afford to have any path which may lead to the heart of life's mystery
blocked for us by placards bearing the labels 'reactionary', 'unmodern,'
and their likes. That what is most modern must be best is a superstition
which it is strange to find in a really educated man--especially after
the events of the last five years. A philosopher, at any rate, should be
able to endure the charge of being 'unmodern' with fortitude. It is at
least a tenable thesis that many of the qualities which we Western men
have been losing in our craze for industrialism and commercialistic
'Imperialism' are just those which are most necessary to the seeker
after speculative truth. Abelard and St. Thomas would very likely have
failed as advertising agents, company promoters, or editors of
sensational daily papers. But it may well be that both of them were much
better fitted than Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Bottomley, or Mr. A.G. Gardiner
to tell us whether God is and what God is. In fact, one would hardly
suppose habitual and successful composition of effective 'posters' or
alluring prospectuses to be wholly compatible with that candour and
scrupulous veracity which are required of the philosopher. As for
'reaction', no one but a writer in a 'revolutionary' journal would be
fool enough to use the word as, in itself, an epithet of reproach. Most
persons who have a bowing acquaintance with Mechanics know that you
cannot have an engine in which there is all action and no reaction, and
most sane men can see that before you pronounce a given 'reaction' good
or bad you need to know what it is reacting against. If a man who wants
to go east discovers that he is walking west, he is usually reactionary
enough to go back on his steps.

In short, if we mean to be philosophical, our main concern will be that
our beliefs should be true; we shall care very little whether they
happen to be popular or unpopular with the intellectual 'proletarians'
of the moment, and if we can get at a truth, we shall not mind having to