Before examining the particular attributes and activities of the Invisible King, let us look a little more closely into the question whether a God detached alike from man below and (so to speak) from heaven above, is a thinkable God in whom any satisfaction can be found. Mr. Wells must not reply (he probably would not think of doing so) that "satisfaction" is no test: that he asserts an objective truth which exists, like the Nelson Column or the Atlantic Ocean, whether we find satisfaction in it or not. Though he does not mention the word "pragmatism," his standards are purely pragmatist. He offers no jot or tittle of evidence for the existence of the Invisible King, except that it is a hypothesis which he finds to work extremely well. Satisfaction and nothing else is the test he applies. So we have every right to ask whether the renunciation of all concern about the Veiled Being, and concentration upon the thought of a finite God, practically unrelated to the infinite, can bring us any reasonable sense of reconciliation to the nature of things. For that, I take it, is the essence of religion. It was in no spirit of irony that I began this essay by expressing the lively interest with which I learned that Mr. Wells was setting out on the quest for God. The dogmatic agnosticism which declares it impossible ever to know anything about the whence, how and why of the universe does not seem to me more rational than any other dogma which jumps from "not yet" to "never." Mr. Wells himself disclaims that dogma. He says: "It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden" (p. 108). And in another place (p. 15) he suggests that "our God, the Captain of Mankind," may one day enable us to "pierce the black wrappings," or, in other words, to get behind the veil. There is nothing, then, unreasonable or absurd in man's incurable inquisitiveness as to God, in the non-Wellsian sense of the term. God simply means the key to the mystery of existence; and though the keys hitherto offered have all either jammed or turned round and round without unlocking anything, it does not follow that no real key exists within the reach of human investigation or speculation. Therefore one naturally feels a little stirring of hope at the news that a fresh and keen intellect, untrammelled by the folk-lore theologies of the past, is applying itself to the problem. It is always possible, however improbable, that we may be helped a little forwarder on the path towards realization. One comes back to the before-mentioned analogy of flying. We had been assured over and over again, on the highest authority, that it was an idle dream. When we wanted to express the superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be daunted by _a priori_ demonstrations of impossibility. One day there