trine of the Fall is no exception. It does
contain a truth, a truth which can be stated in a few words, and which
might be inferred from what has already been said about the
relationship of man and God. The coming of a finite creation into
being is itself of the nature of a fall, a coming down from perfection
to imperfection. We have seen the reason for that coming down; it is
that the universal life may realise its own nature by attenuating or
limiting its perfection. If I want to understand the composition of
the ordinary pure white ray, I take a prism and break it up into its
constituents. This is just what God has been doing in creation. Our
present consciousness of ourselves and of the world can reasonably be
accounted a fall, for we came from the infinite and unto the infinite
perfection we shall in the end return. I do not mean that our present
consciousness of ourselves is eternal; I only assert that our true
being is eternally one with the being of God and that to be separated
from a full knowledge of that truth is to have undergone a fall. But
this fall has no sinister antecedents; its purpose is good, and there
is nothing to mourn over except our own slowness at getting into line
with the cosmic purpose. Another way of describing it would be to call
it the incarnation of God in nature and man, a subject about which I
must say more in another chapter. This view of the meaning and
significance of the Fall can be traced in all great religious
literature. Perhaps one of the best statements of it that has ever
been made is the one set forth by Paul of Tarsus in the eighth chapter
of his letter to the Romans: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth
for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made
subject to vanity, not willingly, but by the reason of him who hath
subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of
the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now." Passages like this make it
impossible to believe that Paul was ever really tied down to the
literal rabbinical view of Adam's transgression and its consequences;
and these words are a clear statement of the truth that the
imperfection of