ich it hardly perceived, to a complete
surrender of its instincts. It settled down to the conviction that God
created the world _and_ redeemed it; that the soul is naturally good
_and_ needs salvation.

[Sidenote: Superficial solution.]

This contradiction can be explained exoterically by saying that time and
changed circumstances separate the two situations: having made the world
perfect, God redeems it after it has become corrupt; and whereas all
things are naturally good, they may by accident lose their excellence,
and need to have it restored. There is, however, an esoteric side to the
matter. A soul that may be redeemed, a will that may look forward to a
situation in which its action will not be vain or sinful, is one that in
truth has never sinned; it has merely been thwarted. Its ambition is
rational, and what its heart desires is essentially good and ideal. So
that the whole classic attitude, the faith in action, art, and
intellect, is preserved under this protecting cuticle of dogma; nothing
was needed but a little courage, and circumstances somewhat more
favourable, for the natural man to assert himself again. A people
believing in the resurrection of the flesh in heaven will not be averse
to a reawakening of the mind on earth.

[Sidenote: But from what shall we be redeemed?]

Another pitfall, however, opens here. These contrasted doctrines may
change roles. So long as by redemption we understand, in the mystic way,
exaltation above finitude and existence, because all particularity is
sin, to be redeemed is to abandon the Life of Reason; but redemption
might mean extrication from untoward accidents, so that a rational life
might be led under right conditions. Instead of being like Buddha, the
redeemer might be like Prometheus. In that case, however, the creator
would become like Zeus--a tyrant will responsible for our conditions
rather than expressive of our ideal. The doctrine of creation would
become pantheism and that of redemption, formerly ascetic, would
represent struggling humanity.

[Sidenote: Typical attitude of St. Augustine.]

The seething of these potent and ambiguous elements can be studied
nowhere better than in Saint Augustine. He is a more genial and complete
representative of Christianity than any of the Greek Fathers, in whom
the Hebraic and Roman vitality was comparatively absent. Philosophy was
only one phase of Augustine's genius; with him it was an instrument of
zeal and a stepping