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.'