The everlasting man

In these final days of this year, I decided to reread this monumental work by Chesterton. I was not disappointed: the description of paganism before Christ and the subsequent definition of Christianity against various heresies is still fascinating.

This year I read 26 books by Chesterton: not bad, but I am not halfway through his writings. Looking at the list, I do realize that my favorites are mainly Chesterton's more famous works: Orthodoxy, The man who was thursday, The everlasting man, St Francis and St Thomas. I loved his essays, though I could not read them all too fast. About traveling I only read his impressions of America, which were very interesting. I read quite some of his novels, which were unvarying in their being intriguing. The detective stories were good and entertaining. The discussions about persons (Dickens, Tolstoj, etc) sometimes depended on my knowledge of the subject.
What I missed this year falls mainly in two categories; poetry is the first. I did read Greybeards and the famous poem about the donkey, but I did not start The ballad of the white horse. The other is Chesterton's discussion about Catholicism. I had hoped to find a copy of The thing, but in the end I could not find it. I am still not completely sure about Chesterton's catholicism. It is true that protestant churches in his time were tainted by higher bible criticism and that the Catholic church presents a continuity in thinking over two thousand years, but there are more considerations then these.

At the end of this year I do find myself richer than before: Chesterton really provokes thought. I hear myself quoting Chesterton, or telling people that Chesterton thought so-and-so, or recommending people to read some works by Chesterton. A memorable author if ever there was one.

What I saw in America

I loved the first chapter of this book, where Chesterton discusses his experiences at the American consulate. Later observations are also recognizable, for example Chesterton's discussion about the difference in humor between the US and England.
The main idea from this book seems to be that it is okay to laugh about foreign things, as long as you do not assume that those things are foolish as well as foreign.

For in this matter the human mind is the victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realize that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so that he does not see that they are not there. 

The American consulate

I just started 'What I saw in America', and I am still laughing at Chesterton's description of the forms he had to fill out at the American consulate to get his papers. Some things have not changed in a hundred years.

On of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an anarchist?' To which a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist?' along with some playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes an 'arche'. Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of subverting the government of the United States by force?' Against this I should write, 'I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour and not the beginning.' The inquisitor, in his more that morbid curiosity, had then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to this is, 'No such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our experience of the other sex. [-]

But among many things that  amused me almost to the point of treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you all and wish to destroy you.' Or 'I intend to subvert by force the government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest opportunity.' Or again, 'Yes, I am a polygamist all right and my forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and they are certain to tell no lies. [-]

Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be easy enough to suggest that in this America has introduced a quite abnormal spirit of inquisition; an interference with liberty unknown among all the ancient despotisms and aristocracies.

 Chesterton continues to compare this with his experiences in the Middle East:

These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they did not inquire into my thoughts. 

After pages and pages of hilarity, Chesterton then finally comes to a deeper analysis on why America asks these questions. His argument is quite interesting: he says that America is the only nation in the world that is 'founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.'

The crimes of England

This has been the sole book by Chesterton which seemed to be outdated. This may be merely my perception, because of a lack of knowledge of nineteenth-century English history. Still, there were some interesting ideas in this book, written in 'The Great War'.

Pan-Germanism

Chesterton allegorizes the nature of Pan-Germanism as follows:

The horse asserts that all other creatures are morally bound to sacrifice their interests to his, on the specific ground that he possesses all noble and necessary qualities, and is an end in himself. It is pointed out in an answer that when climbing a tree the horse is less graceful than the cat; that lovers and poets seldom urge the horse to make a noise all night like the nightingale; that when submerged for some time under water, he is less happy than the haddock; and that when he is cut open pearls are less often found in him than in an oyster.  He is not content to answer (though, being a muddle-headed horse, he does use this answer also) that having an undivided hoof is more than pearls or oceans or all ascension of song. He reflects for a few years on the subject of cats;  and at last discovers in the cat "the characteristic equine equality of caudality, or a tail"; so that cats are horses, and wave on every tree-top the tale which is the equine banner. Nightingales are found to have legs, which explains their power of song. Haddocks are vertebrates; and therefore are sea-horses. And though the oyster outwardly presents dissimilarities which seem to divide him from the horse, he is by the all-filling nature-might of the same horse-moving energy sustained.

Now this horse is intellectually the wrong horse. It is not perhaps going too far to say that this horse is a donkey. For it is obviously within even the intellectual resources of a haddock to answer to answer, "But if a haddock is a horse, why should I yield to you any more than you to me? Why should that singing horse commonly called the nightingale, or that climbing horse hitherto known as the cat, fall down and worship you because of your horsehood? If all our native faculties are the accomplishments of a horse - why then are you only another horse without any accomplishments." When thus gently reasoned with, the horse flings up his heels, kicks the cat, crushes the oyster, eats the haddock and pursues the nightingale, and that is how the war began.

And Chesterton concludes: "if Teutonism is used for comprehension it cannot be used for conquest."
From 'The crimes of England', Chapter VIII

 

Germany and England

Chesterton's book 'The crimes of England' seems to principally deal with the relation between England and Germany (which is not surprising, as the book was written in the 'Great War'). The book is difficult to follow for someone like me, whose English and German history of ages prior to 1900 is quite shaky.
An interesting point that recurs every now and then is a certain perception of German thought. In chapter VI, for example, Chesterton names the one 'classic and perfect literary product that ever came out of Germany'; he means 'Grimm's Fairy Tales'. He compares this with later German writings:

I am all for German fantasy, but I will resist German earnestness till I die. I am all for Grimm's Fairy Tales; but if there is such a thing as Grimm's Law, I would break it, if I knew what it was. [-]

The Germans cannot really be deep because they will not consent to be superficial. They are bewitched by art, and stare at it, and cannot see round it. They will not believe that art is a light and slight thing - a feather, even if it be from an angelic wing. 

Eugenics and other evils

This was a very interesting book to read, especially since it was written almost a century ago (in the time before WOII, when one could still openly be a eugenist). Chesterton spends quite some time explaining how eugenics is related to both capitalism and socialism; I was reminded of his analyses in the end of 'What's wrong with the world'.

Eugenics, socialism and capitalism

In part II of 'Eugenics and other evils', Chesterton analyzes the reasons for the move towards Eugenics in his time. Socialism, and the desire that the government control the health of its subjects, is one influence. Capitalism, though, is also guilty: "That this is so, that at root the Eugenist is the Employer, there are multitudinous proofs on every side, but they are of necessity miscellaneous, and in many cases negative. The most enormous is in a sense the most negative: that no one seems able to imagine capitalist industrialism being sacrificed to any other object.' Similar to other arguments in other books, Chesterton shows how we tend to forget what should be our primary focus (such as normal people and families) and treat modern and fleeting institutions as permanent. Chesterton uses one example to make his point clear (from chapter V):

To this [a specific paper] a man writes to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we have educated the lower classes in the methods by which the upper classes prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his letter "Hopeful". [-] The curious point is that the hopeful one concludes by saying, "When people have large families and small wages, not only is there a high infantile death-rate, but often those who do live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to share the family income for a time with those who died early. There would be less unhappiness if there were no unwanted children." You will observe that he tacitly takes it for granted that the small wages and the income, desperately shared,are the fixed points, like day and night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them marriage and maternity are luxuries, things to be modified to suit the wage-market. There are unwanted children; but unwanted by whom? This man does not really mean that the parents doe not want to have them. He means that the employers do not want to pay them properly.

Reading this, I think of the character of 'tiny Tim', from Dickens' 'Christmas Carol'...

Science

From 'Eugenics and other evils', chapter VII:

The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that is really levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen - that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics. Materialism is really our established Church; for the Government will really help it to persecute its heretics. Vaccination, in its hundred years of experiment, has been disputed almost as much as baptism in its approximate two thousand. But is seems quite natural to our politicians to enforce vaccinations; and it would seem to them madness to enforce baptism. 

I am not frightened of the word "persecution" when it is attributed to the churches; nor is it in the least as a term of reproach that I attribute it to the men of science. It is as a term of legal fact. If it means the imposition by the police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final proof - then our priests are not now persecuting, but our doctors are.

 I have to say that I do not agree with Chesterton completely; I do tend to trust specialists, and I do not necessarily believe the common man with his common sense will have the right view of scientific theories. But it is good to realize that the scientific worldview (even in a specific area) is not as immovable as some popular writers tend to express.

 

Euphemistic Eugenists

Before Chesterton tackles Eugenics itself in 'Eugenics and other evils', he spends a few sections discussing superficial proponents of the theory. Foremost are the 'euphemists': 'short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing'.
In Orthodoxy, years before, Chesterton already remarked: "It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable."  

Pre-emptive action

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.

This is how Chesterton begins his work on Eugenics in 1922. No comments needed.

St Thomas Aquinas

Chestertons's book about the 'dumb ox' or the 'angelic doctor' is very interesting: it does not pretend to be more than an introduction (or a 'plan'), but in these 250 pages there is enough information to have quite some idea about Thomas' life, his character, his philosophy and his impact. Chesterton heralds him as the defender of 'common sense' (a title later applied to himself); he insists that Thomas' philosophy was the perfect middle that corresponds to what the common man thinks (even though the syllogisms are quite technical). Affirming the world as being created good (opposed to the overly platonistic thinkers), but letting it find its final goal in God. Affirming the importance of Aristotle's philosophy, but rather by 'baptizing Aristotle' than by compromising Christianity.

The character

After a chapter on the Aristotelian revolution and a chapter on Thomas' thought about the Manichees, Chesterton suddenly inserts a chapter on St. Thomas' character. In some ways this chapter V is a continuation of chapter II, when we were told how St. Thomas became a Dominican. Why then the two other chapters inbetween, I wondered.
I think that the answer is that we will appreciate Thomas' character more after we know a little bit about his thinking. His absent-mindedness is more understandable, his humility more amazing, his faith more touching.

Finding common ground

At the end of chapter III of his book about St. Thomas Aquinas, Chesterton takes one Thomist sentence and tries to convey its importance for modern apologetics. His argument reminds me somewhat of a book that I once read: 'Finding common ground'. The general point: when talking with people of other convictions, one has to speak the same language. Or, in Chesterton's words:

If there is one phrase that stands before history as typical of Thomas Aquinas, it is that phrase about his own argument: "It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves." Would that all Orthodox doctors in deliberation were as reasonable as Aquinas in anger! Would that all Christian apologists would remember that maxim; and write it up in large letters on the wall, before they nail any theses there. At the top of his fury, Thomas Aquinas understands, what so many defenders of orthodoxy will not understand. It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by proving that he is wrong on somebody else's principles, but not on his own. After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours. 

Revolution

Both in his books on St. Francis of Assisi and on St. Thomas Aquinas, Chesterton frequently spends quite some pages explaining some Medieval ideas to his contemporaries. I loved this analysis about rebellion and revolution in chapter III of his book on St. Thomas:

Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion. This could be seen in the most casual contemporary fashion, if the fashionable mind had not fallen into the habit of seeing the very latest rebel as rebelling against all ages at once. The Modern Girl with the lipstick and the cocktail is as much a rebel against the Woman's Rights Woman of the '80's, with her stiff stick-up collars and strict teetotalism, as the latter was a rebel against the Early Victorian lady of the languid waltz tunes and the album full of quotations from Byron; or as the last, again, was a rebel against a Puritan mother to whom the waltz was a wild orgy and Byron the Bolshevist of his age. Trace even the Puritan mother back through history and she represents the rebellion against the Cavalier laxity of the English Church, which was at first a rebel against the Catholic civilisation, which had been a rebel against the Pagan civilisation. 

Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that these things were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intent only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being. 

In some ways it reminds me of Hegel, but better :).

St. Francis of Assisi

Chesterton did not so much write a biography of, but more of an introduction to St. Francis of Assisi. The book is specifically written for the modern reader, who may have a distorted view of this medieval saint. Miracles, for example, are only discussed towards the end of the book; before that we read about the character of the man.
From the hundreds of stories about St. Francis' life, Chesterton only chooses a few. With these stories, he illustrates the character of the founder of the Franciscan Order. Chesterton also spends quite some time explaining the difference in times between now (or rather, Chesterton's time, around 1923) and the thirteenth century.
The purpose of the book is to interest people to read more of St. Francis, and I have to admit that Chesterton does succeed in this object.

Gutenberg

A few weeks ago, I finally decided to buy a Kindle. I had hesitated for years about e-books, but the time seems to have come. And after some reading, I have to say that I do not regret the decision: the Kindle reads well and it appears that there are quite some classic works available over the internet. For example: I could not find Chesterton's book on St. Francis in the local library, but now I read it on the Kindle.
The website that I found most impressive was gutenberg.org: a list of hundreds of classical authors, with numerous of their books. There are 49 books by Chesterton on this site (BTW: listed on popularity, Chesterton is number 33 on the list). There is much more to read...

The running Saint

Chesterton's little book about St. Francis of Assisi proves to be fascinating. I was especially impressed by the picture we get of St. Francis' rashness and impetuousness. Not characteristics I expected in a Saint, but very fitting for the founder of the Franciscan order.
Even as a young man St. Francis ran through the streets after a beggar to give him some money. Then he did something characteristic: "[He] swore before God that he would never all his life refuse to help a poor man. The sweeping simplicity of this undertaking is extremely characteristic. Never was any man so little afraid of his own promises. His life was one riot of rash vows; of rash vows that turned out right.".
St. Francis wanted to be a French poet (troubadour), or a soldier. But after "his vision of dependence on the divine love, he flung himself into fasting and vigil exactly as he had flung himself furiously into battle. Het had wheeled his charger clean round, but there was no halt or check in the thundering impetuosity of his charge.".

Context

Chesterton's work on St. Francis of Assisi starts with some good introductory remarks. I was especially impressed by chapter 2. Chesterton starts by explaining why the context of St. Francis' life is important. Then he provides a wonderful view of the early Middle Ages (the 'dark ages') as a time when nature had to be 'purged' from paganism.
Paganism started very 'natural' by worshiping nature, but this had become a very unnatural thing over the centuries. 'Pagans were wiser than paganism; that is why pagans became Christians.'. These early Christians, however, still had tainted views of nature: everything still had references to the old idolatry. So in the dark ages, Christians detached themselves from nature. Just before the time of St. Francis (and St. Thomas), people began to realize that nature was pure. They could again see nature as a creation by God. This new-found innocence provides part of the context of St. Francis' live.

Medieval philosophy

I would never have thought that I would ever refer back to my old 'medieval philosophy class' that I took years ago in college. Reading Chesterton's 'St Thomas Aquinas', however, the whole discussion about platonism and Aristotle's philosophy came back. The interesting thing is that I never before even asked myself the question if Aquinas was right with his view of Aristotle; I just took the information for granted. Chesterton, however, makes a compelling argument that St. Thomas brought Christianity back to itself by his adaptation of Aristotle.
Platonism, he argues, is focused too much on the spirit. In the dark ages, this caused Christians to overlook the fact that the central issue of the Incarnation connects body and spirit. With a healthy dose of Aristotle, St Thomas brought back this idea to the foreground.

Dated

In a whim, I just took up Chesterton's 'The crimes of England'. For most of Chesterton's books, it was difficult to make out when they were written: the content is still applicable. Not so for the first chapter of this book: it is a serious discussion about England en Germany, with the sinking of the Lusitania in WO1 as an example.
In connection with this tragedy, Chesterton had the brilliantly simple argument that if you want to make an excuse, you should stick to one. If you make multiple excuses, each contradicting the other, your plausibility will suffer.

The flying inn

Hurrah: I finally finished 'The flying inn'. I have had quite a dry spell these last two months, and I could barely focus on this Chestertonian novel. It may not be a bad novel, some of its themes are actually quite good, but overall I had only the slightest interest in what was happening.
One reason may be that I have never set foot in one of those English inns, and I never cared for any similar establishments in my own country. I never drank rum, I never composed poetry about it, and I never enjoyed listening to other people's attempts at poetry-writing. Overall, I was quite out-of-touch with Chesterton's environment.
The interesting themes revolt around the common man versus corrupt politicians. Chesterton is really a champion of common people; of course, when one looks carefully, no person is really 'common'.
After writing this book, Chesterton suffered a major burn-out. Since I only have two months of my year of reading Chesterton left, I will have to pick and choose carefully from now on. At least, I will need to read the books about St. Francis and St. Thomas, and reread 'The everlasting man'. Furthermore, something about Catholicism seems appropriate.

Favorite Father Brown Stories

This small bundle contains six stories from 'The innocence of Father Brown' and 'The wisdom of Father Brown'. Rereading them is a delight, though sometimes one realizes that the story is somewhat contrived. How can Father Brown always be at exactly the right place when the (attempted) crime happens?

G.K. Chesterton; essential writings

I finally finished the selection William Griffin made for the 'modern spiritual masters series'. One oddity to begin with is that I would not have selected all these pieces for such a 'spiritual' series: some were quite funny, but not overly religious (the 'piece of chalk', for example). The focus is on Chesterton's combinations of insight, hilarity and humility; the pieces are perfect illustrations.
I mentioned before that I usually dislike selections as compared to reading the original writings in context. In this selection, so many pieces came from 'Orthodoxy', that I could see the whole thing as a reminder of that excellent book. Furthermore, the last chapter about Chesterton's debate with Shaw on socialism and distributism is very insightful.

Perspective

Though I am too busy these weeks to read much, Chesterton's thought is often coming to mind. I frequently find myself saying that Chesterton would say this or that about some subject.
Sometimes, there is no one like Chesterton to put things in perspective. In chapter XIV of 'The flying inn', we encounter 'the poet of the birds'. He is driven around by his driver when he sees two people with a donkey cart. He immediately starts: "You are overloading that animal". While he is in a long discussion about property, we encounter his driver. It appears that this poor man has not eaten all day, because he had to be ready whenever the poet wanted to continue his journey. The poet had forgotten the one creature 'whom man has always found it easiest to forget, since the hour he forgot God in a garden'.

'Rubbish'

In 'The flying inn', we read some interesting fiction Chesterton made up about (middle) eastern religions and philosophies influencing British politicians:

'I call it rubbish,' cried Patrick Dalroy, 'when ye put the Koran into the Bible and not the Apocrypha; and I carl it rubbish when a mad person's allowed to put a crescent on St. Paul's Cathedral. I know the Turks are our allies now; but they often were before, and I never heard that Palmerston or Colin Campbell had any truck with such trash.'

'Lord Ivywood is very enthusiastic, I know,' said Pump, with a restrained amusement 'He was saying only the other day at the Flower Show here that the time had come for a full unity between Christianity and Islam.'

'Something called Chrislam perhaps,' said the Irishman. 

 

Vegetarianism

When Lord Ivywood holds a speech about vegetarianism in 'The flying inn', we see that he does not mean to impose his view on everyone around at that moment: 'It was typical of the strange, half-fictitious enthusiasm and curiosity of that world, that one long table was set out entirely with vegetarian food, especially of an Eastern sort (like a table spread in the desert for a rather fastidious Indian hermit); but that tables covered with game patties, lobster, and champagne were equally provided; and very much more frequented.'
'The Prophet' is the first to speak; his talk is about the pig, explaining how the English culture too has a low opinion of this animal. Afterwards, Lord Ivywood himself explains how the Islamic prohibition of pork meat actually points the way to a 'higher vegetarian ethic'.
In the next chapter we again encounter Patrick Dalroy and Humphrey Pump; the friends are having an all vegetarian meal, consisting of fungi, in the forest. They too discuss vegetarianism and how 'the gentry' misunderstands this concept. As long as you 'know what vegetables there are and eat all of them that you can' you are all right. Vegetables are something by itself, not only to 'help the meat'. Furthermore, a healthy appetite is sometimes lacking among fashionable vegetarians.

Flying

When I first looked over 'The flying inn', I assumed that this inn would be airborne. This, however, seems to have been a modern misinterpretation: the inn is merely fleeing across England.
In this novel, a new law states that alcohol may only be served in inns with a particular sign. Another law virtually forbids any inn to have such a sign. Two old friends, Humphrey Pump and Patrick Dalroy, therefore take the sign of an inn, a keg of rum and a cheese, and travel across the country. Sometimes they place the sign, and there is temporarily an inn at that location. Before authorities find out, they flee again.
On one occasion, they perform a practical joke with this sign: when the proponent of the anti-alcohol law gives a public speech, they place the inn sign outside of the conference center. The people who subsequently enter the hall manage to create a serious disruption.
This 'flying inn' is thus the topic of the book; the antithesis between these two men and the politicians who shaped these new laws promises to become interesting.

'The instinct that makes people rich'

Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example. There is an article called 'The instinct that makes people rich'. It is decorated in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only 'instinct' I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as 'the sin of avarice'. 

From 'All things considered'

On inns

Now that schools have started, I have not had too much time to read on in Chesterton's works. Nevertheless, I finally started 'The flying inn', one of the three novels that Chesterton wrote shortly after 'Orthodoxy' and that illustrate some of the concepts from that book.
'Orthodoxy', however, was not the book I was reminded of most: the description of interfering government at the beginning of 'The flying inn' reminded me most of 'What's wrong with the world'. Let me explain.
This novel begins with a few loose chapters that set the stage. Chapter one contains 'a sermon on inns', delivered by an oriental man in a fez. Chapter two moves to an island in the Mediterranean, where we meet Patrick Dalroy, the 'king of Ithaca', and Lord Ivywood, the English Minister. Chapter three introduces us to the innkeeper of 'The old ship', Humphrey Pump, and  'Lady Joan'. Only in chapter four the persons and events come together: the man in the fez and Lord Ivywood have made some new legislation to 'improve the precarious financial conditions of the working class'. Their luminous idea is to practically forbid the sale of alcohol, so as to prevent poor people to spend money on drinks.
In 'What's wrong with the world' Chesterton also discusses if man should be molded to fit its environment, or if we should take the common man and his ways as the basic good to be protected. Chesterton argues there that governments sometimes look from the wrong direction: of course poverty is wrong, but for a solution you need to look first at what is good and right, not try to fit human beings to a situation that is wrong to begin with.

Love thy neighbor

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature. He is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty toward one's neighbor. 

But we have to love our neighbor because he is there - a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody, he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.

From 'Heretics'

 

What's wrong with the world

I just finished 'What's wrong with the world', and I find it a difficult book to summarize. Luckily, Chesterton gives a nice example in this conclusion, in which he emphasizes his main point.

A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are common among rich little girls, but it will be long before doctors interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular interference was this, that the poor are pressed down from above into such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. [-]

Now the  whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all these pages is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl's hair. That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution.

Socialism

'What's wrong with the world' discusses socialism first in part I, but it comes back in part V. I will select a few quotes that Chesterton makes on the subject in part I:

My main contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as necessities - not as naked ideals or desires. [-] Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured as the only way of preventing poverty. [-] I do not propose to prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a medicine and not a wine. 

In part V, I encountered Chesterton's idea of Distributism for the first time:

The thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save property we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must revolutionize the nation.

 

Appropriate education

One of Chesterton's hammer points in 'What's wrong with the world' is that education should have an appropriate objective. Merely copying aristocratic educational institutions for normal people is not useful: a new focus is needed. The same goes for 'female education': Chesterton resents the 'new idea' that consists of 'ask what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls'.
As a modern reader, this viewpoint is rather puzzling, or even repugnant. Old class distinctions are not regarded as important anymore, and though we may admit that boys and girls are different, we give them essentially the same education. What remains is Chesterton's underlying point: we still need to think about the appropriateness of the education we give to our children. How will they best be prepared for their future?

English schools

'What's wrong with the world' has an extensive section about education; Chesterton discusses both public and special schools. Apparently, the public schools of his day were often criticized. Chesterton explains the main problem:

Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English public school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard of the duty of telling the truth. [-] No English schoolboy is ever taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the truth. From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about whether a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can be used on his "side"

The argument continues to explain how this attitude is omnipresent in the political party system. One has to wonder if things significantly improved since then.
The 'new schools', unfortunately, are no better: according to Chesterton they are not really 'new', but merely copies of the older aristocratic educational institutions. They are not adapted to the working class that they should be serving.

Selection

Instead of reading through complete works by Chesterton, in my vacation I am reading a selection: Chesterton's 'essential writings', selected for the 'modern spiritual masters series'. I have mixed feelings about this selection, just as I had about commentaries.
On the positive side, I reread a couple of brilliant pages, mainly from orthodoxy. Reading these paragraphs without having to follow a complete argument focuses the attention on the beauty and depth of the sentences Chesterton writes. There is an invitation to contemplation.
On the other hand, I dislike reading pieces without context. I do not want anyone to come between me and the author I am reading. There is a risk that one reads through someone else's eyes, instead of encountering Chesterton himself.

The need for narrowness

Education, Chesterton argues in part IV of 'What's wrong with the world', unavoidably uses authority. The only question then becomes: which authority? The authority of the Pope, or of the House of Lords, or of Mrs. Grundy? In England, Chesterton argues, there are no uneducated people. There are merely people wrongly educated, by the various influences around them. The English poor know too much, not too little: they are ' rather deafened and bewildered with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are shouting at.' The result can be disastrous: 'If they cannot learn enough about law and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the wrong end in the party newspapers.'
There are so many influences possible on our children; there is a great need for narrowness or focus. 'They say that nowadays the creeds are crumbling; I doubt it, but at least the sects are increasing; and education must now be sectarian education, merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of theories it must somehow select a theory; out of all these thundering voices it must manage to hear a voice'.

On education

Part IV of 'What's wrong with the world' deals with education, or 'The mistake about the child'. The first sections are more or less preliminaries, dealing with what we would call the 'nature-nurture debate'. Chesterton, fifty years before the discovery of DNA, maintains that we do not know enough about heredity. The same, though, is true for the influences of the environment: we cannot predict how a child will be formed in a certain environment.
Having dealt with these preliminaries, Chesterton continues with what he calls the 'main fact about education', namely, 'that there is no such thing'. We need to realize that education is only a process of relaying information from an authority to a child. This means that we cannot separate 'dogma from education'.
Now we come at the crucial point: if 'education is only truth in a state of transmission', how can we 'pass on truth if it has never come into our hand?' First we need to know ourselves what children ought to know. We have a highly audacious duty: 'the responsibility of affirming the truth of our human tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough that something is true that you dare tell it to a child.' From this duty, moderns are fleeing.

Thirteen detectives

The Father Brown stories are not the only detective stories Chesterton wrote: in this bundle 'Thirteen detectives; classic mystery stories by the creator of father Brown' we encounter other detectives, such as the poet Gabriel Gale and the interesting mr. Pond.
The stories are mostly up to the standards I have come to expect from Chesterton: good, deep, hilarious. It is sometimes confusing to have all these different main characters, but it was a delight to encounter mr. Pond.
The last story was somewhat special: it was another Father Brown story. The setting was somewhat unusual: first a long letter explained the circumstances to Father Brown, and then the little priest comes personally to the crime scene and solves the mystery. I love this device, for it makes you try to think of solutions yourself. In this case, though, I did not even come close.

Feminism, or the mistake about woman

In part III of 'What's wrong with the world' I find myself disagreeing with Chesterton. He argues why women should not have a job outside of the house and not have the right to vote. Of course he wrote in 1910, so some years before women actually got the right to vote.
The argument that a woman who stays at home can remain an 'universalist', while her husband who has to work is a 'specialist' has been discussed a few days ago: this is apparently Chesterton's main argument on why women should not have jobs.
For the voting question it is argued that women should remain innocent of the responsibilities of citizens (such as capital punishment). Chesterton believes that most women do not want the vote. Women, furthermore, already rule in their respective houses and in society, in a manner appropriate to women. They always professed that politics was not serious; in a manner they were above it.
This was one of the few arguments where I really felt as if Chesterton lived a hundred years ago. Usually, he seems to be almost prophetic in his analyses of modern evils, but I cannot see the position of modern working and voting women as problematic in Chesterton's sense.

Mr. Pond

Included in the bundle 'Thirteen detectives' are two stories about Mr. Pond. Having read them, I sure hope Chesterton wrote more stories with this main character: both 'The three horsemen of the apocalypse' and 'When doctors agree' were wonderful.
Mr. Pond is not really a detective, this unassuming civil servant merely excels in solving riddles. In Chesterton's words: 'Pond himself had had some very curious experiences; but, as he would not turn them into long stories, they appeared only as short stories; and the short stories were so very short as to be quite unintelligible.' The unassuming Mr. Pond indeed has the tendency to speak in riddles, for example: "Grock failed because his soldiers obeyed him.", or "I did know two men who came to agree so completely that one of them naturally murdered the other".
I will not spoil your enjoyment by telling the details about the riddles Mr. Pond explains to us. But read carefully, and think while you read, for as one of Pond's friends says to him: "That's what's the matter with you, my boy. There are always such a damned lot of things you have mentioned but not explained."

Specialization

I have noticed before that Chesterton tends to oppose specialization; in the first sections of part III of 'What's wrong with the world' I found some reasons he does so. Some examples:
Fire does not exist only to warm people. 'It exists to warm people, to light their darkness, to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, to air their rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil their hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man's house and that hearth for which, as the great heathens said, a man should die.' If this multi-purpose fire is replaced by various substitutes, such as central heating for heat, and electric bulbs for light, we will multiply appliances that only have one specific use, but we will lose some of the purposes of the fire (if only the place where Santa brings the presents).
Religion also used to be a 'maid-of-all-work', who 'taught logic to the student and told fairy tales to the children'. In the modern world, some of her functions have branched off in various sterile subjects: art, ethics, cosmology, psychology, etc.
Now Chesterton does realize the importance, in this world, of specialists. Engineers, tradesmen, etc all need to excel in their own work, they need to be competitive. Chesterton, however, sees this in some ways as an impoverishment: we lose the 'homo universalis'. In his view, women in our society, as the ones protected from the need to specialize, still have the possibility to be universal and not specialized. In their houses, they can be the 'Jack-of-all-trades'. She will, perhaps, not be a great cook, but she'll be better than her specialized husband. In addition to this, she will be a better story-teller than a first-class cook, she will be a house-decorator, a dressmaker, a schoolmistress. 'She should not have one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second-bests.'
Chesterton continues the argument by stating that by staying at home, the woman will not be narrowed, but instead be broadened. 'How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?'
I do wonder if this still applies in our modern world: children will be at school from six years old (if not earlier), dresses are bought in stores instead of made at home, modern kitchen appliances and conveniences save hours and hours of work. Personally, I could not imagine what I would do with myself the whole day if I did not have a (part-time) job.

The mistake about man

Beyond Father Brown

It appears that Chesterton wrote some detective stories with other 'detectives' than Father Brown; they are collected in the bundle 'Thirteen detectives'. I must confess it is rather odd to continually have a new main character. On the other hand, some stories have some beautiful Chestertonian ideas.
In 'A hole in the wall', for example, Chesterton exposes our modern habit of demystifying the past. One character says: 'For instance, the very name of this place, Prior's Park, makes everybody think of it as a moonlit medieval abbey [-]. But according to the only authoritative study of the matter I can find the place was simply called Prior's as any rural place is called Podger's. It was the house of a Mr. Prior'. Later in the story, though, we hear the following: 'When some critic or other chose to say that Prior's Park was not a priory, but was named after some quite modern man named Prior, nobody really tested the theory at all. It never occurred to anybody repeating the story to ask if there really was any Mr. Prior, if anybody had ever seen him or heard of him.' I find this a rather beautiful illustration of some principles that may still be at work in some other historical perceptions we moderns have.

The homelessness of man

Part I of 'What's wrong with the world' deals with 'the homelessness of man. In the last few sections, we meet a common man, Jones, whose only desire seems to be to live a normal life in his own home. Modern philosophies prevent him from doing this; more specifically Hudge and Gudge (personifications of socialism and capitalism) argue over his head, but do not give him the opportunity to live the life he wants.
Since Chesterton wrote this in a somewhat different cultural context, I sometimes have difficulties following the exact argument on how these philosophies ensure this homelessness of Jones. The conclusion of this part, however, is clear:

The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. but the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

Domesticity

In part I of 'What's wrong with the world', Chesterton poses the old 'principle of domesticity' as a basis. The family, in a home of its own, is in a sense beyond the laws of the state. The common man has, in his own house, a freedom he has nowhere else: a freedom to eat what he likes, to see the persons he likes, to paint his living room green if he likes.
Chesterton realizes that not everyone sees the home this way, but he is careful to explain to us that there is a difference between the common man and some great capitalists. Chesterton talks about limited property, and about working people who do not have time to be bored of their own home and family.
A marriage is a tie, a restriction, and this has been a tradition in most cultures. Chesterton finds it immensely important that one cannot severe this tie the minute it becomes uncomfortable.

In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him to the firmer ground ahead. [-] Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage. In both cases the point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging.

Putting the clock backward

One of the first things 'what's wrong with the world' that Chesterton notes is our fear of the past. Instead of looking at the past, moderns often opt to look to the future. Chesterton calls this a 'weakness' or even a 'cowardice of the age'. We do not only not look at the bad things of the past, we also do not look at the good things, the 'unbearable virtue of mankind', the 'huge ideals'. Chesterton insists that we should never dismiss ideas from the past because they are old:

If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be restored upon any plan that has ever existed.

There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. [-] I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they have been used.

 In the next section (V), Chesterton gives two examples of old systems that have been tried to a certain extent, but not to their limit. He argues that 'if a thing as been defeated', logic does not dictate that 'it has been disproved'. It simply did not get the time to function properly and show its worth. In this chapter I found Chesterton's famous quote:

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

Of course we cannot deny that the Catholic Church has had some opportunity to show its worth. However, Chesterton states that the world, 'did not tire of the church's ideal, but of its reality'. If failed 'largely through the churchmen'.

What is wrong

This working title of what later became 'What's wrong with the world' was shorter, but perhaps somewhat more confusing. Chesterton, in this volume, deals with some social issues, such as imperialism, feminism and education. The first part seems to be an introduction, about general mistakes we make in thinking about the social issues of our time. 

A first mistake is 'the medical mistake': comparing society to a body. There is a huge difference: while we know pretty well what the healthy state of a body is, we do not in the least agree on the healthy state of society. While we may agree about some wrongs, we do not agree about the right. 

Next, we need to realize that when something is fundamentally wrong, we do not need practical men to fix it, but idealistic man to think out something better. One thing that is very practical would be for men to clearly state what they really want, instead for only demanding the things they think they can get. Compromise can work best if we know each man's viewpoint.

Chesterton then proceeds to discuss the problems of the hidden agenda: 'The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical.' Again, one of the most important aims to strive at is a clear statements of doctrines and beliefs, and an avoidance of vague prejudices. Only then can man meet each other: 'A Tory can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, if he knows what is Socialism. But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps out of its way'. 

Manalive

In part one of this fantastic novel we encountered Innocent Smith through his unusual actions in the lodging house Beacon Hill. In part two, the setting is a trial before 'the High Court of Beacon', consisting of the lodgers and some friends, in which Smith is accused of murder, burglary, desertion and bigamy. The accused never opens his mouth during the procedures; approximately all evidence consists of letters concerning his behavior in the past.
The letters the prosecution produces describe various instants of Smith firing at close range at persons, or eloping with maidens, or other discreditable actions. The interesting point is that there are other testimonies, produces by the defense, which do not disprove what the prosecution states, but merely shines a new light on them. The defense states that Smith 'has broken the conventions, but he has kept the commandments'.
I'll take one example, the case of murder. Smith actually did not commit murder, he merely shot and missed at close range. His reasons to carry this gun are similar to Chesterton's own reasons: if someone professes to be tired of life, one can offer to help him end it.

“I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.”

Because so much of the second part consists of letters, I sometimes lost the flow of the arguments. The letters themselves are interesting though, because they so clearly show the (sometimes limited) standpoint of the writer. Overall, I really liked this book and can definitely recommend it.

The allegorical practical joker

The novel 'Manalive' consists of two parts: in the first part we encounter Innocent Smith through his actions. He is almost arrested on multiple, and serious, charges. Instead of delivering him to the police, the lodgers of Beacon Hill decide themselves to judge him: is he mad or sane?
The second part promises to give some explanations; I am very curious.

Distributism

Over these last months, I regularly heard about Chesterton's 'distributism', though I have never yet encountered in an actual book by Chesterton (no doubt because I am reading chronologically and not getting on too fast). I just watched a relevant episode of 'The apostle of common sense', though, and I am starting to get a certain feel for the subject.
First, we need to realize that there is something wrong with both capitalism and socialism. The latter will give too much power, and property, to the government; in the former power and property will get concentrated in the hands of a few. In both systems, the normal man will not have too much power and property.
Distributism then favors the distribution of property: each man should have some property, preferably property that generates something useful. Small shop owners and small peasants are ideal distributists. Big business is wrong, because the big shops etc make small shops disappear.
What I read on the internet on distributism is mainly viewed from a strictly catholic viewpoint. The family unit should be as independent as possible. Consumerism is (rightly) condemned.
Still, I do not see how a distributist society could be developed, and once it exists, how it can function.

Innocent Smith

'Orthodoxy' is, according to a commentary I looked over, closely related to the three novels Chesterton wrote in the following years: 'The ball and the cross', 'Manalive' and 'The flying inn'. The first of these three I recently read; it exposes the madness of materialistic science quite interestingly. Today, I started 'Manalive'.
It is difficult to give a first impression. The main character, Innocent Smith, comes to a lodging house as on a great wind. He is a peculiar person, running after his hat, climbing a tree, comparing the simple organizing niece of the lodging house to Joan of Arc, picnicking on the roof, etc. The other lodgers, when they barely follow all his actions, admit to his energy and joy and sense of 'aliveness': something they realize they miss in their own lives.

Orthodoxy

For the last two weeks, I have been rereading 'Orthodoxy'. It certainly bears rereading very well; I actually followed the arguments much better this second time (especially since I had never encountered Chesterton before I read 'Orthodoxy').
In the last chapters we see why Chesterton actually became a Christian. After he concluded that

Orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by insisting on the Immanent God and the Inner Light: for these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means divine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in favor of fixed rules and clear dogmas. 

At this point in Chesterton's spiritual journey, he has not yet committed himself; he has not taken the 'leap of faith'. He merely points out that he has a lot of facts and arguments which point in the same direction. He realizes that as a democrat and as someone who rejects materialistic dogmatism, he has the freedom to accept miracles.
Chesterton's ultimate reasons to accept Christianity, however, circle around his realization that there is life and truth and joy in the church. If the unpromising dogmas of the church have such good consequences, if he has already learned so much, perhaps there is more than he knows at this moment. In this church of Christ, there is life, and within its boundaries there is the true possibility of joy.

Paradoxes and revolution

In Chapter 6 of 'Orthodoxy', Chesterton notes that Christianity 'was attacked on all sides and for contradictory reasons'. Some found it too meek, some too aggressive. Some found its focus on family wrong, some the cloisters. Then Chesterton realizes that there are two kinds of institutions that would fit the description: one with an 'odd shape' and one with 'the right shape'. He concludes that Christianity might be the 'normal thing, the center'. Perhaps, the states, 'Christianity is sane and all its critics are mad - in various ways'.
Christianity, instead of finding the perfect middle between different virtues, seeks to combine them all without blending: there is room for Joan of Arc and for Francis of Assisi. 'The real problem is - can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain its royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved'.
After realizing that the so-called Christian 'paradoxes' exactly mirror the oddities in this world, the argument in chapter seven is about the possibility of improvement. Chesterton notes three sine qua non 's for genuine improvement, all of which ultimately coincide with Christianity.
First and foremost, we need a fixed ideal for any kind of progress. 'The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.' When we change our objective every week, we will never attain it and the old institutions will remain in place.
'Second, it must be composite. It must not (if it is to satisfy our souls) be the mere victory of some one thing swallowing up everything else, love or pride or peace or adventure; it must be a definite picture composed of these elements in their best proportion and relation'. Of course, this implies that there would be an artist.
The third point is that Utopia is fragile. Man will always have to continue to strive for perfection, things will never remain perfect. This, of course, is a result (and an indication) of the Fall.
As a concluding argument, Chesterton shows that Christianity is truly democratic: it is humble enough to try to listen to simple people.
All these arguments in these two chapters are not proofs of Christianity. They merely point out how Christianity coincides with a certain conception of the world (the conception that Chesterton finds reasonable). As explained in chapter one: Chesterton thought of how the world should be, and realized that he discovered Christianity.

The wisdom of Father Brown

I took some time reading this collection of stories. Reading these stories, I started wondering at the person of Father Brown: he is seldom in his parish (once, there is mention of his having been at Mass). He is just the right person in the right place. Sometimes his solutions to crimes, even when he hears the story third-hand, is fairytale-like, but usually his arguments are compelling.
I particularly liked 'The strange crime of John Boulnois'; 'The absence of mr. Glass' was one other story where I enjoyed two different explanations of the same facts.

G.K. Chesterton; a biography

Today I am halfway in my 'year of reading Chesterton' and I just finished Michael Ffinch' biography. I cannot tell much about this biography, for several reasons. First, I took five months to read the book, so the first part is quite distant at the moment. The second reason is that I did not know anything about Chesterton's life before reading the biography: all my information comes from one source.
Looking through the table of contents, I see that with my chronological reading, I am not even on one third of the chapters in this book (which, I take it, roughly correspond with Chesterton's output). But at least I am beginning to get a feeling for the immense variety of Chesterton's thinking and writing.
One thing I liked about this biography was the short descriptions of Chesterton's various books: I do not only have a first idea about his life, but also about the books I want to read. And on that list of books to read I will put another biography, just to make sure I have various viewpoints.

Optimists & pessimists

Chesterton's journey to Christianity continues in chapter 5 of 'Orthodoxy' with a question about optimism and pessimism. Blindly thinking well of this world, as an optimist may do, will not change the world for the better. Neither will a pessimist make any useful changes. Chesterton realizes that one needs a passion, a love that is not blind, for the world. 'One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.'
Considering this, he slowly realizes that Christianity actually has the answer: God the creator is separate from His creation. Adhering to this doctrine, 'one could be at peace with the universe and yet be at war with the world'. Furthermore, the vague notions about how the world should be, as described in chapter 4, all fall into their places within the framework of Christianity.

More lessons from Elfland

Chapter four of 'Orthodoxy' relates the lessons Chesterton has known from his youth, from fairy tales. Personally, I find this a very hard chapter to grasp (or summarize), so I will rely on a lengthy quote to summarize the whole.
Before that, I will shortly relate some ideas: first, Chesterton's mention of specific and unexplained conditions (you can go to every room in the house except ...). Rules like this are not odd to Chesterton: rather they seem to belong to this magical world we live in. Second: a mere repetition of an occurrence (such as a sunrise) does not give us reasons for determinism or fatalism: they are rather expressions of an ever repeating life and joy (just as children can continue to ask 'do it again'). Chesterton finally compares this fairy-like way of viewing the world to a much more limited 'modern' worldview.
In his own words:

These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; the soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought before I could write, and felt before I could think: that we may proceed more easily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have someone to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he has saved them from a wreck. All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology. 

Elfland

After chapters one to three, which are somewhat introductory to the book, Chesterton really starts to develop his arguments in chapter four of 'Orthodoxy'. He starts of with extending the concept of democracy to our ancestors: the ancient traditions should not be ignored. This first part of the argument I understand and to a certain extent agree with.
After these preliminaries, Chesterton moves to his 'ethics of elfland', by 'writing down one after another the three or four fundamental ideas' which he has found for himself. He notes that 'My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. [-] The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. [-] Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense.'
The things Chesterton learns from fairy tales are multiple: ethical principles about pride and humility and being loveable, etc. The point he stresses most in the second quarter of chapter four is the difference between logical and natural laws. In fairy tales, just as in daily life, we encounter logical laws (two and two is four, if you are the youngest sister, you have older sisters, etc). These laws are indisputable. The other type of law, natural laws like the law of gravity, or the law that chicken come from eggs, are perhaps 'weird repetitions', but it is not a 'mental impossibility' that these laws would not apply. Though scientists imagine a necessary mental connection between natural facts, they are to Chesterton as wonderful as Cinderella's carriage turning into a pumpkin.
From fairyland, Chesterton learns a sense of wonder about the natural world around us. Next, he mentions briefly that he has a further emotion that 'life was as precious as it was puzzling'. He senses a gratitude for life itself.
He concludes this first half of chapter four: 'There were, then, these two first feelings, indefensible and indisputable. The world was a shock, but is was not merely shocking; existence was a surprise, but is was a pleasant surprise.'

Narrowness

A few days ago, I was puzzled by a reference Dale Ahlquist made about the 'narrowness' of certain philosophies. Today I read chapter 2 of 'Orthodoxy' and I understand Chesterton's argument about narrowness a little bit better.
Chesterton starts of with a question: if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe? Then he does something surprising: instead of starting at the obvious beginning of Christian apologetics, namely sin, the starts at the madhouse. The reason he gives is that some modern philosophers apparently deny sins (even then).
The point of mentioning the madhouse is that a maniac is often highly rational: he uses reason to account for the whole world (e.g. everything evolves around there being one big conspiracy). One cannot fruitfully argue with such a person, at best one can point out that his world is a very narrow one. It is consistent and complete, like a circle, but it is a very small circle.
According to Chesterton, the same goes for the materialist (and some other philosophies): they offer a rational explanation, but this materialistic universe is so small. There is no free will, there is not freedom to believe in anything more, there is no room for imagination, poetry, mysticism.
Chesterton argues that there is much more freedom in a Christian worldview, which accepts miracles, then in a materialistic worldview, which categorically rejects any possibility of miracles.
In the end, we should not be so narrowly bound by reason, if we do not want to become insane. We should mitigate reason with a measure of common sense, just as the common man always has, and accept that there may be mysteries that we cannot explain fully at the moment.
The concluding images of a circle and a cross remind me of the novel Chesterton wrote a year later: 'The ball and the cross', which illustrates similar viewpoints.

Tremendous Trifles

I just finished the last essays of Chesterton's work 'Tremendous Trifles' and I have to admit I have mixed feelings. Do not misunderstand me: most of these trifles were interesting, funny, or even brilliant ('A piece of chalk', 'On lying in bed', 'What I found in my pocket', 'The ballad of a strange town'). I found, however, that reading short articles is not my favorite mode of operation: I cannot read too many of them, for then they start to blurr, so I do not progress as quickly as I like to in the book. So all in all, I am glad to be finished.
One thing caught my attention in this book (a library book, from the 1909 edition): pages 308 and 309 were still not separated. I had to cut the paper in order to read chapter XXXVIII. One wonders that no-one in over a century apparently took the trouble to read this book to the end.

Library

To obtain Chesterton's books, I mainly rely on the local University Library. Today, I went to that small shelf, between shelves about various other persons, and found a few new books: 'The ballad of the white horse', 'The crimes of England' and 'Collected works VII', containing both 'Manalive' and 'The flying inn'. I look forward to reading something else then the 'Tremendous trifles' which have occupied me for too long. Especially since watching the first seven installments of the series about this 'apostle of common sense', I realize it might be time to read more of a variety of Chesterton's works. Moreover, at the pace I have at the moment, I will not arrive at 'The everlasting man' before the year is over. So (almost) goodbye to the trifles and even to Father Brown; I will try to make some headway in this chronological reading, even if I need to skip some books.
'Orthodoxy' cannot, of course, be skipped; I plan to read it within the next few weeks. And it may then be time for 'What is wrong with the world'.

Railway station's bookstall

Some things have not changed since Chesterton's times: railway stations are still places of waiting and the bookstalls there still sell books with relatively sensational titles. Chesterton describes browsing through some books:

my eye caught a sudden and scarlet title that for the moment staggered me. On the outside of a book I saw written in large letters, "Get On or Get Out." The title of the book recalled to me with a sudden revolt and reaction all that does seem unquestionably new and nasty; it reminded me that there was in the world of to-day that utterly idiotic thing, a worship of success; a thing that only means surpassing anybody in anything

Chesterton's catholicism

Though in my mostly chronological reading I am not even close to Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism, the television series by Dale Ahlquist introduced me to some arguments Chesterton apparently made in favor of Catholicism.
Let me start by noting that in books like 'Orthodoxy' and 'Heretics' I did not find anything particularly Catholic. This may be because I do not know enough about this Church. All in all, I was fairly surprised to hear Dale Ahlquist insist how much of the Catholic worldview was apparent in Chesterton's early works. He mentions, for example, Chesterton's stress on the family. Now I do know that Catholics make a point about families, but in my understanding Protestants too see the family as 'the cornerstone of society'.
Chesterton's two points that I understood were these: first Catholicism has an old tradition and continues the same, so that we do not have to be 'slaves' of the spirit of the times. This is a valid point against some Protestant churches, but then, the Catholic Church has also changes significantly after Vatican II (as I understand it). If I remember well, one of the epistles of the NT warns against the spirit of the age.
Chesterton's second point is about freedom: he sees the Catholic Church as broad, where Protestant Churches are too narrow for his taste. I must confess I do not understand this point; it seems to be something that can only be said from the inside, not from the outside. In one sense, though, it seems to me that narrowness is good: Jesus said we should enter through the narrow way.
Well, overall I am inspired to read yet more of Chesterton. I confess this television series wets my appetite for  more Chesterton, but the overall 'Chesterton was so Catholic and so right' perspective throws me off a little. Better the man himself than his interpreters.

Television series

I recently watched the first part of 'The apostle of common sense' by Dale Ahlquist. This television series consists of a series of lectures about Chesterton. The first was a general introduction, the second dived into Chesterton's most famous work, 'Orthodoxy', the third is about the accompanying volume 'Heretics'.
I postponed watching these series until I had read a significant amount of Chesterton: it seemed better to form my own impression before someone else told me theirs.
This said, I rather liked the first two installments of the series. The summary and explanations are simple and solid, the quotes delightful. The only thing that annoys me is the voice that is used to represent Chesterton himself: it is a rather high, sometimes shrill, voice. I do not know how Chesterton's own voice sounded, but personally I do not like this sound.
It is a minor irritation, though, in an overall interesting beginning of the series.

Blue laws

Coming from another country, the lack of what I would call 'Sunday rest' in the US was surprising. In my country, barely any shop is open on Sunday (except for the recent appearance of special 'shopping Sundays'); in this country barely any restrictions seem to apply to the Sunday as a separate day of the week. Some 'blue laws' still exist, I hear, but they do not seem not to make much difference.
Personally, I still have not made up my mind about the correct way to set apart this first day of the week. Chesterton's observations in chapter XXV of 'Tremendous Trifles' are helpful, though. He describes having to travel to give an address on a Sunday in England and his problems in getting to his destination.

Now it was very difficult to get down to it at all on Sunday afternoon, owing to the indescribable state into which our national laws and customs have fallen in connection with the seventh day. It is not Puritanism; it is simply anarchy. [-] The absurdity of the modern English convention is that is does not let a man sit still; it only perpetually trips him up when it has forced him to walk about. Our Sabbatarianism does not forbid us to ask a man in Battersea to come and talk in Hertfordshire; it only prevents his getting there. I can understand that a deity might be worshiped with joys, with flowers, and fireworks in the old European style. I can understand that a deity might be worshiped with sorrows. But I cannot imagine any deity being worshiped with inconveniences.

The barber and humanity

In Chapter XXII of 'Tremendous Trifles' Chesterton gives one simple and practical test for people who talk about 'loving humanity':

Before any modern man talks with authority about loving men, I insist (I insist with violence) that he shall always be very much pleased when his barber tries to talk to him. His barber is humanity; let him love that. If he is not pleased at this, I will not accept any substitute in the way of interest in the Congo or in the future of Japan. If a man cannot love his barber whom he has seen, how shall he love the Japanese whom he has not seen?

From Tremendous Trifles Chapter XX

It is remarkable that in so many great wars it has been the defeated who have won. The people who were left worst at the end of the war were generally the people who were left best at the end of the whole business. For instance, the Crusades ended in the defeat of the Christians. But they did not end in the decline of the Christians; they ended in the decline of the Saracens. That huge prophetic wave of Moslem power which had hung in the very heavens above the towns of Christendom, that wave was broken, and never came on again. The Crusaders had saved Paris in the act of losing Jerusalem. 

But here I only remark the interesting fact that the conquered almost always conquer. Sparta killed Athens with a final blow, and she was born again. Sparta went away victorious, and died slowly of her own wounds. The Boers lost the South African War and gained South Afrika. 

Fairytales

Chapter XVI of 'Tremendous Trifles' contains a delightful comparison between two sorts of literature:

Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is - what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is - what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tale the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity f the cosmos. 

'Everything is interesting'

Chapter XV of 'Tremendous Trifles' finds Chesterton in a railway carriage with nothing to do. He does not have a scrap of paper with him, there is no view due to rain, and there are not even advertisements on the walls of the railway carriage. Since he denies 'most energetically that anything is, or can be, uninteresting', he starts by contemplating the wood of the walls and seats, remembering Jesus was a carpenter. Then he remembers he could examine the unknown content of his own pockets.
The first item are tram tickets, suggesting 'that municipal patriotism which is now, perhaps, the greatest hope of England'. Furthermore, these tickets carry on them advertisements for a certain pill, which could be further analyzed. The second item is a pocket knife, suggesting battle. Then he finds matches, suggesting fire, chalk, suggesting art, a coin, suggesting government, etc.
When I will find myself without anything to do, and without any Chesterton to read, I may try this mental experiment for myself.

"Should shop assistants marry?"

I am puzzled to think what some periods and schools of human history would have made of such a question. The ascetics of the East or of some periods of the Early Church would have thought that the question meant, "Are not shop assistants too saintly, too much of another world, even to feel the emotions of the sexes?" But I suppose that is not what the purple poster means. In some pagan cities it might have meant, "Shall slaves so vile as shop assistants even be allowed to propagate their abject race?" But I suppose that is not what the purple poster meant. We must face, I fear, the full insanity of what it does mean. It does really mean that a section of the human race is asking whether the primary relations of the two human sexes are particularly good for modern shops. The human race is asking whether Adam and Eve are entirely suitable for Marshall and Snelgrove. If this is not topsy-turvy I cannot imagine what would be. We ask whether the universal institution will improve our (please God) temporary institution. Yet I have known many such questions.

As a sequel to 'The wind and the trees' (see below), Chesterton again exposes materialistic reasonings about what is really the essence of things in chapter XIV of 'Tremendous Trifles'.

The wind and the trees

Chapter XII of 'Tremendous Trifles' starts with a parable: a boy walks in severe wind and decides that he does not like the wind. He notices the trees moving and asks if the trees couldn't be cut down, so that the wind would stop blowing. Chesterton continues:

Nothing could be more intelligent or natural than this mistake. Any one looking for the first time at the trees might fancy that they were indeed vast and titanic fans, which by their mere waving agitated the air around them for miles. Nothing, I say, could be more human and excusable than the belief that it is the trees which make the wind. Indeed, the belief is so human and excusable that it is, as a matter of fact, the belief of about ninety-nine out of a hundred of the philosophers, reformers, sociologists, and politicians of the great age in which we live.

In this parable, 'the trees stand for all visible things and the wind for the invisible. The wind is the spirit which bloweth where it listeth'. Material things, like cities and civilizations, are actually moved by immaterial things, like philosophy, religion and revolution. 'You cannot see a wind; you can only see that there is a wind'.
This piece ties in nicely with Chesterton's observations in 'Heretics' that a man's beliefs are the most important thing about him: beliefs and philosophies actually cause more visible things to change.

Symbolic actions

Chapter IX of 'Tremendous Trifles' finds Chesterton still in France. While contemplating the destruction of the Bastille, he makes some interesting observations about (the lack of modern) architecture:

Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things - marriage, for instance. And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. [-] A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like a dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely is is obviously because we have not enough dogmas

Besancon

Sometimes Chesterton's 'Tremendous Trifles' make one wish to enter in his experiences (from 'the end of the world):

For some time I had been wandering in quiet streets in the curious town of Basancon, which stands like a sort of peninsula in a horse-shoe of river. You may learn from the guide books that it was the birthplace of Victor Hugo, and that it is a military station with many forts, near the French frontier. But you will not learn from guide books that the very tiles on the roofs seem to be of some quainter and more delicate colour than the tiles of all the other towns of the world; that the tiles look like the little clouds of some strange sunset, or like the lustrous scales of some strange fish. They will not tell you that in this town the eye cannot rest on anything without finding it in some way attractive and even elvish, a carved face at a street corner, a gleam of green fields through a stunted arch, or some unexpected colour fro the enamel of a spire or dome.

 I long to visit France again...

The ball and the cross

Today, I finished the surreal novel 'The ball and the cross'. After the beautiful introduction, I encountered Turnbull and MacIan and their travels through England in search of an opportunity to fight their duel. The conversations were interesting, their adventures by times hilarious.
With their arrival in the lunatic asylum, however, the novel continues on a slightly different note. Just as the other novels by Chesterton that I read ('The Napoleon of Notting Hill' and 'The man who was Thursday'), the story becomes more and more surreal. MacIan and Turnbull first encounter 'the Master' in their respective dreams/nightmares; then he turns out to be the head of the asylum. One by one, all the other characters from the book assemble together, and the story goes to its apotheosis.

A fascinating detail of the story is the reason the different persons are assembled in the asylum. For instance, we have Mr. Wilkinson. A few chapters ago, Turnbull and MacIan 'borrowed' his yacht. Now the doctor tells Turnbull that "he tells everybody that two people have taken his yacht. His account of how he lost it is quite incoherent. [-] It is a most melancholy case, and also fortunately a very rare one. It is so rare, in fact, that in one classification of these maladies it is entered under a heading by itself - Perdinavititis, mental inflammation creating the impression that one has lost a ship. Really, [-] it's rather a feather in my cap. I discovered the only existing case of perdinavititis." When Turnbull tells the doctor that he and MacIan actually took Wilkinson's yacht on their travels, he is quickly diagnosed with 'Rapinavititis', "the delusion that one has stolen a ship. First case ever recorded."

Interruptions

MacIan and Turnbull have had their lengthy discussions and find themselves in a secluded spot in chapter IX of 'The ball and the cross'. They decide to finally finish their duel. MacIan, though, notes that they have frequently been interrupted and that this might be a sign of God.
They start their duel, only to be interrupted again by a 'damsel in distress'. They come to the rescue of the lady, who takes them with her in her car. Then, we discover that the police is still looking for our heroes: they are to be transferred to the 'Westgate Adult Reformatory' to be cured, because they are 'incurable disturbers of the peace'. With help of the lady, MacIan and Turnbull escape again.
Finding a secluded spot on a beach surrounded by bluffs, they rejoin the swords. This time the interruption comes from the incoming tide; MacIan saves Turnbulls life by getting him in an abandoned boat. When they finally arrive ashore, they hope they can manage to disguise themselves and fight a duel about a socially accepted topic. So they pick a fight over a lady. Turnbull, however, is so impressed by this lady's simple, naive, Christianity that he gives up his disguise.  Subsequently, our heroes have to flee again.
Borrowing a yacht, they travel over the ocean to find an empty island. They decide to fight there, only to discover that it is not an island at all but a part of England. Again interrupted and chased by the police, they jump over a wall into a garden.
In this garden of 'lost souls', the garden of a lunatic asylum, they encounter someone who believes that he is God. Turnbull turns on him and asks: "Why does teething hurt? Why do growing pains hurt? Why are measles catching? Why does a rose have thorns?" etcetera. MacIan, in the meanwhile, finds someone who is clearly overly impressed by science: someone who cannot 'trust a God that you can't improve on'. This person believes that 'a man's doctor ought to decide what woman he marries', and that 'children ought not be be brought up by their parents'. This person, of course, turns out to be the doctor.

Discussions

After encountering two different kinds of philosophers, Turnbull and MacIan start their own discussion in chapter VII and VIII of 'The ball and the cross'. They start about nature and its existence; then they try to lay their problem before an ordinary man. This man does not solve their differences, so they argue further. MacIan attacks Turnbull as follows:

You hold that your heretics and sceptics have helped the world forward and handed on a lamp of progress. I deny it. Nothing is plainer from real history than that each of your heretics invented a complete cosmos of his own which the next heretic smashed entirely to pieces. [-] [Freethought] can never be progressive because it will accept nothing from the past; it begins every time again from the beginning; and it goes every time in a different direction. 

MacIan continues that there are only two things that can progress: strictly physical science and the Catholic Church. For the church, he specifically mentioned progress in the moral world. Turnbull, of course, does not see such progress. MacIan explains:

Catholic virtue is often invisible because it is the normal. Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems to Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems to artistic.[-] The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times;

Dueling

After MacIan and Turnbull leave the police station (chapter III of 'The ball and the cross'), they immediately seek out a place to buy swords for a duel. They did not realize, though, that the press has had a field day with this story, and that the whole of London knows about it. Hence, their duel is interrupted.
Together, they flee in a hansom cab, purchase some victuals, and try to find a secluded spot to finish their duel. The two start to respect each other in this process, to the point of not really wanting to fight.
The renewed duel is immediately interrupted by a philosopher: a Tolstoyan who preaches Love. He tries to convince MacIan that violence is a sin; MacIan retorts that Christianity is much more than these watered-down philosophies. The peacemaker then walks away, breaks his own rule and calls the police. The two duelists flee again.
Running away from the police, they find a secluded place for shelter. Here, they encounter another philospher: a pagan proponent of violence and sacrifice. He is delighted with their duel. When MacIan, though, challenges him to take the sword himself, he flees.

A discussion somewhat in the air

Chesterton's novel 'The ball and the cross' starts with a discussion on a flying ship between the monk Michael and the scientist Lucifer. They encounter a cross on a ball at the top of St. Paul's cathedral. The discussion revolts around these symbols: the scientist insists that the ball is reasonable, inevitable, in unity with itself, a 'higher development', and it should stand on top of the cross, instead of being placed under it. The monk argues that man is a contradiction, just as the cross; he is irrational, just as the cross; and if the ball were placed on the cross, it would certainly fall of. Furthermore, it provides a practical means of support.
This first chapter appears to be introductory, for in the next chapter we are introduced to two new characters: the scotch atheist Turnbull, writer of a magazine, and a catholic boy from out of town, Evan McIan. When Evan encounters Turnbulls arguments, he immediately breaks his windows. When questioned by the police, we get some typical Chestertonian remarks. When Evan states that Turnbull is his enemy, the enemy of God, the policeman says that he "mustn't talk like that here, that has nothing to do with us.". He continues that "it is most undesirable that things of that sort should be spoken about - a - public [-]. Religion is - a - too personal a matter to be mentioned in such a place. [-] But to talk in a public place about the most sacred and private sentiments - well, I call it bad taste. I call it irreverent." He asks McIan if his views "are necessarily the right ones? Are you necessarily in possession of the truth?". On McIan's affirmative answer, he can only laugh contemptuously.
All in all, this discussion reminded me of Chesterton's beginning and final remarks in 'Heretics': a man's view of the universe is still 'the most practical and important thing about a man'. The people who passed Turnbulls shop with his atheistic arguments for twenty years are not necessarily more enlightened because they did not break his shopwindows: they do not care because they never formed an opinion for themselves about this matter.

Hansom cab

After reading the fifth and sixth essay in 'Tremendous Trifles', I looked up the hansom cab online. I knew that it was a sort of carriage, pulled by a horse, but I had not realized how common this type of transportation was. In Chesterton's time, thousands of these cabs drove around in London.
The exact shape of the cab is important to understand the accident Chesterton describes. A hansom cab has two wheels (so it is balanced by the horse); the cabman actually stands at the back of the cab. The customer sits quite low (so that the cab has a low point of gravity); he can see the horse but not the driver.
Apparently, it is not uncommon for cabhorses to stumble; Chesterton did not see anything unusual in it. He notices people looking odd, but does not know why. when the horse starts running. Chesterton realizes that the cabman has fallen off and the horse is running wild. In seconds, the cab crashes into an omnibus.
Chesterton uses this experience to describe his own reactions, both before and after the crash. These tales about 'trifles' again indicate some deeper understanding of the world around us.