"You never saw anybody play at that kind of game before?"
"No," said the child, "n.o.body ever." "Then," cried the professor, in a loud and blissful voice, "we have at last discovered the origin of religion. It isn"t Ghosts. It isn"t the Infinite. It is worshipping b.u.t.terflies, with a service of fetich stones. The boy has returned to it by an act of unconscious inherited memory, derived from Palaeolithic Man, who must, therefore, have been the native of a temperate climate, where there were green lepidoptera. Oh, my friends, what a thing is inherited memory! In each of us there slumber all the impressions of all our predecessors, up to the earliest Ascidian. See how the domesticated dog," cried the professor, forgetting that he was not lecturing in Albemarle Street, "see how the domesticated dog, by inherited memory, turns round on the hearthrug before he curls up to sleep! He is unconsciously remembering the long gra.s.ses in which his wild ancestors dwelt. Also observe this boy, who has retained an unconscious recollection of the earliest creed of prehistoric man. Behold him instinctively, and I may say automatically, cherishing fetich stones (instead of marbles, like other boys) and adoring that green insect in the gla.s.s bottle! Oh Science," he added rapturously, "what will Mr. Max Muller say now? The Infinite! Bosh, it"s a b.u.t.terfly!"
"It is my own Dala, come to play with me," said the boy.
"It is a fairy," exclaimed the poet, examining Mab through his eyegla.s.s.
This he said, not that he believed in fairies any more than publishers believed in him, but partly because it was a pose he affected, partly to "draw" the professor.
The professor replied that fairies were unscientific, and even unthinkable, and the divine declared that they were too heterodox even for the advanced state of modern theology, and had been condemned by several councils, which is true. And the professor ran through all the animal kingdoms and sub-kingdoms very fast, and proved quite conclusively, in a perfect cataract of polysyllables, that fairies didn"t belong to any of them. While the professor was recovering breath, the divine observed, in a somewhat aggrieved tone, that he for his part found men and women enough for him, and too much sometimes. He also wished to know whether, if his talented but misguided friend required something ethereal, angels were not sufficient, without his having recourse to Pagan mythology; and whether he considered Pagan mythology suitable to the pressing needs of modern society, with a large surplus female population, and to the adjustment of the claims of reason and religion.
The poet replied, "Oh, don"t bother me with your theological conundrums.
I give it up. See here, I am going to write a sonnet to this creature, whatever it is. Fair denizen--!"
"Of a gla.s.s bottle!" interrupted the professor somewhat rudely, and the divine laughed.
"No. Of deathless ether, doomed."
"And that reminds me," said the professor, turning hastily, "I must examine it under the microscope carefully, while the light lasts."
"Oh father!" cried the child, "don"t touch it, it is alive!"
"Nonsense!" said the professor, "it is as dead as a door-nail. Just reach me that lens."
He raised the gla.s.s stopper unsuspiciously, then turned to adjust his instrument And even as he turned his captive fled.
"There!" cried the boy.
Like a flash of sunshine, Queen Mab darted upwards and floated through the open window. They saw her hover outside a moment, then she was gone--back into her deathless ether.
"I told you so!" exclaimed the poet, startled by this incident into a momentary conviction of the truth of his own theory.
CHAPTER IV. -- THE POET AND THE PALaeONTO-THEOLOGIST
"Puis nous fut dit que chose estrange ne leur sembloit estre deux contradictoires Vrayes en mode, en figure, et en temps." Pantagruel, v. xxii.
Moved by an uncontrollable impulse, they all three rushed out into the garden; and far beyond them, in the sunlight, they did indeed catch one parting gleam of gauzy wings, as the fairy vanished. When the professor led the way into the room again, and, rather crestfallen, looked at the tall empty bottle and the stopper, which in his hurry he had thrown down upon the floor.
"She is gone!" sobbed the child. "My beautiful Dala. I shall never see her again."
He was right; the professor and the theologian, between them, had scared Queen Mab away pretty successfully. She would certainly never revisit that part of the city if she could help it. The divine looked uncomfortable. In spite of himself he had recognised something strange and unusual in the appearance of this last capture of his friend"s b.u.t.terfly-net, and almost unconsciously he began to ponder on the old theory that the Evil One might occasionally disguise himself as an angel of light. The poet, meanwhile, was more voluble.
"Your soul is sordid!" he said indignantly to the professor. "You have no eyes for the Immaterial, the intangibly Ideal, that lies behind the shadowy and deceptive veil that we call Matter."
"My soul," said the professor with equal indignation, "that is, if I have got one, is as good as yours."
"No, it isn"t," said the poet; "I am all soul, or nearly all. You are nothing but a ma.s.s of Higher Protoplasm."
"No one need wish to be anything better. I should like to know," cried the professor angrily, "where we should all be without Protoplasm."
"My friends," said the theologian, still rather confused, "this heat is both irreverent and irrational. Protoplasm is invaluable, but is it not also transient? The flight of that b.u.t.terfly may well remind us--"
"Stop!" interrupted the philosopher. "_Was_ it a b.u.t.terfly? Now I come to think of it, I hardly know whether to refer it to the lepidoptera or not. At all events, it is a striking example of the manner in which natural and s.e.xual selection, continued through a series of epochs, can evolve the most brilliant and graceful combinations of tint and plumage, by simple survival of the favourable variations."
"It is indeed," suggested the theologian, "a remarkable proof of the intelligent construction of the universe, and of the argument from design, that this insect should have been framed with such exquisite perfection of form and colour to delight the eyes of the theologian."
"Not at all," said the professor irritably. "It was to delight the eyes of b.u.t.terflies of the opposite s.e.x. It is no more an argument from design than I am!"
"Do stop that!" said the poet. "How can a fellow write a sonnet with you two for ever sparring away at your musty scholasticisms? Haven"t we heard enough about Paley and Darwin? You have frightened away the fairy between you, and that is plenty of mischief for one day.
"Fair denizen of deathless ether, doomed For one brief hour to languish and repine.
Entombed? That will do, but I"m afraid there are not many more rhymes to "doomed." "Loomed," "boomed," "exhumed," "well-groomed." My thoughts won"t flow, hang it all!"
"You _are_ an argument for design," said the theologian, taking no notice of the poet, "though you won"t admit it. Why won"t you take up with my scientific religion?--a religion, you know, that can be expressed with equal facility by emotional or by mathematical terms.
It is as easy, when you once understand it, as the first proposition in Euclid. You have two points, Faith and Reason, and you draw a straight line between them. Then you must describe an equilateral triangle--I mean a scientific religion, on the straight line, F R--between Faith and Reason."
"Oh!" said the professor. "How do you do it?"
"First," said the theologian hopefully, "taking F as your centre, F R as your radius, describe the circle of Theology. Then, taking R as your centre, F R as your radius, describe the circle of Logic. These two circles will intersect at Science, indicated in the proposition by the point S. Join together S F, and then join S R, and you will have the equilateral triangle of a scientific religion on the line F R S."
"Prove it," said the professor grimly.
"Science and Faith," replied the theologian readily, "equal Faith and Reason, because they are both radii of the same circle, Man being the Radius of the Infinite. Theology--"
"Stop!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the professor in the utmost indignation. "What do you mean by it? I never in my life listened to such unmitigated nonsense.
Who gave you leave to talk of a scientific religion as an equilateral triangle? If it is a triangle at all, which there is not the remotest reason to suppose--but I cannot argue with you? You might as well call it a dodecahedron, or the cube root of minus nothing."
"Oh, very well," said the theologian with exasperating coolness. "I thought it possible that even your blind prejudice might not refuse to listen to a simple mathematical demonstration of the possibility of a true scientific religion, but I find that I was mistaken. I am not annoyed--not at all. I prefer to look with lenity upon this outburst of pa.s.sion, which might, I admit, have roused the anger of a theologian of the old school. But, believe me, I personally feel towards you no enmity--only the profoundest compa.s.sion."
Inarticulate sound from the professor.
"I find in you," continued the theologian with benevolence, "much to tolerate, much even to admire. I regret that, formerly, some of my predecessors may have been led, by your aggressive and turbulent spirit, to form unnecessarily harsh judgments of your character, and put unnecessarily tight thumbscrews on your thumbs; but as for me, I desire to win you by sympathy and affection and physico-theological afternoon parties, not to coerce you by vituperation. Your eye of Reason, as I have often observed, is already sufficiently developed; supplement it with the eye of Faith, and you will be quite complete. It will then only remain for you to learn which objects it is necessary to view with which eye, and carefully to close the other. This takes a little practice (which must not be attempted in Society), but I am sure that a person of your attainments will easily master the difficulty. We will then joyfully receive you into our ranks. No sacrifice on your part will be required; you will retain the old distinction of F.R.S., of which you have always been justly proud; but we shall take the liberty of conferring upon you the additional privilege of the honorary t.i.tle of D.D."
The professor uttered a brief but trenchant observation, on which the theologian was about to launch down a reply, less brief but equally trenchant. But the poet, as his fate would have it, struck in, in the capacity of a lightning conductor, and succeeded in turning the wrath of both combatants upon his own devoted head.
"If you must quarrel," he cried, "pray don"t quarrel here. You would fight on the very peaks of Parna.s.sus. I can"t think of a word that will rhyme except "design." Stop, now I have it:
"Bright messenger of the Celestial Nine, Now in translucent ambience entombed."
Celestial Nine is commonplace, but what can a man do in this region of trivial souls? Soar, my mind! What does "ambience" mean, by the way?
Never mind, if the Sublime is unfettered by literal meaning, all the better for the Sublime!"
At this the divine and the philosopher turned upon him together, as they were wont to do every now and then.
"This laxity of terms," said the professor, "is unscientific and unpractical."