ESSAY-REVIEWS 113 



who thump their desks every Sunday, or among the philo- 

 sophers who perform at intellectual tournaments, as among the 

 hundreds of thousands of young men going to their death, and 

 often almost to a certain one, for their country — driven not by 

 any sense of recompense, but by the profound instinct, instilled 

 into them by millions of years of evolution, which is true religion. 

 The fact is, on reading this little book we feel that our worthy 

 Knights have indeed destroyed their foe but that it is one made 

 merely of wood. The combat is not a real one; it requires no 

 self-sacrifice, and no other quality of true religion. Have they 

 ever asked whether their thesis is on the whole as beneficial to 

 humanity as it is agreeable? There is such a thing as wine 

 which, when red and strong, buoys us for a while, but which, 

 as some of our Knights will certainly confess, is detrimental in 

 the end. It does not follow in this world that because a thing 

 is pleasant it is good. Have they ever thought that the very 

 spirit which they commend may quite possibly be the principal 

 cause, even more potent than wine, of many of the miseries of 

 men — let us say, for example, of the hideous war upon whose 

 Moioch-altar our sons are now being flung, pierced, mangled 

 and bleeding in thousands ? What if their creed is not of 

 Ormuzd but of Ahriman ? Perhaps, after all, there is a higher 

 God and a higher religion than we read of in this book. 



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