ales because there is an instinct
of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of
the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that
when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need
tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by
being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of
three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like
romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales--because they find them
romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to
whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This
proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of
interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to
refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They
make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment,
that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and
even agnostic. And, indeed, on this point I am all for the higher
agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in
scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who
has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and
appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every
man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may
understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than
any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know
thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all
forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that
we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism
only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we
have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means
that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we walk the
streets with a sort of half-witted admiration, still it is admiration.
It is admiration in English and not only admiration in Latin. The wonder
has a positive element of praise. This is the next milestone to be
definitely marked on our road through fairyland. I shall speak in the
next chapter about optimists and pessimists in their intellectual
aspect, so far as they have one. Here I am only trying to describe t