"'Or is not His preaching like the laying of eggs by a bird, out of which eggs new birds arise in due time?
"'Is not His Church like the nest of a spotted woodpecker made in the hollow of some ancient tree?
"'Are not His apostles like the watch-birds amongst wandering cranes?
"'If, then, we want to study Him scientifically, we must treat Him and His exactly as we treat a hoopoe or a jackdaw. Not that we really know anything about a hoopoe or a jackdaw. But in treating Him in that fashion we can use all the sounding terms of Science, and thus, don't you see, secure all the authority of which Science to-day has so plentiful a share.
"'I have so far founded the New Religion. But I am not quite satisfied with it. I feel we need a Newest Religion. Ever since my birth the world has stepped into a new era. Something has been wrenched from its former place. I must at once see to it.
"'Meanwhile I am preparing a Life of Jesus on a truly scientific basis. The Lives hitherto published are completely out of date. They lack the true scientific spirit.
"'My "Life of Jesus" will have three sections. The first will contain the Antecedents. I will start with the soil, the air, and the waters of Palestine. I will investigate the influence which the geology of Palestine had on Jesus; especially, whether the stratification of that soil does not correspond to the stratification of the mind of Jesus. In that way I will obtain the precise nomenclature of the various layers of the intellect, human and Messianic, of Jesus.
"'Thus, I will determine his palæolithic, neolithic, pliocene, miocene and other tertiary mental formations. That will be inestimable.
"'I will then proceed to a close analysis of the air in Palestine, and try to determine how much argon it contains. This, together with the jargon talked round Bethlehem, and a close study of the remains of the King Sargon will give me a solid foundation for my researches into the feelings of Jesus. I will thus make sure whether these feelings were subconscious, auto-hypnotic, auto-Röntgenising, æroplanesque, or zeppelinury.
"'Should I find some radium in the stones near Bethlehem or Nazareth, I shall be enabled to account for the precociousness and light-emitting gift of Jesus.