ns. It looks just a
little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is
obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I
give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical
creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at
once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A
man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left.
Having noted that there was an arm on the right and one on the left, a
leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find
on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin
eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At
last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one
side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just
then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong.

It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncanny
element in everything. It seems a sort of secret treason in the
universe. An apple or an orange is round enough to get itself called
round, and yet is not round after all. The earth itself is shaped like
an orange in order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it a
globe. A blade of grass is called after the blade of a sword, because it
comes to a point; but it doesn't. Everywhere in things there is this
element of the quiet and incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, but
it never escapes till the last moment. From the grand curve of our earth
it could easily be inferred that every inch of it was thus curved. It
would seem rational that as a man has a brain on both sides, he should
have a heart on both sides. Yet scientific men are still organizing
expeditions to find the North Pole, because they are so fond of flat
country. Scientific men are also still organising expeditions to find a
man's heart; and when they try to find it, they generally get on the
wrong side of him.

Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guesses
these hidden malformations or surprises. If our mathematician from the
moon saw the two arms and the two ears, he might deduce the two
shoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain. But if he guessed that
the man's heart was in the right place, then I should call him something
more than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim which I have
since come to propound for Christianity. Not merel