led; but there is no direct evidence of it, and
the small amount of indirect evidence is very much the other way. In the
earliest legends we have, such as the tales of Isaac and of Iphigenia,
human sacrifice is not introduced as something old, but rather as
something new; as a strange and frightful exception darkly demanded by
the gods. History says nothing; and legends all say that the earth was
kinder in its earliest time. There is no tradition of progress; but the
whole human race has a tradition of the Fall. Amusingly enough, indeed,
the very dissemination of this idea is used against its authenticity.
Learned men literally say that this pre-historic calamity cannot be true
because every race of mankind remembers it. I cannot keep pace with
these paradoxes.

And if we took the third chance instance, it would be the same; the view
that priests darken and embitter the world. I look at the world and
simply discover that they don't. Those countries in Europe which are
still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is
still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air.
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of
a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the
pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat
grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall
round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic
game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were
knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not
fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled
in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.

Thus these three facts of experience, such facts as go to make an
agnostic, are, in this view, turned totally round. I am left saying,
"Give me an explanation, first, of the towering eccentricity of man
among the brutes; second, of the vast human tradition of some ancient
happiness; third, of the partial perpetuation of such pagan joy in the
countries of the Catholic Church." One explanation, at any rate, covers
all three: the theory that twice was the natural order interrupted by
some explosion or revelation such as people now call "psychic." Once
Heaven came upon the earth with a power or seal called the image of God,
whereby man took command of Nature; and once again (when in empire after
emp