The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there.
The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man,
says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth.
Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply
by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure.
It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick
and the dead.

Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions;
rather a doctrine alone can cure our dissensions.
It is necessary to ask, however, roughly, what abstract and
ideal shape in state or family would fulfil the human hunger;
and this apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not.
But when we come to ask what is the need of normal men,
what is the desire of all nations, what is the ideal house,
or road, or rule, or republic, or king, or priesthood,
then we are confronted with a strange and irritating difficulty
peculiar to the present time; and we must call a temporary halt
and examine that obstacle.

* * *

IV

THE FEAR OF THE PAST

The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation
of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds
to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief,
to stating what will happen--which is (apparently) much easier.