APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 117 



bickerings about things of which they know 

 nothing have been the prime cause and continual 

 sustenance of that evil scepticism which is the 

 Nemesis of meddling with the unknowable. 



Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance 

 of these high matters. She lights the fire, sweeps 

 the house, and provides the dinner ; and is rewarded 

 by being told that she is a base creature, devoted to 

 low and material interests. But in her garret she has 

 fairy visions out of the ken of the pair of shrews 

 who are quarrelling downstairs. She sees the order 

 which pervades the seeming disorder of the world ; 

 the great drama of evolution, with its full share of 

 pity and terror, but also with abundant goodness 

 and beauty, unrolls itself before her eyes ; and she 

 learns, in her heart of hearts, the lesson, that the 

 foundation of morality is to have done, once and for 

 all, with lying ; to give up pretending to believe that 

 for which there is no evidence, and repeating unin- 

 telligible propositions about things beyond the 

 possibilities of knowledge. 



She knows that the safety of morality lies neither 

 in the adoption of this or that philosophical specula- 

 tion, or this or that theological creed, but in a real 

 and living belief in that fixed order of nature which 

 sends social disorganisation upon the track of 

 immorality, as surely as it sends physical disease 

 after physical trespasses. And of that firm and 

 lively faith it is her high mission to be the 

 priestess. 



The first act of a new-born child is to draw a deep 

 breath. In fact, it will never draw a deeper, inas- 

 much as the passages and chambers of the lungs, 

 once distended with air, do not empty themselves 

 again ; it is only a fraction of their contents which 



