make it, as all such symbols should be made, poetical
and mythological and, in the aesthetic sense, shamelessly
anthropomorphic. Above all we shall be completely free, since it
represents for us those sons of the universe who are the
embodiment of the creative energy, to associate it with every
aspect of the life of the soul. We shall be free to associate it with
those aspects of the soul which in the process of its slow invention
by the generations have, it may be, been disassociated from it and
separated from it. We shall be free to use it as a symbol for the
fuller, complete life of the future, and for every kind of revolt,
into which the spirit of creation may drive us, against the evil
obscurantism and malicious inertness which resist the power of
love. The conclusion to which we are thus led, the choice which
we are thus compelled to make, is one that has been anticipated
from the beginning. No other name except the name of Christ, no
other figure except the figure of Christ, can possibly serve, if we
are to make any use of history at all, as our symbol for the sons of
the universe.

The choice of Christ as our symbol for these invisible companions
does not imply that we are forced to accept in their entirety the
scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus, or even that we are forced
to assume that the historic Jesus ever lived at all. The desire which
the soul experiences for the incarnation of Christ does not prove
that Christ has already been incarnated, or ever will be incarnated.
And it does not prove this because, in the greater, nobler, and
more spiritual moods of the soul, there is no need for the
incarnation of Christ. In these rare and indescribable moments,
when the past and future seem annihilated and we experience the
sensation of eternity, Christ is felt to be so close to us that no
material incarnation could make him any closer.

The association of Christ with the figure of Jesus is a sublime
accident which has had more influence upon the human soul than
any other historic event; and it must be confessed that the idea of
Christ has been profoundly affected by this association. It has been
so deepened and enlarged and clarified by it that the substitution
of the religion of Jesus for the religion of Christ has been an
almost entirely fortunate event, since it has furnished the soul with
a criterion of the true nature of love which otherwise it might
never have gained.

Jesus undoubtedly came so muc