is that if you merely
bear it, you do not grin. Greek heroes do not grin; but gargoyles
do--because they are Christian. And when a Christian is pleased, he is
(in the most exact sense) frightfully pleased; his pleasure is
frightful. Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture in that
hour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object to
barrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of
Jerusalem. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry
out." Under the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the
facades of the mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces and
open mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out.

If these things be conceded, though only for argument, we may take up
where we left it the thread of the thought of the natural man, called by
the Scotch (with regrettable familiarity), "The Old Man." We can ask the
next question so obviously in front of us. Some satisfaction is needed
even to make things better. But what do we mean by making things better?
Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle--that
circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere
rationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is only
good if it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the
tortoise on the elephant.

Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from the principle in
nature; for the simple reason that (except for some human or divine
theory), there is no principle in nature. For instance, the cheap
anti-democrat of to-day will tell you solemnly that there is no equality
in nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There
is no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature.
Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value. To read
aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to
read democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals:
the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are
more valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than
mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that
the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior
because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the
effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German
pessimist mouse, he might not think tha