But it taught him more than this. The light was growing, and one day a man drew a rough picture of a buffalo on the roof of the cave where he lived. He did not draw it in the spirit of imitation but in the spirit of power. By placing the image of the creature there in his cave he felt himself to have won power over it. Mere magic-making, no doubt ... nevertheless by such an act man definitely asserted the power of mind over matter, of the unseen over the seen. The first upward step was taken. The Præparatio Evangelica had begun. The long process had started which was to end in the “ethical monotheism” of Judea. From mere magic-making man passes on to the idea of propitiation. He adopts a personal relation towards the Unseen. Propitiation leads him to the idea of beneficence—his gifts are accepted, calamities and dangers are averted, therefore the Unseen, though cruel, powerful, and capricious must also know moments of loving-kindness. In time his gods are half good and half bad, but it is remarkable that continual contact with the Unseen through the ages both before and after history, slowly deepens man’s sense of its fundamental goodness. At last even his idea of goodness itself changes and acquires an ethical significance. Isaiah and Jeremiah lift up their voices—Wisdom and the Son of Sirach speak—and the spiritual environment is ready for the coming of the New Life, of the Virgin Mary, as in the ages of the ages ago the physical environment was ready for the birth of life in the virgin sea. It was the suffering and struggle of man which made him first look upwards, and in the whole history of the world it would seem as if no step, either material or spiritual, was ever taken without pain. “Without shedding of blood is no remission of sin.” Perfect adaptation to environment—or, quite plainly, happiness—means the end of progress. If man is to go forward, he must be in a state of warfare and dissatisfaction with his environment—in other words, he must suffer. It would seem as if suffering were an indispensable condition of advance. The corn of wheat that falls into the ground cannot bear fruit except it die, and when that process takes place in consciousness, then it is suffering, no matter what its fruit.