It has caught either a Sydney Smith or a Tartar.
He has too much humour to be a bigot, and too much humanity to be satisfied with a cell.

For the moment he seems to embrace Original Sin, to fling his arms round the idea of an offended God, and to shout at the top of his voice that there is no violence to his reason and to his common sense which he cannot contemplate and most gladly accomplish, in the name of Tradition; but the pulses cool, the white heat of enthusiasm evaporates, fears take wing as we grow older, and whispers from the outer world of advancing and conquering men find their way into the oldest blockhouse ever built against the movements of thought.
"Science," says Dr.Inge, "has been the slowly advancing Nemesis which has overtaken a barbarised and paganised Christianity.

She has come with a winnowing fan in her hand, and she will not stop till she has thoroughly purged her floor." I am sure Ronald Knox was never meant to shut his eyes and stop his ears against this movement of truth, and I am almost sure that he will presently find it impossible not to look, and not to listen.
And then.

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