This paradox has already been touched on in the last chapter about polytheistic spirits or superstitions such as surrounded the Old Testament, but it is yet more true of the criticisms and apologetics surrounding the New Testament.

And the paradox is this; that we never find our own religion so right as when we find we are wrong about it.
I mean that we are finally convinced not by the sort of evidence we are looking for, but by the sort of evidence we are not looking for.
We are convinced when we come on a ratification that is almost as abrupt as a refutation.

That is the point about the wireless telegraphy or wordless telepathy of the Bedouins.

A supernatural trick in a dingy tribe wandering in dry places is not the sort of supernaturalism we should expect to find; it is only the sort that we do find.
These rocks of the desert, like the bones of a buried giant, do not seem to stick out where they ought to, but they stick out, and we fall over them.
Whatever we think of St.George, most people would see a mere fairy-tale in St.George and the Dragon.

I dare say they are right; and I only use it here as a figure for the sake of argument.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a man has come to the conclusion that there probably was such a person as St.George, in spite of all the nonsense about dragons and the chimera with wings and claws that has somehow interwreathed itself with his image.
Perhaps he is a little biased by patriotism or other ethical aims; and thinks the saint a good social ideal.