-that is to say, a man whose philosophy
is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. I revert to the
doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general
hope of getting something done.

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something,
let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull
down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is
approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of
the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of
Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat
excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post,
the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating
each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they
do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down
because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old
iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil.
Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted
because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they
wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man
knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day,
to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the
monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the
philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the
gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

II. On the negative spirit

Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the
hysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But
let us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense,
necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It
is more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of
success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in
what Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lost
fight of virtue." A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point
with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law;
its only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point to
imperfection. It has no perfection to point to. But the monk
meditating upon Christ or Buddha has in his mind an image of perfect
health, a thing of clear colours and clean air. He may