not quite easy to define abstractedly; and,
perhaps, the simplest method is to take some object, as plain as
possible, and from it illustrate the two modes of thought: the right
mode in which all real results have been rooted; the wrong mode, which
is confusing all our current discussions, especially our discussions
about the relations of the sexes. Casting my eye round the room, I
notice an object which is often mentioned in the higher and subtler of
these debates about the sexes: I mean a poker. I will take a poker and
think about it; first forwards and then backwards; and so, perhaps, show
what I mean.

The sage desiring to think well and wisely about a poker will begin
somewhat as follows: Among the live creatures that crawl about this star
the queerest is the thing called Man. This plucked and plumeless bird,
comic and forlorn, is the butt of all the philosophies. He is the only
naked animal; and this quality, once, it is said, his glory, is now his
shame. He has to go outside himself for everything that he wants. He
might almost be considered as an absent-minded person who had gone
bathing and left his clothes everywhere, so that he has hung his hat
upon the beaver and his coat upon the sheep. The rabbit has white warmth
for a waistcoat, and the glow-worm has a lantern for a head. But man has
no heat in his hide, and the light in his body is darkness; and he must
look for light and warmth in the wild, cold universe in which he is
cast. This is equally true of his soul and of his body; he is the one
creature that has lost his heart as much as he has lost his hide. In a
spiritual sense he has taken leave of his senses; and even in a literal
sense he has been unable to keep his hair on. And just as this external
need of his has lit in his dark brain the dreadful star called religion,
so it has lit in his hand the only adequate symbol of it: I mean the red
flower called Fire. Fire, the most magic and startling of all material
things, is a thing known only to man and the expression of his sublime
externalism. It embodies all that is human in his hearths and all that
is divine on his altars. It is the most human thing in the world; seen
across wastes of marsh or medleys of forest, it is veritably the purple
and golden flag of the sons of Eve. But there is about this generous and
rejoicing thing an alien and awful quality: the quality of torture. Its
presence is life; its touch is death. Therefore, it is always necessary