; there must be
something eternal if there is to be anything sudden. Therefore for all
intelligible human purposes, for altering things or for keeping things
as they are, for founding a system for ever, as in China, or for
altering it every month as in the early French Revolution, it is equally
necessary that the vision should be a fixed vision. This is our first
requirement.

When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence of
something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church bell above the
sound of the street. Something seemed to be saying, "My ideal at least
is fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of the world. My
vision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered; for it is called
Eden. You may alter the place to which you are going; but you cannot
alter the place from which you have come. To the orthodox there must
always be a case for revolution; for in the hearts of men God has been
put under the feet of Satan. In the upper world hell once rebelled
against heaven. But in this world heaven is rebelling against hell. For
the orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a revolution is a
restoration. At any instant you may strike a blow for the perfection
which no man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing
evolution can make the original good anything but good. Man may have had
concubines as long as cows have had horns: still they are not a part of
him if they are sinful. Men may have been under oppression ever since
fish were under water; still they ought not to be, if oppression is
sinful. The chain may seem as natural to the slave, or the paint to the
harlot, as does the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox; still
they are not, if they are sinful. I lift my prehistoric legend to defy
all your history. Your vision is not merely a fixture: it is a fact." I
paused to note the new coincidence of Christianity: but I passed on.

I passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of progress. Some people
(as we have said) seem to believe in an automatic and impersonal
progress in the nature of things. But it is clear that no political
activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and
inevitable; that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reason
for being lazy. If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to
improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for
not being a progressive. But it is to none of these obvious comments