matter I will attempt to express it. All the real argument about
religion turns on the question of whether a man who was born upside
down can tell when he comes right way up. The primary paradox of
Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane
or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality.
That is the inmost philosophy of the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's
interesting new Catechism, the first two questions were:
"What are you?" and "What, then, is the meaning of the Fall of Man?"
I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to the questions;
but I soon found that they were very broken and agnostic answers.
To the question, "What are you?" I could only answer, "God knows."
And to the question, "What is meant by the Fall?" I could answer
with complete sincerity, "That whatever I am, I am not myself."
This is the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have
never in any full sense known, is not only better than ourselves,
but even more natural to us than ourselves. And there is really
no test of this except the merely experimental one with which these
pages began, the test of the padded cell and the open door. It is only
since I have known orthodoxy that I have known mental emancipation.
But, in conclusion, it has one special application to the ultimate idea
of joy.

It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and Christianity
of sorrow; it would be just as easy to prove that Paganism is pure
sorrow and Christianity pure joy. Such conflicts mean nothing and
lead nowhere. Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow;
the only matter of interest is the manner in which the two things
are balanced or divided. And the really interesting thing is this,
that the pagan was (in the main) happier and happier as he approached
the earth, but sadder and sadder as he approached the heavens.