The Washington herald., 1920-10-18


and disintegration.
And when ] said that tho Cath
oliC philosophy formulated in me-
/ dievsl times is still tho foundation
even of modern morality. / meant
] that ii is in this sense the Uncon-
, sCiOus foundation. II is so. at least
where that morality is normal
One Example of IL.
Libraries might BE- devoted 10
expounding this view: and / will
here only touch on one type or ex-
ample Of it. There is a certain
conception OF the place OF evil in
life which / will call. by way OF
| a convenient symbol. the concep-
! tion II st. George and the Dragon
! The Dragon is bigger than St
GeOrSv- He may look big enough
to MI the world. but he is not the
world. nor above all, did he make
the world. The stars are not sparks
from his fiar0'nE mouth nor the
clouds the smoke from his nostrils
The shadow Of him may be big
enough TO blot the world: but he
is only a big blot on the world.
| The very effort to clear him away
implies that there Is something 10
be cleared. The stars. the air. the
abstract truths. being itself and
the breath of life, these exist an
terror to and apart from the larg-
est dragon: and exist in a sort Of
primOrdial innocence. This idea pN-
lists as an instinct in all healthy
and hopeful attacks upon evil But
| this idea as philosophy is not
Identical wiki al philosophers Ii
: iS not tn" same a. the pCssimist
philosophy. in which the dragon is
the creator Of all. who has only
cheated ST George as CloCkwork
doll to play with and TO break. IL
is not the same as .he optimist
philosophy, which explains away
the dra aEon merely as the shadow
OF ST. George. the long. fantastic
shadow OF himself that gets on his
nerves 2t twilight.
1t is not the same as a sort of
I Buddhist philosophy which sees the
evil only in the fact that the man
and the monster are two things and
not one, and thinks that ali will
be well when one of them swallows
the other; the betting being rather
on the dragon.
ST. Johns Grandmother.
1t is not even the same as a Pro-
methean progressive philosophy. of
something being evolved that will
educate and improve an Indifferent
universe: or in other words the
dragon is St. Georges grandmother
but that he will be suficiently en-
lightened TO teach his grandmother.
1t is something quite different from
all these, we find If we attempt TO
define il; but whenever we are most
sane we act upon it,
] do not say that the more heroic
heathens did not act upon il. be-
fore it was formed: they did. |
do not say that the more healthy
agnOstics do not now act on il with
out defining it; they do. But I say
this: that the more we do attempt
to define it, the more we arialyze il
logically and state II lucidly, the
more exactly we distinguish il from
other moods OF the minds. the more
closely we shall find il approNimst-
ing to the most dogmatic and dis
puted parts of what was called the
theology Of the Dark Ages; the
nearer we shall come to the whole
strange story of the treason Of the
archangel, of his betrayal Of a ei-
vine plan, of his relative success and
his ultimate failure.
The shortest way Of stating Ut Is
that evil is tyranny, but II is also
a temptation. Millions even in
modern times act on that norma
morality: millions do not reduce IL
to any philosophy: but IL II is re-
duced to any philosophy it must be
this and no other.