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G.K. Chesterton, The Thing
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE SCEPTIC AS CRITIC
3. Is HUMANISM A RELIGION?
4. THE DRIFT FROM DOMESTICITY
5. LOGIC AND LAWN TENNIS
6. OBSTINATE ORTHODOXY
7. THE USUAL ARTICLE
8. WHY I AM A CATHOLIC
9. WHAT DO THEY THINK?
10. THE MASK OF THE AGNOSTIC
11. THE EARLY BIRD IN HISTORY
12. PROTESTANTISM: A PROBLEM NOVEL
13. A SIMPLE THOUGHT
14. THE CALL TO THE BARBARIANS
15. ON THE NOVEL WITH A PURPOSE
16. THE REVOLT AGAINST IDEAS
17. THE FEASTS AND THE ASCETIC
18. WHO ARE THE CONSPIRATORS?
19. THE HAT AND THE HALO
20. ON TWO ALLEGORIES
21. THE PROTESTANT SUPERSTITIONS
22. ON COURAGE AND INDEPENDENCE
23. THE NORDIC HINDOO
24. SPIRITUALIST LOOKS BACK
25. THE ROOTS OF SANITY
26. SOME OF OUR ERRORS
27. THE SLAVERY OF THE MIND
28. INGE VERSUS BARNES
29. WHAT WE THINK ABOUT
30. THE OPTIMIST AS A SUICIDE
31. THE OUTLINE OF THE FALL
32. THE IDOLS OF SCOTLAND
33. IF THEY HAD BELIEVED
34. PEACE AND THE PAPACY
35. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
-/-
INTRODUCTION
IT will be naturally objected to the publication of these papers
that they are ephemeral and that they are controversial.
In other words, the normal critic will at once dismiss them
as too frivolous and dislike them as too serious. The rather
one-sided truce of good taste, touching all religious matters,
which prevailed until a short time ago, has now given place
to a rather one-sided war. But the truce can still be invoked,
as such terrorism of taste generally is invoked, against the minority.
We all know the dear old Conservative colonel who swears himself red
in the face that he is not going to talk politics, but that damning
to hell all those bloody blasted Socialists is not politics.
We all have a kindly feeling for the dear old lady, living at
Bath or Cheltenham, who would not dream of talking uncharitably
about anybody, but who does certainly think the Dissenters
are too dreadful or that Irish servants are really impossible.
It is in the spirit of these two very admirable persons that the
controversy is now conducted in the Press on behalf of a Progressive Faith
and a Broad and Brotherly Religion. So long as the writer employs
vast and universal gestures fellowship and hospitality to all those
who are ready to abandon their religious beliefs, he is allowed
to be as rude as he likes to all those who venture to retain them.
The Dean of St. Paul's permits himself genially to call the
Catholic Church a treacherous and bloody corporation; Mr. H. G. Wells
is allowed to compare the Blessed Trinity to an undignified dance;
the Bishop of Birmingham to compare the Blessed Sacrament to a barbarous
blood-feast. It is felt that phrases like these cannot ruffle
that human peace and harmony which all such humanitarians desire;
there is nothing in THESE expressions that could possibly interfere
with brotherhood and the sympathy that is the bond of society.
We may be sure of this, for we have the word of the writers
themselves that their whole aim is to generate an atmosphere of
liberality and love. If, therefore, any unlucky interruption mars
the harmony of the occasion, if it is really impossible for these
fraternal festivities to pass off without some silly disturbance,
or somebody making a scene, it is obvious that the blame must lie
with a few irritable and irritating individuals, who cannot accept
these descriptions of the Trinity and the Sacrament and the Church
as soothing their feelings or satisfying their ideas.
It is explained very clearly in all such statements that they are
accepted by all intelligent people except those who do not accept them.
But as I myself, in my political experience, have ventured to doubt
the right of the Tory colonel to curse his political opponents
and say it is not politics, or of the lady to love everybody
and loathe Irishmen, I have the same difficulty in admitting
the right of the most liberal and large-minded Christian to see
good in all religions and nothing but evil in mine. But I know
that to publish replies to this effect, particularly direct replies
given in real controversy, will be regarded by many as a provocation
and an impertinence. Well, I must in this matter confess to being
so old-fashioned as to feel something like a point of honour.
I think I may say that I am normally of the sort to be sociable and
get on easily with my fellows; I am not so much disposed to quarrel
as to argue; and I value more than I can easily say the generally
genial relations I have kept with those who differ from me merely
in argument. I am very fond of England even as it is, quite apart
from what it was or might be; I have a number of popular tastes,
from detective stories to the defence of public-houses; I have been
on many occasions on the side of the majority, as for instance
in the propaganda of English patriotism during the Great War.
I could even find in these sympathies a sufficient material
for popular appeals; and, in a more practical sense, I should
enjoy nothing more than always writing detective stories,
except always reading them. But if in this much too lucky and even
lazy existence I find that my co-religionists are being pelted
with insults for saying that their religion is right, it would
ill become me not to put myself in the way of being insulted.
Many of them have had far too hard a life, and I have had far too
easy a life, for me not to count it a privilege to be the object
of the same curious controversial methods. If the Dean of St. Paul's
really does believe, as he most undoubtedly does say, that the most
devout and devoted rulers of the Catholic Church, when they accepted
(realistically and even reluctantly) the fact of a modern miracle,
were engaged in a "lucrative imposture," I should very much prefer
to believe that he accuses me, along with better men than myself,
of becoming an impostor merely for filthy lucre. If the word "Jesuit"
is still to be used as synonymous with the word "liar,"
I should prefer that the same simple translation should apply
to the word "Journalist," of which it is much more often true.
If the Dean accuses Catholics as Catholics of desiring innocent men
to die in prison (as he does), I should much prefer that he should cast
me for some part in that terrific and murderous melodrama; it might in
any case be material for a detective story. In short, it is precisely
because I do sympathise and agree with my Protestant and agnostic
fellow countrymen, on about ninety-nine subjects out of a hundred,
that I do feel it a point of honour not to avoid their accusations
on these points, if they really have such accusations to bring.
I am very sorry if this little book of mine seems to be controversial
on subjects about which everybody is allowed to be controversial
except ourselves. But I am afraid there is no help for it;
and if I assure the reader that I have tried to start putting
it together in an unimpaired spirit of charity, it is always
possible that the charity may be as one-sided as the controversy.
Anyhow, it represents my attitude towards this controversy;
and it is quite possible that everything is wrong about it,
except that it is right.
-/-
THE SCEPTIC AS A CRITIC
IT takes three to make a quarrel. There is needed a peacemaker.
The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached
until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes.
I feel myself to be in some such position in the recent American
debate about Mr. Mencken's MERCURY and the Puritans; and I admit it
at the beginning with an embarrassment not untinged with terror.
I know that the umpire may be torn in pieces. I know that the
self-appointed umpire ought to be torn in pieces. I know, above all,
that this is especially the case in anything which in any way involves
international relations. Perhaps the only sound criticism is
self-criticism. Perhaps this is even more true of nations than of men.
And I can quite well understand that many Americans would accept
suggestions from their fellow countrymen which they would rightly
refuse from a foreigner. I can only plead that I have endeavoured
to carry out the excellent patriotic principle of "See England First"
in the equally patriotic paraphrase of "Criticize England First."
I have been engaged upon it long enough to be quite well aware that there
are evils present in England that are relatively absent from America;
and none more conspicuously absent, as Mr. Belloc has pointed out
to the surprise of many, than the real, servile, superstitious,
and mystical adoration of Money.
But what makes me so objectionable on the present occasion is that I
feel a considerable sympathy with both sides. This offensive attitude I
will endeavour to disguise, as far as possible, by tactfully distributed
abuse of such things as I really think are abuses, and a gracefully
simulated disgust with this or that part of each controversial case.
But the plain truth is, that if I were an American, I should
very frequently rejoice at the AMERICAN MERCURY's scoring off
somebody or something; nor would my modest fireside be entirely
without mild rejoicings when the AMERICAN MERCURY was scored off.
But I do definitely think that both sides, and perhaps especially
the iconoclastic side, need what the whole modern world needs--
a fixed spiritual standard even for their own intellectual purposes.
I might express it by saying that I am very fond of revolutionists,
but not very fond of nihilists. For nihilists, as their name implies,
have nothing to revolt about.
On this side of the matter there is little to be added to the
admirably sane, subtle, and penetrating article by Mr. T. S. Eliot;*
especially that vital sentence in it in which he tells
Professor Irving Babbitt (who admits the need of enthusiasm)
that we cannot have an enthusiasm for having an enthusiasm.
I think I know, incidentally, what we must have. Professor Babbitt
is a very learned man; and I myself have little Latin and less Greek.
But I know enough Greek to know the meaning of the second
syllable of "enthusiasm," and I know it to be the key to this
and every other discussion.
Let me take two examples, touching my points of agreement with the
two sides. I heartily admire Mr. Mencken, not only for his vivacity
and wit, but for his vehemence and sometimes for his violence.
I warmly applaud him for his scorn and detestation of Service;
and I think he was stating a historical fact when he said, as quoted
in THE FORUM: "When a gang of real estate agents, bond salesmen,
and automobile dealers gets together to sob for Service, it takes no
Freudian to surmise that someone is about to be swindled." I do not
see why he should not call a spade a spade and a swindler a swindler.
I do not blame him for using vulgar words for vulgar things.
But I do remark upon two ways in which the fact of his philosophy being
negative makes his criticism almost shallow. First of all, it is obvious
that such a satire is entirely meaningless unless swindling is a sin.
And it is equally obvious that we are instantly swallowed up
in the abysses of "moralism" and "religionism," if it is a sin.
And the second point, if less obvious, is equally important--
that his healthy instinct against greasy hypocrisy does not really
enlighten him about the heart of that hypocrisy.
What is the matter with the cult of Service is that, like so
many modern notions, it is an idolatry of the intermediate,
to the oblivion of the ultimate. It is like the jargon of the idiots
who talk about Efficiency without any criticism of Effect.
The sin of Service is the sin of Satan: that of trying to be first
where it can only be second. A word like Service has stolen the sacred
capital letter from the thing which it was once supposed to serve.
There is a sense in serving God, and an even more disputed sense
in serving man; but there is no sense in serving Service.
To serve God is at least to serve an ideal being. Even if
he were an imaginary being, he would still be an ideal being.
That ideal has definite and even dogmatic attributes--truth, justice,
pity, purity, and the rest. To serve it, however imperfectly,
is to serve a particular concept of perfection. But the man who rushes
down the street waving his arms and wanting something or somebody
to serve, will probably fall into the first bucket-shop or den
of thieves and usurers, and be found industriously serving THEM.
There arises the horrible idea that industry, reliability, punctuality,
and business activity are good things; that mere readiness
to serve the powers of this world is a Christian virtue.
That is the case against Service, as distinct from the curse
against Service, so heartily and inspiringly hurled by Mr. Mencken.
But the serious case cannot be stated without once more raising
the real question of whether mankind ought to serve anything; and of
whether they had not better try to define what they intend to serve.
All these silly words like Service and Efficiency and Practicality
and the rest fail because they worship the means and not the end.
But it all comes back to whether we do propose worship the end;
and preferably the right end.
Two other characteristic passages from Mr. Mencken will serve to show
more sharply this curious sense in which he misses his own point.
On the one hand, he appears to state most positively the purely
personal and subjective nature of criticism; he makes it individual
and almost irresponsible. "The critic is first and last simply
trying to express himself; he is trying to achieve thereby for
his own inner ego the grateful feeling of a function performed,
a tension relieved, a katharsis attained, which Wagner achieved when
he wrote DIE WALKURIE, and a hen achieves every time she lays an egg."
That is all consistent enough as far as it goes; but unfortunately
Mr. Mencken appears to go on to something quite inconsistent with it.
According to the quotation, he afterwards bursts into a song
of triumph because there is now in America not only criticism,
but controversy. "To-day for the first time in years there is strife
in American criticism... ears are bitten off, noses are bloodied.
There are wallops both above and below the belt."
Now, there may be something in his case for controversy; but it
is quite inconsistent with his case for creative self-expression.
If the critic produces the criticism only to please himself;
it is entirely irrelevant that it does not please somebody else.
The somebody else has a perfect right to say the exact opposite
to please himself, and be a perfectly satisfied with himself.
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