Henceforth anything that tookaway the gesture of
worship would stunt and even maim him for ever. It is misunderstanding the
psychology of day-dreams. Not one of them was a revolution,save in the sense of the
revolution of the sun and moon. There was at least no doubt about the dragon. They
are refined and intelligent enough to indulge sometimesin a self-conscious
diabolism. It might be said truly to have painted the map purple. In order to
understandit we must pass to a review of the other kind of paganism.
He himself can stand for ever in the noble
andnatural attitude of the statue of the Praying Boy. He feelsthe presence of powers
about which he guesses and invents.
There seems a disproportionbetween the priest and
the altar or between the altar and the god. In their dealings with their god
Moloch,they themselves were always careful to deliver the goods. Polytheism, or that
aspect of paganism, was never to the paganwhat Catholicism is to the Catholic. For a
shadow is a shape; a thing which reproduces shape butnot texture.
They were too closely imprisoned by the white
winter and theendless dark.
One fell back on toleration and the other on
revolution. So far could the lonelyimagination lead, and we must turn later to the
lonely reason.
For most cannibalism is not a primitive or even a
bestial habit. It is misunderstanding the psychology of day-dreams. It follows that
he dealtmuch with morals; but he bound them up strictly with manners. It is the
voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying,Why cannot these things be? This feeling
existsin both the forms of paganism here under consideration. In the ancient world
the demons often wandered abroad like dragons. In other words, the demonshave really
been in hiding since the coming of Christ on earth.
Pagan gods were depicted as tossing men like
dice;and indeed they are loaded dice. Nowhere along this road did the two ever
travel together.
We know the last secret revealed to the perfect
initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying Thesethings are.
It is notable not only in ethicsbut in aesthetics. They believed, in the appropriate
modern phrase, in people whodelivered the goods.
We therefore feel throughout the whole of paganism
a curious doublefeeling of trust and distrust. But we all know that this didnot mean
that all pagan men thought of nothing but pagan gods. The difference is only that
which divides a portrait of Queen Elizabethfrom Queen Elizabeth. Sooner or later a
man deliberatelysets himself to do the most disgusting thing he can think of. But
this fact is falsifiedby the error that I put first in this note on mythology.