I have read and admired and sympathised with the work of Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton since its very beginnings, but I find throughout it all a curious defensive note. It may be I attribute distresses to them that they do not feel. But it seems to me they are never quite sure in their minds about this “fixed” human being of theirs--the same yesterday, now, and for ever. Mr. Belloc must be puzzled not a little by that vast parade of Evolution through the immeasurable ages which he admits has occurred--a parade made by the Creative Force for no conceivable reason, since a “fixed type” might just as well have been created straight away. He must realise that if man is the beginning and end of life, then his Creator has worked within fantastically disproportionate margins both of space and time. And in his chapters upon animal and human origins Mr. Belloc’s almost obstinate ignorance of biological facts, his fantastic “logic,” his pathetic and indubitably honest belief in his non-existent “European authorities,” his fumbling and evasion about Palæolithic man, and above all his petty slights and provocations to those whose views jar upon him, have nothing of the serenity of a man assured of his convictions, and all the irritability and snatching at any straw of advantage of a man terribly alarmed for his dearest convictions. When Mr. Belloc gets to his beatitude he will feel like a fish out of water. I believe Mr. Belloc and his friend Mr. Chesterton are far too intelligent not to be subconsciously alive to the immense and increasing difficulties of their positions, and that they are fighting most desperately against any conscious realisation of the true state of affairs. THE IDEA OF PROGRESSIVE HUMANITY It happens that my circumstances, and perhaps my mental temperament, have brought my mind into almost dramatic opposition to that of Mr. Belloc. While his training was mainly in written history, the core of mine was the analytical exercises of comparative anatomy and palæontology. I was brought up upon the spectacle of life in the universe as a steadily changing system. My education was a modern one, upon material and questionings impossible a hundred years ago. Things that are fundamental and commonplaces to me have come, therefore, as belated, hostile, and extremely distressing challenges to the satisfactions and acceptances of Mr. Belloc.