that of Ernest Renan. Renan also divided
his hero's pity from his hero's pugnacity. Renan even represented the
righteous anger at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the
idyllic expectations of Galilee. As if there were any inconsistency
between having a love for humanity and having a hatred for inhumanity!
Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists
(with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist. In
our present atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough. The love
of a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant. The hatred of a
hero is more generous than the love of a philanthropist. There is a huge
and heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments. There
is a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about.
They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, labelled egoism and
altruism, and they are equally puzzled by His insane magnificence and
His insane meekness. They have parted His garments among them, and for
His vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam woven
from the top throughout.

CHAPTER IV--_The Ethics of Elfland_

When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is
commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one
has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in
middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief
in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on
with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic
old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a
boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these
philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is
exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I
should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical
politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in
fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old
childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as
ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned
about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at
the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The
vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As
much as I ever did, more