view of pokers, and no one who takes it will ever go in for any wrong view
of pokers, such as using them to beat one's wife or torture one's children,
or even (though that is more excusable) to make a policeman jump, as the
clown does in the pantomime. He who has thus gone back to the beginning,
and seen everything as quaint and new, will always see things in their
right order, the one depending on the other in degree of purpose and
importance: the poker for the fire and the fire for the man and the man
for the glory of God.

This is thinking forwards. Now our modern discussions about everything,
Imperialism, Socialism, or Votes for Women, are all entangled in an
opposite train of thought, which runs as follows:--A modern intellectual
comes in and sees a poker. He is a positivist; he will not begin with any
dogmas about the nature of man, or any day-dreams about the mystery of
fire. He will begin with what he can see, the poker; and the first thing
he sees about the poker is that it is crooked. He says, "Poor poker; it's
crooked." Then he asks how it came to be crooked; and is told that there
is a thing in the world (with which his temperament has hitherto left him
unacquainted)--a thing called fire. He points out, very kindly and
clearly, how silly it is of people, if they want a straight poker, to put
it into a chemical combustion which will very probably heat and warp it.
"Let us abolish fire," he says, "and then we shall have perfectly straight
pokers. Why should you want a fire at all?" They explain to him that a
creature called Man wants a fire, because he has no fur or feathers. He
gazes dreamily at the embers for a few seconds, and then shakes his head.
"I doubt if such an animal is worth preserving," he says. "He must
eventually go under in the cosmic struggle when pitted against
well-armoured and warmly protected species, who have wings and trunks and
spires and scales and horns and shaggy hair. If Man cannot live without
these luxuries, you had better abolish Man." At this point, as a rule, the