Creation, judgment, and Incarnation in miniature
Once Heaven came upon the earth with a power or seal called the image of God, whereby man took command of Nature; and once again (when in empire after empire men had been found wanting) Heaven came to save mankind in the awful shape of a man.
The first intervention condenses Genesis 1:26–28: humanity receives God's image and dominion over other living creatures. Chesterton turns those adjoining biblical statements into an explanation of the exceptional human capacities described earlier in the chapter. Genesis itself does not describe this as an interruption of an already established natural order. The second intervention is the Incarnation, comparable to John 1:14, where the Word becomes flesh. Here ‘awful’ carries the force of awe or dread: the human appearance is startling because the visitor is divine.
The parenthesis also has a more specific biblical resonance. In Daniel 5:27, the writing interpreted for Belshazzar declares that he has been weighed and ‘found wanting’; verses 28–30 announce the division of his kingdom and report his death. Chesterton broadens the verdict on one ruler into a succession of failed empires. This is a probable verbal allusion, not a quotation of a biblical statement that every empire failed. The three narratives together supply a theological account of human distinction, degeneration, and rescue; they do not independently establish his comparative claims about European and non-European societies. Biblical comparisons here use the King James Version, first published in 1611, in Project Gutenberg's electronic witness.
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