so very far from diabolic possession.  And if the dogma of subconsciousness allows of agnosticism, the agnosticism cuts both ways.  A man cannot say there is a part of him of which he is quite unconscious, and only conscious that it is not in contact with the unknown.  He cannot say there is a sealed chamber or cellar under his house, of which he knows nothing whatever; but that he is quite certain that it cannot have an underground passage leading anywhere else in the world.  He cannot say he knows nothing whatever about its size or shape or appearance, except that it certainly does not contain a relic of the finger-joint of St. Catherine of Alexandria, or that it certainly is not haunted by the ghost of King Herod Agrippa.  If there is any sort of legend or tradition or plausible probability which says that it is, he cannot call a thing impossible where he is not only ignorant but even unconscious.  It comes back therefore to the same reality, that the old compact cosmos depended on a compact consciousness.  If we are dealing with unknown quantities, we cannot deny their connection with other unknown quantities.  If I have a self of which I can say nothing, how can I even say that it is my own self?  How can I even say that I always had it, or that it did not come from somewhere else?  It is clear that we are in very deep waters, whether or no we have rushed down a steep place to fall into them.

It will be noted that what we really lack here is not the supernatural but only the healthy supernatural.  It is not the miracle, but only the miracle of healing.  I warmly sympathise with those who think most of this rather morbid, and nearer the diabolic than the divine, but to call a thing diabolic is hardly an argument against the existence of diabolism.  It is still more clearly the case when we go outside the sphere of science into its penumbra in literature and conversation.  There is a mass of fiction and fashionable talk of which it may truly be said, that what we miss in it is not demons but the power to cast them out.  It combines the occult with the obscene; the sensuality of materialism with the insanity of spiritualism.  In the story of Gadara we have left out nothing except the Redeemer, we have kept the devils and the swine.

In other words, we have not found St. George; but we have found the Dragon.  We have found in the desert, as I have said, the bones of the monster we did not believe in, more plainly than the footprints of the hero we did.  We have found them not because we expected to find them, for our progressive minds look to the promise of something much brighter and even better; not because we wanted to find them, for our modern mood, as well as our human nature, is entirely in favour of more amiable and reassuring things; not because we thought it even possible to find them, for we really thought it impossible so far as we ever thought of it at all.  We have found them because they are there; and we are bound to come on