Men, they say, are now imitating angels; in their flying-machines,
that is: not in any other respect that I have heard of. So perhaps
the angel on the bicycle (if he is an angel and if it is a bicycle)
was avenging himself by imitating man. If so, he showed that high order
of intellect which is attributed to angels in the mediaeval books,
though not always (perhaps) in the mediaeval pictures.
For wheels are the mark of a man quite as much as wings are the mark
of an angel. Wheels are the things that are as old as mankind and yet
are strictly peculiar to man, that are prehistoric but not pre-human.
A distinguished psychologist, who is well acquainted with physiology,
has told me that parts of himself are certainly levers,
while other parts are probably pulleys, but that after feeling
himself carefully all over, he cannot find a wheel anywhere.
The wheel, as a mode of movement, is a purely human thing.
On the ancient escutcheon of Adam (which, like much of the rest
of his costume, has not yet been discovered) the heraldic emblem
was a wheel--passant. As a mode of progress, I say, it is unique.
Many modern philosophers, like my friend before mentioned,
are ready to find links between man and beast, and to show that man
has been in all things the blind slave of his mother earth.
Some, of a very different kind, are even eager to show it;
especially if it can be twisted to the discredit of religion.
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