THE DOVE OF PEACE 67 



as messengers is well known ; and from the two accounts of 

 the Deluge which we possess, separated as they are from 

 each other by thousands of years, it seems not unreasonable 

 to suppose that the originals of both Xisusthro and Noah 

 were aware of this homing instinct. 



It is possible, also, that the very early association of the 

 dove with the Great Genetrix, the Eternal Feminine in her 

 productive and maternal aspects, was due to the unbirdlike 

 habit common to all the pigeon tribe, of feeding their 

 young from their mouth with a liquid semi-digested food 

 which is still called " pigeons' milk." 



The ages, with their inevitable inversions, their un- 

 failing aptitude for placing man's burdens on the shoulders 

 of the beasts if possible, might well be trusted to evolve 

 from the dove's original symbolism of pure motherhood 

 and pure promise, the later idea of sin, of birth offerings, 

 until even for the Birth of the Christ two white doves had 

 to be sacrificed. 



Such inversion would be but another instance of man's 

 unceasing, almost frantic desire to escape from that mys- 

 terious sense of guilt concerning the Law of Love and 

 Increase which accounts for so much in the history of his 

 civilisation, but yet another instance of his mean and 

 despicable habit of first symbolising virtue in the form 

 of some " not-man," then laying his own breaches of that 

 virtue to its charge, and so sacrificing not the sinner but 

 the sinner's symbol. 



It is a habit early learnt, and hard to forget. 



How the dove passed from being the message bearer, 

 the life giver, from being at once the emblem of purity 

 and the sacrifice for impurity, into being the peace bringer 



F 2 



