od; how could
they prove it? They only prove (from their premises) that the Czar is
not responsible to Russia. They do not prove that Adam should not have
been punished by God; they only prove that the nearest sweater should
not be punished by men. With their oriental doubts about personality
they do not make certain that we shall have no personal life hereafter;
they only make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or complete
one here. With their paralysing hints of all conclusions coming out
wrong they do not tear the book of the Recording Angel; they only make
it a little harder to keep the books of Marshall and Snelgrove. Not only
is the faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are the
fathers of all worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked
divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that
is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid
waste the world.

CHAPTER IX.--_Authority and the Adventurer_

The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy
is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or
order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and
advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do
it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the
old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or
lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that
matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that
mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social
vigilance and tireless pursuit of practise, we cannot help it much by
insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at best
reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the
transcendant God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means
divine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a
generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall
instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire
European civilisation to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather
that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal.
And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather
wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere
sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall b