f the Fall, as dramatised by Israel and interpreted by the
"Doctors" of the West, gives adequate expression--on the highest
level of his thinking--to the crude dualism which constitutes the
philosophy of the average man. Hence the immense attractiveness of
the idea to the practical races of the West,--to peoples whose chief
idea is to get their mental problems solved for them as speedily, as
authoritatively, and as intelligibly as possible, that they may thus
be free to devote themselves to "business," to the tangible affairs
of life.

Let us follow the philosophy of the Fall into some of its more
obvious consequences. The Universe (to use the most comprehensive
of all terms) is conceived of as divided into two dissevered
worlds,--the world of Nature, which is fallen, ruined, and accursed,
and the Supernatural world, which shares in the perfection and
centres in the glory of God. Between these two worlds intercourse is,
_in the nature of things_, impossible. But Man is not content that
his state of godless isolation should endure for ever. As a thinker,
he has exiled God from Nature and therefore from his own daily life.
But, as a "living soul," he craves for reunion with God; and so long
as the gulf between the two worlds remains impassable, his philosophy
will be felt to be incomplete. A supplementary theory of things must
therefore be devised. Corrupt and fallen as he is, Man cannot hope
to climb to Heaven; but God, with whom nothing is impossible, can at
his own good pleasure come down to earth. And come he will, whenever
that sense of all-pervading imperfection which exiled him, in its
premature attempt to explain itself, to his supernatural Heaven, is
realised in man's heart as a desire for better things. But what will
be the signs of his advent? The philosophy of the Fall is at no loss
for an answer to this question. There was a time when Nature was
the mirror of God's face. But it is so no longer. The mirror was
shattered when Adam fell. Henceforth it is only by troubling the
waters of Nature, by suspending the operation of its laws, by turning
its order into confusion, by producing _supernatural_ phenomena, or
"miracles" as they are vulgarly called, that God can announce his
presence to Man.

The question of the miraculous is one into which we need not enter.
Let us assume that God can somehow or other come to Man, and that
Man can somehow or other recognise God's presence and interpret his
speech. We have n