Love and Fables

In the most recent issue of Gilbert (the most recent which *I* have had delivered, --if only I could catch that Chestertonian mailman!-- which is the anniversary issue, all covered in silver) there is an essay entitled Love and Fables, which I enjoyed but considered it too short. I felt something was missing. So, as it read Illustrated London News, July 2, 1910, I decided to look it up and see if I could put the whole thing here for your consideration. Here it is:

I pointed out last week that our makers of ultramodern moralities (and

immoralities) do not really grasp how problematical a problem is.

They are not specially the people who see the difficulties of modern

life; rather, they are the people who do not see the difficulties. These

innovators make life insanely simple; making freedom or knowledge a

universal pill. I remarked it in connection with a clever book by Miss

Florence Farr, and took as an instance the proposition (which she

seemed to support) that marriage is good for the common herd, but

can be advantageously violated by special "experimenters" and

pioneers. Now, the weakness of this position is that it takes no

account of the problem of the disease of pride. It is easy enough to

say that weaker souls had better be guarded, but that we must give

freedom to Georges Sand or make exceptions for George Eliot. The

practical puzzle is this: that it is precisely the weakest sort of lady

novelist who thinks she is Georges Sand; it is precisely the silliest

woman who is sure she is George Eliot. It is the small soul that

is sure it is an exception; the large soul is only too proud to be the

rule. To advertise for exceptional people is to collect all the sulks and

sick fancies and futile ambitions of the earth. The good artist is he

who can be understood; it is the bad artist who is always

"misunderstood." In short, the great man is a man; it is always the

tenth-rate man who is the Superman. Read more.

But in Miss Farr's entertaining pages there was another instance of

the same thing which I had no space to mention last week. The writer

disposes of the difficult question of vows and bonds in love by

leaving out altogether the one extraordinary fact of experience on

which the whole matter turns. She again solves the problem by

assuming that it is not a problem. Concerning oaths of fidelity, etc.,

she writes: "We cannot trust ourselves to make a real love-knot unless

money or custom forces us to 'bear and forbear.' There is always the

lurking fear that we shall not be able to keep faith unless we swear

upon the Book. This is, of course, not true of young lovers. Every

first love is born free of tradition; indeed, not only is first love

innocent and valiant, but it sweeps aside all the wise laws it has been

taught, and burns away experience in its own light. The revelation is

so extraordinary, so unlike anything told by the poets, so absorbing,

that it is impossible to believe that the feeling can die out."

Now this is exactly as if some old naturalist settled the bat's place in

nature by saying boldly, "Bats do not fly." It is as if he solved the

problem of whales by bluntly declaring that whales live on land.

There is a problem of vows, as of bats and whales. What Miss Farr

says about it is quite lucid and explanatory; it simply happens to be

flatly untrue. It is not the fact that young lovers have no desire to

swear on the Book. They are always at it. It is not the fact that every

young love is born free of traditions about binding and promising,

about bonds and signatures and seals. On the contrary, lovers wallow

in the wildest pedantry and precision about these matters. They do the

craziest things to make their love legal and irrevocable. They tattoo

each other with promises; they cut into rocks and oaks with their

names and vows; they bury ridiculous things in ridiculous

places to be a witness against them; they bind each other with rings,

and inscribe each other in Bibles; if they are raving lunatics (which is

not untenable), they are mad solely on this idea of binding and on

nothing else. It is quite true that the tradition of their fathers and

mothers is in favour of fidelity; but it is emphatically not true that the

lovers merely follow it; they invent it anew. It is quite true that the

lovers feel their love eternal, and independent of oaths; but it is

emphatically not true that they do not desire to take the oaths. They

have a ravening thirst to take as many oaths as possible. Now this is

the paradox; this is the whole problem. It is not true, as Miss Farr

would have it, that young people feel free of vows, being confident of

constancy; while old people invent vows, having lost that confidence.

That would be much too simple; if that were so there would be no

problem at all. The startling but quite solid fact is that young people

are especially fierce in making fetters and final ties at the very

moment when they think them unnecessary. The time when they want

the vow is exactly the time when they do not need it. That is worth

thinking about.

Nearly all the fundamental facts of mankind are to be found in its

fables. And there is a singularly sane truth in all the old stories of the

monsters - such as centaurs, mermaids, sphinxes, and the rest. It will

be noted that in each of these the humanity, though imperfect in its

extent, is perfect in its quality. The mermaid is half a lady and half a

fish; but there is nothing fishy about the lady. A centaur is half a

gentleman and half a horse. But there is nothing horsey about the

gentleman. The centaur is a manly sort of man - up to a certain point.

The mermaid is a womanly woman - so far as she goes. The human

parts of the monsters are handsome, like heroes, or lovely, like

nymphs; their bestial appendages do not affect the full perfection of

their humanity - what there is of it. There is nothing humanly wrong

with the centaur, except that he rides a horse without a head. There is

nothing humanly wrong with the mermaid; Hood put a good comic

motto to his picture of a mermaid: "All's well that ends well." It

is, perhaps, quite true; it all depends which end. Those old wild

images included a crucial truth. Man is a monster. And he is all the

more a monster because one part of him is perfect. It is not true, as

the evolutionists say, that man moves perpetually up a slope from

imperfection to perfection, changing ceaselessly, so as to be suitable.

The immortal part of a man and the deadly part are jarringly distinct

and have always been. And the best proof of this is in such a case as

we have, considered - the case of the oaths of love.

A man's soul is as full of voices as a forest; there are ten thousand

tongues there like all the tongues of the trees: fancies, follies,

memories, madnesses, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes.

All the settlement and sane government of life consists in coming to

the conclusion that some of those voices have authority and others

not. You may have an impulse to fight your enemy or an impulse to

run away from him; a reason to serve your country or a reason to

betray it; a good idea for making sweets or a better idea for poisoning

them. The only test I know by which to judge one argument or

inspiration from another is ultimately this: that all the noble

necessities of man talk the language of eternity. When man is doing

the three or four things that he was sent on this earth to do, then he

speaks like one who shall live for ever. A man dying for his country

does not talk as if local preferences could change. Leonidas does not

say, "In my present mood, I prefer Sparta to Persia." William Tell

does not remark, "The Swiss civilisation, so far as I can yet see, is

superior to the Austrian." When men are making commonwealths,

they talk in terms of the absolute, and so they do when they are

making (however unconsciously) those smaller commonwealths which

are called families. There are in life certain immortal moments,

moments that have authority. Lovers are right to tattoo each other's

skins and cut each other's names about the world; they do belong to

each other in a more awful sense than they know.

Cover Art from the Father Brown Reader for sale on E-bay!

Help support a Chestertonian family and get a one-of-a-kind piece of art to boot!

Reagan and Chesterton

I've just heard that Reagan quoted Chesterton in his Christmas at the Whitehouse talk in 1981. He was heard to quote:

The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.

A good reminder to us during this Advent time of year.

Random Chestertonian Quote

"All habits are bad habits," said Michael, with deadly calm. "Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed. You went mad about money, because you're an heiress."

"It's a lie," cried Rosamund furiously. "I never was mean about money."

"You were worse," said Michael, in a low voice, and yet violently. "You thought that other people were. You thought every man who came near you must be a fortune-hunter; you would not let yourself go and be sane; and now you're mad, and I'm mad; and serve us right."
Manalive, Chpater 3, G.K. Chesterton.

Chesterton and Christmas

Well, I got my wish, and am now the proud owner of Advent and Christmas Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton. I liked the back cover:

People are losing the power to enjoy Christmas through identifying it with enjoyment. When once they lose sight of the old suggestion that it is all about something, they naturally fall into blank pauses of wondering what it is all about. To be told to rejoice on Christmas Day is reasonable and intelligible, if you understand the name, or even look at the word. To be told to rejoice on the twenty-fifth of December is like being told to rejoice at quarter-past eleven on Thursday week. You cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous. G.K Chesterton, "The New War on Christmas," December 26, 1925

This Advent, let us join G.K. Chesterton as he approaches the child Jesus. "You will come to find, as others before you, that Gilbert Keith Chesterton has walked into your life to make you laugh and think, to serve as your friend and mentor" (From the Introduction).

Dr. Thursday's Post

Argument and Truth

Nancy Brown, our dutiful bloggmistress, has recently posted excerpts from a comment made on one of my postings from last year. I must say it is quite gratifying to see my writing causing discussion. Addition, set theory, poetry and mathematics and the pursuit of truth... so many topics for exploration. At present I am extremely busy, but there are days when I sit here and wonder how to select the topic to write about... It reminds me of this little passage:

"He was restless just then and drafted about into the commonest crowds. He did no work lately; sometimes sat and stared at a blank sheet of paper as if he had no ideas."
"Or as if he had too many," said Gabriel Gale.
[GKC, "The Purple Jewel" in The Poet and the Lunatics, emphasis added]

It is a good book for many reasons; among others, these words of Gabriel Gale, two of my favourite lines in all of GKC:

"Were you ever an isosceles triangle?"

and

"I often stare at windows."

So do I, GG; so do I. But this book is even more important because it, like every other one of Chesterton's books, is really a slovenly autobiography, part of which is an even more slovenly, and half-poetic, attempt to get at truth, and distinguish the truth from things which are nothing more than appearance.

Which has been a matter of real contention in some bloggs and other forms of media. Nancy Brown has begun to explore this on her own blogg, here and here and here. Some matters seem clearly to be about truth: "This is true, we MUST accept it, even if uncomfortable or annoying." Some others, just as clearly, seem to be matters of taste: "I like this; though I approve of it and enjoy it; but it is of no concern that you do not find it so."

How to handle such cases? How to discern truth from taste? And how to let someone know about what MAY be a serious matter? Is this mushroom edible or deadly poison? Are you a mycophile gourmet? Or perhaps you are allergic to them? Or do you have some philosophical reason against eating fungi?

In exasperation, one might wish to see what the Bible has to say. But alas - there is the tradition of the last 500 years for each to interpret the Bible for one's self - this a most unsteady foundation. Excuse me - that is not the right way to go, for my topic today as GKC said, is "not specially concerned with the differences between a Catholic and a Protestant." [prefatory note to The Everlasting Man] It is not even concerned with the differences between Christians and varieties of Pagans. It is merely my attempt to get a little further into the idea of difference - which I thought would make a welcome change from my discussion on addition. Hee hee.

Also it is well to consider this matter now, at the tail end of the Church Year, when we ponder the "Return of the King" and the promised final division of sheep and goats, all mysteries solved and all questions answered.
Read more.

It is significant that we can show biblical evidence to begin our exploration. For example:

On the one hand: St. Paul talks about how, when he was a child he talked and acted like a child - but he grew up and put childish ways aside.
But on the other hand: Jesus says "unless you change and become like little children, you shall by no means enter the kingdom."

On the one hand: Jesus said in praying one should not repeat one's words.
On the other hand: In Gethsemani, he prayed "using the same words as before".

But we are not here to sift these biblical matters. The important point, of course, in these, and every other such case, is the need to discriminate, to discern, to tell apart one thing or idea or word from another - that is, to divide - or (to crash our math symbols together) to find the difference. (But then division is really a form of repeated subtraction, just as multiplication is a form of repeated addition.)

People, even in the Catholic Church, have decided that the techniques of the Middle Ages are mostly boring, dull, and useless. It's especially funny to hear this from university people. But Chesterton knew quite well that those methods were not only amazingly interesting, but powerfully useful:

I revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general hope of getting something done.
[GKC, Heretics CW1:46]

Yes, at that famous little cable TV place that I used to work at, people knew that the system was founded upon "Thirteenth Century Metaphysics" - simply because it was founded on reason. And as Father Brown points out (let us say it now in chorus): "You attacked reason, it's bad theology."

To proceed. The word "argument" comes up in such discussions. Someone is "arguing" over whatever matter is at hand. But how did those people of long ago argue? What REALLY happened? Does anyone know?

(Please don't bring up the "angels on the head of a pin" for now; we can do that one some other time.)

Well, first of all, the "disputation" was a very important part of education. The only remnant I know of is the "proofs" still introduced in high school geometry and seen in other branches of math. But it was an important idea in the Middle Ages, and good exercise, not just for future priests, lawyers, and physicians, but for anyone who wanted to use his brain to deal with reality. Moreover, it was done by very serious people, not for anger or malice or "humour" (what can that mean?) or even to convince the doubtful - no, it was used by people (often very friendly people) who were in deep, complete, and utterly full agreement with each other.

Are you amazed? You should be. If I had time, I would give you samples from some fascinating books on that era. One in particular which is quite amazing to examine is Gratian's The Treatise on the Laws (with) The Ordinary Gloss, a work dating as far back as 1170. But I can give a far more recent example, which is both instructive and amusing:

My brother, Cecil Edward Chesterton, was born when I was about five years old; and, after a brief pause, began to argue. He continued to argue to the end; for I am sure that he argued energetically with the soldiers among whom he died, in the last glory of the Great War. It is reported of me that when I was told that I possessed a brother, my first thought went to my own interminable taste for reciting verses, and that I said, "That's all right; now I shall always have an audience." if I did say this, I was in error. My brother was by no means disposed to be merely an audience; and frequently forced the function of an audience upon me. More frequently still, perhaps, it was a case of there being simultaneously two orators and no audience. We argued throughout our boyhood and youth until we became the pest of our whole social circle. We shouted at each other across the table, on the subject of Parnell or Puritanism or Charles the First's head, until our nearest and dearest fled at our approach, and we had a desert around us. And though it is not a matter of undiluted pleasure to recall having been so horrible a nuisance, I am rather glad in other ways that we did so early thrash out our own thoughts on almost all the subjects in the world. I am glad to think that through all those years we never stopped arguing; and we never once quarrelled.
[GKC, Autobiography CW16:187, emphasis added]

As you can see, these beloved brothers knew the DIFFERENCE. But then what is an argument? Why have a disputation?

Ever hear a smarmy educator burble on about teaching "problem-solving" in school?

Any clue what that might possibly mean? (Ask me about recursion another time; they do NOT mean recursion.)

Argument is a CLASSICAL form of "problem-solving". It is NOT about "convincing". It is not a form of "verbal fighting". It is NOT an expression of anger or of ME being right and YOU being wrong.

It is simply a very clever technique of GETTING TO THE TRUTH.

But of course, I have transgressed. I have mentioned religious things, and the horrid Middle Ages - and that boring detective-story-writing journalist and his nasty brother who was even convicted of libel. (A long story for another time.)

Ah - despite all this, perhaps there are still some readers left to me. They want to know more.

I have already used up quite a bit of my posting-space allotment for today, so I can barely summarise the technique here. Basically, there is a thing called the "circle" - which is an odd term, considering there are really only two players in the game. But it means that the two alternate in their turns to speak. (I here refer to the description in Shallo's Scholastic Philosophy.)

First move: The Defendant states a claim on a matter. It may be something perfectly obvious, or something deeply abstruse. But the Defendant must give any necessary details on the meaning of the claim, and give "short, solid arguments" (formal explanations using logic) proving the parts of the claim.

Second move: the Objector may attack either the claim directly, or the arguments (formal logic explanations) by which it was proved.

The situation then reverses, and now the Defendant may attack the various elements of the Objector's work.

And so on. Until there is a resolution, or they discover a lack of sufficient information, or (perhaps) it is dinnertime, or bedtime, or something else intrudes. (In Socrates' case it was the hemlock.)

One of the most important of the possible moves in the attack is announced by the word distinguo. (No this is NOT a Hogwarts spell, though it is a Latin verb in the first-person singular indicative!) This word means "I distinguish, separate, divide in parts". In argument it is used to break apart something (say a word) which may have been used in a general sense, and show that its various separate specific meanings apply in different ways - for the original claim may apply in some senses, but not in others - as it is required to find the truth, each of the various cases must be examined.

Yes, at the end of time, all our arguments, and all our searches shall be terminated, and the final DISTINGUO shall be pronounced: "For there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden that shall not be known and come abroad." [Luke 8:17] Then we'll get our papers back and see where our mistakes were.

But for now, as we work in joyful hope, let us distinguish something very important. We can never tolerate error. Error is error, whether it be mathematical or logical, or historical or theological. But that does not mean we must ourselves COMMIT ERROR by pointing out error: "And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not?" [Luke 6:41] We must always bear love in mind - love is "willing the good of the other" - and so must practise fraternal correction in love. It is again that matter of distinction, of telling apart:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.
[GKC, The Thing CW3:157]

I have rambled on for quite some time, but perhaps you have begun to see something here. Let us argue in charity, with love, with our eyes seeking truth and not our own "winning" or glory. Truth is not a game score, and, since it is intangible, has the property Dante remarks on (in Purgatorio) that its DIVISION actually INCREASES its possession. Anna Leonowens put the same idea in rhyme:

It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought:
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you'll be taught."
[Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I"]

Or, to use the modern words, it's a "win-win" scenario.

But let us always argue (and read, write, learn, teach, blogg) - in love, that is (as GKC said) with our BROTHER.

--Dr. Thursday.

12,000 Opportunities

If you are a friend to the Chesterton Society, and word has it that 12,000 of you are, then you recently received a letter from our esteemed Mr. Ahlquist wishing us all a Merry Christmas!

In this letter, we are told of a few ways we could wish Merry Christmas back to the American Chesterton Society. I'm going to help you make this very easy.

1. Purchase a Chesterton Ornament. Mine is already on our tree and pretty much looks like this photograph, except that our tree is leaving heavily to the "Chesterton" side.






2. Purchase a copy of Tremendous Trifles.











3. (I have a vested interest in this third item.)Purchase a copy of Father Brown stories adapted for children. (At the very excellent price of $7.95 for members.)











4. Buy anything at all from the ACS.

5. Give the ACS a nice Christmasy donation.

There! I've made it very easy for you to wish us a Merry Christmas.

This Advent with Chesterton and Jesus

Published by Ligouri.

"As one of the few relatively recent Christian writers who are admired and quoted by Christians at all ends of the spectrum, G.K Chesterton, the great English convert to the Catholic faith, was known as a remarkable and diverse but extremely influential English writer. His inexhaustible and wide ranging portfolio of works includes journalistic writing, poetry, biography, Christian, fantasy and detective genres. His style is distinctive and always marked by humility, consistency, irony, wit and wonder. Some of his most enduring books include The Everlasting Man, which led C.S. Lewis to become a Christian and The Napoleon of Notting Hill which inspired Michael Collins to lead a movement for Irish independence.

G.K. Chesterton is sometimes referred to as the most unjustly neglected writer of our time. One reason might be his versatility and the inability for modern thinkers, theologians and commentators to pigeonhole him. We challenge you to enjoy his remarkable style, eloquence and faith-based writing at this joyous time of the year.

In this edition of Advent and Christmas Wisdom, each day's reflection includes a selection from one of Chesterton's finest works, a suitable Scripture verse, an appropriate prayer, and an exercise. This addition to one of Liguori's bestselling series is truly a refreshing, prayerful preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas."

It's on my wish list for this advent. Here is one more review which I found on amazon.com:

"This contains many of the great writers wittiest and most profound observations on faith and the meaning of Christmas. Some of them are taken from his well known books, but there are also many taken from his lesser known writings. For the Chesterton fan, there may be a surprise or two; for others, this is an enjoyable introduction. It also contains bible readings and prayers for each day of advent, related to the Chesterton quote. But the best part is the activity for each day. They are practical, creative ideas for putting into practice the spiritual values of the readings for the day. The activities are appropriate for adults and school age children. Its a great way to make this advent a memorable one."

One contributing writer is someone Gilbert readers will recognize: Robert Moore-Jummonville. Congratulations, Robert.

A GKC Debate about Math

Back in October of 2006, our Dr. Thursday elicited some interesting discussion when he brought up Math, GKC and an Ignatian Asylum, after which a spirited debate ensued.

"Wild Goose", citing the One-Should-Always-Have-A-Healthy-
Skepticism-For-An-Encyclopedia-Where-Anyone-Can-Claim-Expertise
Wikipedia, stated:

It is not quite true that “When somebody [Newton] discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one Differential Calculus he could discover.”

Leibniz also discovered Differential Calculus, in a different form, arguably, a more durable and suitable calculus:

“The infinitesimal calculus can be expressed either in the notation of fluxions or in that of differentials. “

To which Dr. Thursday responded:

I should not have added [Newton] to GKC's words. It was in the 1660s (or so) that both Newton and Leibniz "discovered" calculus; yes, almost simultaneously, though Newton seems to have priority.

Alas, "a quarrel arose between the followers of Newton and the followers of Leibniz, and unhappily it grew into a quarrel between the great men themselves..." [The World of Mathematics 143, 286 et seq; Purcell, Calculus 156, 278]

And, if you're still following this (for full arguments, please see the comments section of the above referenced posting), "Wild Goose" continued:

You have brought up an excellent topic. The way I see it, the main point of your post was that math and science have their own fixed rules, while poetry has its own, due to the free will of the author or the creator. (“But when Shakespeare killed Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had felt inclined.”) You are saying that there is only one calculus, while there may be a virtually infinite number of plays or plots along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, limited only by the author’s imagination. But I think that would be like comparing apples and oranges.

After which "DavyMax", a new commenter as far as one can tell that sort of thing, just today responded:

To simplify things a bit. Godel proved the essential intuitive nature of mathematics. But Wild Goose, you seem to be implying that intuition and imagination are one in the same. They are in fact quite different. Without seeing a proof I may intuitively think that there are infinitely many primes or that the Reimann hypothesis is true or the Axiom of Choice. However, this is because I would think, for instance, as I do, that the Axiom of Choice is in fact the truth. Clearly, this is quite different from writing a different ending of Romeo and Juliet (or preferably some other story I rather like the ending of Romeo and Juliet). Mathematicians do not intuitively think something because that's the way it sounds nice or because they think it's "cool." It's because they think it is TRUE. That is the ultimate goal. They may and often do choose to explore an idea because it is pretty or beautiful, but not because of those goals in mind but because they know from experience that the truth most often is pretty and beautiful.

This reminds me also of the line from V for Vendetta that says something of Artists telling the truth with lies. This is true in the sense that they are trying to express some inner truth through any means neccesary and we all understand what they're doing. Mathematicians are seeking rather than expressing truth when using intuition. Whereas, artists are expressing a truth already experienced when using imagination.

I thought I'd bring the whole thing to the fore because with a post that old, it's hard for people to jump back into the conversation. But I wanted to thank DavyMax for finding us and joining in the conversation by attempting to revisited this topic, if others are interested. Anyone want to respond to DavyMax? I thought he brought up an excellent point about Truth, and the difference between intuition and imagination.

"The Surprise" on EWTN update

I had to find this out on Mark Shea's blog. These Chesterton people never tell me anything. ;-)

I just heard from Steve Beaumont. Our premiere is--are you ready?--Thursday, December 20, at FIVE A.M. (Eastern Time, so Mark can watch it at 2 AM). Maybe we can call that the preview.

The real premiere is on Friday, Dec. 21 at 10 PM (ET), 9 PM (CT), 7 PM (PT).

And then, when nobody is doing anything on Dec. 24, they can watch it at 1 PM (ET), Noon (CT), 10 AM (PT).

I imagine it will be repeated in January as well.

A Chestertonian Thanksgiving

Forthwith, a selection of Chesterton on thanksgiving and gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving!

...thanks are the highest form of thought... gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
A Short History of England CW20:463

we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them.
Orthodoxy CW1:268

I have often thanked God for the telephone...
What's Wrong With the World CW4:112

...you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank you" for the mustard.
Orthodoxy CW1:228

We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth?
Orthodoxy CW1:258

Briefly, any person, in any position, is a beggar who has nothing but thanks to give for a service.
ILN Feb 25 1911 CW29:44
Read more Thanksgiving thoughts here.

The shocking truth is that our creeds are continually changing, while our customs get stiffer and stiffer every day. That is to say, in effect, that we are bound always to do the same thing, but may give any number of nonsensical modern reasons for doing it. Everyone in the modern world is made to say "Thank you"; but anyone in the modern world is free to deny that gratitude is a good thing. Now surely it would be much better if a man were expected to understand and respect the idea of gratitude, but were allowed sometimes to express it in some other way than by saying "Thank you" to the lady who had passed him the salt. As, for instance, he might express it by falling on his knees before her, by offering her twopence out of his waistcoat pocket, by producing on the spur of the moment a short lyric on the subject of her beauty and benevolence, by giving her his card, by bursting into tears, or by passing the salt back to her. Each of these formal expressions of gratitude might be appropriate to some particular epoch, environment, or civilisation, this suiting a more leisurely, and that a more feverish age. But what is clearly essential in the matter is that the ideal of gratitude should not change: for gratitude is the first virtue of living things, first with dogs and with saints.
ILN Mar 23 1907 CW27:426

Happy is he who not only knows the causes of things, but who has not lost touch with their beginnings. Happy is he who still loves something that he loved in the nursery: he has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men,
but one, and has saved not only his soul but his life. I can count a fair list of things I have always desired and still desire - sword-blades, the coloured angels of religious art, a kind of cake called jumbles, Grimm's "Fairy Tales" and a shilling paint-box. Some of these things I confess thankfully that I now have (though jumbles have died with a decaying civilisation), but I am more thankful still that the desire in these cases remains. For
this is a great gift from God, to have things and still to desire them.
ILN Sept 26 1908 CW28:186-7

The news that some Europeans have been wrecked on a desert island is gratifying, in so far as it shows that there are still some desert islands for us to be wrecked on. Moreover, it is also interesting because these, the latest facts, actually support the oldest stories. For instance, superior critics have often sniffed at the labours of Robinson Crusoe, specifically upon the ground that he depended so much upon stores from the sunken wreck. But these actual people shipwrecked a few weeks ago depended entirely upon them; and yet the critics might not have cared for the billet. A few years ago, when physical science was still taken seriously, a very clever boys' book was written, called "Perseverance Island." It was written in order to show how "Robinson Crusoe" ought to have been written. In this story, the wrecked man gained practically nothing from the wreck. He made everything out of the brute materials of the island. He was, I think, allowed the advantage of some broken barrels washed up from the wreck with a few metal hoops round them. It would have been rather hard on the poor man to force him to make a copper-mine or a tin-mine. After all, the process of making everything that one wants cannot be carried too far in this world. We have all saved something from the ship. At the very least, there was something that Crusoe could not make on the island; there was something Crusoe was forced to steal from the wreck; I mean Crusoe. That precious bale, in any case, he brought ashore; that special cargo called "R. C.," at least, did not originate in the island. It was a free import, and not a native manufacture. Crusoe might be driven to make his own trousers on the island. But he was not driven to make his own legs on the island; if that had been his first technical job he might have approached it with a hesitation not unconnected with despair. Even the pessimist when he thinks, if he ever does, must realise that he has something to be thankful for: he owes something to the world, as Crusoe did to the ship. You may regard the universe as a wreck: but at least you have saved something from the wreck.
ILN Oct 24, 1908 CW28:201-2

The difference between rebellion and anarchy is that rebellion, by its nature, achieves a purpose; and, having achieved that purpose, returns to the normal rhythm of law and order. Rebellion is as abnormal as an emetic or an amputation, and it is sometimes as wholesome. But it is only wholesome if it is an abnormality which is intended promptly and decisively to restore the normal. I may thank a doctor for cutting off my leg if I am in deadly peril of poison; but I shall not thank any gentleman who continually chips larger or smaller pieces off my leg accordingly as he thinks that I am not looking quite the thing. I may thank a doctor for making me sick, but not for occupying himself through a long and busy life in making all my food more or less sickening. So rebellion, because it is crucial, must be responsible. It must be thinking not only of the disease, not only of the brief and desperate remedy, but also of that healthy condition which it desires to render permanent; and which, when once effected, it will respect as a fixed thing. In other words, we may restate our original proposition thus: To be responsible for a rebellion is to be responsible for a new Government. Anyone who is in revolt ought to be mainly thinking of that condition of affairs against which he would not be in revolt. But I will have nothing to do with this notion of a nibbling anarchy; the perpetual doing of small, indefensible things.
ILN Nov 21 1908 CW28:218-9

Mr. Marinetti utters a contradiction in terms when he says that he likes motor-cars but dislikes museums. If men do not study previous science, they certainly will invent no further science. The poet's motor-car has been built up by the most elaborate and even meticulous study of the past. Sculpture or music might conceivably spring up spontaneously; but if there is one thing of all others that depends on the past it is mechanical science. Motor-cars are probably invented by people who
pass half their lives in museums. It is at least evident that the Italian writer has chosen a most unfortunate example to show his independence of his fathers that begat him. If he were going to be a naked savage, he would at least have only life to thank them for. But if he is going to be a luxurious modern motorist in a fur coat and goggles, why then he must go down on his knees and thank every man who ever lived, from the first barbarian who stripped off the furry skin of a beast to the last optician who invented a system of lenses. When Mr. Marinetti has invented a really modern motor-car, a car that does not include the ancient institution of wheels, or allow for the old-world posture of sitting, I shall be very much interested to
hear of that car. But I will not go in the car, even if he asks me.
Dec 18 1909 CW28:444

"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said.
"Yes," he replied.
'That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me those few red specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, that one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or
chaos for those red stars of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wallpaper."
"The Diabolist" in Tremendous Trifles

Happy Thanksgiving!

We here at the ACS blog are thankful for YOU, our dear readers. We hope you have a very happy, holy, blessed, and thankful Thanksgiving.

And we'll leave you some Chestertonian thoughts on Thanksgiving contributed by Dr. Thursday. Now, I have to go get ready to have 22 for turkey.

Google Alerts and Chesterton

I have this "Google Alert" set up to let me know if Chesterton is mentioned on the web or in a blog or anywhere on the internet.

And what is amazing and wonderful is that everyday, I find people having conversations about some work of Chesterton's. All different kinds of people. Atheists, free-thinkers, agnostics, modernists, post-modernists, joyless modernists (I did not make that up, someone calls himself that out there), priests, sane people, housewives, truck drivers, theologians, experimental theologists and more. Every day. Proving once again that Chesterton is timely for today, and elicits exciting conversations and great arguments.

If you'd like to see what's going on out there, go to google.com. Click on news. Over on the left, you'll see a link to "News Alerts" with a little envelope (meaning they will be e-mailed to you). Click on that, and then you set up the alert by putting words in the box (i.e., "G.K. Chesterton") and saying how often you'd like the news to arrive (I have it once a day) and where you want it sent (use a spam e-mail address/free e-mail/alternative e-mail if you are concerned about someone using your e-mail for junk mail). That's it! Then you can travel over to the "joyless modernist" and see what he's talking about, and if you can add to the conversation. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Prayer Request-Special Intention

This is from a reader of this blog:

Yesterday the company I work for announced they are closing our division in 2008, with no expectation of any future...Hence I humbly ask for your prayers - and your suggestions, if you by any chance know of a need or have a hint of use for a computer scientist. My boss and co-workers have also lost their jobs, pray for them, too.

Please e-mail me (Nancy) if you know of a position for a computer scientist. I will pass the information along to the person who e-mailed me this request. Thank you.

Newsworthy Announcement

As some of you know, there are Chesterton societies that spring up locally. The Chesterton Society likes this. As on the national/international level, there are really only a few things going on: The Annual Conference, the Web site, and the Blog. Occasionally there are pilgrimages, books are published, etc. But as far as Chestertonians meeting Chestertonians and getting to know the "Big Guy" as we sometimes affectionately call Gilbert Chesterton, where it's happening on a consistent and regular basis is at the local level. Which is so Chestertonian.

Anyone anywhere can start up a Chesterton society. There may even be one in your city already, but maybe it's on the west side, and you could start one on the east side. If you don't have a society, it is easy to start one up, you can find the directions for such an endeavor here.

Now I want to tell you about a unique Chesterton society, one that has only just started up and had their first meeting. Maybe I should let Joe tell you about it. Joe?

I wanted to inform you that the newly established Chesterton Society here at Saint Charles Seminary is off to a great start. We had a great turnout for our first meeting. Adding those interested who were unable to attend the meeting, it looks like our membership will level off at about 26 men - that's 15% of the student body! For our next meeting in December, we're reading "The Blue Cross,"The Wise Men," and "A Christmas Carol."

I was elected the Society president, and two other fanatical types were elected to our offices of Secretary and Vice-President. One thing is certain, that our group will not suffer from lack of enthusiasm on the part of its leaders.

...We will be praying for the mission of the ACS at the beginning of each meeting....

Regards,
Joseph

PS: Since the meetings are in-house at the Seminary, we're not an "open" society really and can only take enrolled students as members. If any St. Charles students are reading this, please come to the next meeting!

Joe came to the last conference, and you can see his picture and read a very readable report on the event here. I think it is particularly amazing and wonderful that a young group of future priests are reading and discussing Chesterton together, and I think we should all pray for this group, as they are praying for us. Together, we will help people turn to Christ.

Happy 10th Anniversary ACS! 10 Ideas for Celebrating the 10th on the 20th!

Ten years is a pretty long time in the web world, so I think we should celebrate. You can:

1) Drink a toast to the American Chesterton Society and their web presence, which has introduced thousands more to the good news of Chesterton's writing. *Clink*!

2) Become a member of the American Chesterton Society, and enjoy all the benefits therein.

3) Purchase a book from the American Chesterton Society and support the cause (getting Chesterton into more schools, homes and minds in this country--which could help everything from economics to religion to next year's election).

4) Read a Chesterton book or watch a Chesterton video.

5) Invite Dale to come to speak to your group about Chesterton.

6) Invite Nancy to come to speak to your group about Children and Chesterton.

7) Plan right now to attend the conference June 12-14 2008 at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN.

8) Buy a Chesterton Christmas ornament for your tree. Buy two and give one away.

9) Plan to start up a local Chesterton Society and discuss your favorite Chesterton book with a bunch of like-minded people.

10) Pray for the Chesterton Society. We need the Guidance, Help and Love of Heaven to keep us going.

*Cheers*!

Support the Chesterton Society and buy a gift for a young person for Christmas or St. Nicholas Day

Look at this beautiful cover, designed and made by Gilbert's own Ted Schluenderfritz. And it looks even better in person, but don't take my word for it, order one and see for yourself.

The FIRST book you could give children of Chesterton's! How cool is that? And your purchase helps support the ACS as well.

Go for it! (Buy 2!)

Headmaster at Chesterton Academy Announced: John DeJak

Welcome Headmaster DeJak!

Anniversary Celebrations

I just noticed, while visiting the American Chesterton Society Web Site, that the web site itself is about to celebrate it's 10th anniversary! With the Stat Counter currently at over 600,000, that's a lot of people finding out about Gilbert Chesterton in the last ten years. Congratulations, ACS!

Gilbert magazine just celebrated it's 10th anniversary, too.

And, on December 8th, this blog will be 2 whole years old! Our Stat Counter indicates... that it is no longer a stat counter :-( God only knows how many hundreds of thousands of visitors we've had in the last two years!!!!!

Right now, we're thinking of some games we could play on our anniversary. Or contests we could run. Triolets? Clerihews? Gype? Mystery Word Searches? Memes? What will we come up with? Stay tuned and you will find out.

And in our effort to provide you with an obscure Chestertonian quote, I give you this (found by searching on the word "anniversary"):

But it would never occur to the Prussians not to ride their high horses with the freshest insolence for the far-off victory of Sedan; though on that very anniversary the star of their fate had turned scornful in the sky, and Von Kluck was in retreat from Paris.--The Appetite of Tyranny, 1915, CW5

Dr. Thursday's Post

Y^e Thorn and y^e Thin Thread of Thanks

"...before I have done with you, you shall thank God for the very ducks on the pond."
-- G. K. Chesterton, Manalive

Sometimes even philosophers are engineers. Sometimes even atheists are catholic.

Yes, I know, don't those words express a horrible thought? Don't they make you cringe? The poor, sad doctors of philosophy: Nietzscheites blinded by the light, Hegelians and Kantians busy ignoring all the evidence, Aristotelites peering uncertainly at the swamp-exhalations the rest of us call the Milky Way, Platonics in the darkness of their unlighted cave, Socratics ending every sentence with a question mark - all the vast horde of "wisdom-lovers", forced to stoop to the filthy abasement of submitting to INK AND PAPER, and (horrors!) perhaps even a word-processor....

Yes, indeed: to leave off their dreaming, wake from their various unreal mental states, and slam hard up against Reality. Simply in order to get their latest idea into their favourite academic journal. Ah. What a delight.

But then they must. Or all their nonsense would stay stuffed in their brains, and not pollute our world. But each time they come to reality, bowing low before the simple tools, designed by engineers, built by workers, existing for real, and obeying the rules of reality, they formally, absolutely, completely deny their own mental dreams, and attest to the Scholastic, the Thomistic - no, let us be modern - the Chestertonian View. The Real View - which is Reality.

Why is it Chestertonian? Let us see what he had to say.
Read more.
It is a wonderful line, and one which we shall study again in another context:

... I am black but comely at this moment: because the cyclostyle has blacked me. Fear not. I shall wash myself. ... I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people.... When we call a man "manly" or a woman "womanly" we touch the deepest philosophy.
[GKC to his fiancée, July 8 1899, quoted in Ward's Gilbert Keith Chesterton 108-9]

Reality. Real ink. It's black. What a wonderful thing ink is - its most wonderful action is in being black - black but comely, as the Canticle of Canticles (1:4) has it. (The discussion will involve all three words; it ought to be quite a meaty topic.)
"The inky-ness of ink." If the ink were faint, weak, insipid... "if salt loses its flavour" [Mt 5:13] ...well then why bother? Might as well use water for all the good it would do. Also, ink must dry quickly (though not too quickly!) and it must not spread - and there are probably a whole bunch of other important properties required. Maybe it's just as well we can buy it in a store, and not have to make it at home. Of course if you are using a laser printer, there's a whole other set of issues, but we cannot go into that now, hee hee. I am already far away from my topic - uh, yeah. Oh, that's right. Words, and letters. After all, if you have something to say, and you REALLY intent to put it down in BLACK and white, you had better think a little about your words.

And that's why I mentioned the second horrible short quip in my opening. How is it possible for an atheist to be "catholic"? I mean in the lower-case sense - the Greek word which means "universal". It's not my idea, it's Chesterton's:

It is the standing peculiarity of this curious world of ours that almost everything in it has been extolled enthusiastically and invariably extolled to the disadvantage of everything else. One after another almost every one of the phenomena of the universe has been declared to be alone capable of making life worth living. Books, love, business, religion, alcohol, abstract truth, private emotion, money, simplicity, mysticism, hard work, a life close to nature, a life close to Belgrave Square are every one of them passionately maintained by somebody to be so good that they redeem the evil of an otherwise indefensible world. Thus, while the world is almost always condemned in summary, it is always justified, and indeed extolled, in detail after detail. Existence has been praised and absolved by a chorus of pessimists. The work of giving thanks to Heaven is, as it were, divided ingeniously among them. Schopenhauer is told of as a kind of librarian in the House of God, to sing the praises of the austere pleasures of the mind. Carlyle, as steward, undertakes the working department and eulogises a life of labour in the fields. Omar Khayyam is established in the cellar, and swears that it is the only room in the house. Even the blackest of pessimistic artists enjoys his art. At the precise moment that he has written some shameless and terrible indictment of Creation, his one pang of joy in the achievement joins the universal chorus of gratitude, with the scent of the wild flower and the song of the bird.
[GKC, Varied Types 32-33]

In case you were wondering, Varied Types is Chesterton's Twelve Types with eight more essays added in. The essays first appeared in The Daily News and The Speaker.

And all this is why I quoted Innocent Smith from GKC's Manalive: "...before I have done with you, you shall thank God for the very ducks on the pond." Indeed. Before I am done with you, you - you philosopher, you atheist - you shall indeed thank God (or at least thank an unnamed engineer!) for your paper, your ink, your computer, your power lines, your desk and chair - the list goes on and on. "The greatest of poems is an inventory." [GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:267]

And you should be thankful even for the very letters and words you are writing and reading. What if you had to type (let us say) your posting, or your commment into one of these little comment boxes, and found, to your dismay, that some key on your keyboard was sticking? Not an important one, let us say... but a "rarely used" one.

As I have told you, I wander through the universe (and the university) peering into subjects that I do not study, but wish to know at least a little BIT about. I got a couple of books on "Bibliography"- the study of books-in-themselves - and learned how there is a letter which we call a "small letter" (you know, not a CAPITAL one) which is, (or had been) in the correct sense, an UPPER-CASE character - the letter "k". It's very funny - but I will have to tell you about it another time, because it does not help me get to my point.

But here's something that will. At least it is another oddity Have you ever seen those old fashioned signs, usually in a curio or souvenir shop, or on some just-built "olde-style" businesses, that read "Ye Olde Curio Shoppe"? This "Ye" is a famous double typographical error.

The correct typography ought to be "Y^e" whatever. This is an OLD form of a contraction, and it is, like the upper-case little "k", a quirk of the ancient printing presses. It is just as funny to a Chestertonian as it is to see the failure of modern printers to use "ligatures" for "fl", "fi", "ff", and so on.

Why is it a quirk? Because in those ancient days, the REAL spelling of the word "the" was "þe" - that odd looking p-shape is NOT one of Tolkien's elvish runes. It is the old English letter called "thorn", which spelled the common digraph "th" of English. There were two such letters:

Þ or þ called "thorn"

and

Ð or ð called "eth"

But the printers would run out, or not have the "thorn" - especially in big fonts, like for title pages, or for POSTERS which got POSTED UP for people to see... (No they did NOT have bloggs back then; this was posting of paper with glue onto walls.) So the printers substituted the letter "Y" (Why, I don't quite know; I missed that lecture, or page) and to clue the reader in that there was something "contracted" about the word they were trying to represent, they "superscripted" the "e", thus we have "Y^e" = "the".

Note. This is NOT the same "ye" as the old plural of "you", as in "O come all YE faithful".

Wow, Dr. Thursday, you've really gone off the deep end. What on earth does "YE" (however it is printed) and old English letters and whatever you were moaning about before about catholic atheists - what does ANY of that have to do with thanksgiving?

Well, I am sorry to subject you to my wondering, but that is what hit me about the alliteration in GKC's very famous phrase, speaking about his own thought, life, and conversion:

I hung on to the remains of religion by one thin thread of thanks. I thanked whatever gods might be, not like Swinburne, because no life lived for ever, but because any life lived at all; not, like Henley for my unconquerable soul (for I have never been so optimistic about my own soul as all that) but for my own soul and my own body, even if they could be conquered. This way of looking at things, with a sort of mystical minimum of gratitude, was of course, to some extent assisted by those few of the fashionable writers who were not pessimists; especially by Walt Whitman, by Browning and by Stevenson; Browning's "God must be glad one loves his world so much", or Stevenson's "belief in the ultimate decency of things". But I do not think it is too much to say that I took it in a way of my own; even if it was a way I could not see clearly or make very clear. What I meant, whether or no I managed to say it, was this; that no man knows how much he is an optimist, even when he calls himself a pessimist, because he has not really measured the depths of his debt to whatever created him and enabled him to call himself anything. At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder; so that a man sitting in a chair might suddenly understand that he was actually alive, and be happy. There were other aspects of this feeling, and other arguments about it, to which I shall have to return. Here it is only a necessary part of the narrative; as it involves the fact that, when I did begin to write, I was full of a new and fiery resolution to write against the Decadents and the Pessimists who ruled the culture of the age.
[GKC, Autobiography CW16:97, emphasis added]

I hope that, if all else fails, computers, characters (upper and lower!), philosophy and engineering, we all preserve our own "thin thread of thanks" unbroken...

--Dr. Thursday.

Novel News

Part of our on-going business here at the ACS blogg is to keep you informed of Chestertonian news. An anonymous source has leaked some details of a new work of fiction being developed - apparently being written by a Chestertonian, as it has tantalising Chesterton quotes at the start of each chapter. The leak consists of several chapters, set in America in the late 1840s. One of the main characters, John Fisher, was born in England though is presently working in America. It is suggested that his coat of arms plays a role in the story, and the author has asked Dr. Thursday to arrange an appropriate arms:

The Original Arms of John Fisher: Or, on a fess between three water-bougets azure, a fish naiant argent. (His mark of difference, a martlet, is omitted.)
Motto: Noli timere ex hoc iam homines eris capiens.
("Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men." Luke 5:10)

Our source informs us that the word "original" appears because the arms is changed; further explanation will have to await the complete text.

We look forward to reading this work when it is complete, and will inform you of further news as we learn of it.

And our thanks to Dr. Thursday for his heraldry expertise which helped in the making of this post.

Chesterton Academy Meeting

If you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, there is an important meeting in two days on November 15th concerning the new Chesterton Academy. Please attend if you are able.

The Remarkable Resolution Rendered by Roberta Riven

I think there is just a tiny bit of alliteration going on with that title. ;-)

James G. "Gerry" Bruen Jr. is a relatively new writer to Gilbert, but each article is a new and interesting fable. The latest, which I'll dub "TRRRRR" for short is an interesting tale of land, possession of land, dispossession of land, reallocation of land, and paradoxical sayings on par with GKC himself. Meetings in local pubs, secretive monks in hot air balloons, beer, ale: what more do you want in a story?

Did you notice?

In the new issue of Gilbert, there is a curiosity.
It's on page 21.

The last line written in the translation says "Encyclopaedia" but Chesterton's own hand reveals a different, and I think important, word: "Cyclopaedia."

What do you think? Could this be a reference to Gertrude's, Frances's sister's death?

Dr. Thursday's Post

Praise of Simple Addition

When I walked along the pier at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, sing?

If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerk when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition.

"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er.
Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.'
Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar,
Though we weep and pawn our watches, Two and Two are Four."

[GKC, "The Little Birds Who Won't Sing" in Tremendous Trifles]

Addition. Sums. Adding. To be precise, a closed, associative, operation with an identity and an inverse, defined over sets both finite and infinite... While most mathematics is thought "hard" (if you are a doll) or "difficult" (if you are not Newton or Cauchy or Euler or Gauss) it is nearly a truism of language to speak of things being "as easy as addition" or "as simple as two plus two equals four" - even for such a non-math guy as our Uncle Gilbert:

Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of blue beads and the father is like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question of simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached "qualities," like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is green, a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion.
[GKC, What's Wrong With the World, CW4:155]

Here already we find something transcendent about addition - I do not mean the underlying argument GKC is making - I mean the curious fact that there are some kinds of "addition" which do not work like the numbers. In the world of paint pigments, blue plus yellow equals green. But let us look a little at numbers and find out what is going on, and perhaps we shall also have a "novel and unique experience": the "new emotion" which provokes praise of addition.
Read more.

In order to talk about addition we have to talk about numbers. One of the first problems one encounters in talking about numbers is the same as in other fields: distinguishing between the thing-in-itself and its representation in print. Perhaps the simplest way of clearing up this puzzle is to show you some different forms of a "simple" addition problem. We'll use the same one GKC quoted.

Written English:
Two plus two equals four.

Algebraic notation:
2 + 2 = 4

Latin:
II et II est IV.

Typical personal computer (x86-based):
Given that EAX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010
and EBX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010
after performing ADD EAX,EBX
EAX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0100.

Real addition:
**
(stuck together with)
**
(is the same as)
****

The last one is about as close as I can come (here in the e-cosmos) to the "thing-in-itself"; the others forms are "representations". They are ways of indicating - even suggesting - the true details contained only in the last display. You see, there is a real thing, addition, which has a real meaning in the real world. Get out some coins (I don't care what value they are) - or some paper clips - or a few somethings. Put two of them in front of you, on your left side, and two of them on your right side. You see there are two here, and also two there. (Of course you do. It's simple!) Now slide them together into a little heap. Now there are four, even though you might be able to tell which two were on the left and which two were on the right - but that doesn't matter - there are four together, which are somehow the same as two and another two: though they were apart, now they are joined.

It is simple because there are just a few, and we can handle (that is USE OUR HANDS) to manipulate them (yes, I know that's just using a Latin term for the same thing...)

What if there were more than we would care to shove around? Or we were "adding" things that are not "shove-able"?

Ah. That's where "addition" (the symbols, or the representations) come in.

Taxonomists throw their hands up in the air over human beings - the species homo sapiens (Man-the-wise). Someone, searching for a way of expressing the unique catholicity of our species, and thereby demonstrating the perfection of the species sapiens, is always making a suggestion of another gerund to go here. Some have said faber (the maker, because we make tools - things for making - ah, a recursive thought!); others ludens (the player, because we play games); still others ridens (the laugher, for obvious reasons, hee hee). Tolkien, with his deep penetration, and his true love of words, named his reasoning beings the Quenta - the Speakers - and if he played the taxonomy game, he might have proposed homo loquens - man, the speaker.

Yes, in the process of wisdom, we first reduce reality to the spoken word (So we say "two plus two equals four.") Then we move to writing:

(that is, "two added-to two amounts-to four")
and all the other variations which have been encoded over the millennia.

I should, however, point out that the form using a computer is even more of a cheat than the others. And it will come as a real surprise to some, because it is not technical, but philosophical. Language, be it symbolic representations of sounds (Remember that "to" represents the same sound as "two"!) or symbolic representations of words ("2" represents "two" but also duo or zwei<>deux or dos!) possesses a strange characteristic, deriving directly from something supernatural. Language, the spoken word (and therefore the written word too) has an infinite or eternal dimension - one-sided, yes, but infinite in the sense that it is "unbounded".

My gosh, haven't you felt that these "Dr. Thursday" posts are going to run on and on? Hee hee.

We know full well that we'll get tired, have to go home from work or school, go to bed, or whatever. But at a given moment, we "feel" that the words might go on and on, as long as is needed. And so, we can think of numbers that perhaps we might never really say - numbers that no computer, no collection of computers, could ever store - numbers that might not even mean anything in the "real" world - but really big numbers... googol-plex, and such - and we can, by that power residing in the part of us which is NOT physical, immediately think of adding one to it.

An aside: If you need more on this, I direct you to The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, in which the Mathemagician presents a good commentary on infinity. His brother, King Azaz, makes the same comment, though in somewhat more veiled language. As you may know, our hero Milo receives infinite gifts from each of them, but then I must not reveal too much. Go and read it yourself.

In other words, our grasp of the abstraction implicit in numbers and addition is somehow derived from the supernatural trait called the imperishability of the soul: since WE can imagine talking on-and-on, long enough to finish the addition, we can grasp the general notion of addition. Now for the shock.

Computers cannot do this.

The addition which is "native" to computers is NOT that kind of addition. It looks like regular addition, and will work as long as one keeps things "small enough" - but.

First, this addition is a representation, just as much as "2" is a representation for "two" (and so on) - it has to be, because the "numbers" in the computer are themselves representations! We tech guys write zeros and ones (well actually most of the time we use the regular numbers, and the machinery fixes them during compilation), but actually the "numbers" are just a higher voltage and a lower voltage on separate wires, or tiny thin strands of metal on a wafer of quartz, or regions of magnetized iron particles on a spinning plate.

Second, this addition is what math guys call "modular addition" - or the grade school teachers might call clock math. There is a wrapping-around that happens, sooner or later, and if you count high enough, you have to start over again at zero. Ever notice how if you call a friend at 11 AM and say you'll meet for lunch in two hours, you add 11+2 and get one? Yes, that's right... on a typical computer (either x86 or 68000), if you add two to 4294967295 you will also get one. It's true, and for the same reason. On clocks, the wrapping happens at zero, which is also called twelve. On most computers, the wrapping happens at the number called 2³² or 4294967296, which is also called zero, because 4294967296 requires thirty-three bits to write, and these computers can only add 32 bits at once. (Sure, if you are a tech, you can think of tricks - I know several, but we are not going into that today.) Now, most of the time we don't need to actually count up to 4 billion, so we don't have a problem with this wrap-around. But we have to know that it's there. Why is it there? Why will something like that always be there? Simply because one has to build the machinery to hold the data. Either a "register" (the thing that holds the 32 bits, and wraps around) or memory, or hard drives, or whatever it may be - all such things are finite.

But the human mind is not.

Thus, there arises, even here, in the dull simplicity of a very technical (and perhaps very boring) little matter - the matter of addition - we are faced with ETERNITY - with one of the greatest thoughts possible. And that brings us squarely face to face with God and religion. Which is as it should be:

...very uneducated rich men who loudly demanded education. And among the marks of their ignorance and stupidity was the particular mark that they regarded letters and figures as dead things, quite separate from each other and from a general view of life. They thought of a boy learning his letters as something quite cut off, for instance, from what is meant by a man of letters. They thought a calculating boy could be made like a calculating machine. When somebody said to them, therefore, "These things must be taught in a spiritual atmosphere", they thought it was nonsense; they had a vague idea that it meant that a child could only do a simple addition sum when surrounded with the smell of incense. But they thought simple addition much more simple than it is. When the Catholic controversialist said to them, "Even the alphabet can be learnt in a Catholic way", they thought he was a raving bigot, they thought he meant that nobody must ever read anything but a Latin missal.
But he meant what he said, and what he said is thoroughly sound psychology. There is a Catholic view of learning the alphabet; for instance, it prevents you from thinking that the only thing that matters is learning the alphabet; or from despising better people than yourself, if they do not happen to have learnt the alphabet.
[GKC, The Common Man 166-7]

Birthday Bonus Week

Anyone wanting to try to WIN a Father Brown Reader should go here and enter Cay's contest.

Anyone wanting to obtain The Father Brown Reader at a Birthday Bonus discount on Friday only and only at Flying Stars, should order one tomorrow, Friday.

A Chesterton Relative has died

One of Charles's great-grandsons was the writer GK Chesterton, who worked for the firm [the Chesterton family real estate business] very briefly before deciding it was not for him.

I was not aware that Gilbert had actually worked in his father's business. Have I missed something?

I also thought it was interesting that they note Sir Oliver had a gift for putting everyone at ease. Perhaps this was a family trait?

Great Scot! Gilbert's on Time!

Perhaps the world will stop spinning. Perhaps it is un-Chestertonian. But we have great news! And a cover to unveil.

If this isn't the most gorgeous cover you've ever seen on a Gilbert magazine, I'll eat my blog. ;-)

For the first time in my [Sean Dailey's] four+ years as editor, we made deadline. The December issue was sent to press yesterday, meaning the issue will be mailed to subscribers before the end of November. Readers will get their December issue in December, rather than in Lent, ;-).
This issue contains some Harry Potter discussions. There is also a very special treat: a 13-page spread consisting of an illustrated version of Chesterton's poem "The Wise Men." (Illustrated by Beatrice Wilczynski, [scroll down]who died in 1984).
A second very special treat is a color cover by Ben Hatke. Finally, there is a write-up of the Rochester Chesterton Conference, on Chesterton and Conversion.--from Sean Dailey, Editor-in-Chief, Gilbert

More ideas about Open Minds

Thanks to Dr. Thursday, here is another good "open minded" quote:

if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
[from "The Extraordinary Cabman" in Tremendous Trifles]

And Dr. T also supplies the citation for yesterday's citationless quote:

"A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. "

that is from ILN January 6, 1906 CW27:98 also printed as "The Methuselahite" in All Things Considered

Thank you Dr. T!

The Object of Opening the Mind...

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." (Autobiography. Collected Works Vol. 16, p. 212)

and again,

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

Just keeping an open mind, as this article shows, tends to lead you toward a "new philosophy" which tends to praise some "old vice" and then you call yourself a "catholic Catholic"? I don't think so.

UPDATE: More of the same lack of thinking.

The amazon.com Father Brown Reader page

Check it out. Read my plog. Watch the rankings go up and down.

If you own the book, write a review. If you don't own it, well, get cracking. Don't you need a St. Nicholas (December 6th) idea for your children or grandchildren?

If you'd like an autographed copy (unfortunately, not autographed by Chesterton, but by the adapter), come see me here.

10th Anniversary Issue Arrived

Yeah, yeah, you probably got yours a week ago. But my mailman reads mine for a week, and then delivers it to me, so I'm always last.

I'm still reading mine. Was there anything in the anniversary issue you particularly wanted to discuss here? I had the most fun, so far, just reading the letters to the editor.

Tony Snow on the Media

H/T: The Anchoress.
I believe GKC would have liked this speech.

We also hear the the First Ammendment is under siege. I think that's true. I don't believe anyone here would disagree with the proposition that the quality of public discourse isn't what it once was or that it presently achieves levels of excellence and depth that it desperately needs to reach.

Yet—while it may be tempting to blame the usual suspects—the government, interest groups, angry factionalists—those forces frequently have always tried to restrict the free flow of ideas, and they always have failed.

They're not the culprits here. Instead, there's a new an unexpected menace on the block: The media.

Although Mr. Snow could use some grammar lessons. "frequently have always"?

Clock Day

Clock Day
by
Dr. Thursday

Clock Day is coming and the Congressman is fat
Time is unimportant when the Senate goes to bat!
If you think our clocks should stay in sync with noon by the sun's view
Then write* a letter to your rep
And God bless you!

[* In the modern age, you can amend this line to:
Then send an e-mail to your rep...]

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So write a letter to your rep and God bless you!

Clock Day is coming and the people give a howl:
Congress gives an order, so now what was fair is foul.
Such power has corrupted them, in all they say and do!
So send an e-mail to your rep
And God bless you!

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So send an e-mail to your rep and God bless you!

and, from GKC:

Anomalies do matter very much, and do a great deal of harm; abstract illogicalities do matter a great deal, and do a great deal of harm. And this for a reason that anyone at all acquainted with human nature can see for himself. All injustice begins in the mind. And anomalies accustom the mind to the idea of unreason and untruth. Suppose I had by some pre-historic law the power of forcing every man in Battersea to nod his head three times before he got out of bed. The practical politicians might say that this power was a harmless anomaly; that it was not a grievance. It could do my subjects no harm; it could do me no good. The people of Battersea, they would say, might safely submit to it. But the people of Battersea could not safely submit to it, for all that. If I had nodded their heads for them for fifty years I could cut off their heads for them at the end of it with immeasurably greater ease. For there would have permanently sunk into every man's mind the notion that it was a natural thing for me to have a fantastic and irrational power. They would have grown accustomed to insanity. GKC ILN March 10 1906 CW 27:139

Capitalism and the Family--Part 2 from the Bosque Boys

Dr. Thursday's Post

Upwards, all hearts!

It is a real case against conventional hagiography that it sometimes tends to make all saints seem to be the same. Whereas in fact no men are more different than saints; not even murderers.
[GKC, St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:478]

Today, November 1, is the feast of All Saints - that is, all those who have died and gotten to heaven, and who don't have their own special feast day. Of course it's really the feast of everyone in heaven, even those who do have special days, or maybe two (like St. John the Baptist) or a bunch, like the Blessed Virgin Mary. For now, until the paperwork gets done, this is when we really may celebrate Frances and Gilbert Chesterton - and Pierre Duhem, Galvani and Agnesi (see here for more about the witchcraft of this brilliant Catholic!) and Biringuccio and Buridan and Pasteur and Galileo... Oh, have I been emphasizing scientists? (Gee I wonder how that happened.) How about Francis Thompson and J. R. R. Tolkien and Belloc and Baring? How about Dante and Guido of Arezzo (who gave us ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la) and Olivier Messien (a great organ-composer of the 20th century)? How about Alcuin and Charlemagne?

I have mentioned Alcuin - dragged in his name, in fact - because I think it worth concentrating on some of the things he did - or may have done. It is secret work such as his, alas, now hidden in the secret records of the Recording Angel, which we may fruitfully contemplate today. In a funny way, the Feast of All Saints is most Chestertonian - because it is so deeply Catholic - but also because it is so deeply human.

It may be surprising to learn that even philosophers far distant from the Catholic way of life and thought have come up with such things. The short-lived French Republican calendar, in hate of European - that is, of both pagan and Catholic tradition, named their months from Nature, like "Heat", "Snow", "Vintage" and "Harvest" - OK, they had "Fog" and "Rain" but the animals and the weather do not harvest, do not make wine. (Leave it to the French to not forget the wine!) Then there are those negative people called "positivists":

A Positivist, as he figures in the life and correspondence of the Huxley and Arnold period, meant something much more definite than a rationalist who rested all his views on positive knowledge. A Positivist meant a Comtist, and a Comtist meant a good deal. Comte had a complete new religion, or rather, a new Church; for it was modelled throughout on the Catholic Church. It had a liturgy. It had a calendar. I believe it had vestments. I am sure it had saints' days dedicated to Darwin or Newton. I do not know in what the ceremonial consisted, or what were the vestments worn. Perhaps they all wore tails on Darwin Day. Perhaps they celebrated Sir Isaac Newton by dancing round an apple-tree and pelting each other with apples.
[GKC ILN Jan 27 1923 CW33:30-31]

So does this mean I think (or Chesterton thought) we ought to celebrate Darwin Day too? Well, you'll find out. You see, like Aquinas, GKC could see the brilliance even in the error of another, sift it, and take advantage of it. And he then revealed it, even if the heretic had hidden it.
To reveal more, press here.


If I might attempt a shorthand explanation, GKC seems to say that erroneous philosophers like Comte find truth because they still work as humans, in a human manner - and insofar as they maintain this true humanity, they succeed, despite their error or silliness. But here is what he says about Comte:

In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought of as something barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery. He saw that while the brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly human are the useless ones. He saw the falsehood of that almost universal notion of to-day, the notion that rites and forms are something artificial, additional, and corrupt. Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man was a ritualist before he could speak. If Comtism had spread the world would have been converted, not by the Comtist philosophy, but by the Comtist calendar. ... A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for them. I myself, to take a corpus vile, am very certain that I would not read the works of Comte through for any consideration whatever. But I can easily imagine myself with the greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on Darwin Day.
[GKC, Heretics CW1:87]

Why? And why do I mention a bunch of names from the past, both important and barely remembered?

Because we are heirs to great things - and this feast day gives us an opportunity to be grateful to those who have given them to us. (Yes, you can do this on your Darwin Day, if you insist. I ought to note that most American universities, even secular ones, even CATHOLIC ones, already cancel classes on Newton Day, which is December 25 - though perhaps they give another reason.)

Oh. Am I being too technical again? I will try, without so many allusions. Let's see...

Who built the first boat? Who invented cheese? Who invented paper? And ink? And writing?

Who decided to start putting spaces between words, insteadofrunningthemtogetherastheRomansandGreeksdid? (It might have been Alcuin - The 26 Letters by Oscar Ogg says he invented the separation into sentences and paragraphs.)

Or how about this: Who fed _____ (fill in any great name) when he was little? Who gave him his first real job, or took him under his tutelage? Who taught him to read and write?

Ah... but why go so far back into the unknowns?

Who taught YOU (or your parents, or their parents) to read and write? Who fed YOU when you were little? Gave you employment? rendered you service? helped you in your needs?

It seems most fitting that this month is the month in which America celebrates her national day of thanks - and if we had fallen into the sane silliness of the French Republic, we might very appropriately call this month "THANKS". (Of course if it's in French, we must use the correct ending, whatever it may be!)

As you may have expected, Chesterton has anticipated all this:

But the world has to thank [the ancient world] for many things which it considers common and necessary; and the creators of those common things ought really to have a place among the heroes of humanity. If we were at rest in a real paganism, instead of being restless in a rather irrational reaction from Christianity, we might pay some sort of pagan honour to these nameless makers of mankind. We might have veiled statues of the man who first found fire or the man who first made a boat or the man who first tamed a horse. And if we brought them garlands or sacrifices, there would be more sense in it than in disfiguring our cities with cockney statues of stale politicians and philanthropists.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:200]

Indeed. Today, perhaps more than on any other day, we need to recall the real words that begin the Prayer of Thanks:

Priest: Sursum Corda! Upwards, [all] hearts!
People: Habemus ad Dominum! We have [moved them upwards], toward the Lord!
Priest: Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro. Let us give thanks to the Lord, to our God.
People: Dignum et justum est. It is worthy/suitable, and just/regular/proper/fitting/perfect/right.

(my own translation, done not for precision of liturgy but for emphasis and implication.)

Recall, too, that in that prayer we join the entire heavenly choir of triumphant humans - a song which hitherto was sung only by the angels. [See Isaias 6:3]

Do something human today. Offer thanks - you will never know, can never count, all those to whom you owe it, but they will know.

It is time for a picnic on the roof, or lunch on the floor.

"...thanks are the highest form of thought... gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

[GKC, A Short History of England CW20:463]

Upwards, all hearts!

--Dr. Thursday

PS: Since I have risked much by mentioning the formal words of the liturgy and writing about them, I must add just a bit to show this is not simple speculation on my part. According to Jungman's The Mass of the Roman Rite, the formula "Let us give thanks..." actually dates back to Jewish prayer-formulas. Moreover, the response is definitively a Roman and a public acclamation, equivalent to "Amen": "...the response to the invitation to prayer by a Dignum et iustum est was current there [in Jewish order of prayer]. And in ancient culture too, accalamtion of this kind played a grand role. It was considered the proper thing for the lawfully assembled people to endorse an important decision, an election, or the taking of office or leitourgia, by means of an acclamation." Jungman's is a thoroughly annotated work; notes state that Aequum est, iustum est was used at the election of the Emperor Gordian; Dignum et iustum est was used at the election of the bishop in Hippo. [see I:15 note 40, II:111 and notes 10&11 on that page] This work has a lot to say about the inner details which I have only hinted at here.