is said of them that it is doubtful if they used the bow4 ,mr4 ,belloc declares that it is my bitter hatred of religion that makes me say this1 but indeed it is not4 ,it is still doubtful if the ,reindeer hunters had the bow4 ,the fires of ,smithfield would not tempt me to say certainly either that they had it or that they did not have it1 until ,i know4 ,but they seem to have killed the reindeer and the horse and bison by spearing them4 ,mr4 ,belloc may have evidence unknown to the rest of mankind in that ,humbert safe of his1 otherwise that is the present state of our knowledge4 ,but1 as ,i explain on pages #ef and #eg in language that a child might understand1 simultaneously with that reindeer-hunting life in the north there were more advanced 7,i know the word will disgust ,mr4 ,belloc with its horrid suggestion of progress1 but ,i have to use it7 ,palolithic people scattered over the greater part of ,spain and reaching into the ,south of ,france who had the bow4 ,it says so in the text3 8,men carry bows0 runs my text1 describing certain rock pictures reproduced in my book4 ,i wrote it in the text2 and in the legends that are under these pictures1 legends read and approved by me1 the statement is repeated4 ,the matter is as plain as daylight and as plainly stated4 ,mr4 ,belloc will get if he says over to himself slowly3 8,reindeer men1 bows doubtful2 ,azilian1 ,capsian men to the south1 bows certainly40 ,and now consider ,mr4 ,belloc1 weaving his mare's-nest3-- 8,upon page #ee he writes1 concerning the ,palolithic man of the cave drawings1 this sentence3 #8it is doubtful if they knew of the bow4' 8,when ,i first read that sentence1 ,i was so staggered1 ,i could hardly believe ,i had read it right4 8,that a person pretending to teach popular prehistorical science in #aibe should tell us of the cave painters that it was #8doubtful if they knew of the bow' seemed to me quite out of nature4 8,it was the more extraordinary because here before me1 in ,mr4 ,wells's own book1 were reproductions of these cave paintings1 with the bow and the arrow appearing all over them6 ,even if he did not take the trouble to look at the pictures that were to illustrate his book1 and left that department 7as he probably did7 to hack work1 he ought1 as an ordinary educated man1 to have known the ultimate facts of the case4 8,palolithic man was an archer1 and an archer with an efficient weapon4 8,the thing is a commonplace2 only gross ignorance can have overlooked it2 but1 as ,i have said1 there is a cause behind that ignorance4 ,mr4 ,wells would not have made this enormous error if he had not been possessed with the necessity of making facts fit in with his theology40 ,,the ,,chasing ,,of ,,mr4 ,,belloc ,,begins ,there is a real splendour in these three almost consecutive passages4 ,and note incidentally how this facile controversialist bespatters also my helpers and assistants4 ,they do 8hack work40 ,palolithic man1 speaking generally1 was not an archer4 ,only the later ,palolithic men1 dealing with a smaller quarry than the reindeer1 seem to have used the bow4 ,manifestly it is not ,i who am fitting my facts with my theology here1 but ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,he is inventing an error which is incredible even to himself as he invents it1 and he is filling up space as hard as he can with indignation at my imaginary offence4 ,why is he going on like this8 ,in the interests of that ,catholic soul in danger8 ,possibly4 ,but his pen is running so fast here1 it seems to me1 not so much to get to something as to get away from something4 ,the ,catholic soul most in danger in these papers of ,mr4 ,belloc's is ,mr4 ,belloc's1 and the thing he is running away from through these six long disputations is a grisly beast1 neither ape nor true man1 called the ,neanderthaler1 ,homo ,neanderthalensis4 ,this ,homo ,neanderthalensis is the real 8palolithic0 man4 ,for three-quarters of the 8palolithic0 age he was the only sort of man4 ,the ,reindeer men1 the ,capsian men1 are 8modern0 beside him4 ,he was no more an archer than he was an electrical engineer4 ,he was no more an artist than ,mr4 ,belloc is a man of science4 ,instead of bothering with any more of the poor little bits of argey-bargey about this or that detail in my account of the earlier true men that ,mr4 ,belloc sees fit to make--instead of discussing whether these first human savages1 who drew and painted like ,bushmen and hunted like ,labrador ,indians1 did or did not progress in the arts of life before they passed out of history1 let me note now the far more important matters that he refuses to look at4 ,mr4 ,belloc makes a vast pother about ,eoanthropus1 which is no more than a few bits of bone2 he says nothing of the other creature to whom ,i have devoted a whole chapter3 the man that was not a man4 ,loud headlines1 challenging section headings1 appeal in vain to ,mr4 ,belloc's averted mind4 ,of this ,neanderthal man we have plentiful evidence1 and the collection increases every year4 ,always in sufficiently old deposits1 and always with consistent characteristics4 ,here is a creature which not only made implements but fires1 which gathered together ornamental stones1 which buried its dead4 ,mr4 ,belloc says burying the dead is a proof of a belief in immortality4 ,and this creature had strange teeth1 differing widely from the human1 more elaborate and less bestial2 it had a differently hung head2 it was chinless1 it had a non-opposable thumb4 ,says ,m4 ,boule1 the one anthropologist known to ,mr4 ,belloc3 8,in its absence of forehead the ,neanderthal type strikingly resembles the anthropoid apes40 ,and he adds that it 8must have possessed only a rudimentary psychic nature 444 markedly inferior to that of any modern race40 ,when ,i heard that ,mr4 ,belloc was going to explain and answer the ,outline of ,history1 my thought went at once to this creature4 ,what would ,mr4 ,belloc say of it8 ,would he put it before or after the ,fall8 ,would he correct its anatomy by wonderful new science out of his safe8 ,would he treat it like a brother and say it held by the most exalted monotheism1 or treat it as a monster made to mislead wicked men8 ,he says nothing6 ,he just walks away whenever it comes near him4 ,but ,i am sure it does not leave him4 ,in the night1 if not by day1 it must be asking him3 8,have ,i a soul to save1 ,mr4 ,belloc8 ,is that ,heidelberg jawbone one of us1 ,mr4 ,belloc1 or not8 ,you've forgotten me1 ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,for four-fifths of the ,palolithic age ,i was #8man4' ,there was no other4 ,i shamble and ,i cannot walk erect and look up at heaven as you do1 ,mr4 ,belloc1 but dare you cast me to the dogs80 ,no reply4 ,the poor ,neanderthaler has to go to the dogs1 ,i fear1 by implication1 for ,mr4 ,belloc puts it with all the convincing force of italics1 that 8,man is a fixed type40 ,we realise now why he wrote the four wonderful chapters about ,natural ,selection that we have done our best to appreciate4 ,it was to seem to establish this idea of fixed types4 ,man had to be shown as a 8,fixed ,type0 for reasons that will soon be apparent4 ,apart from ,mr4 ,belloc's assertion1 there is no evidence that man is any exception to the rest of living creatures4 ,he changes4 ,they all change4 ,all this remarkable discourse about bows or no bows and about the high thinking and simple living of these wandering savages of twenty or more thousand years ago1 which runs through half a dozen papers1 seems to be an attempt to believe that these early men were creatures exactly like ourselves2 and an attempt to believe that the more animal savages of the preceding hundred thousand years did not for all practical purposes exist at all4 ,an attempt to believe and induce belief2 not an attempt to demonstrate4 ,mr4 ,belloc emerges where he went in1 with much said and nothing proved1 and the ,outline undamaged by his attack4 ,and emerging he makes a confession that he never was really concerned with the facts of the case at all4 8,sympathy or antagonism with the ,catholic faith is the only thing of real importance in attempting to teach history0--and there you are6 ,all these argumentative gesticulations1 all these tortured attempts to confute1 are acts of devotion to ,mr4 ,belloc's peculiar vision of the ,catholic faith4 ,i am afraid it is useless for me to suggest a pilgrimage to ,mr4 ,belloc1 or ,i would ask him to visit a popular resort not two hours by automobile from the little corner of ,france in which ,i am wont to shelter my suburban ,protestantism from the too bracing ,english winter4 ,that is the caves at ,rochers ,rouges1 at which1 as it happens1 his one quoted authority1 ,m4 ,boule1 worked for several years4 ,there in an atmosphere entirely 8,latin0 and 8continental10 under the guidance of ,signor ,alfredo ,lorenzi1 he can see for himself his ,fixed ,type ,man at successive levels of change4 ,no northern man need be with him when he faces the facts of these caves2 no ,protestant shadow need dog his steps2 his ,french1 that rare distinguished gift1 will be understood1 and he may even air such ,provenal or ,italian as he is master of4 ,the horrid ,neanderthaler is not in evidence4 ,but there1 protected by glass covers1 he will be able to see the skeletons of ,cro-,magnon man and ,grimaldi man lying in the very positions in which they were discovered4 ,he will see for himself the differences of level at which they were found and have some help in imagining the ages that separate the successive types4 ,he will note massiveness of skull and protrusion of jaw4 ,he will see the stone implements they used1 the ashes of their fires1 and have some material for imagining the quality of their savagery4 ,he can hunt about for arrow-heads to bear out his valiant assertion that ,palolithic man was 8an archer with an efficient weapon40 ,he will hunt until stooping and the sunshine make him giddy1 in vain4 ,and then1 with these bones fresh in his mind1 he should go to the ,museum at ,monaco and see the skeleton of a modern human being4 ,he will find no end of loud talk and valiant singing and good red wine necessary before he can get back to his faith in man as a ,fixed ,type4 ,,where ,,was ,,the ,,garden ,,of ,,eden8 ,it is extremely difficult to find out what ,mr4 ,belloc1 as a representative ,catholic1 believes about human origins4 ,i was extremely curious to get the ,catholic view of these matters1 and ,i heard of the advent of these articles with very great pleasure1 because ,i thought ,i should at last be able to grasp what ,i had hitherto failed to understand in the ,catholic position4 ,but if ,mr4 ,belloc has said all that there is to say for ,catholicism upon these points1 ,catholicism is bankrupt4 ,he assures me that to believe in the ,biblical account of the ,creation is a stupid ,protestant tendency1 and that ,catholics do not do anything of the sort4 ,his attitude towards the ,bible throughout is one almost of contempt4 ,it is not for me to decide between ,christians upon this delicate issue4 ,and ,catholics1 ,i gather1 have always believed in ,evolution and are far above the intellectual level of the ,american ,fundamentalist4 ,it is very important to ,catholic self-respect to keep that last point in mind4 ,catholic evolution is a queer process into which 8,design0 makes occasional convulsive raids2 between which raids species remain 8fixed02 but still it is a sort of ,evolution4 ,my peasant neighbours in ,provence1 devout ,catholics and very charming people1 have not the slightest suspicion that they are ,evolutionists1 though ,mr4 ,belloc assures me they are4 ,but1 in spite of this smart ,evolutionary town wear of the ,church1 it has somehow to be believed by ,catholics that 8man0 is and always has been and will be the same creature1 8fixed40 ,that much ,mr4 ,belloc gives us reiteratively4 ,a contemporary writer1 the ,rev4 ,morris ,morris1 has written an interesting book1 ,man ,created ,during ,descent1 to show that man's immortal soul was injected into the universe at the beginning of the ,neolithic period1 which makes those ,azilians and ,capsians1 with their bows and carvings1 mere animals4 ,the new ,belloc-,catholic teaching is similar1 but it puts the human beginnings earlier4 ,somewhen after the ,chellean and ,moustierian periods1 and before the ,reindeer men1 ,i gather that 8man0 appeared1 according to ,catholic doctrines1 exactly what he is now4 ,or rather better4 ,he was clad in skins and feathers1 smeared with paint1 a cave-hunting wanderer with not even a dog at his heels2 but he was1 because ,mr4 ,belloc says so1 a devout monotheist and had a lucid belief in personal immortality4 ,his art was pure and exalted--there were little bone figures of steatopygous women in evidence4 ,he had no connection with the ,neanderthal predecessor--or else he had jumped miraculously out of the ,neanderthaler's bestial skin4 ,sometimes it seems to be one thing and sometimes the other4 ,but all that stuff about ,adam and ,eve and the ,garden and the ,tree and the ,serpent1 so abundantly figured in ,catholic painting and sculpture1 seems to have dropped out of this new version of ,catholic truth4 ,yet those pictures are still shown to the faithful6 ,and what the ,fall becomes in these new revelations of ,catholicism1 or whether there was a ,fall1 historically speaking1 ,mr4 ,belloc leaves in the densest obscurity4 ,i have read and re-read these articles of his1 and ,i seek those lucid ,latin precisions he has promised me in vain4 ,was and is that ,eden story merely symbolical1 and has the ,church always taught that it is merely symbolical8 ,and if so1 what in terms of current knowledge do these symbols stand for8 ,is it symbolical of some series of events in time or is it not8 ,if it is1 when and what were the events in time8 ,and if it is not1 but if it is symbolical of some experience or adventure or change in the life of each one of us1 what is the nature of that personal fall8 ,what is the significance of the ,garden1 the ,innocence1 the ,tree1 the ,serpent8 ,to get anything clear and hard out of ,mr4 ,belloc's papers in reply to these questions is like searching for a diamond in a lake of skilly4 ,i am left with the uncomfortable feeling that ,mr4 ,belloc is as vague and unbelieving about this fundamental ,catholic idea as the foggiest of foggy ,protestants and ,modernists1 but that he has lacked the directness of mind to admit as much even to himself4 ,yet surely the whole system of salvation1 the whole ,christian scheme1 rests upon the presumption of a fall4 ,without a fall1 what is the value of salvation8 ,why redeem what has never been lost8 ,without a condemnation what is the struggle8 ,what indeed1 in that case1 is the ,catholic ,church about8 ,what modern thought is about is a thing easier to explain4 ,in the ,outline of ,history1 against which ,mr4 ,belloc is rather carping than levelling criticism1 there is set out1 as the main form of that ,outline1 a progressive development of conscious will in life4 ,it is not a form thrust upon the massed facts by any fanatical prepossession2 it is a form they insisted upon assuming under my summarising hand4 ,what is going on in this dispute is not that ,i am beating and putting over my ideas upon ,mr4 ,belloc or that he is beating and putting over his ideas upon me1 but that the immense increase of light and knowledge during the past century is imposing a new realisation of the quality and depth and import of life upon us both1 and that ,i am acquiescent and he is recalcitrant4 ,i judge his faith by the new history1 and he judges the new history by his faith4 ,v ,,fixity ,,or ,,progress ,i am glad to say that we are emerging now from the worst of the controversial stuff1 irritating and offensive1 in which ,mr4 ,belloc is so manifestly my master1 and coming to matters of a more honest interest4 ,i have stuck to my argument through the cut and slash1 sneer and innuendo of ,mr4 ,belloc's first twelve papers4 ,i have done my best to be kind and generous with him4 ,i have made the best excuses ,i can for him4 ,i have shown how his oddities of bearing and style arise out of the difficulties of his position1 and how his absurd reasonings about ,natural ,selection and his deliberate and tedious bemuddlement of the early ,palolithic sub-men with the late ,reindeer men and the ,capsian men are all conditioned by the necessity he is under to declare and believe that 8man0 is1 as he puts it1 a 8,fixed ,type10 the same in the past and now and always4 ,he is under this necessity because he believes that otherwise the ,christian faith cannot be made to stand up as a rational system1 and because1 as ,i have shown by a quotation of his own words1 he makes their compatibility with his idea of ,catholic teaching his criterion in the acceptance or rejection of facts4 ,i will confess ,i do not think that things are as bad as this with ,christianity4 ,i believe a far better case could be made for ,catholicism by an insistence that its value and justification lie in the change and in the direction of the human will1 in giving comfort and consolation and peace1 in producing saints and beautiful living2 and that the truth of the history it tells of space and time is entirely in relation to the development of these spiritual aspects1 and has no necessary connection whatever with scientific truth4 ,this line of thought is no novelty1 and ,i do not see why ,catholics should not keep to it and leave the outline of history alone4 ,i do not say that it is a line of apologetics that would convince me altogether1 but it is one that would need far more arduous discussion and merit1 far more respect than ,mr4 ,belloc's a priori exploits1 his limping lizards and flying pigs4 ,but it is not my business to remind ,catholics of their own neglected philosophers1 and clearly the publication of ,mr4 ,belloc's articles by the ,universe1 the ,catholic ,bulletin1 and the ,southern ,cross shows that the ,catholic world of to-day is stoutly resolved to treat the fall of man and his unalterable nature as matters of fact1 even if they are rather cloudy matters of fact1 and to fight the realities of modern biology and anthropology to the last ditch4 ,so the ,catholics are pinned to this dogma of the fixity of man and thereby to a denial of progress4 ,this vale of tears1 they maintain1 is as a whole a stagnant lake of tears1 and there is no meaning to it beyond the spiritual adventures of its individual lives4 ,go back in time or forward1 so long as man has been or will be1 it is all the same4 ,you will find a world generally damned1 with a select few1 like ,mr4 ,belloc1 on their way to eternal beatitude4 ,that is all there is to the spectacle4 ,there is1 in fact1 no outline of history2 there is just a flow of individual lives2 there is only birth and salvation or birth and damnation4 ,that1 ,i extract from ,mr4 ,belloc and other contemporary writers1 is the ,catholic's vision of life4 ,,the ,,idea ,,of ,,fixed ,,humanity ,and it is not only the ,catholic vision of life4 ,it is a vision far more widely accepted4 ,i would say that1 if we leave out the ideas of damning or beatitude1 it is the 8common-sense0 vision of the world4 ,the individual life is1 to common-sense1 all that matters1 the entire drama4 ,there is from this popular and natural point of view no large1 comprehensive drama in which the individual life is a subordinate part4 ,just as to the untutored mind the world is flat1 just as to ,mr4 ,belloc during his biological research work in ,sussex the species of pig remained a 8fixed type10 so to the common intelligence life is nothing more or less than 8,me10 an unquestioned and unanalysed ,me1 against the universe4 ,the universe may indeed be imagined as ruled over and pervaded by ,god1 and this world may be supposed to have extensions of hell and heaven2 all sorts of pre-natal dooms and debts may affect the career of the ,me1 but nevertheless the ,me remains in the popular mind1 nobbily integral1 one and indivisible1 and either it ends and the drama ends with it1 or it makes its distinct and special way to the ,pit1 or1 with ,belloc and the ,catholic community1 to the beatitude he anticipates4 ,the individual self is primary to this natural1 primitive1 and prevalent mode of thinking4 ,but it is not the only way of thinking about life4 ,the gist of the ,outline of ,history is to contradict this self-centred conception of life and show that this absolute individualism of our thought and destinies is largely illusory4 ,we do not live in ourselves1 as we so readily imagine we do2 we are contributory parts in the progress of a greater being which is life1 and which becomes now conscious of itself through human thought4 ,,the ,,fundamental ,,issue ,now here ,i think we get down1 beneath all the frothings and bespatterings of controversy1 to the fundamental difference between ,mr4 ,belloc and myself4 ,it is this which gives our present controversy whatever claim it can have to attention4 ,neither ,mr4 ,belloc nor myself is a very profound or exhaustive philosopher4 ,in ourselves we are very unimportant indeed4 ,but we have this in common1 that we can claim to be very honestly expressive of the mental attitudes of clearly defined types of mind1 and that we are sharply antithetical types4 ,by nature and training and circumstances ,mr4 ,belloc stands for the stout sensible fellow who believes what he sees2 who considers that his sort always has been and always will be2 who stands by accepted morals and time-honoured ways of eating and drinking and amusement2 who loves--and grips as much as he can of--the good earth that gives us food for our toil2 who begets children honestly by one beloved wife until she dies and then repeats the same wholesome process with the next2 who believes in immortality lest he should be sorry to grow old and die2 who trusts in the ,church and its teaching because visibly the ,church is a great and impressive fact1 close at hand and extremely reassuring2 who is a nationalist against all strangers because1 confound it6 there are nations1 and for ,christendom against all pagans2 who finds even ,chinamen and ,indians remote and queer and funny4 ,i do not think that is an unfair picture of the ideals of ,mr4 ,belloc and of his close friend and ally1 ,mr4 ,chesterton1 as they have spread them out for us2 and ,i admit they are warm and rosy ideals4 ,but they are ideals and not realities4 ,the real human being upon this swift-spinning planet is not that stalwart1 entirely limited1 fixed type resolved to keep so1 stamping about the flat world under ,god's benevolent sky1 eating1 drinking1 disputing1 and singing lustily1 until he passes on to an eternal individual beatitude with ,god and all the other blessed ones4 ,he is less like that every day1 and more and more conscious of the discrepancy4 ,i have read and admired and sympathised with the work of ,mr4 ,belloc and ,mr4 ,chesterton since its very beginnings1 but ,i find throughout it all a curious defensive note4 ,it may be ,i attribute distresses to them that they do not feel4 ,but it seems to me they are never quite sure in their minds about this 8fixed0 human being of theirs--the same yesterday1 now1 and for ever4 ,mr4 ,belloc must be puzzled not a little by that vast parade of ,evolution through the immeasurable ages which he admits has occurred--a parade made by the ,creative ,force for no conceivable reason1 since a 8fixed type0 might just as well have been created straight away4 ,he must realise that if man is the beginning and end of life1 then his ,creator has worked within fantastically disproportionate margins both of space and time4 ,and in his chapters upon animal and human origins ,mr4 ,belloc's almost obstinate ignorance of biological facts1 his fantastic 8logic10 his pathetic and indubitably honest belief in his non-existent 8,european authorities10 his fumbling and evasion about ,palolithic man1 and above all his petty slights and provocations to those whose views jar upon him1 have nothing of the serenity of a man assured of his convictions1 and all the irritability and snatching at any straw of advantage of a man terribly alarmed for his dearest convictions4 ,when ,mr4 ,belloc gets to his beatitude he will feel like a fish out of water4 ,i believe ,mr4 ,belloc and his friend ,mr4 ,chesterton are far too intelligent not to be subconsciously alive to the immense and increasing difficulties of their positions1 and that they are fighting most desperately against any conscious realisation of the true state of affairs4 ,,the ,,idea ,,of ,,progressive ,,humanity ,it happens that my circumstances1 and perhaps my mental temperament1 have brought my mind into almost dramatic opposition to that of ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,while his training was mainly in written history1 the core of mine was the analytical exercises of comparative anatomy and palontology4 ,i was brought up upon the spectacle of life in the universe as a steadily changing system4 ,my education was a modern one1 upon material and questionings impossible a hundred years ago4 ,things that are fundamental and commonplaces to me have come1 therefore1 as belated1 hostile1 and extremely distressing challenges to the satisfactions and acceptances of ,mr4 ,belloc4 ,now1 this picture of a fixed and unprogressive humanity working out an enormous multitude of individual lives from birth to either eternal beatitude or to something not beatitude1 hell or destruction or whatever else it may be that ,mr4 ,belloc fails to make clear is the alternative to beatitude--this picture1 which seems to be necessary to the ,catholic and probably to every form of ,christian faith1 and which is certainly necessary to the comfort of ,mr4 ,belloc1 has no validity whatever for my mind4 ,it is no more possible in my thought as a picture of reality than that ancient cosmogony which made the round earth rest upon an elephant1 which stood upon a tortoise1 which stood upon ,god-knows-what4 ,i do not know how the universe originated1 or what it is fundamentally2 ,i do not know how material substance is related to consciousness and will2 ,i doubt if any creature of my calibre is capable of knowing such things2 but at least ,i know enough to judge the elephant story and the fixed humanity story absurd4 ,i do not know any convincing proof that ,progress must go on2 ,i find no invincible imperative to progressive change in my universe2 but ,i remark that progressive change does go on1 and that it is the form into which life falls more and more manifestly as our analysis penetrates and our knowledge increases4 ,i set about collecting what is known of life and the world in time and space1 and ,i find the broad outline falls steadily and persistently into a story of life appearing and increasing in range1 power1 and co-operative unity of activity4 ,i see knowledge increasing and human power increasing1 ,i see ever-increasing possibilities before life1 and ,i see no limits set to it all4 ,existence impresses me as a perpetual dawn4 ,our lives1 as ,i apprehend them1 swim in expectation4 ,this is not an outline ,i have thrust upon the facts2 it is the outline that came naturally as the facts were put in order4 ,and it seems to me that we are waking up to the realisation that the individual life does not stand alone1 as people in the past have seemed to imagine it did1 but that it is far truer to regard it as an episode in a greater life1 which progresses and which need not die4 ,the episode begins and ends1 but life goes on4 ,mr4 ,belloc is so far removed from me mentally that he is unable to believe that this1 clearly and honestly1 is how ,i see things2 he is moved to explain it away by saying that ,i am trying to 8get rid of a ,god10 that ,i am a rotten ,protestant1 that this is what comes of being born near ,london1 that if ,i knew ,french and respected the ,gentry all this would be different1 and so on1 as the attentive student of his great apology for ,catholicism has been able to observe4 ,but all the while he is uncomfortably on the verge of being aware that ,i am a mere reporter of a vast mass of gathered knowledge and lengthened perspectives that towers up behind and above his neat and jolly marionette show of the unchanging man and his sins and repentances and mercies1 his astonishing punishments1 and his preposterous eternal reward among the small eternities of the medival imagination4 ,i strut to no such personal beatitude4 ,i have no such eternity of individuation4 ,the life to which ,i belong uses me and will pass on beyond me1 and ,i am content4 ,,the ,,new ,,thought ,,and ,,the ,,old ,mr4 ,belloc is completely justified in devoting much more than half his commentary to these fundamental issues and dealing with my account of the appearance of ,christianity and the story of the ,church much more compactly4 ,it is this difference at the very roots of our minds which matters to us1 and it is the vital question we have to put before the world4 ,the rest is detail4 ,i do believe and assert that a new attitude to life1 a new and different vision of the world1 a new moral atmosphere and a different spirit of conduct1 is coming into human affairs1 as a result of the scientific analysis of the past hundred years4 ,it is only now reaching such a clearness of definition that it can be recognised for what it is and pointed out4 ,the essential distinction of the newer thought in the world is in its denial of the permanence of the self and in its realisation of the self's comparative unimportance4 ,even in our individual lives we are increasingly interested in common and generalised things4 ,the older commoner life1 the religious life just as much as the most worldly life1 seems to us excessively self-conscious4 ,the religious life1 its perpetual self-examination for sin and sinful motives1 its straining search after personal perfection1 appears in the new light as being scarcely less egotistical than a dandy's4 ,and this new way of living and thinking is directly linked on to the idea of progress1 which makes life in general far more interesting than any individual life can be1 just as the self-centred life1 whether it be religious and austere or vain or self-indulgent1 is directly connected with the old delusions of permanence which rob life in general of any sustained interest4 ,when one is really persuaded that there is nothing new under the sun1 then there is nothing worth living for whatever outside the personal adventure1 the dance between permanent individual beatitude or permanent individual damnation4 ,as this modern conception of life as a process of progressive change in which individuality of our order can be sometimes excessively exaggerated as it has been in the past and sometimes minimised as is happening now--as this conception establishes itself1 it changes the spirit of living and the values of our general ideas about living profoundly4 ,lit only by a very bright light held low1 an ordinary road becomes a tangle of vivid surfaces and black shadows1 and you cannot tell a puddle or a gutter from a ditch or a precipice4 ,but in diffused daylight you can see the proportions of every irregularity4 ,so too with changing illumination our world alters its aspects1 and things that once seemed monstrous and final are seen to be mere undulations in a practicable progress4 ,we can realise now1 as no one in the past was ever able to realise it1 that man is a creature changing very rapidly from the life of a rare and solitary great ape to the life of a social and economic animal4 ,he has traversed most of this tremendous change of phase in something in the nature of a million years4 ,his whole being1 mind and body alike1 betrays the transition4 ,we can trace the mitigations of his egotism through the development of religious and customary restraints4 ,the recent work of the psycho-analyst enables us to understand something of the intricate system of suppressions and inhibitions that this adaptation to a more and more complex social life has involved4 ,we begin to realise how man has symbolised and personified his difficulties1 and to comprehend the mechanisms of his uncongenial but necessary self-restraint4 ,,old ,,wine ,,in ,,new ,,bottles ,the disposition of those who apprehend this outline of history that modern science has made plain to us1 and who see all life as a system of progressive change1 is by no means antagonistic to religion4 ,they realise the immense importance and the profound necessity of religion in this last great chapter of the story1 the evolution of human society4 ,but they see religion within the frame of fact2 they do not1 like ,mr4 ,belloc1 look through religion at fact4 ,man has accommodated his originally fierce and narrow egotism to the needs of an ever wider and more co-operative social life1 very largely through the complex self-subjugations that religion has made possible4 ,within the shell and cover of religion the new less self-centred habits of mind have been able to develop4 ,an immense mass of imaginative work1 of mythology1 of theology1 that now seems tortuous1 mystical1 and fantastic1 was necessary for the casting of the new moral being of socialised man4 ,we seem to be entering upon a phase in which moral and intellectual education may be able to free themselves from the last vestiges of the mythology in which that new moral being was moulded2 but it is ungracious and false to the true outline of history to deny the necessary part that the priest1 the sacrifice1 the magic ceremonial for tribal welfare1 the early tribal religions1 have played in this transfiguration of the sub-human into the modern human mind1 upon which all our community rests to-day4 ,it is because of our sense of this continuity of our present dispositions with the religions upon which they are founded that so many of us are loth to part with all the forms and phrases of the old creeds and all the disciplines of time-honoured cults4 ,perhaps some of us 7the present writer in the crowd among others7 have been over-eager to read new significances into established phrases1 and clothe new ideas in the languages of the old scheme of salvation4 ,it may be we have been pouring new wine into old bottles4 ,it may be better to admit frankly that if man is not fixed ,christianity is1 and that mankind is now growing out of ,christianity2 that indeed mankind is growing out of the idea of ,deity4 ,this does not mean an end to religion1 but it means a fresh orientation of the religious life4 ,it means a final severance with those anthropomorphic conceptions of destiny1 that interpretation of all things in terms of personality and will with which religion began4 ,for many of us that still means a wrench and an effort4 ,but the emphatic assertions of ,mr4 ,belloc1 the stand that ,catholicism1 as he expounds it1 makes against any progressive adaptation to the new spirit in human life1 may render that effort easier4 ,in this examination of ,mr4 ,belloc's opening and more fundamental attacks upon the ,outline of ,history ,i have shown sufficiently that ,mr4 ,belloc is incapable of evidence or discussion1 that he imagines his authorities1 that he is careless and ignorant as to his facts and slovenly and tricky in his logic4 ,i have dealt kindly but adequately with his atrocious bad manners and his insolence and impudence4 ,i do not think it is worth while to go on through the second half of his outpourings with any particularity4 ,it is exactly the same kind of thing1 but upon more familiar ground and less fundamental issues4 ,mr4 ,belloc quibbles4 ,he falsifies4 ,for example1 he imagines traditions to reinforce the ,gospel account of ,christ's teaching and to show that the founder of ,christianity was aware of his godhead and taught the doctrine of the ,trinity2 he declares--just out of his head--that ,i do not know it was the bull and not ,mithra who was sacrificed in the system of ,mithraism1 though ,i state that quite plainly in a passage he has ventured to ignore4 ,and so on4 ,the wonderful methods of the ,palolithic bow story repeat themselves with variations1 time after time4 ,why should ,i trouble to repeat the exposure in every case8 ,i have done enough to demonstrate the quality of this effort to bluff and bawl away accepted knowledge and manifest fact1 and that is all that ,i set out to do4 ,and this apparently is the present state of ,catholic teaching4 ,this stuff ,i have examined is the current utterance of organised ,christianity1 so far as there is any utterance1 upon the doctrines of the ,creation and the ,fall--doctrines upon which rest the whole scheme of ,christian salvation and the entire fabric of a ,christian's faith4 ,transcriber's ,notes ,punctuation1 hyphenation1 and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book2 otherwise they were not changed4 ,simple typographical errors were corrected2 unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious1 and otherwise left unbalanced4 ,several apparent misspellings may be intentional1 and have not been changed4 ,page #fi3 8,mr4 ,belloc will get if he says0 probably is missing an 8it0 after 8get04 ,illustrations in this e,book have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations4 ,page #ie3 ,part of the last paragraph was misprinted4 ,transcriber has attempted to correct that error4 ,the original text was3 ,and this apparently is the present state of ,catholic teaching4 ,this stuff ,i have examined is ance of organised ,christianity1 so far as there is representative stuff4 ,this is the current utter- ance of organised ,christianity1 so far as there is any utterance1 upon the doctrines of the ,creation and the ,fall--doctrines upon which rest the whole scheme of ,christian salvation and the entire fabric of a ,christian's faith4