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.

Heretics

Today, I finally finished 'Heretics'. Though most chapters can be read as single essays, not necessarily read in the context of this book, there is in the end more cohesion then I thought. In chapter 20 Chesterton revisits some concepts he discussed in chapter 1: the importance of general ideals.
The eighteen chapters inbetween discuss various 'heretical' ideas: ideas Chesterton does not agree with. He is dissatisfied with Rudyard Kipling's cosmopolitanism and with Tolstoyan simplicity, with scientific anthropologists and with modern pagans, with 'smart' novelists and with 'slum' novelists.
In the last chapter, then, Chesterton challenges us to 'go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search. Let us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions'. We should not be vague about our beliefs; we should not be afraid to examine multiple ideas. We can avoid both extremes of bigotry and fanaticism by becoming people with definite, well-thought, opinions. 'Religious and philosophical ideas are, indeed, as dangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against the excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy and soaked in religion.'
After reading all these, one does not wonder that Chesterton was challenged to state his own beliefs (which he did in 'Orthodoxy').

Democracy

Chapter 19 of 'Heretics' reminded me of 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' in its discussion of democracy. Chesterton starts with warning us that 'democracy is not philantropy; it is not even altruism or social reform. Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded on reverence for the common man'.
Just as in the fore mentioned novel, Chesterton explains why a hereditary despotism is actually quite democratic: there is not selection who is the ruler, so 'any man' can be the ruler.
Chesterton stresses that in his time, some 'fundamental democratic quality' is missing. This is illustrated by the attitude of the educated middle class to the poor: in their condemnation of the sins of the poor (as if they themselves are blameless) and in their efforts to 'raise the poor' (as if a poor man is less a man, instead of just a man with less money).